by Bella Falls
I loved you
By the time we got through the second verse, another round of the chorus, and the bridge, there was barely a dry eye in the entire place. Hunter nodded at me when we sang the duet for the special verse added just for tonight.
Now, here it’s our wedding day
My heart is so full
There’s just so much I need to say
I promise you I’ll try to honor
All our wedding vows
Through good and through bad
I’m gonna love you
More than I do now
When I repeated the chorus, my heart soared in the moment and with celebration of the meaning of the lyrics. I sought out Luke while the song came to a close and sang right to him, hoping he could hear my devotion for him with the final notes.
Harrison twirled Azalea away from him and back, finishing their dance with a careful dip. All of the guests erupted into applause and hollers as he planted a dramatic kiss before pulling her upright. She stumbled into his arms in a heap of laughter and tears.
Hopped up on adrenaline, I couldn’t stop smiling. My friends hooted a little too loudly when Hunter thanked me for joining in. With a shy wave to the crowd, I hurried to the side of the stage and let the professionals take over.
Luke met me and escorted me back onto solid ground. Grabbing my hand, he dragged me away from the lit area of the reception to a darker, more secluded spot behind a nearby tree.
“What are you doing?” I asked with a giggle, pleased to have my boyfriend no longer holding back.
He stopped and yanked me into a tight embrace. “I needed a moment alone with my girlfriend to show her how amazing she is, and that I felt every single word of that song.”
He placed a knuckle under my chin and tipped my head up. His eyes blazed with feral desire, and I wondered if he would attempt to ravish me right here, right now. Instead of crashing his lips against mine, he sighed and brushed a finger down my cheek. Taking the lead, he rocked me back and forth in our own private slow dance, never taking his eyes off mine.
When the music for the other official wedding dances stopped, so did he. Luke stepped back and ran his hand through his hair. “Listen, Rue, I’m aware I’ve been a little distant with you lately.”
His bringing up a sadder topic doused my excitement. I placed a finger over his lips keep him from following it up with anything that would ruin our night. “Good, because you have. But we can talk about all that later. For now, escort me back and dance with me until my feet fall off, please.”
He tilted his head and observed me with interested eyes as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do. Kissing each fingertip, he gave in and linked his fingers through mine. We sauntered out of the shadows in the direction of the rest of my friends as they flooded the dance floor, kicking up a storm to Tailgate Down’s cover of a popular country hit.
Ms. Robin intercepted us right before we got to our table, giving me a warm hug. “I wanted to tell you before I headed home to rest that I think you have the most marvelous voice.”
“Thank you so much for the compliment. I swear, half of my even being able to get up there was knowing I looked like I do in your dress,” I countered. “Did you and Tara have a good day? I haven’t seen her around.”
“Oh, she stayed for the beginnings of the reception but said she wasn’t feeling well.” The designer frowned until she glanced at my attire again. The sight of it brought a smile back to her face. “And that dress isn’t mine, dear. It’s yours. In my shop, it’s just a bunch of fabric, but you’ve brought it to life tonight.”
Luke reached his hand out and captured the designer’s, bringing it to his lips and kissing the back of it in reverence. “Thank you for your talents.”
Ms. Robin cheeks reddened. “Oh my but aren’t you the charming one.” She fanned herself with her free hand. “Ruby Mae, I hope you’ll be visiting me again much sooner than you think.” With a wink to both of us, she left.
Tipsy on sweet tea and lemonade mojitos, the chance to sing for the newlyweds, and the hope for me and Luke, the rest of the night passed in a blur. We danced to almost every single song until we’d worked off every extra calorie from the meal. Luke and I got in at least two more slow dances together, and I marveled at his skills in leading me around the dance floor better than a ballroom professional.
When it came time for the bouquet toss, I took my place in the middle of the floor with the rest of the giddy girls. Azalea counted down, and by the time she got to one, everyone around me stepped out of the way. The sneaky bride turned to face us and lobbed the flowers right at me.
Worried that the heat of my embarrassment might ignite the bouquet, I chastised my friends for setting me up and searched for Luke, fearing his disapproval. Instead, he laughed and held up a tumbler of scotch to toast me. Odie clapped an arm over his shoulder, no doubt giving him heck over having to marry me sometime in the future.
During the cake cutting, I expected someone to get a face full of frosting. But Azalea and Harrison fed each other without making a mess. The efficient servers appeared at the tables, bringing pre-cut slices of the red velvet cake with elaborate buttercream frosting decorations to everyone. A buffet table of other Southern sweets opened up, and we splurged on fancy banana pudding, pecan pie, and peach cobbler. Knowing we’d work off the calories with more dancing, we indulged our sugar cravings.
Some of the older guests left after the last scheduled activity, including Azalea’s parents. But a lot of us stayed on the dance floor, getting our groove on to every song Hunter and his band could throw at us. They started taking requests, and we tried to trip them up with more than just country tunes. The only surprise came when Hunter belted out Shoulda Known Better by a popular female country star. Why he would agree to sing a song about a cheater, I’d never know, but the tune was so catchy that we shook more than just our tail feathers until we were breathless.
“I gotta hit the Ladies’ room,” I announced, hoping to head toward the facilities before the band played another good song.
As if sensing my predicament and picking the perfect time to mess with me, EJ tore through the familiar electric guitar intro to a fun country party anthem.
Cate grabbed my hand. “Come on,” she whined. “One more song.”
“I gotta go,” I insisted, pulling out of her grasp. “I promise I’ll be right back.”
A little lightheaded from all the merriment, I stumbled my way to the guest bathrooms inside the house, thankful for a moment’s peace to sort myself out and make myself a little more presentable. I admired the gorgeous dress and what it did for me in the full-length mirror before heading back toward the twinkling lights and laughter of the reception.
With careful steps, I walked down the dimly lit path from the house back to the party. Recognizing the distinctive cackling of my friends, I sped up to find out what the joke was. As I approached the edge of the activities, a strange sound off to my left caught my ear. Something about it felt out of place, and I stood still and strained to hear it again.
Staring into the wooded area right behind the wedding party table, I tried to make out what might have made the noise. Light filtered in patches but didn’t illuminate enough of the landscape for me to identify an animal or anything recognizable. Hunter’s voice announced they would be playing their last song, and I shrugged, figuring my fuzzy brain from all the drinking and having fun had imagined it.
The band played the first few bars until a sudden shriek in the air interrupted them. Chills broke out over my skin, and I stumbled and struggled forward to where the scream had come from.
“What’s going on?” I asked, approaching a darkened shadow of a figure. “What happened?”
“Help! You have to help me!” The bride’s high-pitched panic pierced the darkness.
Without a thought as to who might catch me, I spellcast a small ball of light. The glow reflected on not one but two people, and I held my hand over my mouth to contain a scream.
Azalea knelt over a crumpled man in a tuxedo, both hands wrapped around the hilt of a knife buried into his back.
Chapter Four
“What are you doing?” I yelled at the bride, fear and alarm burning off the rest of my buzz.
Without hesitation, I lunged at her, struggling to yank her off of whoever was lying on the ground. We tussled enough that we jostled the body, and the figure groaned in pain.
Azalea attempted to fight me off. “Don’t!” she grunted. “I have to get it out of him!” With more strength than I anticipated, she pushed me backwards onto my behind. “Somebody did this to him, and I have to fix it.”
Her words sunk into my head, and their meaning dawned on me. I scrambled to my knees to stop her. “Wait!” I demanded, placing my hands over hers again to keep her from making a huge mistake. “If you’re trying to take the knife out, don’t.” Using all my reserves, I ignored the pain of her boney elbows in my ribs and pried her fingers off the hilt of the knife.
“You’re. Hurting. Him. Ow! And me,” she accused, cradling the hand I peeled off.
I gritted my teeth. “Then stop fighting me and listen. Whoever this is, you could do way more damage than what’s already been done if you pull the blade out.”
With a gasp, she let go and held up both hands in surrender. Looking at me for the first time with widened eyes, her breath came in pants while she rambled. “I…wasn’t thinking. It’s just, Harrison and I had talked about sneaking off to steal a couple of minutes alone. When I couldn’t find him on the dance floor, I thought this was some sort of fun game and we could, you know, make out or something as husband and wife while everyone was having fun. And then I got worried when he didn’t answer his phone, so I went searching around until I almost stumbled over him here. As soon as I knew it was him, I freaked out, especially when I saw the knife. And it’s hurting him, and I’m the one who’s supposed to take care of him.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I’m his wife.”
Placing a hand on her trembling shoulder, I spoke in a deliberate, calm tone, “Trust me, pulling out that knife is going to be the opposite of fixing it. I need you to breathe, Azalea, while I see how bad it is.”
It took great effort on my part not to freak out as much as the bride was, but the last thing we needed was for her to lose her mind and pull out that knife. Gathering as much courage as I could, I crawled forward to check out the body of my friend.
“Harrison.” I tapped on his shoulder. “Can you hear me?” With a little more effort, I shook him, hoping he would at least grunt again, but he made no reply. Fear gnawed at my gut and I froze, not knowing what else to do.
“What’s going on here?” Luke’s deep voice interrupted us, and I yelped, losing control of the light ball and plunging us back into the dark. He sniffed the air. “Why do I smell blood?” He flashed to my side with vampiric speed and grasped my hands, scenting them. “This isn’t yours.”
I hadn’t even notice that Azalea transferred some of the blood from her hands to mine. Although I couldn’t see the crimson liquid on either of us without creating another light orb, I didn’t want it on me. Luke pulled the pocket square out of his suit jacket and wiped my hands clean.
Azalea crumpled forward with a sob, and I caught her, letting her bawl on my shoulder. With sympathy and pity, I held onto her despite my desire to figure out what was going on with the body. “I can’t see anything anymore, but I think that’s Harrison lying behind us. There’s a knife sticking out his back on the left side, and I think he might be…” I couldn’t bring myself to add dead.
“He isn’t,” Luke said, responding to my unspoken word. “I can see much more than you can, and he’s definitely still alive. Although we need to get him medical attention right away. He’s having a hard time breathing.”
Hope caused the bride to lose the rest of her control, and she wailed in both distress and relief, dragging herself back to her new husband’s side. “Harrison, I’m here.” She gripped his hand with both of hers. “I’m right beside you.”
Luke advised her not to move the body. After he settled her next to her husband, he helped me to my feet. “Did you see what happened? Did Azalea do that?”
I shook my head. “I wish I knew. I didn’t see anything. All I heard was her crying before I discovered her hovering over Harrison’s body. Even though she’s not making a lot of sense, I think she found him that way and thought she should pull the knife out. I stopped her because I figured it would make him bleed out or something.”
“It very well could have. You did good.” He kissed my temple. “But now you need to do the right thing. Call 9-1-1 to get the paramedics and the authorities here. At this point, it’s a crime scene and you’re a witness.”
“But a witness to what? I mean, I don’t understand what’s going on.” The only thing I knew for certain was that whoever had done this to Harrison on his wedding night was a hateful, awful person.
“Nobody knows right now, but that’s not your job to figure out. Follow protocol. Call the police. And after that, you know the next step, right?” he prodded, squatting down next to Azalea whose blubbering was getting out of control again from her shock.
I wrinkled my nose at the inevitable. “I have to call Ebonee and inform her because a coven member is involved.” Blowing out a long breath, I fumbled in the shadows to find my dropped clutch. With the beaded bag in my grasp, I pulled out the spell phone. “This night just took a turn none of us could have expected.”
It didn’t take long for others to follow the commotion and find our tableau of horror. The rest of the guests crowded around the edges until the paramedics arrived with the police. Based on what Ebonee advised me, I understood the importance of cooperating with the officer in charge in order to get through the ordeal and allow her time to alert the local wardens and her magical law enforcement contacts. With the Wallace House located on a spit of land between Cedar Point and Bogue right on the water, I couldn’t predict who had jurisdiction.
Since good news travels fast and bad news travels faster, a lot of attention focused on me with the speculation that I knew more than I actually did. Even my friends didn’t totally believe me when I said I didn’t know anything other than Harrison was hurt and Azalea had found him. A teeny tiny part of me questioned whether or not she might have done the deed herself, but I chased away those niggling demons after watching her weeping and wailing over him while the paramedics rolled the gurney onto the lit pathway back to the parking lot. Gloria stayed by her best friend’s side, her face pale and strained.
“I feel so bad for them,” Dani stated, wiping a tear from her cheek.
Cate hugged her from the side. “I know. Everything had been so beautiful, too.”
I checked around the area near us. “Where’s Crystal?”
My cousin waved at Gloria, who glanced back at us with the saddest eyes. “Odie stole her off the dance floor about the time you left to go to the bathroom. I don’t want to think about why they left in such a hurry. Guess it’s a good thing they missed all this.”
Luke stayed by my left side but remained so still, it unnerved me. “You okay?” I asked.
He grunted in affirmation. “I don’t like that you’ll be dragged into this.”
I attempted to ease his tension by sliding my arm around his middle and forcing him to put his around my shoulders to cuddle me. His body felt more like a boulder than a pillow. “Honey, they’re my friends. You know I would have gotten involved whether I’d found them or not. And remember, if I hadn’t stopped Azalea, Harrison might have been in bigger trouble. Now, he has a chance.”
“His pulse was weakened,” admitted Luke. “Based on how he was laying on his side, I’d guess the knife got him in the spleen. Or maybe the kidney. Neither one is good. And if there’s internal bleeding…”
“Holy hexes,” I muttered. “You sure?”
His eyes found mine, and I shivered under his gaze. “I’m more than well acquainted with the component
s of the body. I’m sure.”
My instincts forced me to take a step away from him, but he shook himself out of his melancholy and pulled me back into a protective embrace. Kissing the top of my head, he attempted to act indifferent. I chose not to give his charade away to my friends.
Hunter and the rest of the band approached me after the medics disappeared and the wail of the ambulance’s siren rose in the air like a mournful tune. I made quick introductions of my friends to the band.
The lead singer scratched the back of his neck. “Man, I hope he pulls through. It’s a heck of a thing to happen, and on their wedding night.”
Since we’d been instructed not to go anywhere until the local authorities figured out how to handle breaking down the scene and talking to us, I eased some of my nerves and fed my curiosity. “Hunt, did any of y’all see anything strange from your viewpoint on the stage?”
EJ snorted. “Other than spotting some sneaky old lady put some of the utensils in her purse at one point, no.”
“We were all kinda busy,” Mac defended. He rolled his shoulders and sighed. “Sorry. That came out a little harsher than I meant it.”
I waved him off. “It’s okay. We’ve been through a lot and are a little touchy right now. Rightfully so.” Without a timeline of how long we’d be required to stick around, none of us knew what to expect. Uncertainty kept us unsettled.
A commotion at the far end of the crowd caught my attention, and I stretched on my tiptoes to see who was addressing people in such a stern tone. My stomach dropped when I spotted Deputy Sheriff Marshall Caine moving the bystanders out of the way.
“Please step to the side, thank you,” he said while moving through the throng. “We will be conducting interviews here shortly, so do not leave until you’ve been cleared to do so.”
“Sheriff Caine, would it be possible for us to sit down while we wait?” I asked. Agreement from others rose in chorus with my request.
The county law enforcement officer twitched his mustache in agitation when he recognized me. “I’m sure our team will get through our questions for each of you as fast as we can. Demanding that we go faster won’t get the job done.”