A Wedding on Primrose Street (Life In Icicle Falls Book 7) by Sheila Roberts

really am. I never meant to hurt you.”
    “Oh, really? So you didn’t think having another woman on the side would hurt me? Oh, Mitchell, I’m well rid of you.”
    “Mitchell?” the new Stella called from downstairs. “Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine,” he called back.
    “As fine a rat as I’ve ever seen,” Daphne snarled. With his George Clooney face he was almost prettier than she was. People had often remarked on what a beautiful couple they were. “Just like Ken and Barbie all grown up,” someone once said. And, as it turned out, what they had was about as real as those plastic dolls.
    The rat slipped by her and out the bedroom, taking the toilet plunger with him. She stood there in the middle of the bedroom and listened to the murmur of their voices while her heart settled back down. Then the front door slammed shut and she was alone again.

Chapter Nine
    Anne at Work
    P ulling together a wedding could be like going out to sea. You planned for it as best you could and then hoped for good weather. When you started, the sea could look calm, but there was always a chance that a typhoon would hit. Pirates might find you. Anything could lurk beneath the waters. Sometimes people didn’t bring the right clothes for stormy weather or thought they’d packed enough food and then ran out. Or brought along someone who should’ve been pushed off the dock before they set sail.
    Such was the case with the wedding Anne was coordinating this particular weekend. Teddy, the bride’s nephew, should have been, if not pushed off the dock, at least left on it. Teddy was four and a bundle of energy. He had the attention span of a gnat and was as spoiled as a child could get. This did not make him a good candidate for ring bearer.
    But Teddy was the only child, the only grandchild, the only nephew, the only...everything, and the bride was on board with having him in the wedding party, along with his mother, who seemed completely incapable of controlling him. At the rehearsal he ran up the aisle with the ring pillow, the ribbons with the rings swinging wildly. Positioned on one of the carpeted steps leading up to the podium, he soon became bored with the adult conversation and began to hop up and down the stairs. When he wasn’t doing that, he was trying to look under the bridesmaids’ skirts or making faces at Anne, who was getting things ready for the big day. He finally wore himself out and collapsed on the lowest stair for an impromptu nap, allowing the minister to finish walking the bride and groom through their vows.
    “Maybe we can drug him,” muttered his grandfather.
    Anne suspected it would take more than drugs to tame Teddy.
    The afternoon of the wedding it looked as if someone had, indeed, drugged Teddy...with speed. Or too much sugar. He bounced around the foyer like a kangaroo looking forward to an extra helping of Marmite until his exasperated grandfather finally took him by the arm and growled at him to stand still.
    “You walk down the aisle like a gentleman,” Grandpa cautioned just before Teddy’s big moment.
    The dose of sternness seemed to work. Or maybe it was stage fright. Whatever the case, Teddy did an admirable job of getting the rings down the aisle.
    All right, Anne thought, taking in the scene. So far everything was going according to plan.
    The bridesmaids did their stately walk, sophisticated in navy blue dresses accented with red shoes. Then it was time for the father to walk his daughter down the aisle. Anne gave them the cue and sent them on their way, daughter smiling and father teary-eyed.
    Anne felt misty-eyed herself, watching them go. There was something about this moment in the wedding ceremony that always got to her. It was such a sweet tradition, the man who had raised the young woman, who’d been there to hear her nighttime prayers and sample her first baking efforts, who had fretted every time she was late coming home from a date, who had, in short, taken care of her and