Murder and Matrimony

by Danielle Collins

  Margot smiled and squeezed his hand. She knew it was a blow to the force, but everyone was on the lookout for the former detective and she felt confident they’d find him soon.

  “Adam…” She turned to him again, the next question drawing from her compassion for his situation even as it warred with her own curiosity. “Can we talk about what happened?”

  Adam gave her a look and then let out a light sigh. “I knew you’d want to. I was just hoping for my first night back to be…relaxed.”

  “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she conceded, not wanting to make him talk if he didn’t want to.

  “Of course, we do.” He smiled over at her now, reassuring her. “I knew you’d want to talk about it. Selfishly, I think I wanted to forget it all but talking is better.”

  She waited, knowing that he would begin when he felt ready. It had been so overwhelming to be rescued by the SWAT team and then to come back to the North Bank station to be met with Adam as a free man once again. She’d broken down into tears of relief and, to her surprise, she’d seen them in Adam’s eyes as well.

  “I knew I was being framed,” he began. “I mean, of course I was. There was no way I would have killed anyone let alone done something so foolish as to use my own handcuffs and leave prints all over the location of the murder. I’m a detective for goodness sake.”

  Margot smiled. “So you’re saying that if you did kill someone, you’d leave no trace?”

  “You know what I mean,” he said, flashing her a good-natured smile. “But the worst part was being left in jail to think about all of this without any tried and true means of talking it out with anyone. Sure, Anthony came to visit a few times, but it’s not like our conversations weren’t recorded. And by that time, I think we both realized the only way this could have been pulled off was if it had been done inside the force.”

  “That’s so scary,” Margot said, shivering despite the warmth of the humid air.

  “I agree. But I didn’t know where to look and I couldn’t really do anything, so I didn’t. But I knew that you wouldn’t rest. You wouldn’t let me be charged with something I didn’t do.”

  Peter had filled Adam in on how Margot had finally made the connection to Karlsson and how, after the microscope was turned on him, there were signs of his duplicity everywhere, including a match for his handwriting to Sid’s note despite the fact he’d tried to disguise it. Sometimes all it took was an arrow in the right direction.

  “Once it was obvious Karlsson was the guilty party, they were able to expedite my release. I think someone higher up owed Anthony a favor and he pulled strings since he wanted me back for our wedding.”

  Adam’s smile warmed Margot’s heart. “I think you’re right. Is he…” She hesitated.

  “Coming to the wedding? Yes.” Adam offered a genuine smile at this. “I think he’s going to patch things up with my family.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  Adam turned to look out at the vista before them, lost in thought for some time before he spoke again. “I know that it must have been difficult with me in there. I heard from Anthony how you got into some trouble yourself—” He gave her a pointed look. “—but I wanted you to hear it from me that it wasn’t that I didn’t want you to visit me so much as I didn’t want more of a target being drawn on you.”

  “I hate to say it,” she interrupted, “but that happened regardless of me visiting or not. I’m sure it was part of Karlsson’s plan to harm me in order to hurt you more. But I understand what you’re saying. I was busy planning our wedding and freeing you so…” She grinned at him and he laughed. “But, in all seriousness, I want you to know that I will not let my care for you stop me just because danger is involved. If you don’t already know that about me, then maybe we should rethink getting married.”

  Adam sat up straighter at this. She knew that he understood this about her, but she had to make sure he heard it from her. He reached out and took her other hand in his, facing her as his hazel eyes poured into hers.

  “Margot Durand. I love you more than words can say and, while I’d prefer to keep you from all harm for the rest of our lives, I promise you something else. Something different.”

  “Go on,” she said when he paused.

  “I promise to be there beside you through it all. To love you even when you scare me with your bravery. And I will try my best not to let my own worries cloud my judgement where you are involved.”

  “So, in other words, you’ll be my shining knight…but only when I want you to be?”

  He laughed outright and the look of happiness on his handsome features was enough to make Margot’s eyes fill with tears again.

  “No, I’ll always be your shining knight and I’ll always rescue you when I’m able, but I will never try and make you less than who you are.”

  Margot’s heart filled to the brim with the kind words of the man she was going to marry in just a few short days. He cared for her, but it was deeper than that. It was the type of love she’d always dreamed of. The type of love that enhanced who she was without diminishing anything in its wake. A beautiful, faithful love.

  “Thank you, Adam. I love you so much, and I can’t wait to be your wife.”

  They shared a sweet, perfect kiss as the breeze wrapped around them, rustling the leaves of the shade-giving trees. It was a moment in time without the threat of a criminal or the worry of a mystery waiting to be solved.

  For now, it was their perfect moment.

  Epilogue

  The decorations swayed above the space as the whoosh of the air conditioner blew chilled air over the guests. Gold, ivory, and black balloons decorated the edges of the room in tasteful groups of twos and threes, as delicate white flowers draped elegantly over the end chairs that lined the aisle.

  Margot felt a rush of butterflies in her stomach and rested a hand over the ivory gown she wore. This was it. Her wedding day. The day she had been waiting—fighting—for. It hardly felt real. Then again, the whispers throughout the senior complex, the extra guests that were made up of the over-sixty crowd, and the tables of homemade and store-bought items that filled the right side of the space were reminders enough.

  It wasn’t the way she’d pictured her wedding, but she was ready to say it was already better than what she could have created on her own. There was something to be said about a community coming together surrounding a common goal. The goal of Margot’s friends had been to put on the best wedding they knew how, and Margot could easily say they’d accomplished that.

  Up at the front, she saw Julia and Dexter sitting next to one another, her young son between them. Not far beyond them. she saw their creation. It was a stunning wedding cake worthy of the attention it was getting from the older generation flashing their flip phone cameras to point and shoot. It had three tiers alternating white, black, and white with expertly smooth fondant icing. Then, at the top of the cake where two small figures rested, a miniature Eiffel Tower stood proudly.

  It made Margot tear up, and she hadn’t even started down the aisle yet. It was like her past and present were coming together in perfect unity. And not only that, she had heard the story just that morning of how Dexter had proposed to Julia as they put the finishing touches on the cake. They hadn’t announced it yet, not wanting to supersede Adam and Margot’s big day, but Margot couldn’t have been happier for them. It would be her turn to repay them the favor of a wedding cake.

  Next to them, she saw Danielle and Peter, his arm protectively around the back of her chair. And then next to him, in an odd twist of criminal and FBI agent, sat Ben Anderson. Rosie Mae completed the row and Margot felt the tears start to skip down her cheeks. These people were her family.

  One of the residents, a long-time piano teacher, began the wedding processional and Margot slipped her hand through Bentley’s arm. He’d agreed to walk her down the aisle with tears in his eyes, and even now, his eyes looked a little misty.

  “You are a beautiful bride, my dea
r Margot!”

  “Thank you, Bentley. For walking me down the aisle and for helping me pull off this.” She gestured with her white rose bouquet to the senior center.

  “It was nothing. When everyone heard what happened at your venue, you couldn’t stop people from volunteering. We had to start making things up so people wouldn’t feel left out.”

  Margot could imagine this. Everyone in the senior community in North Bank seemed to have a hand in the wedding.

  As they walked toward the front together, rows upon rows of their friends standing to watch her walk past, Margot couldn’t help the stream of happy tears as they coursed down her cheeks. To think that she’d been given a second chance at love was a miracle in and of itself, but to celebrate it here, with those that she loved so much, was even better.

  Then her eyes met Adam’s and she felt the familiar zing of everything course through her. Attraction to his handsome, familiar features. Happiness at seeing him whole and alive, standing there waiting for her. Excitement for their new life together. And most of all, love. So much love for the man whose last name she would take and who she would vow to love for the rest of her life.

  As the ceremony progressed, Margot and Adam pledged their love and commitment to one another. The pastor officiating the ceremony even added in a ‘mystery clause’ as he called it, saying that they would pledge to work mysteries together. They both laughed, knowing that it was likely Dexter and Julia’s contribution to the day that he’d added that.

  Then finally, he turned to Adam and said, “You may kiss your bride.”

  Margot had kissed Adam many times before, but this kiss—a holy kiss in front of all those who loved and cared about them—sealed their vows. It assured that they had committed to one another.

  When his lips finally left hers, a cheer resounded through the hall and Adam threw up a fist saying “Yes!” Everyone laughed, and they started back down the aisle to congratulations and the snapping of many camera shutters.

  The reception, held in the same space as the ceremony, proved to be just as joyous. Adam and Margot made the rounds to groups of their friends, thanking them for their help and for their attendance. When they came to Chief Hartland, he pulled them aside.

  “I hate to even bring this up on your wedding day of all times,” he said, looking at Adam with chagrin, “but I thought you might want to know.”

  “Know what?” Adam asked.

  “They caught Karlsson early this morning trying to leave the country. He even had the gun he used to kill Sid on him. Now that was a slice of luck. He’s behind bars, right where he belongs.”

  Adam gave another “yes” and Margot had to laugh. “I can’t tell if you’re more excited about that or our wedding?”

  “Thanks for this news, Chief.” Adam shot Margot a look. “I greatly appreciate it, but can you excuse us a moment, though?”

  “Of course,” he said, regaining his spot at the standing table where many of the officers had congregated.

  “I was only teasing,” Margot said as Adam pulled her to the side of the building partially hidden behind a swaying clump of balloons.

  “I don’t want you to ever think that I would be more interested in a case than you, my lovely wife.” He accented the word wife with a roguish grin.

  “Good. That’s exactly what I want to hear.”

  He kissed her soundly, erasing any doubts she could have ever had about his affection for her, and then stood back. “You know I meant what I said up there.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I’m with you not only in sickness and in health, but in solving mysteries and laundry and yardwork and—”

  “I think I get the point,” she said, grinning.

  “All of it, Margie. You and me, together.”

  “Forever.” She pressed her lips to his again.

  In that moment, she felt happier than she had in a long time. She’d love her late husband Julian forever and would never forget him, but he was her past as Adam was her future. They had weathered so much together already. Cases in the mountains, across the country, and even on a cruise ship, but through it all, he had shown her nothing but love and care.

  Who knew what the future would bring, likely more mystery and intrigue, but they would face it and any other challenges head-on, together.

  Thanks for reading Murder and Matrimony. I hope you enjoyed all the stories in this series and I look forward to sharing more stories with a new cast of characters very soon. If you could take a few minutes and leave a review for me, that would be really appreciated.

  The next series, which I think you will really like, is called the Hearts Grove Cozy Mysteries. The first book is called Heirlooms and Homicide and you can get it now on Amazon.

  Get Heirlooms and Homicide here:

  amazon.com/dp/B07NCHSYVM/

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