Wedding Bell Blues

by Meg Benjamin

  She and the judge worked out the details of the ceremony while Lars kept Daisy from trying to ride Olive, who hid under the chairs.

  Asa and Millie Toleffson sat at the back watching the chaos beneficently—at least in Asa’s case. Millie looked glum, as usual, but she also looked a little nervous. Janie wondered if she was worried about the wedding coming off. More likely she was worried about Erik Toleffson, who sat on her other side. His brothers hadn’t exactly ignored him, but they hadn’t said much to him either.

  Erik wore sunglasses in the late afternoon glare, the dark lenses hiding his eyes. The sunlight made his face look weathered, deepening the lines around his mouth. He sat silently beside his mother and stared at the vineyards. Janie thought he was trying not to draw attention to himself.

  Docia glowed. She wore jeans and a denim shirt knotted under her breasts, with an expanse of alabaster skin showing above her waist band. Cal kept one hand planted at the small of her back, as if he couldn’t bear to stop touching her.

  Whenever Janie looked at them, a tightness began in her throat and a prickling in her eyes that threatened to turn into tears. She told herself repeatedly that being envious of her best friend was not an attractive trait. It didn’t help. Docia had found her prince. Janie just hoped it wasn’t one to a customer, at least in her case.

  Pete laughed with Horace over something the judge had said. Janie took a moment to study him. His dark, curling hair was like his brothers—all three of them, now that she’d seen Erik. But his jaw was different, more square. And his eyes. Cal had the kindest eyes. Lars’s eyes were always laughing, now that he’d found Daisy. Erik’s eyes were watchful. Pete’s eyes were… She tried to think. Pete’s eyes were strong. Steady. Whatever was wrong, Pete would do something about it. Whoever was hurting, Pete would be there to help.

  A protector. A guardian. Janie watched him reach over to free Olive from a grape vine. Was that how he saw her? Another stray pup who needed to be looked after? To be rescued?

  Well, he had rescued her, in a way. Two nights in Pete’s bed had cured her of settling for anything less. No more Otto Friedrichs for her, no matter what Mom thought.

  Unfortunately, no more Pete Toleffsons either. Not after tomorrow. Janie had no illusions about the likelihood of his staying. He hadn’t made any promises, after all. And she wasn’t going to demand any.

  And really, that was perfectly okay. She didn’t hold it against him—it wasn’t his fault she’d fallen for him. She’d just have to get over it. Move on. She had a life to build on her own now.

  Pete looked up, his dark eyes meeting hers across the stone-covered patio. One corner of his mouth inched up in a crooked smile. A quick tremble of goose flesh moved along Janie’s arms. Get over it. Yeah, right.

  “Okay, let’s get this shindig started,” the judge called.

  Reba gestured from the end of the aisle. “Wedding party back here, please.”

  Janie trooped along after Allie and Bethany, keeping her head down. Maybe if she didn’t look directly at Pete, she wouldn’t be distracted.

  “Line up, now,” Reba called, “boys and girls. And Lars.” Her mouth flattened slightly as she contemplated the uneven numbers.

  “I’ve got my partner.” Lars swept Daisy up into his arms again, as much to keep her from stampeding after the winery cat as to walk down the aisle with her.

  Reba gave him a long-suffering look. “Fine. We’re going to use recorded music for now, but we’ll have the string quartet tomorrow. Just walk down the aisle together in time to the music.”

  A recording of Handel began to play over the loudspeaker, and Pete put his hand on her arm. “Shall we?”

  She took a deep breath and looked up at him. You can do this. “Let’s.”

  The judge was a comedian. Pete had been through that enough times in his life—laughing at judges’ jokes even when they weren’t funny. Fortunately, these jokes weren’t all that bad.

  The judge also made a couple of oblique references to the local county attorney and his need for good staff. Pete had given him a version of his Idiot Smile and pretended he didn’t know what he was talking about. He already had a job, didn’t he? A job he’d be going back to when all of this was over. So what if he had a hollow feeling in his gut whenever he thought about Des Moines.

  Beside him, Janie seemed to vibrate with life and passion. Pete tried to concentrate on his best man duties, such as they were. Just being next to her was giving him a contact high.

  The judge made a joke about losing the ring, and Pete was jerked back into the wedding again. Was he supposed to be carrying a ring right now? Something from Crackerjacks maybe? He patted his pockets surreptitiously.

  Cal put his hand on Pete’s arm. “Don’t sweat it. I haven’t given it to you yet.”

  “Oh.” Pete nodded. “Well, good.”

  Janie looked up at him with a faint smile. She probably thought he was a halfwit.

  He wondered if he could lure her back to the apartment again tonight. Of course, her mother might come looking for him with a shotgun and a quick jaunt to the justice of the peace if he did.

  Would that be so bad?

  A quick jolt of adrenaline sped through his system. Later. He’d think about all that later. Right now he had a wedding to get through. Cal’s wedding.

  “Okay, after I pronounce you husband and wife, you all recess back up the aisle.” The judge grinned at them.

  Docia stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “What, no kiss?”

  “Sure, yeah, of course. I just figured we’d skip it for now.”

  “Skip my favorite part?” Cal wrapped his arms around Docia and bent her over backward in an enthusiastic kiss that made her lift one foot off the ground.

  “Looks good to me.” Horace pulled Bethany into his arms.

  Wonder stood blinking at Allie for a moment, then bent his head and pressed a somewhat decorous kiss on her lips.

  Janie looked up at Pete expectantly. Holy crap! He stared down at her full pink lips, remembering what they’d felt like on other parts of his body. He probably shouldn’t kiss her. If he did, he had a feeling he wouldn’t stop there. He reached for her hand, pulling her gently toward him. She raised laughing eyes to his.

  “Ma!” screeched Daisy.

  “Shit!” Lars muttered.

  Pete stopped inches from Janie’s lips. It took all the control he had to raise his head. Even then, he couldn’t bring himself to let her go.

  Sherice stood at the end of the aisle watching them.

  Daisy wriggled desperately in Lars’s arms. “Ma!” she yelled again.

  After a moment, Sherice began undulating toward them, smiling a faintly bored smile. “Hi, baby,” she cooed, “come over here to me.” She extended her arms.

  Lars slowly lowered his daughter to the ground and then watched her toddle into her mother’s embrace.

  Sherice lifted the child, pushing her black curls back from her eyes. “Ooh, you’ve gained weight, baby. Daddy must have been feeding you junk. We don’t want you to get fat now, do we?”

  She fixed Lars with a quick, dead-eyed stare, then turned and began walking back up the aisle again, much more quickly. “You better have dinner with me tonight, baby. Mama will make sure you get the right food. And a nice place to sleep.”

  “Goddamn it, Sherice,” Lars growled.

  “Watch your language in front of the baby,” Sherice said automatically. “She’s coming home with me, Lars. I’m her mother. You don’t really want to make a scene with me, do you? You’ll frighten the baby.”

  Pete was suddenly aware of Mom standing at the end of the aisle. “But Sherice, you’re staying for the wedding. You promised.” She reached tentatively toward Daisy, who stared at her wide-eyed.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherice snapped. “Babies don’t belong at weddings. And I’m going home.”

  “But you said…” Mom’s eyes darted between Sherice and Lars.

  “Whatever I said, Daisy’s not s
taying and neither am I.” Sherice turned toward the parking lot.

  Pete was beside her in three strides. He took hold of her arm, his fingers clamping like a vice. “Put my niece down.”

  Sherice stared at him. “You can’t stop me. She’s my daughter. You’re just her uncle.”

  “Put her down, damn it.” Pete worked on keeping his voice level.

  Daisy began to whimper. “Daisy,” Lars murmured from behind him, “sweetheart.”

  The whimpers rapidly became sobs and then wails. Sherice glanced down at Pete’s hand and then back up again. She tightened her hold on her daughter.

  “Daisy, honey.” Lars was standing beside her now. He reached out to stroke his daughter’s hair. “Don’t cry. It’s all right.”

  Daisy dropped her head to Sherice’s shoulder, staring at her father as she caught her breath in ragged sobs.

  “Let her go, Pete,” Lars said.

  “Lars…” Rage closed his throat.

  “No, Pete, just let her go.”

  Slowly, regretfully, Pete dropped his hand. Sherice gave him one last look of searing contempt, then turned back toward the parking lot.

  “Lars.” Mom stared at them, her lips trembling. “I thought…she said… She just wanted to see Daisy, that’s all.”

  “It’s okay, Mom.” Lars sighed.

  “I didn’t…I never meant…”

  “I know.” Lars patted her shoulder awkwardly. “It’s okay.”

  Beside her, Dad took a deep breath. “Come on, Millie, this is our fault. We’ve got to fix this.”

  “Let it go, Dad.” Lars straightened. “It’s my problem. I’ll take care of it. All of you go on to the rehearsal dinner.”

  The wedding party milled around them uneasily. Cal held Docia against him as if he was afraid she might bolt.

  “Go on,” Lars said again. “I’ll come later.” He walked toward the parking lot where Sherice was loading Daisy into a car seat.

  Pete sat on one of the chairs, pushing aside a swag of chiffon. All the others began to move toward their cars, Cal pushing Docia a little doggedly. Pete stared down at the weathered Saltillo tile beneath his running shoes. A pair of paws clicked into view.

  Pete blinked, then looked up. Janie stood holding Olive’s leash. “Do you want to drive,” she asked, “or should I?”

  “That’s okay.” He reached for Olive’s leash. “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up later.”

  Janie stood watching him for a moment, then sat on another chair beside him. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

  Pete stiffened. “That’s not the point.”

  “What is?” She reached down to scratch Olive’s ears.

  He sat silent for a few moments, then shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. I just feel like shit.”

  “Lars is the only one who can deal with this. My guess is he will.”

  He stared out at the rows of grapevines climbing the hillsides. “You know my mother told her we’d be here. That’s the only way she could have found out.”

  “Yeah. And now your mother feels awful about it. So maybe she’ll stop trying to bring them back together again.”

  “There is that.” Pete squinted in the late afternoon sun. “The whole thing’s heading south again, isn’t it?”

  Janie shrugged. “Not a problem. We’ll just work another miracle, now that we know how it’s done. Olive and I are ready to go.”

  “Bag of tricks is about empty, ma’am. And no more walks with Olive. I’m supposed to take her over to Armando at the clinic early tomorrow.”

  Janie stood, handing him Olive’s leash. “Come on, Mr. Toleffson. You’ve got a rehearsal dinner to host.”

  As he pushed himself up beside her, he felt his cell phone vibrate. He flipped it open, frowning. Claire Larkin. He nodded to Janie. “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  She grimaced, then took Olive’s leash again and headed for the parking lot.

  Pete pressed the accept button. “Yeah, Claire.”

  “Mr. Toleffson?” Claire’s voice sounded slightly breathy. “There’s a sort of…problem. Bo Amundson’s been released.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The rehearsal dinner was in the same room at Brenner’s where Reba and Billy had hosted the first wedding get-together a week ago. Pete paused, counting backward. Yeah, impossible as it seemed, it had only been a week.

  Cal and Docia sat on the raised stone hearth in front of the massive fireplace, their heads together, whispering. Reba sat next to Billy at the side, looking slightly pole-axed. The other guests—Wonder, Allie, Horace, Bethany, the judge and some people Pete figured were behind the scenes types—milled around the room.

  He was thirty minutes late. The only reason he wasn’t forty-five minutes late was that he’d run out of people to call. Evan wasn’t answering, which probably meant he was at Lake Panorama for a weekend of booze and bimbos. The detective who’d arrested Amundson was on vacation, as was the judge from the arraignment, as was Pete.

  Which explained why Amundson’s lawyer had been able to slide the request for bail through so easily—nobody had been around to stop him, or to notify Claire Larkin until after the fact.

  Pete rubbed his chest absently, trying to ease the dull ache behind his breastbone. Stopping Amundson before he walked was a lost cause. Now they had to find his wife, Maureen, before he did, which was what Claire Larkin was currently trying to do, using a list of possibilities Pete had given her from memory.

  He paused in the doorway, staring.

  Erik was talking to Lee Contreras, motioning toward the table in the center of the room.

  Pete stepped up quickly. “What’s going on?”

  Erik shrugged. “Mom and Dad went off after Lars. Mom told me to get things started. They’ll be back.”

  Pete’s jaw tightened. “I’ll do this.”

  “Okay. Whatever.” Erik stepped back, his face blank.

  Lee gave Pete a professional smile. “It’s all been arranged. I was just telling your brother—we’ll bring the food in whenever you want it.”

  “Bring it in now.” Pete sighed. “Did Dad remember to order any alcohol?”

  “Wine with dinner.” Lee gestured toward the bar at the back. “We can start it now.”

  “Do that. Sooner the better.”

  “Soda for me,” Erik said.

  Pete glanced at him curiously. Erik gave him a bleak smile. “Three hundred days and counting.”

  Pete nodded, then glanced at his phone. Nothing. No calls. No messages.

  Janie had joined Docia on the hearth as Pete started back across the room. Cal stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Are we going ahead with this?”

  “With dinner? Sure. Dad and Mom have it all set up and they’re supposed to be back soon.” He gave Cal a reassuring smile that almost hurt his lips.

  Cal shook his head. “You suck at deception.”

  “What do you want me to say? They’re chasing Lars and Sherice and Daisy. They’ll be back when they get back. My guess is Mom’s suffering from a belated attack of guilt.”

  “Belated is right.” Cal glanced at Erik, his jaw hardening. “Is he staying?”

  “Yeah, Mom asked him to hold down the fort until they get here.”

  Cal sighed. “Train wreck.”

  “Is Docia talking Vegas again?” Pete looked back at Janie, hovering on the hearthstone beside Docia. Her smile was a little too bright all of a sudden.

  “Nah. Not with the wedding of her dreams set for tomorrow.” Cal looked back at his bride-to-be and grinned. “Better go rescue Janie, though. She’s tap-dancing so fast she’s going to hurt herself.”

  As Pete started back across the room, Ken Crowder handed him two glasses of wine. “Viognier. From Morgan Barrett’s vineyard. I’ve got more coming.”

  “Right.” Pete nodded. “I have a feeling this had better be a very alcoholic evening.” He glanced back a little guiltily.

  Erik leaned against the table, a glass of soda and ice at h
and. He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. If the booze starts to bother me, I’ll leave.”

  Pete nodded a little stiffly, then walked to the fireplace and handed a glass to Janie. “If you keep smiling like that your face will freeze in that position.”

  Janie turned her glittering grin in his direction. “It already has.”

  “I’ve been trying to convince her she doesn’t need to cheer me up.” Docia took another glass of wine from Cal. “I’m okay, Janie, I’m not going to run for the border, honest.”

  Cal grimaced. “Lars is the one who should be running. With Daisy under one arm.”

  “Can she really do that, take Daisy away without Lars’s consent?” All three of them turned to stare at Pete.

  He raised his hands. “I don’t do family law and I’m not licensed in Texas.”

  Janie put a hand on his arm, staring toward the door. “Oh my god. It’s your folks. And they’ve got Daisy.”

  Pete turned back and caught his breath. His dad had stopped in the doorway to say something to Lee. His mom was walking across the room, carrying Daisy in her arms. She didn’t look exactly happy about it, but she didn’t look unhappy either. Just sort of…Mom.

  He hurried toward her, and she glanced up at him as he approached. “Peter, good, I need your help.” She shifted Daisy to her other arm. “See if you can find Daisy some mashed potatoes or some peas. Maybe a banana. Something I can puree for her.”

  “A banana?” Pete envisioned himself wandering around Brenner’s kitchen, looking for overcooked vegetables. “Now?”

  “I’ll do it.” Erik stood, placing his soda on the table next to the door. “I‘ll go talk to the manager. They’ll probably have something.”

  He was gone before Pete could say anything. His mother gave him an annoyed look. “Erik had never even met Daisy, you know. Her own uncle.”

  “Well, she’s got a lot of uncles to go around.” Pete smiled at Daisy, who pulled back from him, thrusting out her lower lip.

  Pete sighed. “Where’s Lars?”