Going to the Chapel: A Novella
Read Going to the Chapel: A Novella Online
Authors: Rita Herron
GOING TO THE CHAPEL
OTHER TITLES BY RITA HERRON
Romance:
Marry Me, Maddie
Sleepless in Savannah
Love Me, Lucy
Here Comes the Bride
There Goes the Groom
Husband Hunting 101
Single & Searching
Under the Covers
Boxed Sets:
THE BACHELOR PACT—includes:
Marry Me, Maddie
Sleepless in Savannah
Love Me, Lucy
LOOKING FOR LOVE – includes:
Husband Hunting 101
Here Comes the Bride
Under the Covers
GOING TO THE CHAPEL
RITA HERRON
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Rita Herron
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
e-ISBN: 9781477871447
Cover design by Jason Blackburn
DEDICATION
To Isobel Bent and mom (and agent) Jenny Bent for posting the photo of the Ken doll facedown in the swimming pool—you were my inspiration!CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
“No boy will ever come between us.” Seven-year-old Izzy Sassafras plunked her Ken doll facedown in Barbie’s plastic swimming pool.
She and her sisters, nine-year-old Daisy and eleven-year-old Caroline, had dressed each of their dolls in wedding gowns, but they’d been fighting over Ken for weeks. They’d finally decided that none of them would marry him. Their bond was more important than he was.
Daisy stuffed a Twinkie in her mouth and shoved the doll beneath the water. “Never.”
Caroline swayed back and forth as if debating on whether or not to agree to the pact. The oldest sister had been struck by the boy itch and had a crush on Bid Schmidt, but no way would Izzy let that snaggletooth farter get between her family members.
She pinched Caroline’s neck. “Say it, Caroline.”
Daisy licked Twinkie cream from her fingers. “Yeah, Caroline. You don’t like that dumb boy more than you like us, do you?”
Ever since Caroline had gotten those bumps on her chests she called boobies, she was acting different. She didn’t even want to climb trees anymore. Once she’d even snuck into Aunt Dottie’s secret makeup stash and put on her pink lipstick.
Caroline tugged at the strap of her training bra as if to remind them that she
was
almost a teenager.
Izzy planted her hands on her hips. “You wanna end up like Mama doing time in the pokey? Is that what you want? ’Cause that’s what happens when you fall for boys.”
All of them had been ashamed when their mother got locked up for killing their daddy. When the police took her away, the girls were left alone with only Caroline to watch over them till their aunt Dottie, with her famous How to Be a Lady rules, had showed up to take them back to her house in Matrimony. A house that Izzy had been sure was haunted.
She still slept with the lights on.
“All right.” Caroline dropped rose petals from the bush beside them into the water as if Ken had just died, and they were burying him. “No boy will ever come between us.”
They spit into their hands, then clasped them to cement the pact.
Izzy felt better already. The Sassafras sisters would always be best friends.
Twenty years later
Izzy Sassafras had lost everyone she’d ever loved in her life. She’d lost her sisters because of a man, when they’d sworn no man would ever come between them.
And now she was about to be husbandless.
But Ray LaPone had screwed her for the last time.
Literally and figuratively.
She stuffed the duffel bag of cash she’d found in the closet into the trunk of her ancient VW Beetle, set her keepsake box of memorabilia on the passenger seat, punched her favorite playlist on her iPod, and sped out of her driveway.
Heck, she wouldn’t be taking the cash, but she’d tried to hock the jewelry Ray had given her. He’d said the diamonds and stones were real, but she discovered they were all fake.
Just like Ray.
Even his gym membership was a ruse. The only body part he exercised was his penis.
The wind tossed the Christmas lights dangling from the front porch into a frenzy, then sent them careening downward, where they landed in a tangle on the rickety porch.
Half of the damn lights were already burned out, the other half shattering.
Perfect. Just like her life.
Swiping at her tears with the handkerchief her aunt had embroidered, she flew down the highway singing the blues.
Just as she crossed the state line from Texas into Louisiana, she belted out “All My Exes Live in Texas,” tossed her wedding ring out the window, and waved good-bye to the state—and the man who’d ruined her life.
To make matters worse, Ray wasn’t simply cheating on her, but he’d chosen to cheat with the widowed women at the country club. Women nearly twice his age.
What did they have that she didn’t have?
Other than money, blue-blood parents, and class . . .
As Ray had so unkindly pointed out.
Hoping to put as many miles as possible between her and Ray before he meandered home from whatever whore he’d decided to dip his dick into tonight, she glanced at the crumpled map on the seat beside her with a grimace.
The outline of Georgia appeared, triggering a pang of loneliness and regret that swelled inside her. Two days ago, when she’d discovered Ray’s indiscretions had spread from women to money, she’d decided it was time to cut bait.
When she’d started packing, she’d discovered the diary she’d kept when she’d lived at home in Matrimony, Georgia, and memories of her estranged sisters had returned.
She’d also found that column nosy Nellie Needlemyer had written.
Naughty in Matrimony
By Nellie Needlemyer
THE SCANDALOUS SASSAFRAS SISTERS
Once again, the Sassafras sisters have shown their true colors. Last night the three girls engaged in a catfight in the middle of the Dairy & Donut Delite.
Witnesses say the girls were fighting over rodeo star Blake Kincaid, who was rumored to be Caroline’s secret boyfriend.
Seventeen-year-old Izzy, who was wearing a skimpy fuchsia halter top and a pair of risqué short-shorts that showed her butt cheeks, threw her hot fudge sundae at her oldest sister, Caroline, when Caroline accused her of breaking into Kincaid’s hotel room to seduce him.
Middle sister Daisy, proud winner of the local cornbread festival cook-off for her jalapeño cornbread, who also had a crush on the star, jumped in to break up the brawl, but four-letter words and fists were flying, and the three wound up nearly naked with ice cream and hot fudge sauce in places no respectable girl ought to have ice cream or hot fudge.
Sheriff Harper had to drag them apart, and got creamed with a slushy in the process.
Dottie Sassafras, the girls’ aunt and a pillar of the community, most known for her cotillion class on How to Be a Lady, had no comment on the arrest.
Emotions clogged Izzy’s throat at the reminder that ten years had passed since that disastrous day.
Thankfully, YouTube hadn’t been available back then, or the story would have gone viral.
Although surely by now, everyone in town would have forgotten about the debacle. Everyone except her aunt, because the sisters had broken her rules.
Suddenly she spotted an armadillo crossing the road. Izzy had a soft spot for any live creature, so she slowed and swerved to avoid hitting it, but she hit a patch of black ice and skidded.
Her car bounced over the ruts and slammed into a tree.
Thankfully she didn’t crash hard enough for the air bag to deploy. But the front end of her car was crunched. Bertha, her Beetle, had been with her since she’d left Matrimony, much longer than she’d been married to Ray.
Her cell phone buzzed, and she startled, sweat trickling into her bra as she checked the caller ID display. Ray.
Terrified he could somehow magically see her through the phone, she shifted into reverse and sped backward. Slinging gravel, she flew onto the road.
The box of keepsakes tumbled to the floor, her wedding picture, dried corsage, and garter belt spilling out. The map landed on top of the broken picture frame, a glaring reminder that she’d left home to find love and she’d failed.
Or maybe it was an omen that it was time to go home.
After all, she didn’t want to spend Christmas alone. She could curl up at Aunt Dottie’s and lick her wounds.
As long as her aunt didn’t ask too many questions . . .
Never tell an outright lie unless it’s to spare someone’s feelings
: rule number five in Aunt Dottie’s How to Be a Lady list. Except sometimes a girl had to lie to protect the people she cared about.
Thankfully, though, her sisters wouldn’t be there, so she wouldn’t have to face them with her failure. And Ray knew the three of them hadn’t spoken in years.
He would never think to look for her in Matrimony.
“You have to find my wife.” Ray LaPone slapped a pile of cash on Levi Fox’s desk. “That’s nothing compared to what the little cheating, money-hungry witch stole from me.”
Levi, ex-cop now turned PI, stared at the crumpled bills with a silent curse. Was this what his life had deteriorated to?
Tracking down adulterous spouses for men like Ray LaPone?
Jeez. Instinctively his fingers touched the silver dollar in his shirt pocket. His father had given him the coin the day before he died as a good-luck piece. It also symbolized the name of the ranch he’d left Levi and his brothers—land that meant everything to the Fox men.
That silver dollar had saved his life when he’d been shot three weeks ago by catching the bullet that would have pierced his heart.
A gunshot wound he sustained when he’d screwed up on his last case.
Because he’d let his dick do the thinking, not his brain.
