And even though I immediately fell in love, it took Charles a little longer to figure out I was the one he’d spend the rest of his life with. It all started when he blackmailed me into helping with a difficult double homicide case. He was the second person to learn of my strange ability to talk to animals—even I was still getting the hang of it then—and rather than gawk at me, he decided to put me to work.
Now we’ve solved many cases, both together and apart, and in the process we’ve fallen incredibly and irrevocably in love. He’s now the sole partner at the firm, and I’ve moved on from being a paralegal to working as a full-time private investigator… in theory.
In reality, I primarily live off my cat’s trust fund, but I do try my best to find new mysteries to solve, whether or not my help has been requested. Why, just this spring, I solved the murder of my next-door neighbor. Oh, was that one a doozy!
Luckily, we’ve been light on work in the weeks that followed, giving me plenty of time to focus on wedding planning.
So, that’s me. Former paralegal, current private investigator, future bride. Oh, you wanted to know more about the whole talking to animals thing?
Well, it all started when I met Octo-Cat at a rather unusual will reading. This was before Charles had even joined the firm. He was the first one to really trust me to help research our cases. Before that, I was mostly a glorified secretary. And that day, it was my job to make the coffee. Things didn’t exactly go well, and let’s just say I’ve had a completely rational fear of that particular appliance ever since.
The unexpected zap messed with something in my brain, and when I regained consciousness, I was met with big amber eyes and stinky tuna breath. Yes, the estate’s primary beneficiary was a cat, and when he realized I could understand everything he was saying, he recruited me to help solve his owner’s murder.
And thus a lifelongsomething was born. Most days Octo-Cat and I get along just fine, but sometimes he can be a real stinker. Still, I wouldn’t trade him—or really any part of my life—for the world.
My true best friend is my nan. She’s the main one who raised me while my parents focused on making the most of their careers. She’s not even my biological grandmother, a fact I discovered only recently. And after months of searching and with a little help from a militant flock of seagulls, I was finally able to meet my Grandma Lyn—the one who gave birth to Mom.
Both will be at the wedding, which will definitely be awkward. But we’ll have lots of other guests to help keep the two apart as much as possible.
Nan’s dog Paisley, a mostly black tricolor Chihuahua she rescued from the pound, is going to be the flower girl at our wedding. Pringle, the raccoon who lives in a treehouse in my backyard, is not invited but will probably crash the party anyway. Our seagull friends Bravo and Abigull have told us they’ll be watching from the trees.
Another seagull I know, Alpha, has threatened to ruin the whole affair. He’s also recently befriended Pringle and encouraged him to take part in a twelve-step program to help with his behavioral issues. I’m not sure I trust his motives on that one, but the group therapy has definitely been helping Pringle turn over a new leaf.
He’s still not invited to the wedding, though.
I’ll be plenty busy hosting all the guests we have coming from out of town. Even my old frenemy Bethany Peters is coming up from Georgia along with my cousin Mags to take part in the happiest day of my life to date.
Charles’s family is coming out from California, of course, and our friend Sharon is taking a detour on her RV tour of the country to swing on by too. Basically, everyone who’s anyone to us will be in attendance—past clients, old friends, distant family… Even my cat’s girlfriend’s owner is coming all the way from Colorado to offer her well wishes.
In lieu of a bridal party, our three cats will be standing at the altar with us. I’ve found adorable bowties for Octo-Cat and Jacques and a miniature lace veil for Jillianne. Charles hasn’t been owned by cats as long as I have, but he’s a sucker for the two hairless sphynxes he inherited from my first dead next-door neighbor, Senator Harlowe.
Over the last several months, I’ve been giving the two naked felines speech lessons to help them overcome their strange accents—not out of the goodness of my heart, but rather at Octo-Cat’s demand. He made it very clear that neither Charles nor his cats would be welcome in our house unless the two kittyfolk stopped communicating in only riddles and rhymes.
It was a tall order, but I’m fairly accustomed to my cat bossing me around, and this demand wasn’t particularly unreasonable as far as Octo-Cat goes, which meant I was happy to comply. Plus it gave me a chance to bond with Jacques and Jillianne ahead of us becoming one big happy family.
They weren’t too sure about me at first, but now I’m fairly certain I’ve won them over… At least, I hope I have.
“Did you pick up my veil from the dry cleaner?” I bellowed at Nan as I rushed down the stairs to answer the door.
“On my list for this afternoon!” Nan shouted back as I flung open the door to reveal a massive pink balloon, which immediately floated forward and bopped me in the face.
“Oof, sorry. That one got away from me.” The helium wrangler groaned while hanging on to the rest of his floating bouquet with two firm hands. “Where do you want them?”
“Out back. Let me show you.”
As soon as the balloon vendor stepped back, I rushed out onto the porch and down the steps, realizing too late that I’d forgotten to put on any kind of slippers. The cold morning dew tickled my toes and made me shiver, but I was a woman on a mission.
T minus twenty-eight hours until the bigI do. And I refused to let anyone stand in the way of me and my future husband, least of all some pesky seagull who had vowed to get his revenge on me—even though he was the one who’d ruined his flock; I’d simply uncovered the truth.
That’s why, in lieu of flowers, I’d decided to decorate the backyard with hundreds and hundreds of balloons floating in the sky and forming an overhead canopy. That should keep any unwanted avian company away, or at least that was my hope.
“Isn’t your wedding tomorrow?” the balloon guy asked as he affixed the balloons to the spot on the massive metal frame I’d just pointed out. “If we get some bad weather in, these will be ruined.”
“No, that won’t happen.” I laughed under my breath. “I’ve already decided that the weather will be perfect both today and tomorrow.”
“But you can’t control the—”
“I’ve already decided that it will be fine,” I said, biting off each word as I spoke it. I’d tried to arrange for the balloon canopy to be erected on the morning of the wedding but couldn’t find a vendor who could work with that proposed schedule. Setting up a day early was the only choice I could make, since I refused to push the wedding back—not when I’d already waited this long to become Mrs. Charles Longfellow, III, now and forevermore.
“If you say so.” He shrugged and got back to work. So much forthe customer is always right.
I wrung my hands but somehow managed to hold my tongue. I wasn’t usually so high-strung, but this was my wedding. It was the one day I needed to go perfectly right, and I already had at least one strike against me, seeing as a certain murderous seagull has threatened to upend the whole thing.
If I could just control the rest…
If I could just prevent anything else from going wrong…
Oops. I should have definitely known better than to tempt fate. As soon as I rounded the house, I saw two giant RVs sidling up my driveway.
And I already knew that whatever news they brought couldn’t be good.
2
I watched in horror as the RVs parked and half a dozen men scrambled out from the rear vehicle, holding a variety of boom mics, cameras, and other assorted film equipment.