Seed No Evil (28 page)

At my sigh, Nikki said, “Doing okay?”

“Just thinking.” Thinking about how my life was going to change. About how fun it would be to sign my name Abby Salvare . . . make that Abby Knight Salvare. About how safe and secure I would feel lying in Marco's arms every night.

And wondering. About how Marco was doing right now. About how my parents were handling their little girl getting married. About how good it would be to have Marco come home to me every day. About how uncomfortable it would feel to use his bachelor apartment as my new residence. About how I wished I could tell him that but didn't want to hurt his feelings.

Nikki gave my hand a squeeze. “I'm so excited. The wedding will be amazing.”

We pulled up in the driveway of my parents' house, and Mom hurried inside. A moment later, she waved us in from the front door.

“What's wrong?” I called.

“Your dad wants a photo of you in the living room,” she called back.

I glanced down at my full, flouncy skirt, which had taken forever to stuff inside the backseat, and sighed. “Couldn't we have done this earlier?” I said to Nikki.

“Go on,” she urged, pushing against my arm. “Your dad is probably sad about giving away his little girl.”

I grabbed handfuls of lacy white material and climbed as gracefully as possible out of the car, with Nikki making sure my fingertip veil stayed in place. I had no bouquet to carry. Grace and Lottie had taken everything over to the chapel.

Mom held the door open while I stepped inside. My dad was nowhere to be seen.

“In the backyard,” Mom said. “Your dad changed his mind.”

I wanted to say,
We have no time for this,
but I knew it was important to my parents, so I held my tongue. To help calm me down, Nikki kept up a constant stream of conversation as we walked through the living room and into the kitchen, where platters of hors d'oeuvres were laid out on the kitchen table.

“What's all the food for?” I asked, tempted to take a nibble.

“Some people might stop by here afterward,” Mom said. “I like to be prepared.”

Nikki took my arm and pulled me toward the back door. “Move it, lady. There's no time to waste.”

Mom stepped out ahead of us, and I started to follow, but Nikki pulled me back and gave me a big hug. Since she was taller than me, I left a lipstick smudge on her neck.

“Sorry,” I said, using my thumb to wipe it off.

“You look beautiful, best friend,” she said, smiling. “Count to five and then follow me.”

“Why count to five?” But she was already gone.

Somewhere outside, Pachelbel's Canon in D began playing. The music swelled as I walked out the door. I stopped and blinked in surprise. Ahead I saw a sea of beaming faces—my parents, my aunt and uncle, Tara, Nikki, Francesca Salvare, Rafe, the mystery brother, Rico, who looked like an older version of Marco, his sister, Gina, and her family, my brothers and sisters-in-law, Jillian and Claymore, my minister, and Grace and Lottie.

Before I could express my surprise, they parted down the middle so I could see Marco waiting at the end of a path that had been strewn with rose petals. With his gleaming dark hair and deep brown eyes, his black tux and white shirt, he looked more handsome than ever a James Bond had looked at his tip-top best. My heart swelled with love. That man was going to be my husband!

Then I noticed what was behind him and gasped. It was a little white gazebo surrounded by vases of white, yellow, and pink roses. More flowers lined the two steps up into the small structure. And even though we were in a fenced-in yard, everything was
perfect.

“Marco was determined to give you an outdoor wedding,” Mom said.

“He and his brothers have been laboring back here for days,” Dad said, wheeling up to take his place beside me. “Rico came to town early just to help.”

“Lottie and Grace worked all evening yesterday to make the arrangements,” Mom added.

Tears filled my eyes as I took in the scene before me. Now I understood everything.

Across the distance between us, I smiled at Marco with all the love in my heart, and he smiled back. Nikki and Jillian, escorted by Marco's brothers, walked up the aisle and slid into their places. Our minister went up the two stairs to stand inside the gazebo, facing me, Bible in hand. Lottie stepped forward to hand me my bouquet of pale yellow roses. Grace gave me her serene smile and a queenly nod, while a photographer snapped photos and a videographer began filming.

“Well, Abracadabra, shall we?” Dad asked. He had tears in his eyes, too.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Let's go, Dad.”

As we moved up the aisle at a slow, stately pace, I had to subdue the urge to pick up my skirts and dash straight for Marco, whooping with joy. But that was the old Abby. The new Abby was going to be much calmer and way more dignified.

Yeah, right.

We halted in front of the gazebo, and Dad gave me away, placing my hand in Marco's. The music stopped, Dad wheeled back to his spot beside my mom, and Marco and I faced the minister.

“Dearly beloved,” Reverend Williams began.

“Wait,” Marco said, looking around. “The ring bearer isn't here.”

“Marco,” I whispered, “we don't have a ring bearer.”

He took my shoulders and aimed me toward the house. As if on cue, Tara came out the back door carrying a bundle wrapped in a pink blanket. I glanced over at Jillian with a scowl and whispered, “If you brought a sack of potatoes—”

“Look,” Marco said to me, pointing toward Tara.

She put the bundle on the ground and removed the blanket. There stood Seedy, wearing a yellow collar with a big yellow bow on top, looking around at all the people, clearly as bewildered as I was.

“She's our ring bearer?” I asked.

“That's right.” Marco took my hand in his. “She's ours, Abby.”

My heartbeat quickened. “What?”

“Ours. You know, as in
yours
and
mine.”

“But”—I took a breath to still my racing heart—“Tara said a nice young couple was adopting her.”

“We're the nice young couple.”

Marco had done all this for me? I wanted to tug on my ears to make sure I was hearing correctly. “I thought you couldn't have pets at your apartment building.”

He smiled into my eyes, his own shimmering with love. “Then I guess we'll be house hunting when we get back from our honeymoon.”

“Really?”

“If you can stay away from murder investigations that long.”

Was there any reason we couldn't do both?

“Aunt Abby,” Tara called, “Seedy hasn't spotted you yet. Call her.”

I bent over and held out my hand. “Seedy! Come here.”

The little dog stared at me for a second; then, shaggy tail wagging fiercely, she hobbled up the aisle as fast as her three legs would carry her. When she got close, I saw that our wedding rings were tied to her collar.

I scooped Seedy up in my arms, and she licked my face, making me and everyone else laugh—except for Jillian, who gasped in horror, probably at the thought of the makeup she had so carefully applied being ruined. Seedy wiggled with happiness and gave me another lick. Her patchy fur was downy soft and smelled like strawberries. Someone had given her a bath.

“Hey, Seedy,” Marco said, scratching her under the chin. “Are you happy you've got a family?”

The dog responded by licking his wrist.

Marco nodded to the minister. “
Now
we're ready.”

“Abs,” Jillian whispered, “put the dog down.”

I shook my head. So what if I got a few paw prints on my dress? What did that matter when this loving little dog was mine?

Make that ours.

Abby and Marco return from their honeymoon

and discover a dead body in the basement.

 

Read on for a sneak peek at

the next Flower Shop Mystery,

 

Throw in the Trowel

 

Available in February 2014 from Obsidian in

paperback and as an e-book.

June 1975

L
ook at him sitting there in the bowels of the old building, propped against a sawhorse, drunk out of his mind. Don't turn away in disgust. Isn't this the opportunity you've wished for? No one's around. You've got an hour before dark. Do it!

Tears ran down my face as I stood behind him, scalding, bitter tears of anger and betrayal and confusion. What I was contemplating was wrong, terribly, terribly wrong. I loved the bastard. How could I even think of ending his life?

And if you don't? How long will you let him continue to wound you? How much more of his neglect and duplicity can you bear?

But this wasn't just about me anymore or I might have been able to endure his deceit. I might have been able to step back and wait for him to slowly self-destruct. But I'd never know that now.

My grip tightened on the handle of the trowel, slick with sweat. My stomach roiled.

Do it! What are you waiting for?

Present day

H
ey! You there. Abby Christine Knight! Snap to it, girl. You've got to get to work. The honeymoon is over.

Correction. Let's make that Abby Christine Knight Salvare.

Pep talk over, I yawned, scratched my head, and squinted at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. A short, sleepy, freckle-faced redhead squinted back, a bit bleary-eyed but generally happy. No, make that extremely happy, because I was a married woman now. Me. A married woman. Hitched to my dream guy in a fantastic wedding ceremony, followed by an incredible honeymoon in Key West, Florida. Wow.

I sighed wistfully at the thought of those stunning sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico, primrose pink, goldenrod yellow, pansy purple—a florist's dream—as I'd stood arm in arm with Marco watching the sun melt into the ocean. I remembered holding his hand as we parasailed high over the island and neighboring Sunset Key, pointing out the places we knew. I sighed again, recalling how we'd biked along the Atlantic side of the island as pelicans dove for fish, and strolled along Duval Street licking gelato cones, and toured the coral reef in a glass-bottom boat, and Jet-Skied across turquoise wat—

I leaned closer to the mirror. Could those be bags under my eyes? Did people get bags at the age of twenty-seven?

Confession time. I was extremely happy and also extremely tired and, if truth be told, just a little bit—minuscule even, hardly worth mentioning but yes, I'd have to say it—annoyed. Marco had rolled to the middle of the bed during the night, taking up more than half of the mattress, forcing me to squeeze onto one edge and sleep fitfully. Plus his bedroom had too much morning light coming in behind the old window shades, waking me at the crack of dawn. And forget about prying my clothes from his small bedroom closet, where I hardly had room for two shirts and a pair of jeans.

I splashed my face with water, hoping that would rev me up.

Okay, then, maybe coffee would do the trick. Marco would probably have a pot already brewed and a cup waiting for me on the kitchen counter. I just needed to look presentable for my gorgeous groom. Unlike him, I didn't roll out of bed looking camera ready. I didn't even roll out of bed. It was more like a tumble.

I balanced my hairbrush on the edge of the sink, shoved the hand soap dispenser as far back into the corner of the narrow countertop as possible, zipped open my flower-print makeup kit, and laid out my blush, eye shadow, mascara, and lip gloss. They barely fit in the small space.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Marco said, standing in the doorway, looking indecently hot in his pajama bottoms. “Coffee's made. Want to join me for a bowl of oatmeal?”

“Do you have toast?”

He shook his head. “Oatmeal is it. You like oatmeal, don't you?”

Had he ever seen me eat oatmeal? At my apartment I had kept a box of oatmeal for him. Why didn't he have toast for me? But, hey, this was Day One of our brand-spanking-new life together (honeymoons didn't count), so I forgave him and gazed at him with tired but adoring eyes. “I'd love to join you. And maybe we can shop for groceries after Bloomers closes today.”

Marco stepped in behind me for what I thought was going to be a hug. Instead, he opened the medicine cabinet in front of me with one hand and began to rummage through it with the other.

“Let me get out of your way,” I said, trying to duck under his arm.

“No, you're fine. I'm making room for your things.”

How considerate was that? “Thank you, Marco.”

He removed a box of bandages and a bottle of ibuprofen. “There you go.”

If he thought that would do it, my helpful hubby had a whole lot to learn.

My hairbrush slid into the sink. I grabbed for it and knocked over the tube of lip gloss, sending it plummeting to the floor. “You know what we need in here?” I pointed to empty wall space above the toilet tank. “A cabinet.”

“We need a house, Abby. A cabinet isn't going to give us the kind of space we want.”

“In the short run, it will. We're not going to find a house overnight.”

A wet tongue licked my ankle. I glanced down and saw Seedy gazing up at me as if to say, “Hey, don't leave me out!”

And doggy makes three.

Marco had adopted Seedy the day before we got married as a surprise wedding gift. She was the homeliest dog I'd ever seen, with patchy brown-and-white fur, large, pointed ears with tufts of hair that fanned out at the top, a small, pointed muzzle, protruding lower teeth, and the kicker—pardon the pun—only three legs. I'd first seen the dog while investigating a murder at the animal shelter. My niece, Tara, had wanted to adopt both Seedy and her adorable pup, Seedling, to keep them from being separated, but her parents had said an emphatic no. They'd let her have the puppy but not his mom.

Abused, malnourished, and timid around most people, Seedy had instantly bonded with me, even though I'm more of a cat person. From that moment on, I wasn't able to get the little mutt out of my mind, especially after I'd learned that she was in danger of being put down, due to her unadoptable status. Because I hadn't thought Marco would want to start off our new life with a dog, and because I'd known that his landlady wouldn't accept pets, I'd tried my best to find her a home. But eventually I'd run out of options. That was when my hero had come to Seedy's rescue.

Fortunately, Marco's landlady was allowing the dog to stay, with the understanding that we would find a new dwelling as soon as possible. And now that we were back from our honeymoon, the house hunt could begin.

While I was spooning oatmeal into a bowl from the pot on the stove, Marco's cell phone rang. He took the call in the living room, where I could hear the floor planks creak as he paced. His apartment occupied the second floor of an old two-story house, and while it had high ceilings, decent-sized rooms, and sturdy plaster walls, it also had noisy floors, drafty windows, and scant counter space in both the kitchen and bathroom.

I heard Marco grumbling to the person on the other end. Whatever the call was about, it couldn't be good.

“That was Rafe,” he told me a few minutes later, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

I knew two things instantly. First, Rafe, Marco's younger brother, called only when something at Marco's bar, Down the Hatch Bar and Grill, had gone wrong. Second, Rafe was not the most reliable person you'd ever want to meet. Which was why Marco's next statement was alarming.

“He said there's a plumbing problem in the basement, but he's been handling it.”

“So the problem is ongoing?”

“Apparently it's in the process of being repaired. Rafe wanted to prepare me because the old cement floor had to be torn up to locate the problem. I'm heading down to the bar now to see what they found.”

A hard shudder ran through my body. That happened when I was cold or when my sixth sense vibrated a warning. Since I wasn't cold, I said, “Marco, be careful.”

“Abby, it's an old basement. No boogeymen down there, I promise.”

“I've just got a bad feeling about it.”

He gave me a kiss and then hugged me close. “You worry too much.”

Seedy let out a little yip and leaned against my legs. As Marco headed for the door, I scooped her up, felt her trembling, and wondered if she had picked up something bad, too.