Trouble's Wedding Caper Read online

  Trouble’s Wedding Caper

  Familiar Legacy #8

  Jen Talty

  Copyright © 2019 by Jen Talty

  All rights reserved. Published by KaliOka Press.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Cissy Hartley

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  About the Author

  Also by Jen Talty

  Bone-a-fied Trouble

  Trouble’s Double Contest Winner

  Familiar Legacy

  Praise for Jen Talty

  “The writing is wonderful, the story is fantastic, and the characters will keep you coming back for more.”

  Long and Short Reviews

  "This is not the typical love story, nor is it the typical mystery. The characters are well rounded and interesting."

  You Gotta Read Reviews

  "A blend of romance and suspense that kept me riveted!"

  Christine Wenger, Bestselling Author

  To Laura Benedict. Thanks for saying hello to this newbie and taking me under your wing!

  Prologue

  Four months ago…

  It’s impossible to go anywhere, listen to the radio, or turn on the television and not hear or see something about the Royal Wedding.

  Frankly, I’m cheesed off by most of it.

  Especially how the American press focuses on everything other than what the wedding means to the people of Britain. Really, the British would not stoop to such ridiculous coverage. This union must follow the traditions of the British Monarchy and be respected. The Americans are more interested in the potential drama that may ensue than the blissful event itself.

  Americans go all barmy over drama. It’s distasteful.

  That said, now that the day has finally arrived, I find myself curling up on the sofa waiting for Meghan Markle to arrive at the church.

  Even though I can appreciate traditions, I’m not into weddings. I don’t see the point. It’s a lot of hubbub for one day. I get why this particular wedding is important. The Royal Family is the face of the Brits, and they must perform with all the dignity the Queen herself demands. The British people are watching this wedding because it represents who they are as a nation.

  Americans are sitting on the edge of their seat, waiting for something bloody horrible to happen. Some embarrassing moment that will make headlines for weeks to come, giving the Americans something to talk about.

  I never thought I’d see the day where an American marrying a British Royal would be acceptable to the British Monarchs. I understand and encourage the traditions of the British people, and this wedding is quite important, not because the world is watching, but because Prince Harry and his bride are the future of the Royal Family.

  I’m impressed by Meghan’s grace and style. She has the makings of being a posh addition, as long as she can let go of some of her American baggage and focus on the good she can do, like her future husband. Even I have to admit Prince Harry has all the charm and charisma of his mother and just enough male sex appeal to make the hearts of all humans of the female persuasion flutter just a tad faster.

  I stretch, doing my best to ignore the grating newscaster rambling on about the hoopla the bride’s family has caused and what they may or may not mean. I’d bite my arm off right now for silence.

  Weddings should be seen from a quiet distance, not with a commentary as if we’re watching rugby, another thing the Americans don’t understand.

  Tammy Lynn joins me on the sofa and scratches behind my ears. She knows all the right spots to hit, and it eases the irritation of having to watch the wedding through the eyes of American gossip.

  The ceremony itself is quite lovely. The Brits really know how to do things right. Elegant and stylish with a dash of whimsy. I appreciate the classy dress Meghan has chosen. It’s tasteful and doesn’t scream, ‘look at me.’ It truly makes her look like a Royal Princess.

  Timeless.

  I press my paws into the sofa and switch positions, grateful that the wedding ceremony is just about over.

  But the coverage will go on for days, and I’m utterly bored.

  If I never see another wedding, British or otherwise, I know I won’t be missing anything.

  Besides, it’s time for my nap.

  Annabel Wilder looped her hand through Ethan Ferris’ arm as they followed the happy couple down the aisle. The flash from the photographer’s camera blinked wildly across the church, bouncing off the stained-glass windows. Worse, the man snapping pictures stepped in the middle of the passageway, shoving his lens in their faces.

  “Look natural,” the photographer said.

  Annabel could barely see his face behind his gigantic equipment. “I love your sister, but I hate this,” she whispered as she leaned into Ethan while plastering the best smile she could muster on her face.

  Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

  A sentiment she never expected to bother her, mostly because she figured she and Devin would have been at least engaged by now. But nope. And everyone in her hometown had to ask when her big day would be. She’d spouted off the standard excuses, but they fell flat, and based on the looks her family and friends gave her, they had the same feeling she had.

  Devin was never going to get married.

  “I’m insulted you don’t adore having the inside of our nostrils forever captured in digital.” Ethan glanced in her direction. His emerald eyes sparkled with the same mischief from when they’d been in high school. He might have been four years older, but she’d had a secret crush on him since she could remember. She had to have married him in her head a dozen times during middle school and fantasized being asked to his senior prom when she’d been merely fourteen.

  She stifled a giggle at both his statement and her thoughts. It would have been unheard of for a senior to ask out a freshman, and the fact that the idea still gave her butterflies at nearly thirty was ridiculous.

  “I’m glad I amuse you,” Ethan said, giving her a little hip-check just as they entered the lobby of the church, releasing her arm.

  If he only knew what got her laughing.

  Now that would be embarrassing.

  “I’m going to need you to keep the jokes coming and make them good so my smile looks real. I’d hate for your sister to think I’m anything but tickled pink for her, because really I am.”

  Ethan pressed his finger over her lips. “You’ve been rambling on since last night with a nervous energy. Is something bothering you?”

  She glanced over her shoulder as the flower girl skipped down the aisle while the ring boy sniffled in his mother’s arms. In the tenth from the last pew, her boyfriend stood with his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. It had been stupid to pair those two up.

  “Oh, I see what’s gotten under your skin now,” he said.

  She snapped her head, catching his questioning gaze with a single arched brow. “Excuse me?”

  “Your boyfriend is a bit of a flirt.”

  “So’s your fiancée,” she mumbled, waving to Rosie with a wide grin. The last thing she wanted to do was get into a conversation with Ethan about how bo
th of their significant others enjoyed a little too much touchy-feely with everyone but their dates.

  “I can’t believe I’m married.” Rosie Ferris Matthews lifted the front of her strapless pearl-white gown and raced toward Annabel and Ethan. She looked more stunning than Meghan Markle had last weekend.

  “I can’t believe you married this asshole,” Ethan said, stretching out his arm and shaking his brother-in-law’s hand. Charles “Chip” Matthews and Ethan had been inseparable in high school and were still the closest of friends.

  Ethan and Chip, in Annabel’s eyes, were the dynamic duo. They were the coolest of the cool when she’d been a freshman. Everyone in the school worshiped both Ethan and Chip, and not just because they were good-looking.

  Smoking hot, both of them, actually.

  But they were the embodiment of the boy next door. The ones that helped the little old lady cross the street by day, and by night…oh boy, she could only imagine. Chip and Ethan weren’t the kind of young men to get into too much trouble, but that wasn’t to say they didn’t push and bend the rules every so often.

  “I think the most unbelievable thing is that this lovely, sweet, adorable, sexy, intelligent woman would ever consider spending the rest of her life with a stupid jock like me.” Chip wrapped his arms around his bride’s waist. “Shall we tell them?”

  “Might as well,” Rosie said, her face shining bright like a little girl running through a field of flowers, chasing the white particles of a dandelion. “But you can’t tell Mom and Dad, got it, Ethan? We want to—”

  “You’re pregnant,” Annabel said, covering her mouth. She should really learn to think before she spoke. Her hand instinctively went to her own belly. Happy tears welled in her eyes. As little girls, they always planned on having kids at the same time. Annabel glanced over her shoulder, scanning the church once again for Devin. She found him all right, nose to nose with Quinn, again.

  “Holy crap, Mom is going to flip out.” Ethan yanked his sister in for a big hug and smacked his lips on her cheek, either oblivious to the fact his beloved Quinn had her hands all over Devin or choosing to ignore it.

  Maybe he just was a confident man and knew without a shadow of a doubt his darling would never do something crazy like cheat on him.

  Annabel breathed deeply through her nose, letting it out slowly, shoving that thought to the back of her brain, where it had been trying to seep into her daily truth.

  “And Dad will have a heart attack. No one ever thought you’d ever get married, much less have kids,” Ethan continued.

  “Hey, watch the hair, bro.” Rosie playfully palmed her brother’s face. “I wish I could say your turn is next, but I don’t think Qu—”

  “Sweetheart, don’t you want to freshen up before we take pictures?” Chip asked.

  He should have let Rosie finish the statement. Maybe Ethan would open his big, green eyes and see that his sister was right about Quinn, just like she’d been right about Devin.

  Only Annabel wasn’t quite ready to accept it yet. Or do anything about it.

  Annabel couldn’t help but stare at Quinn and the way her boyfriend smiled, tossing his head back a tad and finding ways to constantly touch Quinn, who did the same, except her signature move was a flick of the hair over the right shoulder.

  That tickle in the back of Annabel’s mind turned into a gorilla screaming that Devin was never going to want to get married and have kids.

  Nor would he ever truly be a one-woman man.

  “Okay, wedding party,” a woman carrying a clipboard said, snapping her fingers. “There’s another wedding coming up, so we need to get our pictures done.” The woman, whose name skirted Annabel’s grasp for the moment, owned a full-service wedding planning business. She glided across the room. Her blonde hair had been pulled into a tight ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wore a fitted black skirt with a tight, pink top that showed off some serious cleavage.

  Rosie had told her that the wedding planning company came highly recommended, but Rosie also often complained about how bossy the planner was.

  And that she walked like she had a stick up her ass.

  Annabel had to agree.

  “Oh, hey, Ethan, where is your beautiful fiancée?” the wedding planner asked, curling her fingers around his biceps. What was it with everyone at this wedding? Did someone put a flirting potion in the water or something? Hell, even Ethan splashed a little in the dallying.

  “She’s inside, waiting for us to head back in.” Ethan pointed to the inside of the church. “Have you met Annabel? Rosie’s best friend from—”

  “Yes. I met her and her handsome boyfriend last night briefly. What was his name? Devin?”

  “Yeah.” Annabel folded her arms across her chest, eying Quinn and Devin. Annabel’s stomach sloshed, sending bile to the back of her throat. Quinn had her long fingers wrapped around Devin’s biceps. She tilted her head toward his shoulder as she laughed out loud. Their flirting for the past two days only reinforced what Annabel knew deep down but didn’t want to admit.

  She’d made an eight-year-long mistake.

  But now was not the time to deal with it. She would not do anything to put a damper on Rosie’s wedding day, though she might have to say something to Ethan.

  He deserved better than Quinn.

  “Ethan, we need to have a pow-wow. You and Quinn haven’t set a date yet,” the wedding planner said. Dawn. That was her name.

  “Quinn just got a promotion at work, so we’re putting it off until her hours calm down a bit,” Ethan said with a smile, but his gaze darted to his fiancé, and his eyes narrowed. “We want a fall wedding, after hurricane season, so it will be at least a year.”

  “Why such a long engagement?” Annabel asked, then shut her mouth realizing she shouldn’t have said anything.

  “We’ve been together for six years, so what’s another one? Besides, we live together. What’s the difference?”

  Annabel could name a half-dozen or so reasons on why living together was completely different from a marriage, but instead she smiled sweetly and nodded.

  “Most weddings take months to plan, so let’s work on setting that date so I can start booking things for you. I don’t want to do what I had to do with this one, but your sister insisted on doing a quickie. I could have done much better if I’d had a few more months.” Dawn waved her hand in the air, snapping again. “Inside everyone.” Her four-inch heels clicked as she sashayed through the crowd, turning heads, the photographer in tow.

  “She’s pleasant,” Annabel whispered sarcastically, watching Dawn stop and chat with Quinn and Devin.

  Dawn actually touched Devin on the arm. Wonderful. Two women falling at the feet of her boyfriend, who enjoyed the attention a little too much.

  “If my sister and Chip hadn’t wanted to get married so fast, they might have forgone the planner, and I really hope Quinn changes her mind about using her.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it until you set a date, if you set one,” Annabel said, and then cringed after she realized she’d said the words out loud. “Sorry.”

  “I’m sure my sister is giving you an earful, but Quinn just has a lot on her mind,” Ethan said. “We should probably head in.”

  Annabel turned and once again, Devin and Quinn graced her vision. “They make a dashing couple.”

  “Sounds like you and Devin are having some problems,” Ethan said with a light tone, but he sported a slight frown.

  “Let’s just say, I’m seriously considering what makes up paradise, and I doubt it’s Devin.”

  Ethan rested his hand on the small of her back. “Quinn is just overly friendly. You have nothing to worry…” Ethan’s voice trailed off as a very handsome man stepped up behind Quinn. She turned and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Wow. That guy’s sexy. Who the hell is he?” Annabel should really learn that being inquisitive would get her in trouble.

  “Brett Henderson, an old family friend of Quinn’s. I didn’t kno
w he was invited.” Ethan maneuvered her down the aisle toward Quinn and Devin.

  “Must be a plus one,” Annabel said. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  “Hey, Quinn,” Ethan called as he guided Annabel into the church. “We’ve got to do some pictures.”

  “Not me,” Quinn said. “I’m not family, yet, as your sister reminded me earlier.”

  “She didn’t say that.” Ethan’s voice pitched up a notch.

  Annabel had only met Quinn a few times and didn’t get the attraction Ethan had for her. She just wasn’t his type. Ethan had always been down to earth. Easygoing and laid back. Not to mention, he loved playing sports and being on the water. From what Rosie had told her about Quinn, they were a match made in hell.

  But hey, who was she to judge?

  “She doesn’t like me and doesn’t want me in all the family photos. We’ll get our own when we get married.” Quinn patted Ethan’s shoulder.

  Annabel decided it was time to end this madness as she pressed her hand on Devin’s chest. She shivered, and it wasn’t a good quiver of her skin. No. It was more like a snake shedding a dried-up layer of death.

  It took Quinn a good minute to get the hint.

  “Dawn asked about the date,” Ethan said with a tight voice. “We already know we want the end of October or early November, so let’s just pick one.”

  “Now is not the time. This is about your sister.” It was the only smart thing Quinn had said all day.

  Annabel wanted out of this conversation and from the way Devin’s gaze darted all around the room, he wanted to run out of the church. She’d been lucky he’d agreed to attend, and the only reason had been because one of his big clients was vacationing at the Jupiter Ocean Side Resort and Spa. The hotel was located in the center of Jupiter, Florida, walking distance from all the best restaurants in town. It had the best view of the ocean, and there wasn’t another resort for miles that had the same draw.