The Final Vow Read online

  He mumbled a reply.

  “If you want me to understand you, you’ll have to speak up,” she said in her best teacher voice.

  Henry followed her to the pebbled path.

  “Laura, he might have to go to urgent care to get that nose looked at,” I said.

  “I’ll call him an ambulance if need be,” she replied over her shoulder.

  I shook my head.

  As Laura walked away with Henry in tow, I heard her say, “Don’t get too close to me. I can’t have any blood on my shirtwaist. It’s really hard to get the stain out.”

  Benji ran by with the box of wedding programs.

  “Benji,” I called after her. “Can you take that flask away from Drunk Lincoln, please?”

  “On it,” she said with a smile.

  I sighed. This wedding just might kill me after all.

  thirty

  After the wedding ceremony was over, Eddie and Krissie ran out of the church hand in hand, Eddie carrying Hayden on his shoulders as he ran. Krissie positively glowed, making a gorgeous bride in her lace and tulle ball gown. Eddie was handsome in his light gray suit and yellow bow tie, and Hayden was adorable in his outfit that was a mini-version of his father’s. They looked like the picture-perfect family. I tried to be happy for them. I tried not to care. I failed. I didn’t want to be with Eddie, not anymore, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t at least a little jealous of the happy trio.

  Laura wrapped her arm around me. “You’ll have your day again, Kel.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, blinking at her.

  “I saw how you watched Eddie and Krissie during the wedding. You’ll have that again too.” She looped her arm through mine.

  “I don’t miss Eddie, if that’s what you think.” I squeezed her arm.

  “I know that.” Her lip curved into a smile. “He and Krissie deserve each other.” She laughed. “I’m just saying, you’ll have a family again like that if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know. I thought I was happy with the Farm, and with just Hayden and me, until …”

  “Chase?” She raised a single auburn eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “I think we broke up, although neither of us has said so definitively. It’s something else I’ll have deal with after the wedding, and I want to help Benji too. She’s convinced Piper didn’t murder Vianna. If that’s true—and I think it is—then I have to find out who did it. There is still a killer loose on my Farm.”

  Laura sighed. “For once worry about yourself first, okay?” She nodded in the direction of the pebbled path. “You need to take care of that.”

  I followed her line of sight and saw Chase standing in the middle of the path in his reenactor medic uniform. It was the first I’d seen of him since he’d walked out of my cottage two nights before. “Did you know he was here?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He must have just arrived. He wasn’t inside the church during the ceremony. I know that for sure. I was in the back.”

  A knot formed in my stomach.

  Laura gave me a little shove. “Go talk to him. I think you owe both of you that.”

  I nodded, knowing she was right, and now that the wedding itself was over, I was feeling less stressed. Everything was in place for the cocktail hour and reception. The photographer was already coaching the wedding party on where he wanted them to be for photos. Everyone knew what they were doing. Vianna had made sure to hire all the right and most professional people. It wasn’t until I’d seen the wedding go off without a hitch that I realized how good she’d been at her job. That knowledge made her death all the sadder.

  I looked back at where Chase had been standing and saw that he was gone. I headed in that direction until I ran into Eddie, who was alone.

  “Kel, you got a minute?” he asked.

  “Do you need something? Is everything okay?” I looked around for Krissie and wondered what must have gone wrong for her to send Eddie over to talk to me. “You don’t want to miss your pictures.”

  He smiled. “Do you always assume there’s a crisis needing to be fixed?”

  I forced myself to relax. “No.”

  Eddie cocked his head. He’d known me longer than almost anyone else there, with the exception of my father.

  “Okay, fine, not all the time,” I admitted.

  He laughed. “That’s more like it. I just wanted to thank you. The wedding has been perfect. Krissie is so happy. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “It wasn’t just me. Vianna did most of the work.”

  He nodded. “And Vianna too.”

  “I’m glad to hear that everything went as Krissie hoped. You make a beautiful couple.” This was the truth. Eddie and Krissie were stunning together. They were a much better match than Eddie and I had ever been.

  His smile widened. “Thank you. The Lincoln reenactor was a nice touch. How did you pull that off?”

  “I have my ways.” I glanced inside the tent and saw Lincoln talking to several of Krissie’s guests. He swayed slightly as he spoke. I needed to remind Benji to keep an eye on him and to keep him away from the bar.

  Eddie laughed again, sounding as happy as I’d ever heard him. “I know you do. You’re a miracle worker. You always have been.”

  I shifted my feet, eager to continue my search for Chase. “If that’s all …”

  He placed a hand on my forearm. “It’s not. I just want to let you know that Krissie and I have agreed not to petition the courts to change the terms of the custody. I think the fact that we were all able to work together on this wedding proves that we can communicate and overcome obstacles outside of the court system. I realized today that this would be a much better way to handle it for us, and most importantly for Hayden.”

  I blinked at him, trying to digest what I’d just heard. “And Krissie agreed to this?”

  “Yes. She just wants me to be happy.” He beamed with a wedding glow. “She makes me so happy.”

  I found myself smiling because he did look happy, and I was relieved that my smile didn’t come with a twinge of regret.

  “I know this is the best thing for Hayden,” Eddie went on. “For him to live here on the Farm most of the time. He wouldn’t be happy with Krissie and me. I know that.”

  “Thank you. I’m relieved to hear it.” I suspected that the custody issue would come up again between us, but at least for the moment, I could catch my breath.

  Hayden waved at me from the dance floor, where he was dancing with Krissie. He looked adorable in his tuxedo, and I had to admit, Krissie was the most stunning bride I’d ever seen.

  Hayden waved at me. “Mom, come on! Dance with us!”

  I shook my head, but Eddie heard our son too and grabbed my hand, pulling me onto the dance floor with him.

  The four of us—Hayden, Krissie, Eddie, and I—stood in a circle and danced. For better or worse, we were all a family now because of the little boy gripping my hand with all his might. And for just a moment, it felt right.

  thirty-one

  It was time for the father-daughter dance, and I was able to slip away from the reception tent. Outside, I took a deep breath. I couldn’t wait to tell Chase that my custody worries were over, but I still needed to find him.

  “This should have been our wedding,” a female voice said on the other side of the tent.

  Chase laughed. I recognized his laugh immediately. He said something in reply that I couldn’t make out.

  I walked around the side of the tent just in time to see Detective Brandon and Chase kiss. And it wasn’t a little peck on the cheek, either.

  I sucked in a breath. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I’d been wrong about Chase. I’d been wrong about him all this time. He was just like every other cheater.

  Chase pulled away from the detective an
d saw me standing behind her with my mouth hanging open. I snapped it shut and turned around, fleeing around the corner of the tent.

  I heard his footsteps coming after me as I ran behind the church, where I’d be out of the wedding-goers’ line of sight. I didn’t want anyone to see my face until I got my emotions under control.

  In my mind, I was back in the awful morning when Hayden was just a toddler and I learned of Eddie’s affair. I’d never felt so small and alone in my life. I wasn’t going to let that happen again. At least I’d found out what Chase was really like before I made the mistake of allowing it to go too far.

  “Kelsey.” Chase stopped a few feet behind me. “Kelsey, please turn around.”

  I ran a hand over my face, willing myself to regain my composure.

  “Kelsey, please.”

  I took a deep breath and turned to face him.

  His reenactor rifle hung from his belt. He was in that outfit he’d worn when I’d first met him nearly a year before, when he’d played dead on the pasture-turned-battlefield for the Farm’s Civil War reenactment. For some reason, that made facing him like this now that much more painful.

  “It wasn’t what it looked like,” he began.

  I folded my arms. “Tell me what it looked like.”

  He ran his hand through his thick blond hair. “Kelsey …”

  I turned to go. “I have get back to the wedding. The ceremony may be over, but there’s still a lot to be done. We haven’t had the toasts yet or cut the cake.”

  “Wait.” He grabbed my arm.

  “Let me go,” I hissed. I refused to make a scene at the wedding, which Krissie would hold against me for years to come.

  “She kissed me!” Chase cried. “I swear. It wasn’t my idea.”

  “You didn’t exactly jump away, from what I saw.” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “Kelsey, that’s not fair. You just showed up at the wrong time. You don’t know what happened before that.” His hand was still on my arm.

  “I do. I heard her say that this should have been your wedding.” I swallowed. “Meaning hers and yours.”

  “Then you didn’t hear what I said to her before that.” He was still holding onto my bare arm. As much as I didn’t want it too, my skin tingled under his grasp.

  “Let me go. We can discuss this another time. It’s Krissie and Eddie’s day. Let’s not ruin it with our own drama. I don’t want to ruin it for Hayden either.”

  “Listen to me.” He sounded so desperate that I met his gaze for the first time since he’d caught up with me. I saw naked hurt in the chocolate brown eyes that I’d thought I knew so well.

  “Yes,” he said. “Before you got there, Candy said she wanted to get back together with me. She told me that she still loves me.”

  I swallowed again and wondered if he was telling me this with the intention of hurting me more.

  He stared at me, locking me into place with his eyes. “But I told her that it was never going to work. I told her that I love you.”

  The flirty, jokey Chase I knew was gone. In his place was a desperate man, trying to tell me the truth. Even so, I couldn’t hear it. His words just came like another blow.

  “You have a funny way of showing it,” I said.

  I knew that wasn’t the reaction a man wanted to hear when he told a woman he loved her, but it was my knee-jerk response. Chase wasn’t the first man to tell me he loved me, and the first time hadn’t ended well. Why would this be any different?

  His face fell. For the briefest moment, I felt a twinge of regret. Despite that, I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “You told her that you love me, but you’ve never said it to me. Don’t you see that as a problem? Shouldn’t I have been the first to know?”

  His cheeks flushed red. “I would have, if I knew you’d be willing to hear it. I think this reaction right here is a perfect example why I haven’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.

  “You won’t let me love you. You won’t let anyone love you. Ever since the moment you and Eddie split, you put a wall up around you so high, no one has any chance of getting over the top of it. God knows I’ve tried, again and again, only to fall on my face. I’m done with that. If you can’t give me what I need, I have to give up.”

  “What you need?” My eyes narrowed.

  “Yes,” he said. “Everything in this relationship up until this very point has been about you—making you comfortable, going at your pace. It’s never been about me for one second.”

  His words sucked the air out of my lungs as if they had some sort of vacuum attached to them. Before I could recover, he said in a quiet voice, “Kelsey, one of these days you’re going to have to let someone in. We aren’t all going to betray you like Eddie did. Unfortunately, that’s something that you have to figure out on your own, and I can’t help you.” He turned and walked away, leaving me alone at the corner of the church.

  It wasn’t until I touched my cheek that I realized I was crying.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had enough tears well up in my eyes to spill over onto my cheeks. It must have been when my mother died. I couldn’t remember crying when I’d kicked Eddie out of the little bungalow we’d shared downtown. I brushed the tears from my cheeks. Eddie hadn’t been worth crying over, not like my mother had. And apparently, not like Chase was. Half of me wanted to run after him, but the other half of me was frozen in place because I was afraid what those tears might mean.

  A bang came from inside the church, relieving me of making any decision at all. My duty as the director of Barton Farm was calling. I suspected that one of Krissie’s wedding guests had drunk too much and stumbled back inside. I knew that I should have locked the church after the reception began.

  I walked around the building and up the three stone steps to the front door.

  There was another bang inside as I stepped over the threshold that led into the sanctuary. Rays of scarlet and ochre light poured into the large room through the western-facing windows, casting their glow on the worn wood of the pews and the unadorned altar in the narthex.

  The flowers and bows that had been draped over the ends of the pews were still there. Some of the petals had fallen to the polished pine wood floor. At least they’d waited until after the ceremony to fall. I didn’t think Krissie would have tolerated one petal hitting the wooden floor before she said “I do.”

  I scanned the sanctuary, and since it appeared empty, I began to wonder if I’d imagined the banging. Maybe I’d made it up to avoid running after Chase. If that was the case, my mind was playing a cruel joke on me. I turned to leave the building to go find Chase. I needed to talk to him—to tell him I was sorry and that I loved him too.

  As I took a step toward the door, something poked me in the back.

  “Don’t move,” a voice hissed in my ear. I recognized it immediately as Shepley. “I have a gun on you.”

  As he said this, everything came into focus. Piper was innocent. Benji had to be told this so she wouldn’t throw away her relationship like I just had. The problem was, after killing Vianna, would Shepley have any hesitation in killing me? I seriously doubted it.

  He ushered me to the open door that led to the stairway to the choir loft. “You’re going up there.”

  “To the bell tower?” I asked. “You have to be joking. I’m not going up there with you.”

  I knew with my whole heart that it was Jebidiah Barton’s gun that was digging into my back. Shepley must have taken it from the tower where Piper had hidden it with all the other artifacts.

  “I said go,” he snarled.

  I snorted a laugh. “There’s no way you can make me.” I wondered if this was how he’d gotten Vianna into the bell tower. Perhaps she hadn’t gone up there on her own to string the lights, as we’d all assumed.


  “Yes, I can.” He dug the barrel of the gun painfully into my spine, so hard that I was afraid that he might push it through my back and out the other side. Still behind me, he grabbed the back of my left arm so tightly I was certain he’d left a bruise. He forced me to move forward, toward the stairs to the choir loft.

  I frowned at the stairs. There was still no way I was going up there. There wasn’t enough money in the world to make me climb those stairs, and then the ladder, with a deranged gardener.

  Then I heard a voice.

  “Mom?” it called, from the top of the bell tower.

  My heart stopped. I sprinted up the stairs to the choir loft.

  thirty-two

  I glared back at Shepley lumbering up the stairs after me. “What’s Hayden doing up there? I know you’re capable of a lot of terrible things, but I didn’t know that child endangerment was one of them.”

  He let go of my arm. “I can’t help it if he wandered in here.”

  Before I could argue with him, Hayden’s pale face appeared in the hatch above. “Mom, are you coming up? Shepley said he’d ask you to come up here. You can see the whole wedding from here, it’s so cool!”

  I smiled at him. “Hey, bud. What are you doing up there?”

  He frowned. “I just wanted to see what it was like.” His voice trembled. “I know I’m not supposed to be up here.”

  He wasn’t, but this wasn’t the time to discipline my child. I had to get him out of the church and away from Shepley as soon as possible.

  Hayden’s voice floated down to us. “Shepley said I’d get a bird’s eye view. I could see everything down below like a bird flying in the sky, and he’s right!”

  “It’s okay, bud. I need you to come down though.”

  Shepley jabbed the gun into my back again. “No. You’re going up.”

  “Not with Hayden here. This changes everything,” I said in a sharp whisper.

  “I know it does. It means that you’ll actually follow my directions.” His hot breath was on my neck.