Wedding Mints and Witnesses

by Kelsey Browning

  Ritter sniffed Abby Ruth’s palm then jumped up, placing his paws on her shoulders, and gave her a slurp right on the cheek.

  “Stop. Down!” Abby Ruth wiped her face in disgust. “None of that, you heavy beast. He must weigh a hundred pounds.”

  As Ritter landed back on the ground, Lil noticed the big shiny slobber trail on Abby Ruth’s perfectly ironed jeans and on her once-pristine white blouse. “Oh, he’s just giving you some sugar. He likes you.”

  Abby Ruth brushed at her pants with the paper Ms. Dooley had asked her to sign. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

  Lil wanted so badly to start running down a list of the things Abby Ruth had done since she moved into Summer Haven, but her manners wouldn’t allow it. So rather than rub it in, she simply said, “Bless your heart.”

  Chapter Two

  After taking Ritter outside for a potty break, Abby Ruth tiptoed through Summer Haven’s front door with him at her heels. That dog hadn’t left her side since the minute Hollis’s grand-niece hightailed it out of the driveway.

  With the coast clear, she nudged Ritter into the center of the foyer. He looked up at her, then snuffled the floor with jiggling jowls until he was once again at her side. Ritter thumped his tail, sweeping the leg of the end table cattywampus with a screech against the hardwood floor.

  Poised for a hasty exit, Abby Ruth yelled toward the kitchen at the back of the house. “I need you to watch Ritter for a little while. I’ll be right back.” She beat a hasty retreat toward the front door, hoping to get to her truck before her words and their meaning registered with Lil.

  She’d barely made a complete step before Lil was in the foyer. “Wait a minute. You’re not dumping that dog on me.”

  Dang, Lil was a lot faster than she looked.

  When Lil shook her head, her recently blued curls moved along with it. “Hollis left him to you to take care of.”

  “I have an important errand to run. It won’t be long.” The lie tasted bitter on Abby Ruth’s tongue. “A few hours tops.”

  “No, ma’am.” Lil stabbed a finger into the air, looking like a seventy-something-year-old female Napoleon. Abby Ruth didn’t doubt this woman could take over the world if she put her mind to it. “I know how you feel about that dog,” Lil said. “Next thing I know you’ll have pawned him off on us completely.”

  Maggie strolled into the house, dressed in khakis and a Holloway Hardware T-shirt that stretched across her generous bosom. The screen door slapped closed behind her. “What’s all the fuss about?”

  Abby Ruth did a two-step around her to get closer to the exit. “I have somewhere to be. I was just leaving.”

  “Abby Ruth was in Hollis Dooley’s will,” Lil said. “He left Ritter to her.”

  “He willed his dog to you?” Maggie’s lips made a circle of surprise, highlighting her round face and the dark bangs cut straight across her forehead. A streak of what looked like motor oil was smudged along her cheek. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

  “See? That was my reaction too,” Abby Ruth admitted. She and Lil had always had a tenuous relationship, maybe because Maggie had welcomed her into Summer Haven while Lil was in prison camp. Lil was all pomp and circumstance. Well, she’d lightened up lately, but still Abby Ruth and Maggie had way more in common with their get-it-done attitudes.

  Ritter plodded across the room to Abby Ruth’s side. His tail swished back and forth in a tired way that reminded her of Eeyore.

  Maggie gently patted the dog on the head. “He’s a good ol’ boy, and if it was Hollis’s last wish, we have to do it. Guess we could build a fence easy enough.”

  We. She said we! “Thanks, Maggie. That would be great.” And if anyone could put up a fence in a hurry, it was her. That woman could build or fix just about anything.

  “Until then,” Lil said, “that dog stays outside. And he goes wherever you go, Abby Ruth.”

  “I didn’t know he would be dumped on me. Can’t you give me a break here? I didn’t get any notice, and I have some important things to take care of this morning. Please help me this once.”

  “Maggie and I made a commitment to help out at the church bake sale.” Lil’s lips set in a firm line, and her blue eyes lasered in on Abby Ruth, challenging her. “Unless what you have going on is more important?”

  Abby Ruth knew that look. There was no point in arguing with Lil on this. She’d have to find another solution for Ritter, because she would not tell the girls where she was really headed this morning.

  Rest in peace, Hollis, but darn you and your last wishes.

  “Okay, okay.” Abby Ruth picked up the dingy faded red leash the lady lawyer had left and snapped it onto Ritter’s camo collar. Both had probably been scavenged from the local garbage dump. “We’re out of here.”

  She shoved open the front door and waited for Ritter to pad his way outside. It took them a solid three minutes to make it from the porch to her truck, with Ritter lumbering behind her. Every three or four steps, he nudged the back of her knee with his big wet snoot. She opened the back door to her white Ford dually and pointed inside. “Get in.”

  The bloodhound stared at her with those drooping eyes. His jowls flopped with each huff and puff from the short walk.

  “Look here, Ritter. Nine is equivalent to sixty-three in people years. You’re acting like you’re ninety. Let’s do this.” He sat there like a speed bump. Patting her thigh, she tried using a singsongy voice. “Let’s go for a ri-ide.”

  But her enthusiasm was lost on Ritter. He sniffed the air, then flopped to the ground and let out a groan.

  “Really?” She left the door open and moved around behind him. She squatted and lifted him up onto all fours. Dang, what had Hollis been feeding this dog, steak and lobster? She gently pushed at his butt, urging him toward the truck. “Upsy-daisy there, Ritter.”

  He didn’t seem to have any intention of jumping up into her truck. She picked up his front feet and walked him closer to the truck like they were dancing some kind of strange tango. All Ritter needed was a rose in his teeth. With a huff, she placed his paws on the running boards. “There you go, boy. Giddy on up.”

  A long low howl that could be heard two counties over filled the air.

  “Great. I don’t have time for this, Ritter. You really are trying my patience.”

  Maggie strode out of the house heading in her direction.

  Please say you’ll take care of this dog today.

  “Need help getting him into the truck?”

  Not exactly what she was hoping for. “Yes. He weighs a ton, and he doesn’t look too motivated to help me out.”

  “I’d watch him if I were going to be around. I wonder…” Maggie scanned the yard, then snapped her fingers. “I know just the thing.” She hurried over to the carriage house, then came out carrying one of the corn hole boards she’d built for a cookout last summer.

  Abby Ruth smiled. That Maggie Rawls was one heckuva problem solver. When the G Team was in a fix, she always came up with an idea or two. “That should work.”

  Maggie pulled a bandana out of her pants pocket to lay over the shiny aluminum running board, then gently steadied the corn hole platform on top of it.

  “Grab hold of that side, I’ll get this one.” Together they lifted Ritter by the haunches and gave him a big heave-ho to slide him into the truck’s back seat.

  Abby Ruth tucked his tail under his butt, then slammed the truck door behind him. “Thanks, Maggie.”

  With a smile, Maggie scooped up the corn hole board by the handle on its side and headed back to the carriage house.

  Abby Ruth jumped behind the wheel and fired up the engine. “You stink to high heaven,” she said with a glance in the rearview mirror at Ritter. Trying to hold her breath, she pressed the window button. The way he smelled, no one in their right mind would babysit him right now.

  Then again, Red Jensen had always been a little bit crazy.

  She popped open the glove compartment in search of
relief but found nothing. Spying the Yankee Candle Midsummer’s Night air freshener hanging on the radio knob, she grabbed it and snickered. “Right now you smell more like midsummer night run-in with a skunk,” she said to Ritter. “Let’s see if this can sweeten things up.” She twisted in her seat and wiped the fragrance-infused paperboard across the bloodhound’s body.

  She leaned closer. The woodsy scent peppered with patchouli and sage had Ritter smelling like a new-age Thanksgiving turkey. “Not great, but better.”

  Men liked Thanksgiving, didn’t they? With the food and football, it was a pretty likable holiday all the way around. Maybe the smell would intoxicate Red into agreeing to take Ritter for a while.

  A few minutes later she pulled up in front of Red’s house. Technically it still belonged to her future son-in-law, Bartell County Sheriff Teague Castro, who’d lived there until he moved in with her daughter last year. Teague rented it to Red now. Still didn’t make sense that a man who owned a ranch in Texas, a house in Aspen, and a condo in Hawaii would want to rent a little ol’ house in Georgia, but who was she to judge?

  Abby Ruth climbed out of the truck, and before she could turn to close the door, somehow Ritter had managed to make it from the back seat to the driver’s seat and to the ground right behind her. Interesting how the old dog could move like a greyhound when he felt like it. “Great. Red will have to babysit you because I doubt I could get your butt back in my truck without his help.” She tugged on the leash. “Come on.”

  Ritter’s overgrown toenails sank deeper into the dirt with each of her tugs.

  “Come on.” She slapped her thigh, and finally Ritter set to what could only be called a galumph. Once she was on Red’s porch, she hesitated. She needed Red to take Ritter without asking too many questions.

  Ritter nudged her butt.

  “Don’t push me.” She glared at the old dog. Hollis knew damn well she wasn’t Ritter’s biggest fan. Come to think of it, that was probably why he’d left the mutt with her. Hollis had a mean streak like that. Then again, his wry sense of humor was one of the reasons she’d liked him.

  She slipped her fingers under Ritter’s collar and held tight to keep him on all fours as she pressed the doorbell.

  Red pulled open the door, standing taller than her by several inches. His lady-killer smile and the graying hair at his temples set her insides to the spin cycle, not that she was willing to admit that to him. The past year, with her fighting breast cancer, had been tough and had left little room for the romance Red kept hinting at. She’d barely gotten used to their renewed friendship.

  Still, the man had some strange power over her. Probably always would.

  “Hey there! I need a favor,” she said before he could get a word in and stepped inside with Ritter in tow. Red turned, and she shoved the leash toward him, but he gazed at it with a bland expression. “I need you to watch Ritter. Least you could do for your old buddy Hollis.”

  “What are you doing with Hollis’s dog?”

  “It seems that Ritter is now my dog.”

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah. Hollis left this mutt to me. His lawyer dropped him off this morning.”

  “You?” Red busted out laughing.

  “I swear I have the worst luck lately.” Ritter huffed as if insulted, and she couldn’t stand being judged by a darned dog. She turned her back on him.

  Red’s laughter continued, with his face turning redder with every hee-haw.

  “Quit laughing.”

  “Loved that Hollis. Boy, did he have a sense of humor.”

  “You’re treading on thin ice here, Red.”

  “Ritter smells like two-day-old roadkill splashed with cheap cologne.” Red took the leash reluctantly, and Abby Ruth whisked by him and into the kitchen.

  “Best I could do in the time I had.” She yanked open the refrigerator door and poured herself a glass of orange juice.

  “Want some vodka for that?”

  “No, I’m driving.”

  “Where are you off to that you can’t take Ritter with you?”

  She couldn’t leave him in the truck because she had no idea how long her errand would take today. When her friend Stella Robino had called her asking her to come to Atlanta, she couldn’t say no because she and Stella had been through so much during their chemo sessions together. Despite Abby Ruth’s plans to keep herself isolated during her treatments, she’d met Stella the first day, and they’d become friends instantly.

  When you were facing something like cancer, you got to know others struggling with the same challenge. Going through treatments had brought Stella and her closer than most people would be after years and years of friendship.

  Since the day they met, Stella had looked forward to ringing the end-of-radiation bell. Rituals weren’t Abby Ruth’s thing, but she’d agreed to attend to help Stella celebrate. “I’m meeting a friend in Atlanta.”

  “What kind of friend?” His words were slow and precise.

  “Red Jensen, are you jealous?”

  “Should I be?” He leaned on the counter, putting himself within kissing distance, but she wasn’t quite ready to go there yet. Soon? Maybe.

  “No, silly. I’m meeting Stella.” And the minute she said her friend’s name, she regretted it.

  “Really?” His eyebrows knitted together. “Is she okay?”

  What might look like anger on another man was Red’s way of showing fear. He’d worn that expression a lot while she’d been undergoing treatment. He’d been so good to her, but it had been the first time she’d ever seen him out of control of a situation, and he hadn’t liked it. His worry had aged him ten years, and it had saddened her heart to be the cause of that worry.

  “Stella’s fine. It’s bell-ringing day at the cancer clinic.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, straightening to his full six-foot-four. “You’re going to Atlanta to ring the bell and you weren’t planning to tell me?”

  “I said Stella is ringing the bell.” She avoided eye contact with him.

  “Why aren’t you ringing it with her?” He reached out to touch her, but she danced away. “Ru, what’s going on here? You should ring that bell too.”

  “The cancer fight is behind me, and the less said about it the better.”

  This time, he didn’t let her get away from him, pulling her into the strong arms that had been honed by years of major league pitching. “You’re still scared.”

  Damn this man for knowing her so well. “I don’t want to give cancer any more power. Not a minute more of my time. What if ringing that bell jinxes something?” she whispered into his shoulder.

  “It won’t.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “But if you ever have to fight it again, you know Jenny and I will both be right by your side.”

  A ping of alarm went through her at his mention of Jenny and himself in the same sentence. “Please, Red, just do me this favor.”

  “Fine. I’ll take Ritter.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But he’s coming with us to Atlanta to ring that blasted bell.”

  “Us? No, sir. You’re not coming.”

  “I am. Maggie, Lil, and Jenny too. Think of all they did for you while you were going through treatment. We fought the fight together. We should all celebrate together. Admit it.”

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I would if you weren’t so darned handsome.” Flirting with him was way easier than talking serious, but his speculative eyebrow raise reminded her that he was more than willing to take their relationship out of the friend zone anytime she was ready. “Besides, we can’t fit everyone and a giant mutt in my truck. In any of our vehicles for that matter.”

  Red released her, and that glint in his eye worried her. “But we can fit everyone into the church van. I happen to have it parked out back for baseball camp tomorrow night.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and made a call. “Lil, I need you and Maggie to be ready in five minutes. We’re all going to A
tlanta so Abby Ruth can ring the bell.”

  Abby Ruth gritted her teeth.

  He gave her a crooked grin as he talked on the phone. “I’m sure you’re right. The church ladies won’t mind if you miss the bake sale this one time. Tell ’em it’s Abby Ruth’s fault. They’ll believe that with no problems.”

  “I don’t want anyone else to know about the bell ringing,” she told him.

  “But apparently she doesn’t want you to let her secret outside this circle. You know how she is.”

  Abby Ruth wanted to grab the phone from his hand and end the call, but part of her was touched by the things Red did for her.

  “Can you be ready?” Red said into the phone, nodding the whole time. “Yes. I thought you’d feel that way, and can you call Jenny and tell her we’ll be by to pick her up shortly too?” With a smile, he ended the call and shoved his phone into his pocket.

  Abby Ruth didn’t have words for what he’d just done.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” He picked up the keys from the hall table. “Your chariot awaits.”

  She stomped over in her red Lucchese boots and snagged the keys from him. “You may have gotten your way about this, but I’m driving.”

  “Never expected anything less,” he said with a chuckle that somehow warmed her heart.

  Chapter Three

  Jenny and Grayson waited on the porch of the renovated church-house she and Teague had purchased not long after she moved to Summer Shoals. She loved everything about their home, from the white picket fence to the well-trimmed yard to the weathered tombstones lined up like gray soldiers in the distance.

  Gravel crunched under the church van’s tires as it pulled into the driveway. With the speed it was going and the sound of the radio blasting out a Florida Georgia Line song, the long white vehicle looked as if it was carting a bunch of rabble-rousers to a hard rock concert.

  At this decibel level, it wasn’t hard for Jenny to make out the words to “Dayum, Baby.”

  Dayum, Baby indeed. She turned to her son, who was standing beside her with Bowzer, their rowdy yellow Labrador. “You ready for this, Grayson?”