Night of the Living Wed Read online

  Night of the Living Wed

  Annabelle Archer Wedding Planner Mystery

  Laura Durham

  Broadmoor Books

  Contents

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  Night Of The Living Wed

  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

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  Preview of “Eat, Prey, Love”—Annabelle Archer Book #7

  Also by Laura Durham

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  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Night Of The Living Wed

  A Novella

  By Laura Durham

  Chapter 1

  “I can’t believe we’re finally going to a hotel where we don’t have a wedding.” I rolled down my car window, sweeping my auburn hair up into a ponytail so it wouldn’t blow in my face. I breathed in the cool mountain air, pausing at an empty intersection before making a left to follow the sign to the Omni Bedford Springs Resort. Even if the lack of traffic hadn’t been a tip-off, the heady scent of pine trees and the cacophony of birds and croaking frogs would have told me we weren’t in DC anymore.

  My assistant, Kate, leaned her blond head back on the passenger headrest with her legs stretched in front of her, barely covered by her short wool kilt. Despite the cloud cover, she wore oversized sunglasses, and I suspected her eyes were closed behind them. “I can’t believe we finally have a weekend off.”

  “You know, most couples don’t pick Halloween weekend unless they’re the kind of people who like costume weddings or orange flowers.” I took a sip from the Venti Mocha Frappuccino I’d gotten at a Starbucks a hundred miles ago and sucked up mostly whipped cream that had melted in the bottom of the plastic cup.

  For us, the wedding season stretched from April until mid-November, but we rarely had Halloween weddings. Not that we wouldn’t take them. As the owner of Wedding Belles, one of DC’s top wedding planning companies, I’d made it company policy not to take weddings over Thanksgiving or Christmas or on Easter Sunday, but all other holidays were fair game.

  “Well, I can’t believe we took your car, Annabelle,” Richard said from the back seat. “Your Volvo sedan isn’t exactly my idea of arriving in style.”

  I glanced in my rearview mirror to see the owner of Richard Gerard Catering and my best friend for the past six years with his arms crossed and his short dark hair sculpted into perfect spikes. “Do I need to remind you that we don’t all fit in your Mercedes convertible?”

  “I don’t mind riding in a mom car.” Fern popped his head in the space between the two front seats, his brown hair drawn back into a tight man bun. “More room for my bags.”

  As Washington’s wedding hair guru, Fern never went anywhere without plenty of designer hair products and styling tools.

  “Speaking of bags.” Richard pushed the Louis Vuitton duffel bag next to him closer to Fern. “What is in all of them? You know we’re only going for the weekend, right?”

  “None of you packed light,” I said, remembering that we’d barely been able to close my trunk due to the number of bags Kate, Richard, and Fern had brought. Hence the duffel bag in the back seat.

  “I even had to put Hermès on the floor,” Richard said, motioning to the black leather cross-body bag he usually wore.

  “To be clear, the bag is on the floor,” I said. “Not the dog.”

  The brown-and-black Yorkie nudged Fern’s head out of the way and hopped to the front seat, his tiny pink tongue hanging out of his mouth as he sniffed the air. Technically, the dog belonged to Richard’s partner and was named Butterscotch, but Richard had taken to bringing the pint-sized pup everywhere and calling him Hermès. Richard believed everything he owned should be designer.

  “Small consolation,” Richard said.

  Even though the Pennsylvania resort was only three hours from Washington, the unhurried roads and rolling hills felt like they were a universe away from the hustle and bustle of the capitol city. Since we’d exited the highway, the sounds of passing cars had given way to the quiet of the rural area, and we could now drink in the crisp air without also sucking down exhaust fumes. I closed my eyes for a moment to enjoy the cool wind on my face.

  “There it is,” Kate said, snapping me out of my momentary bliss.

  As the car drove around a bend, the resort came into view. Stretched out across an expanse of green lawn, the three-level building dotted with peaked roofs was dominated by the white wraparound porch on each floor that ran the length of the resort. The center section of the hotel—red brick fronted with a series of tall, white columns—boasted a covered portico jutting out from the building. Rocking chairs lined the porches and overlooked a manicured garden across from the main entrance. The resort looked so tranquil and idyllic, I felt my breath begin to slow in response.

  “How do Debbie and Darla know about this place again?” Kate slipped her sunglasses down her nose to get a better look.

  Debbie and Darla were the mother-daughter duo who had given us the weekend away as a thank you for all the hard work we’d done for Darla’s blowout wedding to Turner Grant the Third. Usually our tips came in the form of cash or gift cards, but Debbie and Darla wanted to send their wedding team to their favorite weekend getaway resort. Considering the fact that we’d planned the wedding for nearly two years, we graciously accepted. Due to everyone’s packed schedules since their wedding, we’d only now been able to coordinate a weekend we were all available.

  “They come here all the time,” I said as I pulled the car up under the covered portico. “Debbie raves about the spa.”

  “Don’t you mean bar?” Richard said. “We never saw them sober.”

  “You don’t think they’ll be here this weekend, do you?” Kate’s eyes darted around like she expected them to pop out of the nearby bushes and surprise us.

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  “That wouldn’t be so bad,” Fern said. “They were entertaining.”

  Richard opened his car door. “Because they were always drunk.”

  “Their wedding was fun.” Fern unfolded himself from the car and stretched. “Although the suit I wore still smells like bourbon.”

  No surprise, since we’d had two bourbon bars and passed mint juleps at the reception.

  “That seersucker suit?” Richard rolled his eyes. “Is that a great loss?”

  Fern sucked in his breath. “I was dressing to the occasion. And that wedding was Southern through and through.”

  Fern took great pains to dress to the theme of the wedding, which had resulted in him doing wedding hair in everything from an Indian sari to a Japanese kimono to a hula skirt.

  “I suppose we should be happy he didn’t dress in an antebellum gown with a hoop skirt,” Kate said to me under her breath.

  I opened my car door and stepped out, glad to stretch my legs. Hermès jumped out behind me and began inspecting a nearby shrub.

  A valet rushed up to me. “Checking in? Name?”

  I nodded, handing him my keys. “Annabelle Archer.”

  I reached inside the car to pop the truck and straightened as I heard the roar of motorcycles behind me. A pair of black Harleys pulled up behind us and two immense leather-clad men stepped off them, removing their helmets and revealing bald heads, goatees, and multiple piercings.

  “
Will you look at this place?” Mack, the Harley rider with the red goatee, leaned back to look up at the resort.

  “It was almost worth all those hours of floral meetings with Debbie and Darla to get a payoff like this,” Buster said in his deep, booming voice, running a hand down his dark goatee.

  Buster and Mack were the owners of Lush and our favorite floral design team. They were also members of a Christian biker gang and didn’t abide cursing. I’d often thought it was a good thing their paths didn’t cross often with Fern’s on a wedding day, since he had a habit of calling the bridesmaids all sorts of colorful names.

  I grabbed my purse from the floor of the passenger’s seat. “Should we check in?”

  Richard slung his black messenger bag across his chest, scooping up Hermès and dropping him inside. “Let’s go.”

  “There’s a cocktail with my name on it,” Kate said as she took long strides toward the front door.

  Fern hitched his Louis Vuitton duffel onto his shoulder, glass clinking from the travel-sized bottles of booze he told us he’d packed in case the bars closed early or the minibar didn’t have his brands. “I’m right behind you, sister.”

  I followed Kate through the black double doors to the lobby. High ceilings gave the space an airy feel with hardwood floors and classic upholstered furniture gathered around multiple crackling fireplaces. I inhaled the scent of the burning logs mixed with the lush fresh flowers displayed on a nearby mahogany side table.

  “You made it!” A tall, good-looking man with slightly receding close-cropped brown hair rushed over to us, and I recognized him right away as the Bedford Springs director of catering I’d gotten to know at a party at the Washington Omni a few months prior. We’d hit it off as friends—connecting over our shared love of fountain soda and ‘80s music—and had kept in touch over email since then. He’d even come down to DC for another weekend, and we’d met up for drinks and wedding war stories. I’d been excited to tell him that I was coming to his resort for the weekend, and he’d been equally excited to host us, and I knew he’d scheduled a few activities for us so he could show off the hotel.

  “Hi, Stuart,” I said, returning his air kiss. “Kate, you remember . . .”

  “Of course I do.” Kate gave him a kiss on the cheek that was more lips than air.

  Why did I think Kate would ever forget an attractive man? I made introductions all around as Kate kept a firm grip on Stuart’s arm.

  “I tried to put all your rooms together,” Stuart said as he walked us toward the registration desk at the far end of the lobby. “But that meant I had to put you on the second floor.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  Stuart let out a breath. “Oh, good. I’m glad you don’t mind.”

  “Why would we mind?” Richard asked.

  “Some people are funny about staying near the haunted section.”

  Kate’s hand dropped from Stuart’s arm. “Excuse me?”

  Hermès yipped, and Richard gave him a pat on the head. “Are any of the ghosts brides?”

  The catering director cocked his head. “I beg your pardon?”

  Fern nudged him. “You know. Ghosts wandering the halls in wedding gowns? Jilted brides who killed themselves in despair? That kind of thing.”

  “Not that I know of.” Stuart’s expression told me that my group was not exactly what he’d expected.

  Kate linked her arm through his and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Then bring on the ghosts.”

  Chapter 2

  “Wow,” I said, dropping my black overnight bag on the tufted ottoman at the foot of the four-poster king-size bed and letting my eyes take in the suite I’d been given. Even though there was no one in the room to hear me, I couldn’t help commenting out loud. I hadn’t been expecting such a luxurious room, and I suspected Stuart had upgraded our accommodations.

  The dark wood bed covered in crisp white linen and a mountain of feather pillows dominated the room. French doors at one end of the spacious room led outside to a veranda that boasted a pair of black wicker chaise lounge chairs and two rocking chairs. French doors at the other end of the room opened to a cavernous bathroom with a free-standing soaking tub, double marble vanities, a luxurious standing shower for two, and a fluffy white robe hanging on a hook near the bathtub. I breathed in the faint scent of lemon and lavender and wondered if it came from the high-end toiletries displayed in a neat line next to the sink.

  I removed the blue-and-white-striped toiletry bag from my luggage and set it on the white vanity, pausing to check my reflection in the massive wall mirror framed in the same dark wood as the bed. My auburn hair looked a bit windswept from riding in the car with the windows down, and I could use a bit of bronzer to give my pale skin some color, but I didn’t look altogether bad. The stress of wedding season was always good for losing a few pounds, and I noticed the loose waistband of my jeans. I reminded myself that the upcoming holiday season should take care of that. A loud knock at the door snapped me from my contemplation.

  “Can you believe these rooms?” Kate asked when I opened the door. She came inside and began inspecting my suite. “Yours is even bigger than mine. Not that I’m looking a gift horse in the mouse.”

  I stopped for a moment as I repeated the saying in my head. It wasn’t a good sign that Kate’s malaprops were beginning to sound correct to me.

  “I think this was all Stuart. I doubt Debbie and Darla sprang for suites like this.” I pointed to an orange jack-o-lantern bucket on the desk filled with yellow dahlias, cellophane bags of candy corn, and marshmallow circus peanuts. “And I’m sure the Halloween candy wasn’t their idea.”

  Kate’s eyes flicked to the candy. “I got one, too. And if Debbie and Darla had sent those pumpkins, they would have been filled with booze.”

  “True,” I said, laughing.

  Kate paused in front of the standing floor-length mirror tucked in the corner and gave herself the once-over, twisting so she could inspect her back view and then smiling. “This skirt makes my legs look great.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t the stilettos?” I asked, my eyes dropping from her plaid miniskirt masquerading as a kilt to her black platform heels.

  She shrugged. “Could be. These shoes are magic.”

  “They look like torture.”

  Kate flopped onto my bed and let her shoes drop to the floor. “You are changing before dinner, right?”

  I glanced down at my jeans and white button-down shirt, a triple strand of pearls at my neck. “Of course I am. I packed a couple of very nice dinner dresses.”

  Kate raised an eyebrow, telling me that my idea and her idea of a nice dinner dress were probably not the same.

  My phone trilled inside my purse and I pulled it out, feeling a flush of pleasure as I read the name on the screen. Detective Mike Reese.

  “Hey,” I said, feeling self-conscious as I heard my voice soften. I walked to the French doors at the far end of the room.

  “How was the drive up with the gang?” he asked.

  “Not bad.” I tried to keep my voice low. “The resort is gorgeous and they put me in an amazing suite.”

  Who is it? Kate mouthed from the bed.

  “Really? Too bad I couldn’t come with you,” Reese said, his voice also low as a number of voices buzzed in the background.

  I felt my cheeks redden, and I turned so that Kate couldn’t see me. Even though Reese and I had been sporadically dating around both of our crazy schedules, we hadn’t reached the ‘going away together’ stage. At least not in my mind. We were taking things slow. Excruciatingly slow, as Kate liked to put it.

  “Is that Reese?” Kate whispered.

  I waved her question away with one hand and stepped outside on the balcony. “You’d like this place. It’s very remote. I doubt they’ve had a violent crime here in years.”

  “Knock on wood. Let’s hope you and your murder-prone crew don’t ruin that.”

  “Hey, what are you saying?” I tried to sound outraged
through my laughter. “You make it sound like we’re responsible for the murders we’ve happened to stumble into.”

  “I never said the word responsible. Magnet is probably a better term.”

  “Now you’re asking for it,” I said, leaning my forearms against the wooden porch railing and gazing at the thick forest facing the resort.

  “What am I asking for?” His voice went from flirty to suggestive, and I felt my pulse quicken even though he was over a hundred miles away.

  I cleared my throat and turned to look back into my suite as I heard voices that were not Kate’s. Through the panes of the French doors I could see Kate giving Richard and Fern a tour of my room. Great. It would only take minutes for them to find out where I was and figure out who was on the other end of my conversation. I did not feel like getting the third degree from them about my relationship with Reese, especially since I felt that the more I talked about it, the more I would jinx it. So far taking it slow and keeping the details under wraps had been working well, and I didn’t want to ruin that.

  “I’ve got to run. Call you later?”

  “Sure,” he said, disappointment tingeing his voice. “Talk to you later.”

  I walked back into the suite and slid my phone into my purse. Kate had resumed her sprawl across my bed while Fern stood preening in front of the mirror, tucking errant hairs back into his bun. Richard sat at the desk, rapping his fingers against the polished wood surface.

  “What’s going on in here?” I asked.

  “Tell them they’re crazy,” Richard gestured to Fern and Kate.