Wedding Bell Blunders: A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery Read online

  “I hope my wedding is half as nice as yours is,” she said.

  “Now you’re just being nice,” I said and chuckled. “I’m sure your wedding is going to be beautiful. I know you’re putting a lot of work into it.”

  She sighed. “I had no idea how hard weddings were. I can hardly believe you got yours put together in two weeks. You’re the best wedding planner ever.”

  I chuckled again and shook my head. “I guess where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  “Mom,” Thad said, coming up to me and hugging me. “You did great. I’m glad you didn’t get too carried away with the laughing, though.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, and we moved away from the kitchen doorway so we would be out of the caterers’ way. “Let me tell you, that was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I never expected to see a pile of balloon animals at my wedding.”

  He laughed. “Well, we’re definitely not having balloon animals at my wedding.”

  “Oh? We could invite Mr. Winters, you know. You would have plenty of balloon animals to hand out to your guests.”

  “I think the balloon animals are cute,” Sarah said. “I’m going to see if he can make me a yellow giraffe. I’ll be right back.”

  She hurried off to where Mr. Winters was making the balloon animals.

  “I underestimated how entertaining Mr. Winters could be,” I said. Mr. Winters was talking animatedly with the guests and making the animals at their request.

  “We’re still not having any balloon animals at my wedding,” Thad said.

  I chuckled, and we moved into the ballroom. Alec’s mother came up to me, smiling. “Allie, you are just beautiful.” She held a blue dachshund balloon in her hand. “My son did well when he chose you.”

  “Thank you so much, Estelle,” I said and hugged her. “You’re so sweet. I’m glad everything came together, and I’m so glad that you’re here with us for our special day.”

  She nodded. Her silver hair was cut short, and she wore a conservative navy blue dress. “I’m so happy for Alec. You make him happy, Allie. Every time I talk to him, he talks about you. He loves you so much.”

  I was surprised by this. Not by the fact that Alec loved me, but sometimes Alec didn’t express his feelings very well, and to hear he was talking about how much he loved me, well, surprised me. “He’s the most wonderful man in the world,” I told her. “Thank you for raising him the way you did because I know that you’re the reason he turned out so wonderfully.”

  She smiled and patted my hand. “Alec was one of a kind from the day he was born. Mothers always think their babies are special, and I knew it was true of Alec from the start.”

  I looked up, and Jodi was standing in the ballroom doorway, her eyes wide. She waved me over, and I went to her. “Yes, Jodi, what is it?”

  She shook her head. “Something’s wrong with Richard. I called an ambulance.”

  My eyes went wide. “What do you mean something’s wrong? What happened?”

  Thad and I followed her into the kitchen, and Richard was lying motionless on the floor.

  “He said he wasn’t feeling well, and he fell on the floor.”

  “He said he felt dizzy,” Lisa added.

  I knelt down beside him. “Thad, get Alec,” I said over my shoulder. I grabbed his wrist and felt for a pulse, but I had was having trouble finding one.

  Chapter Four

  I looked up as the EMTs wheeled Richard out of my house on a gurney. As it turned out, he still had a pulse, although according to Alec, it was thready. I had no idea what thready was, but as long as his heart was still beating, then he hadn’t died in my house. As I watched the ambulance pull away, I could just hear the gossip spreading around town.

  I turned and looked at Alec wide-eyed. “Oh, my gosh. How awful. I feel terrible for him.”

  Alec nodded and reached for my hand. “He’ll get the help he needs at the hospital.”

  I sighed and nodded, and we turned and headed back inside the house.

  Jodi came out of the kitchen. “It’s terrible what happened to Richard. I’m so sorry that it happened on your wedding day.” Her hands were clasped together in front of herself, and her brow was creased with worry.

  I shook my head and forced myself to smile. “It’s all right. Don’t worry about it. I’m just concerned about Richard.”

  She nodded. “He said earlier that he felt dizzy and didn’t feel well. I told him if he didn’t feel well, maybe he should stay home, but he insisted he would be fine.”

  Lisa came to stand beside Jodi, her arms crossed in front of herself. “I’m so sorry, Allie,” she said, shaking her head. “What an awful thing to have happened on your wedding day.”

  “It’s all right. The important thing is that Richard is getting the medical care he needs.” I may have said it was all right, but I was near tears. We had planned such a lovely day, even though it was a last-minute decision. Not that I didn’t care about Richard. I really hoped he would be fine.

  Jodi nodded. “We’ll finish putting the food on the tables and get your guests served. We need to start serving,” she said, looking at Lisa. “Right?”

  Lisa nodded. “Yes, let’s get everybody served.”

  Alec wrapped an arm around my waist. “I love you,” he whispered in my ear.

  I hoped that Richard would be fine. That was what mattered. We went to the ballroom door, and I looked at my guests who were standing around the ballroom looking at us now. “It’s all right. It’ll be all right.” It was all I could say as I tried to get my bearings about me.

  “We’ll check on him in a bit,” Alec assured them.

  I looked at Alec. “Well, I guess with all the crazy things we’ve been through, this shouldn’t be a surprise to us.” I suddenly started laughing. It was nerves, I guess.

  He shook his head and laughed. “No, this shouldn’t surprise us one little bit.”

  “Not a bit,” I agreed and tried to pull myself together.

  We turned and looked at our guests again. “Folks, we will have lunch served in just a few minutes,” Alec said.

  “I think I’m going to check with the girls in the kitchen and see how things are going,” I said to Alec.

  He shook his head. “Allie, you don’t need to do that. This is your wedding day, and the caterers can handle everything.”

  I nodded. “I know, but I need to check on them real quick. I’ll be right back.”

  He sighed and let go of my hand, and I headed into the kitchen where Jodi and Lisa were getting the rest of the food ready to put out on the tables. “Is there anything I can help you with?” I asked.

  They turned to me. “No, Allie, this is your wedding day. You need to go out and enjoy yourself,” Jodi said. “We’ve got this.”

  I nodded. “I know, but I just feel so bad about Richard. It’s so awful. You said he was feeling sick before he came?” I hoped it wasn’t something that was catching.

  Jodi nodded as she picked up a tureen with clam chowder in it. “Yes, he said, he felt like he had low blood sugar. The tub of cake frosting was sitting there, so I told him to eat a spoon of it. I thought it would bring his blood sugar back up. I’m so sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but we didn’t bring anything sweet with us.”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s perfectly fine. He wasn’t feeling well, so if that was going to help, he was more than welcome to it. Is Richard a diabetic?”

  Jodi shrugged and looked at Lisa. “I don’t know. He just said that he felt like he was going to faint, and he thought maybe his blood sugar had dropped, so he ate a spoonful of the frosting. I thought he was feeling better, but it was just a few minutes later that he did faint, and he fell on the floor.”

  I glanced at the tub of frosting. If he felt like he had low blood sugar, wouldn’t the sugar in the frosting have brought it right back up? I wasn’t sure how that worked, as I had never had problems with low blood sugar before.

  “Allie, come out and visit
with your guests,” Lucy said, coming to the kitchen doorway.

  I turned and looked at her. “I will, Lucy. I just feel bad that Richard got sick.”

  She nodded sympathetically. “You poor thing. It’s your wedding day, and the caterer passes out while setting up the food for the reception.” She looked at Jodi and Lisa. “Wait a minute. He didn’t eat any of that food, did he? Is there something wrong with the food?”

  And then I remembered Richard popping something into his mouth when I first spoke to him. Was the food bad?

  Jodi and Lisa both shook their heads, their eyes going wide. “No,” Jodi said quickly. “He didn’t eat any of the food we’re serving. He did eat some of the frosting, but like I just told Allie, it was because he said he had low blood sugar. He wasn’t feeling well before he got here. I promise it had nothing to do with the food we brought.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. Not that I really suspected there was anything wrong with the food, but it was nice to be reassured. “All right then, we’ll let you get to work on the meal, and I’ll go back to the ballroom and visit with my guests.”

  Lisa nodded. “We’ll be right out in a few minutes. It won’t take long.”

  “Thank you, girls, for everything you’re doing,” I said, and Lucy I headed back to the ballroom.

  “What an awful thing to have happened,” Lucy whispered.

  I nodded, and we stepped into the ballroom. They had already brought the wedding cake in, and I had to admit that it was beautiful. Cake decorating was hard work, but I enjoyed it.

  “I’m starving,” I said.

  Lucy nodded. “Me too. Everything smells so good.”

  Alec’s friends, along with Thad and Dylan, had moved the tables into position, and the chairs that the guests had sat on for the wedding were now placed around each of the square tables. We’d gone with simple white and yellow daisy centerpieces and white tablecloths. It was lovely, and I was kind of glad that we hadn’t had more time to prepare for the wedding because we hadn’t had time to overthink things. Everything was simple and elegant.

  “Allie,” Mama said, pulling me to her in a tight hug. “Girl, don’t you dare think that that young man fainting like he did is going to have any effect on your marriage.”

  I shook my head and chuckled. “No, Mama, I know. It was just an unfortunate incident.”

  “What happened to him?” she asked, releasing me and looking into my eyes.

  I shrugged. “We’re not sure. Lisa and Jodi said that he thought he had low blood sugar. Maybe he’s diabetic. The doctors at the hospital will get him treated, and he’ll probably be released today or tomorrow.” I wasn’t sure it would be as simple as that since he seemed to be barely clinging to life when the EMTs had wheeled him out, but I hoped so.

  She nodded and patted my arm. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. The doctors will take care of him.”

  Jennifer came over to where I stood near the doorway. “Mom, that was awful,” she said, brushing my hair back from my forehead. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded. “I’m fine. Everything’s going to be fine. The caterers are going to get lunch on the table here in a few minutes, and we’re going to eat and enjoy ourselves.”

  “Allie,” Dylan said, coming up behind Jennifer. “It was a nice ceremony. The intermission wasn’t so great, but it was a nice ceremony.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. If Dylan thought being a smart aleck was going to win him any points with me, well, he was right. I specialized in being a smart aleck, and I could appreciate a smart remark now and then. Just not now. The day had been nerve-wracking.

  “Maybe at the next family get-together you can volunteer to be the one that gets taken away by ambulance?” I asked him.

  He grinned and shook his head. “I think I’m going to have to pass on that.”

  I shrugged. “All right, but it’s your loss.”

  He chuckled. “Come on, Jennifer, let’s get some punch,” he said, taking her by the hand.

  “Allie, who is that boy?” Mama asked when they were out of earshot.

  I looked at her. “Mama, that’s Jennifer’s new boyfriend. Dylan. I’m sorry, I should have introduced you.”

  She shook her head. “I need to have a talk with that child.”

  I chuckled. “You can try if you think it’ll do any good, but I have a feeling she isn’t going to listen. She’s in love.” Mama didn’t appreciate Dylan’s remark, but she would get used to him. He was a good kid, and I was happy that Jennifer was happy.

  Alec came behind me and wrapped his arms around me, kissing me on the cheek. “It was a beautiful wedding,” he whispered.

  I nodded without looking at him. “It was a beautiful wedding.”

  “The balloon animals were classic. One of the caterers was taken away by ambulance, and you survived it all.”

  I chuckled. “I did, didn’t I? Let’s not forget that the cake was almost dropped.”

  “Allie, your wedding cake is so pretty,” my sister Shelby said. She hugged me. “I can’t believe that you put everything together so quickly.”

  I nodded. “It was a lot of work, but I got it done.”

  Lisa and Jodi brought the rest of the food out and set it on the tables buffet style, and our guests began to serve themselves. Alec stood beside me, his arm around me, and I turned to him, looking into his eyes. “I’m so glad I decided to marry you. I don’t know what I would have done with myself if I had decided not to.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You mean you weren’t sure you were going to?”

  I shrugged. “I had a choice, you know.”

  He nodded and snorted. “Sure you did. I know you. You had no choice other than to marry me. You were smitten.”

  He was telling the truth. I had been smitten with Detective Alec Blanchard since the day I met him. It just took me a little while to figure it out.

  Chapter Five

  The phone rang, and I opened one eye. I glanced over at Alec as he picked up his phone from the bedside table and answered it.

  “Hello?” he said sleepily.

  He was quiet for a few moments, and then he said yes. There was more silence, and he closed his eyes, rubbing one hand across his forehead. Alec and I didn’t drink much, but we’d had champagne at our reception, and then after our guests had left, we had our own little celebration with another bottle of champagne. If the truth were told, I was feeling it this morning. Closing my eyes, I stretched, my muscles stiff with sleep, listening to Alec’s side of the conversation.

  “I’m going to be going on my honeymoon today,” he said tiredly.

  My eyes popped open, and I turned to look at him.

  I waited in silence while he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line, and then he said yes, and he hung up the phone, laying it on the table. He turned and looked at me, and I looked up at him.

  “Who was that?”

  He sighed. “Sam Bailey.”

  I went up on one elbow. “Sam Bailey? What on earth was he calling you for?”

  Sam Bailey was the local chief of police. Alec had retired over a year ago from the police force because of him. The guy could be a control freak, and Alec had had enough.

  He sighed and closed his eyes. “Richard Thomas is in a coma, and they don’t expect him to come out of it.”

  I sighed. “He didn’t look good when they wheeled him out of here. What did he say was wrong with him?”

  He shook his head, his eyes still closed. “They found a large amount of a sulfonylurea in his bloodstream.”

  “Sulfonylurea? Why does that sound familiar?”

  He looked at me. “It’s a diabetes medication.”

  “So Richard is diabetic? Jodi said she didn’t know if he was, but if he had that in his system, he must be. Jodi and Lisa said he was having low blood sugar issues. Maybe he felt really bad, and he took too much of his medication?”

  “According to Sam, Richard’s mother says that he isn’t diabetic. She has no idea why he
would be taking a medication like that.”

  I laid back down on my pillow. “So Sam thinks there’s something funny going on?”

  He nodded. “He does.”

  “And don’t tell me, he wants you to look into it?” When Alec had retired from being a detective on the police force, he had taken the exam to become a private detective. When Sam didn’t have time to look into certain crimes, he would refer them to Alec. So in one way, Alec hadn’t quite gotten rid of Sam Bailey. But because he didn’t actually work for Sam anymore, Sam treated him better than he had when he was on the police force.

  “He thinks someone tried to murder Richard, and he would like me to take a look at the case, but I told him we were going on our honeymoon. And besides that, Richard isn’t dead yet. People sometimes recover, even when the doctors don’t think they will.”

  Our honeymoon, since we hadn’t had much time to plan it, was just driving up and down the eastern coast and stopping in a few quaint towns along the way. It wasn’t fancy, but it was something we were looking forward to.

  “And what did you tell him?”

  He sighed. “I didn’t give him an answer one way or another. I told him I would talk to him later today.”

  I groaned. “But we’re supposed to be leaving for our honeymoon.”

  He turned and looked at me. “Do you want me to turn it down?”

  I thought about this for a moment. Our wedding had been disrupted by what might turn out to be a murder. Knowing this would drive me nuts. “I suppose we could put the honeymoon off for a couple of days. Just to give you enough time to look into things and maybe determine if it really was murder.” I turned and looked at him. “I hope it wasn’t murder. I feel so bad that he passed out at our wedding reception.”

  He smiled and leaned over, kissing me on the nose. “You worry too much about things.”

  I nodded. “I know. I do.”

  ***

  When I got showered and dressed, I went to the kitchen and made some coffee for us. I opened up the refrigerator and saw the leftovers from the reception, as well as the bottom layer of the wedding cake. I had wrapped up the top layer and stuck it in the freezer for our first anniversary, and there was a lot of cake left. I might have overdone it on the size of the cake. I sighed and shut the refrigerator as the coffee maker brewed away. There was a knock at the door, and I went to answer it.