A Marriage of True Minds: A Sasha McCandless Novella by Melissa F. Miller

 
     
    A MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS
    A Sasha McCandless
Novella
     
    Melissa F. Miller
     
     
     
    Brown Street Books
     
    AUTHOR’S NOTE
     
    This novella (approximately 18,000 words
or 75 printed pages) is intended for my existing readers, who’ve been invited
to attend Sasha and Leo’s wedding! If you’re new to the series, I recommend you
start with any one of the full-length legal thrillers, which you can find at
smarturl.it/sashaseries, and come back to this when you know Sasha and Leo a
little bit better. I think you’ll enjoy the novella more that way—after all,
who wants to go to a stranger’s wedding?
    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.
     
    Copyright © 2013 Melissa F. Miller
     
    All rights reserved.
     
    Published by Brown Street Books.
     
    For more information about the author,
    please visit www.melissafmiller.com.
     
    For more information about the publisher,
    please visit www. brownstbooks.com.
     
    Cover design by
Clarissa Yeo
     
     
     
     
     
    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
     
    Special thanks to DC, GC, and DG, the
other three horsewomen, who insisted Sasha and Leo deserved a proper
wedding. Sincere appreciation to my editing and proofreading team, especially
Curt Akin and Lou Maconi. Any mistakes or errors that remain are mine and mine
alone. Finally, and always, my love to my understanding and supportive husband
and children.
     
     
     
     
     
    Let me not to
the marriage of true minds
    Admit
impediments. Love is not love
    Which alters
when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with
the remover to remove:
    O no! it is an
ever-fixed mark
    That looks on tempests
and is never shaken;
    It is the star
to every wandering bark,
    Whose worth’s
unknown, although his height be taken.
    Love's not
Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
    Within his
bending sickle’s compass come:
    Love alters not
with his brief hours and weeks,
    But bears it out
even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error
and upon me proved,
    I never writ,
nor no man ever loved.
     
    William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER ONE
     
     
    “Hand it over, Mac.”
    Naya stood, one
hand on a silk-sheathed hip, the other, palm up, waiting to receive Sasha’s
Blackberry.
    “Come on.
Really?”
    Naya glanced
behind her for support from her fellow bridesmaids. Only Maisy, relatively
fearless as befits a television journalist, dared to respond.
    “Really,” Maisy
agreed. She bobbed her head vigorously, and her curly blonde updo bounced,
threatening to tumble out of its knot and over her shoulders.
    Sasha’s
sisters-in-law pretended not to be aware of the face-off. Riley listened with
apparent fascination to Jordan’s enthusiastic description of the stainless
steel food mill she used to make homemade baby food.
    “It’s your rule,” Naya insisted.
    “False. My rule
is no weapons at the wedding. Connelly’s the one who said no cell phones.”
    Only their
wedding would include guests who would otherwise attend with a firearm
holstered on one side, and a mobile phone on the other.
    “Same
difference. You’re about to be united as one. Your husband said leave the
phones at home or in the suites. You can’t be the one who disregards his rule.”
    Her maid of
honor had a point. If ever there was a time to let her calls roll to voicemail,
it was probably during her wedding weekend.
    No need to
concede so easily, though. She’d worked with Naya long enough to know that the
better course was to let Naya think her victory was hard-won.
    “What? You think
I’m going to obey him, suddenly?”
    Naya gave her the
look .
    “No. But I think
it would be very rude for you to show up at the rehearsal with your phone. Now,
will you please stop being a brat and give me the phone?”
    “Fine. But it’s
on you if we miss a