"Honey, I only had your best interests at heart," Maggie Thornton repeated yet one more time. She sat at the island counter in the kitchen of Hibiscus House, drinking coffee and trying to explain why she'd set everything up the way she had.

"Mama" Pepper set down her glass of iced tea and stared at her mother. "I am thirty years old. I can handle my own life."

"But you weren't settling down," Maggie wailed. "I wanted you to have a home and children before it got too ...