And then a tiny white Mary Jane appeared, followed by another. He glanced up and there was Maddie. She was holding the railing in one hand and her bouquet in the other, looking as cute as any five-year-old possibly could. When she grinned at him, he felt his heart do a somersault in his chest. Then she winked and he laughed.
At the bottom of the steps, they exchanged their special high-five greeting but this time he ended it with a kiss on the top of her head. She ran to stand beside Sam who, as a justice of the peace, was waiting to officiate at the makeshift space they had created in front of the fireplace.
Next down was Gracie. She was dressed exactly like her sister, and her big blue eyes looked enormous, as if her two years of maturity over Maddie caused her to understand the seriousness of the evening’s event and how life-changing it would be for them all.
When her gaze met Zach’s her shy smile snuck out and clobbered him in what was left of his poor old heart. He smiled at her and she let out a breath as if she’d been holding it, afraid he wouldn’t be there waiting for her at the bottom of the steps.
Zach knew it was going to take him a lifetime to convince Gracie that she could count on him. It was a commitment he willingly accepted. She paused in front of him and they exchanged their funky handshake and he kissed her on top of the head, too, before he sent her to stand with her sister.
It had been short notice but the men had done their best to transform the downstairs into a wide open space, covered in ribbons and flowers and with enough folding chairs to accommodate everyone in attendance, which included the Maine crew, the aunts, and Judge and Mrs. Connelly, because like it or not they were family now.
For as much as Zach despised Seth Connelly for being a lousy husband and father, he could never begrudge him his marriage to Jessie because without their union, there would be no Gracie and no Maddie and Zach couldn’t accept a world without those two imps in it.
That being said, he planned to be the father they hadn’t had up to now just as he planned to be the husband Jessie hadn’t had. He knew he had a lot to learn about both roles, but he was eager to try and he figured that his enthusiasm made up for his lack of experience.
When he saw the pointy toe of one white shoe appear on the steps above, Zach stopped breathing. A sleek length of leg, another shoe, more leg, followed by the lacy hem of a poufy skirt appeared, and Zach started to feel woozy from the lack of oxygen. A nipped-in waist and two hands, clutching the bouquet he’d had to beg, plead, and pay an exorbitant amount of money to have specially made in a rush job, came into view.
He forced himself to breathe, but his gaze was riveted on his bride. As Jessie came down the stairs, he savored the sight of her. His eyes moved from the swell of female curves he had come to know so well and up to the delicate heart-shaped face he had spent so many hours studying while waiting for the blizzard to pass. Jessie’s pretty blue eyes met his and he felt everything in his world shift and lock into place. She was his and he was hers.
She wore no veil, just a pretty hair comb that kept her big bouncy curls in place in her half-up half-down hairdo. His fingers itched to bury themselves in her hair and kiss her senseless, but he resisted. Instead, he extended his hand to her and she shifted her bouquet to one hand and put her fingers in his with the ultimate trust.
Then Zach got down on one knee. He fumbled with his free hand in the pocket of his tuxedo jacket looking for the ring box he had shoved in there. This was important. He had to get this just right. His fingers closed around the velvet box and he pulled it out while never taking his gaze off of her face.
“Jessie, I know we didn’t have a conventional start to this relationship,” he said. “A few months ago, you thought I was a womanizing player.”
Jessie nodded. “And then you rescued my cat.”
“And then you and the girls rescued me,” he said. He glanced beside him where Rufus sat, in a tuxedo collar and bow tie that matched Zach’s. “Well, me and Rufus.”
Jessie looked at him with questioning eyes and Zach realized she didn’t get it. She didn’t know that she had rescued them. So, he told her.
“You and the girls and Chaos rescued us sad boys from loneliness and despair,” he said. “From not feeling fully alive.”
That made her tip her head to the side and study him. She looked doubtful and he nodded.
“It’s true,” he said. “I don’t think I was really living until the day I looked up out of a drift of snow to see you staring back down at me. You and the girls gave me a reason to wake up every day and you have come to mean everything to me. I don’t ever want to go back to those lonely bachelor days ever again.”
Zach could hear the aw’s behind him. It was nice but it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, so he forged on and flipped up the top of the velvet box and looked Jessie in the eye, and said, “Jessie, I love you with all that I have and all that I am, will you marry me?”
Jessie looked completely undone. She didn’t even look at the ring, which was a one-carat cushion-cut Harry Winston sparkler, but rather she focused on him.
“Zach,” she said his name, drawing it out as if she was drawing out the moment and savoring every nanosecond. “The girls and I were doing all right, getting by, and we would have been fine, but then you showed up in our lives and you changed everything.”
Zach couldn’t tell if this was the beginning of a rejection or not. He started to sweat. He glanced at Rufus to see how the dog was taking her words. He seemed calm so Zach tried to remain calm, too. It was an effort.
“You brought laughter, joy, music, and shenanigans, lots of shenanigans, into our lives. We hadn’t even known what we’d been missing but now, well, I just can’t imagine spending my life without you. I love you, too, with all that I have and all that I am and I always will.”
Jessie leaned down and kissed him. It was swift and sweet but it gave Zach the courage to stand up and slide the diamond ring onto her finger. He swallowed down the knot of emotion in his throat. Then he hugged her close while surreptitiously patting his other pocket for their wedding rings. They were there. All systems go.
He held out his arm to Jessie and she placed her hand on his elbow. Together they made their way to Sam, who was standing there grinning, obviously delighted to be the officiant at one of his oldest friend’s weddings.
The vows were simple and straightforward but Sam managed to work the girls in, too, asking them to vow to watch over the union of these two people and to help them be a loving family all the days of their lives. Zach had to bite his cheek twice to keep from bawling. Although, when he glanced around the room, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house and he wondered why he’d bothered. Even Cooper, who had come back for the ceremony and was still wearing his chief of police uniform, looked choked up.
When Sam pronounced them man and wife, Zach let out a whoop and a fist pump that made everyone laugh. Then he pulled Jessie into his arms and kissed her—thoroughly.
The spread, because it had been left up to the men, consisted of a case of champagne, a keg of beer from the brewery, and what looked like all of the appetizers offered at Marty’s Pub during happy hour: chicken wings, potato skins, nachos, the works. The cake was a tower of whoopie pies from Jillian’s bakery, Making Whoopie, naturally, and it didn’t stand a chance under the assault of the Maine crew.
Jessie loved it, all of it, which she told him repeatedly and made Zach love her all the more, which was impressive mostly because he was pretty sure he couldn’t love her any more than he already did. Clearly, he’d been wrong.
When Maddie was found asleep in a chair, the party naturally wound down. Zach scooped her up in his arms and let her rest her head on his shoulder, while Jessie tucked Gracie into her side as they waved good night to all of their guests. Together, with Chaos and Rufus underfoot, Zach and Jessie led the girls up to their room.
Zach helped Maddie into her jammies while Je
ssie assisted Gracie. It was a ridiculously domestic scene and Zach felt his throat get tight yet again as he made a mental promise to love and protect every being in this room. As if reading his mind, Rufus took a flying leap onto Maddie’s bed while Chaos curled up on Gracie’s.
Zach exchanged a look with Jessie as if to say Look at how our pack has merged, and she nodded in understanding, and Zach knew. He knew in that moment what it was like to have his every wish granted. For the first time in his life he belonged, and it was with this family, the family he had made his own.
“Mom, Zach, we need to talk,” Maddie said. She ran a hand over her sleepy eyes and sat up in her bed, holding her bespectacled penguin under one arm. Her voice was very serious.
“What is it, honey?” Jessie asked.
Maddie looked at her sister and Gracie ducked her head as she lifted Chaos in one arm and moved to stand beside Maddie’s bed. They held hands as if they were putting forth a united front. Zach had a moment of sheer panic that they were going to say they’d changed their minds, that they didn’t want Zach and Jessie to be married. They didn’t want Zach to be their dad.
The sisters exchanged a glance and he held his breath. When Gracie spoke, her voice was soft but firm. Clearly, this was important to her. “We want to give both Chaos and Rufus a forever home.”
“Oh,” Jessie said. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. Zach knew how he felt about it but since they were partners now, he didn’t want to weigh in without talking it over.
“They saved our lives,” Maddie said. She flopped down on her bed, yanking her sister down beside her. “We were so cold.” The two of them feigned shivering, right down to clacking their teeth together. “We cried.” They fake sobbed. “We tried to keep warm.” They hugged each other close, squishing Chaos in between them.
Zach had to look away to keep from laughing. He felt Jessie’s shoulder shake next to his and suspected she was about to lose it, too.
“We would have died!” Gracie proclaimed. Both girls went stiff, with heads lolling and tongues hanging out, all very dramatic. “But Chaos kept us warm.”
“And Rufus found us,” Maddie said. “We need to give them a home.”
Zach looked at Jessie and she gave him a small nod. Zach grinned. They were agreed.
He put one hand on Rufus’s head and one under Chaos’s chin, and asked, “What do you say, boys? Do you want to stay with us—forever?”
Rufus barked and wagged and Chaos let out a tongue-curling yawn.
Maddie looked from the pets to Zach and Jessie and said, “That means yes.”
Jessie laughed and said, “Of course it does.”
Zach enfolded the entire crew in a group hug and kissed all of their heads: Rufus, Maddie, Gracie, Jessie, and even Chaos, who did not appreciate the affection at all and bopped him on the nose with his paw, which made Maddie belly laugh.
Gracie gave Zach and Jessie her shy smile and then she said what Zach had been thinking all along. “Now we’re a family.”
“Forever and ever,” Maddie agreed.
Zach and Jessie tucked the girls and the pets into bed. Jessie took Zach’s hand and led him out into the hallway, closing the girls’ door so it was open just enough to allow a sliver of the hallway night-light.
Then she turned toward him, sliding into his arms as she continued to walk backwards toward her room. Zach knew he would never forget the sight of her just like this. Dressed in her fine white dress, leading him to their room after tucking their kids and pets into bed. His life had never been more perfect than it was at this moment.
He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, softly and sweetly, and then he said, “I love you, Jessie Caine.”
She sighed and her eyes glimmered with happy tears when she said, “I love you, too, forever and ever . . .”
“. . . and ever and ever,” he finished for her. He used his foot to close the door behind them, because he didn’t want to let go of her, Jessie, his wife, his other half, his soul mate, the woman who had against all odds fallen in love with him, and given him everything he’d ever wanted, a family of his own.
Zach was going to spend the rest of his life being worthy of her and the girls and as he hugged her close, he knew just how he wanted to get started. Orgasms multiple.
READ ON FOR A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT CUPCAKE BAKERY MYSTERY FROM JENN McKINLAY
Wedding Cake Crumble
COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
“Here comes the bride,” Melanie Cooper sang as she held a bouquet of multicolored snapdragons in front of her as if she were walking down the aisle.
“Practicing for your own wedding?” Angie DeLaura asked her.
“No, just yours,” Mel said, then she smiled. “For now.”
They’d been best friends since they were twelve years old, so it was no surprise that Mel would be Angie’s maid of honor when Angie and their other childhood friend Tate Harper tied the knot in just one week.
Today, Mel and Angie had left Fairy Tale Cupcakes, the bakery they co-owned, in the capable hands of their employees while they ran around town, finalizing payments to vendors and making sure everything was a go for Angie and Tate’s big day. At the moment, they were paying for Angie’s flowers, calla lilies with their stems wrapped in aqua and pewter ribbons.
“Annabelle? Hello!” Angie called. She rang the bell on the counter and peered at the back room. “What do you suppose is keeping her?”
“No idea,” Mel said. She admired the brilliant yellow petals on a huge sunflower. So pretty.
“Okay, so after we pay the florist, who’s next?” Angie asked.
Mel put the snapdragons back in their display bucket and checked her smartphone, where she kept her to-do list updated.
“We need to pay the photographer and the caterer.” She glanced at Angie. “Are you really having them make Jell-O? Because ‘crème brûlée can never be Jell-O.’”
“‘I have to be Jell-O,’” Angie said. For emphasis, she tossed her long, curly brown hair over her shoulder.
“My Best Friend’s Wedding,” they said, identifying the movie quotes together, and then laughed.
Since middle school, the three friends, Mel, Angie, and Tate, had shared a love of sweets and movies. Now as adults they tried to stump one another with random movie quotes, and in the case of serving Jell-O at their wedding, Angie had chosen it deliberately. She wanted Tate to know she was his comfort food, his Jell-O, which he had always loved, much to Mel’s cordon bleu dismay.
“Do you think we should leave and come back?” Angie asked Mel. “Maybe she’s on her coffee break and forgot to lock the door.”
“Maybe.” Mel frowned. She didn’t want to admit she was starting to get a hinky feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Annabelle Martin’s flower shop sat in the heart of Old Town Scottsdale. Despite the small size of the space, it was full to bursting with blooms, both real and silk, as Annabelle’s talent with flowers was legendary. In Scottsdale, Arizona, a wedding was just not a wedding unless Annabelle did the flowers.
“But even if Annabelle stepped out, why isn’t anyone else here? Doesn’t she have four assistants?” Mel asked.
Angie nodded and Mel saw her big brown eyes get wide. Mel knew Angie was thinking the same thing that she was. Angie swallowed, and in a soft voice, she said, “Maybe something happened to her?”
They stared at each other for a moment. Over the past few years, they had suffered the misfortune of stumbling upon several dead bodies. Given that Angie was one week from saying “I do,” it would just figure that they would find a body now.
“This can’t be happening,” Angie said. “Not now.”
“Don’t panic,” Mel said. She blew her blonde bangs off of her forehead. Being a chef, she kept her hair nice and short to keep it out of the food, because nothing said “Ew” like finding a hair in your
frosting.
“‘Don’t panic’?” Angie cried, her voice rising up a decibel with each syllable. “Why would I panic? It’s only a week until my wedding, you know, the most important day of my life to date.”
“Breathe.” Mel squeezed Angie’s arm as she scooted past her and around the counter. “I’ll just check in back and make sure everything is okay.”
A curtain was hanging in the doorway to the back room. She knew from being here before that the back room housed all of Annabelle’s supplies as well as a kitchenette and her office. It was a tiny space and she had to turn sideways to maneuver through the packed shelves.
Vases of glass, steel, and copper; baskets; ribbons; glass marbles; florist wire in all sizes and colors—all of it was stuffed onto the shelves until they looked as if they’d regurgitate the goods right onto the floor.
Mel squeezed her way past until she cleared the shelves and reached the worktable in back. A couple dozen purple irises were scattered across a sheaf of floral paper, as if someone had just left them out of water and gasping for air.
Annabelle loved flowers; they were her passion. Mel couldn’t imagine that she’d have just left these here to rot. Mel felt the short-cropped hair on the back of her neck prickle with unease.
Where was Annabelle? What could have happened to her? Mel closed her eyes for a moment, trying to dredge up the courage to circle the table and see if Annabelle was there, lying on the floor—unconscious, bludgeoned, bloody, bleeding out even as Mel stood there shaking like a fraidy-cat.
“Hello? Annabelle? Are you here?” Mel called.
There was no answer. She opened her eyes. She was just going to have to see for herself. She took a steadying breath and stepped around the worktable. She glanced at the floor. It was bare. The breath she’d been holding burst out of her lungs just as the sound of a toilet flushing broke through the quiet.
Every Dog Has His Day Page 31
