Checking it, she whispers back that it’s only one minute later than the last time Odelia asked.
The bride is late, and Pandora’s serenade is getting on everyone’s nerves. Parked with her keyboard beneath a tree long before the guests were seated, she’d announced that she was saving “Fields of Gold” for the ceremony. Then she launched into what she referred to as a “repertoire of romantic classics.”
Her rendition of “Just the Way You Are” was accompanied by the keyboard’s percussion setting with an offbeat samba rhythm. She ended “Can’t Help Falling in Love” with an Elvis-like “Thank you. Thank you very much.” Now she’s belting “Feelings,” wearing a soulful expression with her calico dress and sensible shoes.
Pandora, whom Odelia likened to “a bad Vegas lounge lizard disguised as someone’s frumpy spinster aunt,” might be frightful for her captive audience, but Bella is privately grappling with a far scarier situation.
How could her phone have disappeared and reappeared behind a locked door?
Just like Calla’s bracelet. The one she dropped into her mother’s grave.
Bella doesn’t believe in mischievous, ghostly behavior. So she must have somehow overlooked the phone the first time she checked.
Except, she didn’t.
Anyway, the battery is still low. It wouldn’t be if it had been charging all that time.
Why would Johneen’s stalker want to borrow her cell phone?
Unfortunately, Bella had removed the password-lock function, so anyone could have accessed her online accounts via the saved information in her phone. She hurriedly checked them all to make sure there was no unusual activity—there wasn’t—and changed the log-in data for each one. She also reenabled the phone password and quickly created a new one.
She enters it now and flips through the applications, searching for something amiss. Her rarely visited social media accounts are all intact, no one has been shopping online courtesy of her credit cards, and her e-mail is free of spam.
Grant has yet to reply to the one she sent earlier with the photos attached, which reminds her that she’s supposed to be taking pictures of the wedding.
The lovely blue sky has faded to what Bella prefers to think of as white-gold in honor of the wedding and not evidence of an approaching storm. At least she got some good photos earlier, when the sun was still shining brightly . . . or did she? She’d been so rushed and distracted that she’d barely glanced at them before sending them to Grant.
As she clicks on the image file to look them over, Odelia whispers, “How much longer are we supposed suffer through this?”
“The singing?”
“Everything!” Odelia shifts a meaningful glare from Pandora to Blue Slayton, sitting beside Calla with his arm casually slung across the back of her chair.
Every time she looks at him, Bella wishes she’d had a chance to continue her earlier conversation with Calla or to talk to Parker and Virginia again. But Parker remained behind closed doors with his bride, and Bella was reluctant to knock.
Engulfed in a wedding whirlwind from that moment to this, she kept an eye out for Virginia but didn’t see her again until she came outside for the wedding with Frankie and Tanya. They aren’t necessarily unattractive, but they might as well have been cast as ugly stepsisters beside the striking Virginia. She isn’t wearing white, but that might not matter when Johneen spots her.
Nor is she in the bride’s coveted spotlight. But she’s close enough, in the front row. An unlikely bodyguard, she can’t possibly be toting a weapon in her off-the-shoulder blue sheath, but Bella doesn’t doubt that it’s concealed in the sequined evening bag she’s clutching as securely as Bella is her phone.
Beneath the chuppah, Parker is handsome as ever in his dark suit with a daisy boutonniere pinned to his lapel. She can’t see his eyes, as he’s wearing his sunglasses again. Behind the dark lenses, Bella knows, he’s probably scanning the area, keeping an eye out not just for his bride but for a stealthy gate-crasher.
Maid of honor Liz is stationed at the foot of the back steps in her yellow bridesmaid’s dress, poised to precede the bride down the grassy aisle.
Odelia, standing beside Bella, is ready to officiate. She’s sedately dressed in a navy pillbox hat with a swoop of veil across her eyes and a conservative pantsuit Bella couldn’t imagine had come out of her closet.
Turned out it hadn’t. She confessed that she’d bought it for a dollar at a tag sale this week.
“Ordinarily, I’d wear a white robe, but this is a nondenominational ceremony.”
“Plus the bride said no white.”
“Exactly. No chance of upstaging her in this.” Odelia glanced down in distaste at her conventional attire. “I can’t wait to change back into my normal clothes.”
Normal being a relative term.
“Feelings . . . whoa, oh, oh, feelings,” Pandora sings, her soprano just slightly off-key, her fingers pounding the keyboard with an oddly staccato jauntiness that doesn’t complement the song.
Bella looks down at her phone again.
Wait a minute. Why is the photo folder empty?
What happened to all the shots she took earlier?
She scrolls through the camera files and then through others.
There’s no evidence of them on her phone.
Could she have accidentally hit Delete instead of Attach when she sent that e-mail to Grant?
No. A quick check shows her that he did get the e-mail and responded a short time ago.
Nice shots! Keep them coming! G.E.
Okay. If she didn’t do it, then did the person who stole her phone erase the files, perhaps by accident?
Or . . . on purpose? But why?
Pandora transitions from “Feelings” to Barry Manilow’s “We’ve Made It Through the Rain.”
Not yet, they haven’t. The breeze off the water is still gentle for October, but the temperature has dropped enough to raise goose bumps on Bella’s bare arms—if they weren’t already there. A knot of fear tightens in her gut as she thinks of Johneen, alone in the house, unaware that she might be in danger.
“I’ll be right back,” Bella whispers abruptly to Odelia.
“Where are you going?”
“To check on Johneen.”
As she hurries toward the house, the wind seems to shift direction. It isn’t just cooler, it suddenly smells different, heavily scented with flowers.
Again, something grazes her consciousness—last night, the mirror, her dream self as a bride—but it slips from her grasp like a keep-away ball.
Stepping into the kitchen, she nearly crashes into Johneen.
“I was just coming to find you. Are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready.” The bride stands her ground. “I just need another minute.”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I am.” She sounds prickly as always, her upper-crust accent firmly in place. But her eyes have a wide, incandescent quality.
It’s just makeup and anticipation, Bella assures herself. This is her wedding day.
Still . . .
Oddly, the floral perfume is even stronger in the house. She looks around for the source but sees only the bridal bouquet and the sprigs of Shasta daisies and Queen Anne’s lace in Johneen’s hair.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“I’m . . . not,” Johneen admits. “No. I’m not.”
If she were anyone else, Bella might press a palm to her forehead or even put a reassuring arm around her. But she doesn’t dare touch the bride, fearful she might leave a smudge.
“You haven’t eaten much today. Unless you snuck away for a cheeseburger when I wasn’t looking.”
Her feeble attempt at a joke doesn’t merit a smile. Johneen merely looks down at her form-fitting silk gown. “Even if I was starving—which I wasn’t—this dress isn’t very forgiving.”
Taken aback by the glimpse of vulnerability, Bella almost feels sorry for her. Perfection can’
t be easy.
Imperfection is tough enough.
“Do you need some crackers or something?”
“You want me to eat in this dress? Now?”
“I just thought—”
“Are you crazy?” she barks. Same old Johneen.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Who’s asking you?”
“First Calla’s grandmother, and now you.”
“I didn’t know you’d even talked to Odelia. When was this?”
“She texted me a little while ago. She wanted to come upstairs, but I told her I needed some time alone. Then she reminded me there was still time to postpone the wedding if I wanted to.”
Funny. Odelia hadn’t mentioned that to Bella. Then again, they’d been busy putting finishing touches on the food and trying to herd the guests outside.
“I asked her why she thought I’d want to do that,” Johneen goes on, “and she said maybe we should just wait a little longer.”
“What did you say?”
“What do you think? If I wanted to wait, would I be standing here in a wedding gown?”
“It sounds like you know exactly what you want to do.”
“Yes, and if I didn’t feel so dizzy, I’d be doing it right this second. Can you get me some cold water?”
No please, Bella notes, going over to the sink, and no thank you when she hands over a glass. But this time, she forgives the lapse in manners. Johneen might look beautiful, but she really doesn’t seem well.
As for Odelia, if she’s desperate enough to try to convince Johneen to postpone the wedding when it was her own idea to have it here in the first place, then she could very well have been desperate enough to write that note and steal it back. Bella supposes she could also have stolen the wedding ring, hoping that would be enough to stall the wedding. But why would she take Bella’s cell phone, too?
How infuriating to imagine that her wedding-planning partner—her friend, the person who concocted the perfect plan to guarantee Bella and Max’s future in Lily Dale—is now trying to sabotage the wedding.
Yet it’s almost a relief. Better Odelia than some sinister stranger. For all her faults, Bella is certain she isn’t capable of harming another human being. Not physically, and certainly not intentionally. Whatever she’s been up to, it’s because she truly believes she’s working toward the greater good.
Bella watches Johneen take a few sips of water, eyes closed.
“You said flowers bother you. Are you allergic, like Tanya?”
“I’m not allergic. I just don’t like fragrance. That’s why I didn’t want a scented bouquet.”
“So you can’t smell it? Because it seems strong to me now.”
Johneen frowns, lifting the bouquet to her nose and inhaling deeply. “I can’t smell a thing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Why? Can you?” She holds out the bouquet.
Bella shakes her head, somehow certain that even if she buries her nose in it, she won’t locate the source of the perfume in the air. Either she’s imagining it, or it’s . . . what? Nadine?
No. No way. The phantom floral scent is simply another Lily Dale peculiarity that seems to defy science. It too has a perfectly logical explanation—perhaps sensory phenomenology.
Just like when you heard those clanging wind chimes deep in the woods, Bella reminds herself, shuddering even now to remember that awful July day. At the time, cornered by a murderer, she truly believed the sound was a ghostly warning.
Now that logic prevails, she knows it was either a panic-triggered delusion or an acoustic aberration.
She’s stressed, but she isn’t panicking. This isn’t a delusion. The scent is real.
Why can’t Johneen smell it?
Because . . . because . . .
Because maybe she has anosmia.
It’s a legitimate medical condition: the temporary or permanent impairment of one’s sense of smell.
See? All you have to do is use your background in science and take a moment to consider the possibilities.
Pleased with her latest hypothesis, Bella takes the empty glass from Johneen. “Do you want a refill? Or do you want to sit down for a minute?”
“No.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m ready to go.”
This time, Bella doesn’t ask if she’s sure, and not just because she desperately wants to be back outside in the fresh air.
Johneen is anxious and tired and possibly coming down with something, but Bella is certain it isn’t a case of cold feet. She isn’t going to let anything or anyone—not Odelia, or Spirit, or even a stalker, real or imaginary—keep this wedding from happening.
Not just because my own future depends on it.
Because Johneen really does love Parker, and she wants to marry him.
Chapter Fourteen
Twenty minutes, two gold bands—one a secretly borrowed family heirloom—and an off-key rendition of “Fields of Gold” later, Parker and Johneen are finally married.
Odelia makes the pronouncement, wearing a smile that’s simultaneously relieved and strained. She’s obviously still concerned that something might go wrong.
But that’s life, Bella thinks as she allows herself to exhale at last. Married or not.
Nobody knows that better than I do.
Growing up motherless, raised by a grieving single father, you can’t help but be well aware that calamity might strike at any given moment of any given day. And when it does . . .
You muster every shred of inner strength to move on, because what else is there to do?
“Can I kiss the bride?” Parker asks, and laughter ripples through the crowd.
Smiling, Odelia assures him that he can.
Watching him gently cup his new wife’s face in his hands as his lips tenderly brush hers, Bella remembers what it was like to be kissed that way. It was thrilling, and comforting, and—
“Guess I’m just in time.”
Startled by the low voice close to her ear, she spins around and finds Drew Bailey standing behind her. To her surprise, he’s changed from jeans into a pair of dark trousers, a white shirt, and a sport coat. He’s so close she can smell his aftershave mingling with the still-pervasive scent of flowers.
“Hey, you came back,” she whispers.
“Told you I would.”
Right. For the plumbing and the kitten.
But you don’t get all dressed up to fix a leak or rescue an animal.
She doesn’t dare keep looking at him, afraid he’ll be able to tell what she’s thinking.
She turns and watches Parker release Johneen. He’s smiling; she looks a little shaky. Maybe because she’s been swept off her feet.
Yeah, I get that, Bella thinks, longing to sneak another peek at Drew. She’s never seen him this clean-shaven or dressed up. Nor has she ever seen him looking at her the way he did just now, as if . . . as if he wanted to . . .
The guests applaud politely, and Pandora belts “We’ve Only Just Begun” as the bride and groom recess down the grassy aisle. The guests are on their feet following them, and Odelia makes a beeline for Bella.
“We did it!”
Swept into her friend’s fervent embrace, Bella can hardly start flinging accusations. As Odelia releases her and turns to greet Drew, she notices that the floral scent is still drifting heavily in the air.
Nearby, Johneen and Parker, arm in arm, accept congratulations from their guests.
Bella has witnessed plenty of weddings and has been a bride herself. This is how it always goes after marriage vows are exchanged. Loved ones flock to congratulate the bride and groom, who are giddy with joy and excitement.
But as a smiling Johneen accepts a hug from her maid of honor, she seems to be merely going through the motions.
Bella turns to Odelia, wondering if she, too, has noticed. But she’s busy unbuttoning her navy jacket.
“If you ever get rema
rried, Bella, I promise I’ll be your officiant. But I’m never wearing this clown suit again.”
Remarried? Why would she even say that? And especially right now, with Drew here.
Bella feels her face grow hot.
“I think you look very regal,” he tells Odelia.
“No, I look very ridiculous, and—” She breaks off to address the empty space beside her. “Yes, Mae, he is. But it’s a good thing he can’t see you, you naughty girl.”
Drew raises an eyebrow at her.
“An old friend,” Odelia explains. “She says you’re handsome.”
“Um . . . thank you?”
“What’s that, Mae?” Odelia seems to listen, then relays, “She thinks Bella looks nice, too.”
“Bella looks beautiful,” Drew says, and Bella’s face grows hotter still.
Drew Bailey thinks she looks beautiful?
“Thank you,” she murmurs, and he replies, “You’re welcome.” At that moment, even the ghostly conversation has stalled.
Fumbling for something to say, Bella comes up with “Food.”
Drew and Odelia just look at her, then at each other.
“We have to eat the food!” she tells them. “No, I mean, we have to serve the food. For the reception.”
“First, we need to pop the champagne for a toast,” Odelia reminds her.
“You’re right! We need to serve the toast!”
“You’re serving toast?”
“No!” she tells Drew. “I meant we have to serve the pop for the toast and pour the food!”
Drew grins. “Have you been drinking already?”
Giving up, Bella hurries toward the house.
Heading in the opposite direction, Odelia calls, “I’ll be back!”
“But what about the champagne? And the food?”
“I have to change! I’ll be quick!”
Suspicion dogs Bella as she strides into the house, nearly hitting Drew with the door as she pulls it closed behind her.
“Sorry! I didn’t know you were coming with me.”
“I figured someone had better help you, and your co-captain seems to have jumped ship.”
You have no idea, she thinks, saying only, “It’s okay. You don’t have to help.”
“I want to, and it seems like you need me.”
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