Wedded to Trouble, page 1
BOOKS BY SARAH OSBORNE
The Ditie Brown Mysteries
Too Many Crooks Spoil the Plot
Into the Frying Pan
Murder Most Southern
The House of Good and Evil
Wedded to Trouble
* * *
Flo and Maude Christmas Cozies
Flo and Maude Christmas Capers
Flo and Maude Save a Santa
WEDDED TO TROUBLE
A DITIE BROWN MYSTERY, BOOK 5
SARAH OSBORNE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Sarah Osborne
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Edition: 2022
ISBN:978-1-7375565-7-2 (Ebook edition)
ISBN:978-1-7375565-8-9 (Paperback edition)
Imprint: Independently published
Printed in the United States of America
Created with Vellum
For Laurie Pocius who gave me the wonderful title for this book and continues to be one of my most conscientious and enthusiastic beta readers
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, my first thank you goes to my beta readers who continue to amaze me with their willingness to read my writing in progress and give me candid comments on what works and what needs to be improved. For this book they include the following: Sally Byrne, Sue Eliason, Kathy McCarthy, Kathy Mosesian, Laurie Pocius, Lynne Rozsa, Jean Wentzell.
Once again, my cover designer, Aisha Akeju at https://aisha-o.com/book-covers has created a beautiful cover that reflects my story. Many thanks to her.
The bouquet on the cover is from an actual wedding I attended and was photographed by Hannah Berglund. Check her out at www.hannahberglund.photography if you need outstanding photos for some important event.
My 241 Fitness buddies and Wendy Bryant continue to support my efforts and do their best to help me stay fit. I couldn’t do it without them.
And last but never least, my love and thanks to Dan and Alix for their ongoing encouragement.
MEMORABLE LOVE AND MARRIAGE QUOTES
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
– Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
* * *
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
– Dr. Seuss
* * *
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it be rather a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”
– Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
* * *
“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow–this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Ditie’s New Recipes
Ditie’s Wedding Cake
Rugelach
Shrimp Alfredo
About the Author
1
Mason held my hand for a long time after we finished packing the car. When he finally let go, both our hands were sticky from the sweltering heat that was Atlanta in the summer.
“It’s all perfect,” I said, and he grabbed me in a long embrace that made both of our bodies tingle with perspiration. And something more.
The Atlanta air was hot and humid, the way it always was in July—even at eight in the morning. Mason stood back, staring first at me and then at the street where I lived. In a matter of days it would be the place he lived as well, a quiet street in Virginia-Highland, ten minutes from downtown Atlanta. We’d had a discussion about whether or not we’d move to a new house once we were married, but neither of us wanted that. The children were settled in the house, and my best friend, Lurleen, was minutes away. It was a no-brainer, really. Mason would sell his condo in downtown Atlanta and move in with the kids and animals waiting for him to become a permanent member of our household.
“Can you believe it, Ditie?” he asked. He rubbed a hand back and forth over his bald head—the way he did when he was excited or anxious about something.
“No, I can’t,” I said. “It’s finally happening. Are you nervous, having second thoughts? Trying to make some hair grow?”
Mason laughed. “You take me as I am—bald, in need of reading glasses, not as fit as I was ten years ago—that’s one of a hundred things I love about you.”
“Mason, you do the same for me—you relish me the way God made me. Not every man would love my round figure, my curly hair that has a mind of its own, my outspoken nature. I am so lucky!”
“We are so lucky, and in two days, we’ll be married.”
“’Yes. I’ll be in my favorite vacation spot with my favorite people, marrying the man of my dreams.”
For years, I’d been going to Cape Azul, a spit of land on the Gulf of Mexico between Apalachicola and Panama City. I’d found the tiny peninsula one summer when I stayed on St. George Island and went exploring along the Florida Panhandle. Once I discovered Cape Azul, I decided this was where I would come every summer.
I’d kept that promise, and every year I spent a week on the undiscovered twenty-mile stretch of land that ended in a state park. No high rises. No big hotels. Just houses and rental units and sandy beach that seemed to go on forever.
Every year Cape Azul changed. Sometimes the beach eroded from heavy storms, sometimes more sand was brought in, but I was never disappointed by what I found there. It was always different and always the same. And it always renewed me—the warm water of the Gulf, the pre-dawn darkness that suddenly burst into day, the place where time stood still and there was no need to rush to do anything.
I suppose the real miracle was that Mason and the kids loved it as much as I did.
This summer, our closest friends, Lurleen and Danny, had gone down two days early with the kids to get everything ready for our wedding. I couldn’t wait to join them.
Lucie and Jason were officially my children now and soon they’d be Mason’s—that was another miracle. The adoption had gone without a glitch once all concerned parties had renounced their rights and given us their blessing. Even Jason’s biological father, Charlie Flack, was behaving himself.
He’d sent Jason a beautiful adoption card from California—who knew such things existed? In it he said how pleased he was that I was adopting Jason and that soon Jason would have two fathers to look after him. Charlie promised visits in the future, but we’d have to see if he could keep those promises.
The adoption ceremony itself was a small affair in a judge’s chamber. Mason, Lurleen, Danny and I stood in a semi-circle around Lucie and Jason as the judge announced the children were now my children, officially and forever. Even thinking about that ceremony three months later made me cry.
Mason handed me a handkerchief, always the gentleman and always with what seemed to be an endless supply of cotton handkerchiefs. “Why are you crying?” he asked.
“I’m so happy,” I said. “The kids, you, everything.”
“Me too,” Mason said. He smiled that smile of his that made his eyes crinkle. His bald head and that smile made him look like a young Dalai Lama—full of mischief, joy and good feeling. “I can’t wait to be married to you,” he said.
I squeezed his hand. “Then let’s get going. It’s a seven hour drive from Atlanta to Cape Azul. The Gulf and the kids are waiting for us.”
“You know it will be closer to six if I’m driving,” he said.
The one argument Mason and I had when we headed for Cape Azul was which route to take. I liked the scenic route that took us through Tallahassee, then Apalachicola and allowed me to see the ocean hours before we made it to our rented condo. Mason liked the inland route—faster. Today I let him win that argument because I wanted to get there as soon as possible. I wanted plenty of time to prepare for our wedding.
My dog, Hermione, knew something was up—she saw the bags go in the trunk of my old Toyota. She whined a little each time we left the house with boxes of food and supplies, and she tried to sit on our laps when we took a break on the couch. She was too big to manage that and had to settle for a cuddle next to us. We rubbed her golden fur and told her she was the best dog ever, which she was.
Luckily, she loved our pet sitter—the daughter of our next door neighbor. She was home from college and eager to have her own space for a couple of weeks. My big yellow cat, Majestic, stayed out of sight until the last minute. He was making his usual point that no one should disrupt his life in any way. I scooped him up before we left and asked him to be a good boy. He stood at the screen door beside Hermione as we climbed in the car and took off.
We stopped at Krispy Kreme for coffee and doughnuts before we left Atlanta. I got my usual, a chocolate covered cake and a lemon filled. Mason settled on the glazed doughnuts that were coming off the conveyor belt inside the store.
“Can’t get fresher than these,” he said as he sat in the driver’s seat of my car and devoured his first one. “Of course they don’t compare with yours, Ditie.”
“Nonsense. These are the best doughnuts in the world. It’s a good thing we don’t live any closer to Krispy Kreme than we do. And, Mason, it’s time we have a small heart-to-heart chat.”
“Uh oh,” Mason said, wiping his face with a napkin. “What have I done?”
“Nothing,” I said, “but you should know me well enough to realize I don’t need empty compliments about my food or my baking. If I make something delicious, I’ll be the first to say that, and if someone else makes something better than I do—like these doughnuts—I’m happy to acknowledge that.”
Mason smiled. “I do know you well enough for that—my always-honest Ditie.”
I sat back with my cup of coffee and my doughnuts as Mason got us out of Atlanta traffic. I enjoyed the pleasure I felt every summer when I left sultry Atlanta and headed for the Gulf of Mexico. On top of that was the joy of being almost married to the man I loved.
We’d been very fortunate when we looked into places to rent on Cape Azul—ones that could accommodate us and our friends for the wedding. We found two houses side by side that would be perfect. Both were right on the beach. The one Mason and I would stay in was smaller, but it had a lower and upper deck, so we could see the ocean from upstairs and down. The other house had ten bedrooms and a sweeping veranda. The ten bedrooms would more than meet the needs of our small cluster of family and friends. The veranda would be where we’d have the wedding if a sudden storm popped up and we couldn’t have the ceremony on the beach.
I wanted to be married at first light, my special time of day, but most of our guests weren’t early risers. We settled on late morning for the big event. We’d follow that with a wedding brunch prepared by Anna Hayes, the wonderful chef who was now the manager of Lurleen’s cooking school.
The invitation list was small—fewer than twenty guests in total. When we returned to Atlanta, we’d have a bigger party—an open house.
Amazingly, my minister from the Unitarian Church decided he needed a short summer vacation and would be happy to marry us. He and his wife rented a place at Mexico Beach, half an hour away, and he agreed to come early on the wedding morning to perform the ceremony.
The rest of the party included my brother, Tommy, and his partner, Josh, plus my boss from the refugee clinic, Vic, and her husband. Her kids were now in college and had other things to do with their summer.
Mason’s mother, Eddy, was coming with Mason’s two sons, their wives, and their two young children. We hadn’t seen much of either son or their families. The older boy, Kyle, was in the diplomatic service and only recently returned from Thailand. The younger son, Brian, was a high school teacher and coach living in Texas.
Lucie was excited about babysitting the little ones who were both under three. She was hoping to convince me that, as an almost-twelve year old, she was ready to set up her own babysitting business. At eight, Jason was happy to be a boy running free. I allowed each of them to bring their best friends—Hannah and Noah.
Lurleen insisted I do no cooking or baking for the wedding—Anna would handle it. Anna had written me a long letter about how excited she was to come to the wedding, to bake the wedding cake and cook all the meals. She said she could never repay us for what Lurleen and I had done for her. What we’d done for her was offer her a cooking school in Atlanta, something her former boss in South Carolina had promised but never delivered.
“You’re quiet,” Mason said after an hour of driving, which got us well on our way to Columbus, Georgia and the Alabama border.
“I was thinking about our guests,” I said. “I hope they’ll be comfortable.”
“They’re family,” Mason said. “Even the friends are more like family. They’ll be fine, more than fine if Lurleen is directing things. They’ll be treated like royalty.”
I smiled at that. Lurleen would be a gracious and gorgeous host, and I had no doubt Anna would be fixing delicious food for those who came a day early.
“Is there anything we need to sort through on the way down?” I asked.
“Are you asking if I’ve memorized my vows or if I have the ring? Yes to both those questions. What about you?”
“I’m good. I wish my parents were alive to see how happy we are. My dad especially. Mom might have needed to critique everything and find fault, but Dad would have been so pleased about all of it. I hope he’s out there somewhere nodding his approval.”
I sighed and settled back in my seat. Mason and I both had two weeks off, and I’d never before taken a two-week vacation from the refugee clinic. Vic said she had some part-time pediatricians coming on board and this would be a good way for them to get their feet wet.
Mason and I had considered taking an exotic honeymoon somewhere but neither of us wanted that. Lurleen came up with the perfect solution. She and Danny would look after the kids and entertain them for two weeks. They’d move down the beach after the wedding to the rental unit we usually booked when we came each summer. That way we could have our privacy and still see them as often as we liked.
Danny and Lurleen were the perfect godparents—they’d let the kids get away with far more than we would, but they’d keep them safe.
“I have nothing to worry about,” I said and kissed Mason on the cheek.
My cell went off at that moment. It was Lurleen.
“I hate to bother you on your way down, but we have a slight problem here.”
2
A slight problem? Lurleen’s slight problem could be anything from flowers that didn’t arrive to a murder we needed to investigate. I held my breath.
“It’s nothing really,” she said, “but I thought you should be informed. I’m a little worried about our landlord—the owner of the houses you rented. He stopped by to say there must have been some misunderstanding. He has a new renter who wants the big house tomorrow. I told him that was impossible and that we had the house for another three days, so people wouldn’t feel they needed to rush off. I showed him the rental agreement. He was a smallish man but with a very big mouth. He huffed and puffed, but when I asked Danny to stand beside me, he left.”
I wasn’t surprised by that. Danny was six feet four inches of muscle. I was surprised about the owner. “I did all my negotiations with a woman, Lisa Arborough,” I said. “Was she with him? What did he say his name was?”
