Lost and Gowned

  Lost And Gowned

  Rosemary’s Wedding

  Melissa F. Miller

  Copyright © 2017 Melissa F. Miller

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission.

  Published by Brown Street Books.

  Brown Street Books eBook ISBN: 978-1-940759-26-5

  Contents

  Also by Melissa F. Miller

  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

  Thank You!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Melissa F. Miller

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  The Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller Series

  Irreparable Harm

  Inadvertent Disclosure

  Irretrievably Broken

  Indispensable Party

  Lovers and Madmen (Novella)

  Improper Influence

  A Marriage of True Minds (Novella)

  Irrevocable Trust

  Irrefutable Evidence

  A Mingled Yarn (Novella)

  Informed Consent

  International Incident

  Imminent Peril

  The Humble Salve (Novella)

  The Aroostine Higgins Novels

  Critical Vulnerability

  Chilling Effect

  Calculated Risk

  The Bodhi King Novels

  Dark Path

  Lonely Path

  Hidden Path

  The We Sisters Three Romantic Comedic Mysteries

  Rosemary’s Gravy

  Sage of Innocence

  Thyme to Live

  Lost and Gowned

  For Rosie.

  Chapter 1

  Rosemary

  It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when I finally returned home from catering the Steinbrenner-Moskowitzes’ four-hundred-person wedding reception in Laurel Canyon. I dragged myself to the bathroom to brush my teeth. You could say I was bone tired; but that would be an understatement. I was bone, skin, muscle, organ, and blood cell tired. Even my hair was tired.

  It was all I could do to lift the toothbrush to my mouth to give my teeth a halfhearted two minutes of brushing. The muscles in my right arm burned from the effort. Flossing was out of the question. My only thought was of my bed. I couldn’t wait to flop my head on my soft, fluffy pillow and burrow under my comforter to settle in for a dreamless sleep.

  I turned to trudge from the bathroom to the bedroom and bumped into the wall of muscle that was my boyfriend Dave’s chest.

  “Hey,” I managed in a monotone.

  “Hey, yourself.” He planted a kiss on the top of my head. “It looked like the reception went off without a hitch,” he observed as he trailed me into the bedroom.

  I smiled weakly. He was right. The wedding reception had been, well, perfect.

  Every detail—from the pearls woven into the bride’s bouquet to the sugar globes and gold leaf studding the four-tier wedding cake—had been fine-tuned and fussed over, thanks in no small part to the mother of the bride’s obsessive attention to every imaginable detail. The florist and the bandleader had found Mrs. Steinbrenner to be irritating at worst and distracting at best, but I thought her behavior was sort of endearing. She just wanted to make sure her daughter’s big day was perfect, after all. It was hardly a war crime.

  Dave had caught the very end of the reception, as the guests had waved goodbye to the happy couple under a canopy of fairy lights and gardenias. Then, he’d helped me schlep all my stuff to my car and his pickup truck and had caravanned down the canyon hills with me.

  “It was a beautiful wedding. It nearly killed me, but it was glorious. I never want to think about another wedding again. Ever.”

  Dave gave a short nod of his head. “Right.”

  I loved owning my own catering company. Feeding people filled my soul. But I felt this way—flattened and drained—after every wedding, so Dave could be forgiven for ignoring my hyperbole.

  “I mean it this time. No more weddings,” I insisted, stifling a yawn.

  Instead of challenging my empty statement, he just took me by the hand, led me to the edge of the bed, and gently pushed me into a seated position.

  “Rosemary, before you go to sleep tonight, there’s one more thing I want to do.”

  I stared up at him for a long, bleary moment. I mean, don’t get me wrong—I’m very into my boyfriend, but he had to be kidding. I was exhausted.

  “Not tonight, pal. I’m dead on my feet.” I tried to soften the blow with a smile and gentle pat on his forearm. “I’d love a rain check for tomorrow, though,” I said in my best sexy voice, which given the hour and my state was pretty ragged.

  He fixed me with an expression of mild disdain and shook his head. “Not that.”

  I looked at him blankly with heavy-lidded, sleepy eyes. If not that, then what? What did he want to do in the middle of the night after I’d worked an eighteen-hour day on the heels of back-to-back fifteen-hour workdays? Play Scrabble? Give the dog a bath? As I was formulating my witty retort, he dropped to one knee on the bedroom floor.

  I cocked my head and stared at him in confusion. From her spot on the foot of the bed, our dog, Mona Lisa, gave him an equally quizzical head tilt. I yawned, wide-mouthed, and tried to make sense of the whole scene but my fuzzy brain wouldn’t cooperate.

  He reached into his pocket and produced a tiny, square box tied with a white satin bow.

  My eyes popped all the way open. My pulse fluttered. I took a quick sniff of my fingers to see if I caught a whiff of the two dozen heads of garlic I’d roasted for my silky garlic and herb dip. Luckily, my trick of rubbing my hands with a lemon after handling garlic seemed to have worked. I didn’t smell like vampire repellant, as far as I could tell.

  Dave intertwined his fingers between mine. Then he smiled, and his warm brown eyes crinkled adorably.

  “I love you, Rosemary. I love every ludicrous thing about you. I love your gross fast food habit, your stubbornness, the way you drool in your sleep.”

  “I don’t drool,” I protested, even though we both knew my pillow was damp every morning.

  He ignored me and plowed ahead with his speech. “I want to spend every day for the rest of my life watching you drool. Will you marry me, Rosemary?”

  He returned my hand to my lap and opened the box. A slender band with a sparkling stone that caught the light like water sat nestled on a white silk pillow.

  I was definitely wide awake now. In fact, I was bouncing on the edge of the bed like a kid. Pure joy shot through me. I forgot all about my tired, achy, exhausted self and was struck by three immediate, phenomenal ideas.

  One, of course I would marry him. I loved Dave D
rummond beyond all reason. We’d woven our lives together so seamlessly that I couldn’t imagine my world without him in it.

  Two, I couldn’t wait to bake my own wedding cake. I already knew exactly what flavors I’d use—honeysuckle lemon cake with lavender cream, topped with crystallized wildflowers.

  And three, we would have the wedding at Tranquility, the Resort by the Sea, the struggling vacation retreat I co-owned with my sisters Sage and Thyme.

  In hindsight, one of three would actually turn out to be a good idea. The other two? Disastrous, calamitous, catastrophic. Plain old bad.

  Oblivious to the storm to come, I flung my arms around his neck and squeaked out an excited ‘yes.’

  Chapter 2

  Sage

  I was brushing my teeth when my phone vibrated across the vanity. I grabbed it with my free hand and noted the name on the display: Rosemary.

  My stomach clenched. It was just about six a.m. here, which meant it was the middle of the night in Los Angeles. Why would Rosemary be calling me at three o’clock in the morning?

  I hurriedly spat my toothpaste into the basin and rinsed out my mouth.

  “Rosemary? What’s wrong?”

  She giggled. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing in the world is wrong. In fact, everything’s perfect!”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “What? No.”

  As far as I knew, my older sister didn’t use drugs, but I asked anyway. “High?”

  “I’m high on life, Sage.” More giggling.

  “Oh-kay. Um …”

  “I have news! But I’m so tired from catering a wedding all night that I can’t figure out how to conference in Thyme. Will you do it?”

  I glanced at the clock on my phone. “I’ll try. But she’s probably already working with her first client.”

  Apparently, in New York, the more affluent and powerful you were, the more likely you were to be doing planks and lunges before the sun was fully up. I liked the Hilton Head Island approach better. Here, the rich and famous slept in, golfed, and then bummed around the beach until cocktail hour.

  I put Rosemary on hold and hit the speed dial button for Thyme’s number. She answered on the second ring. Based on the cacophony of car horns, beeping trucks, and the roar of engines, she was out walking around.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Can you talk?”

  “Not really. There was a mechanical problem on the subway, so the trains are delayed. And it’s raining, of course, so there are no cabs to be had. I’m hoofing it to the Upper West Side for an appointment. I’m going to have to run, literally.”

  “You couldn’t pay me to live there.”

  “Greatest city in the world, sis. Can I call you this afternoon?”

  “I have Rosemary on hold. She asked me to conference you in.”

  “Rosie? It’s three o’clock in the morning there. Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know. She sounds weird.”

  Thyme sighed. “Okay, add her to the call. Everybody else in this city blames the weather when they’re late. I suppose I can, too.”

  “Hang on.” I pressed the conference button to loop in our loopy older sister. “Rosemary?” I asked to confirm I hadn’t disconnected her.

  “Yep!” she chirped.

  “Thyme?”

  “I’m here.” Thyme’s voice was cautious. “So, you obviously have news or you wouldn’t be calling so early. The only question is whether it’s bad news or horrible news.”

  I felt myself nodding. If she was calling to tell us about yet another expensive disaster at the resort I would just sit down and cry right here on the bathroom floor. We’d been pouring as much money into Tranquility by the Sea as we could. But something or another was constantly breaking or malfunctioning. Or flooding. Or being eaten by termites.

  “It’s the best news,” she assured us. “Dave and I are getting married!”

  Thyme and I both started squealing and laughing at the same time.

  After a minute, I calmed down and said, “I’m so happy for you! You two are great together.” I wondered if my giant smile might split my face in half.

  “Dave’s the best,” Thyme added. “This is so exciting!”

  “I know! I’m never going to get to sleep at this rate. So, listen, will you be my co-maids of honor?”

  “Of course!” I said.

  “Do you even have to ask? Yes!” Thyme chimed in.

  “We’re going to have so much fun getting the resort ready for a wedding!” Rosemary enthused.

  There was a long silence.

  “Sage? Thyme? Did I lose you?”

  “Um, no, I’m here. Did you say you want to have the wedding at the resort? Our down-at-the-heels resort?” I asked.

  “It’s charming,” she shot back.

  Thyme cleared her throat. “It has a certain shabby chic vibe,” she said diplomatically. “But, let’s be honest, it’s more shabby than chic.”

  “Besides, do you really want to plan a wedding in New Jersey all the way from California? Wouldn’t it be easier logistically to have it out there? Maybe Napa Valley?” I suggested.

  Rosemary’s temper flared. “I want to be married in our childhood home. I want to use the money I would otherwise spend to rent a venue to spruce up the resort a bit. And I want you to support my idea, for Pete’s sake!”

  “No need to go full Bridezilla this early in the process,” Thyme muttered.

  I choked back a laugh and tried to soothe the savage bride. “Of course, it’s your day. I mean, yours and Dave’s. Is he on board with getting hitched at the resort?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then it’s settled.”

  “Listen, Rosemary, I am so super thrilled for you. And Sage is right. You can get married in a laundromat for all I care. I just want to be a part of your amazing day, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. I have to go. Cate is going to be apoplectic if she doesn’t have time for a full yoga asana series today. I love you both.” Thyme made kissing noises into the phone.

  “Bye. I love you both, too.”

  “Love you both. Hey, before you go—-make sure you text us a picture of the ring,” I said.

  “I will,” she promised.

  Thyme and I waited until the phone sounded three short bip bip bip noises. Then she said, “Rosie?”

  No response.

  “She hung up,” I confirmed with a glance at my phone’s display. “So …”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, it is her wedding. And she’ll probably be able to keep costs down if we do it at the resort. But, still …”

  “Yep.”

  There was a silence while we both considered the myriad disasters that could befall a wedding at the resort. As it turns out, the one that actually happened was wilder than anything I managed to imagine.

  Chapter 3

  Thyme

  After Rosemary’s middle-of-the-night call, things happened fast. She flew out to New York the next weekend to hammer out a game plan for the wedding. New York was the most logical place to meet. It was a direct flight from LAX, and it was a short drive from my apartment to the resort, provided we didn’t hit any traffic. Which, of course, we did.

  Sage had really wanted to come up from South Carolina to join us, but the Moores, the family she worked for, had some big public appearance for a charity Chip had established to help Gullah Geechee children. So she couldn’t get away. That hadn’t stopped her from texting me dozens of ideas, suggestions, and reminders to share with Rosemary.

  The day after Rosemary landed, we spent a long, boring afternoon picking out invitations. I never in my life would have thought there were so many different kinds of paper. Vellum, parchment, card stock, fabric, the list went on. My mind was reeling when we left the stationery store.

  “How about a drink?” I proposed, half-dazed.

  “Good grief, yes.”

  So, over a couple well-earned glasses of Scotch at the bar around
the corner from my apartment, I pulled up Sage’s greatest hits and started running them by Rosemary.

  She made decisions like an empress. Instantaneously, decisively, swiftly.

  “S’mores bar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Chalkboard menu?”

  “No.”

  “Fairy lights in the trees?”

  “Yes.”

  “A dress from Chelle’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Parsley as feline ring bearer?”

  “Uh, no.” She snorted.

  “Harpist for the ceremony musician?”

  “Sure.”

  I paused. “Do you want to run any of this by Dave?”

  “Nah.” She sipped her Scotch. “He wants veto power over the menu, but other than that, the reception’s all mine. He’s in charge of the ceremony. He lined up a friend to officiate, and he’s busy picking out readings.”

  “Okay, great.” I scanned the texts and my stomach dropped. “Um, what about the guest list?”

  She tilted her head. “What about it? Sage already has it set up in some fancy database, doesn’t she?”

  I fussed with my glass.

  “Are you stalling, Thyme?”

  I wished Victor were here. Rosemary would never cause a scene in front of my boyfriend. But he was on a deadline for a long-form article. I was on my own. If I didn’t ask her, Sage would. And I knew from experience that conversation would go way worse.

  I squared my shoulders and said, “Have you considered inviting Mom and Dad?”

  Then I waited for her to erupt. But she didn’t.

  Instead she grew very, very quiet, lifted her chin, and said in a voice devoid of expression, “I don’t have an address for Mom and Dad. And I don’t want one. The people who matter to me will be invited to the wedding. The people who don’t, won’t. You can tell Sage the guest list is final.”