Buzzkill (Pecan Bayou Series) Read Free Page A

sitting on the floor of my
den with his back up against the couch, looked at all the paperwork I had
spread out on the coffee table. He rubbed his eyes and then picked up some of
the cost projections.
    “Um, Betsy …”
    “And then of
course we have to consider a caterer if we are going to have anything more than
wedding cake,” I rattled on.
    “Betsy?”
    “And as for the
band, if we think we want a band, we will want to audition some groups in the
next few weeks. That’s going to put us over budget, but it will add to the
ambiance of the evening …”
    Leo reached over
and grabbed me by the shoulders, turning me toward him. He gently touched my
cheek with his hand. “Betsy, have you just crawled out of a plant spore
somewhere? Where did my slightly disorganized, budget-conscious, sweet little
Betsy go to?”
    I smiled. “She’s
right here.”
    “No, she’s not.”
He cupped my chin. “Bridezilla is here.”
    “Leo!” I pushed
at his shoulder, almost knocking him into the Christmas tree next to the couch.
He picked a little white angel off the tree and floated it in front of me with
his hands.
    “The bridezilla
of Pecan Bayoooouuu!” His voice resembled the announcer on the late late movie,
right about when the monster comes out of the lagoon. I folded my arms and
tried to keep from smiling at him.
    “Seriously,
Betsy. Why are you so … together all of a sudden?” he asked. “Did you check out
a book on wedding planning? Wait, there’s some sort of show on cable, right?”
    “Can’t you
believe that for one moment I could pull off a little event like creating a
wedding?” I asked in return.
    “No.”
    “Leo!”
    “Sorry,” he
said. “But really, what happened?”
    I slumped and
looked down. “Okay, you’ve got me. Aunt Maggie paid for Mr. Andre.”
    “I’m not so sure
I like where this conversation is going,” he said.
    “Be serious.”
    “So, do I need
to be jealous of this Mr. Andre?”
    “He’s a wedding
planner.”
    Leo laughed and I
continued, ignoring him.
    “He's the 
premier wedding planner of the tri-county area. Brides come from miles around
to get him to ‘sculpt their dream day. Nothing to worry about.’”
    “Now I’ve heard
it all,” he said. “So how much is Mr. Andre costing your aunt?”
    “Too much, but
she wanted this to be her wedding present.
    I went to my
desk in the next room, now piled with brochures, and of course, my wedding
bible. I returned and handed him a list of names. “Here is the final guest
list. I added the names you emailed me so we’ll be ready to stuff and mail the
invitations.”
    Leo glanced at
the list. “Who is Charlotte Kelsey? I thought I’d met all of your family.”
    “You haven’t met
her and you probably won’t meet her,” I said. “That’s my mother.”
    “Your mother as
in the one-who-left-your-dad-after-having-an-affair-with-another-patrolman
mother?”
    “That’s the
one.”
    “So why are you
inviting her?”
    Why was I
inviting the woman who had managed to miss all of the important milestones in
my life? Why would I honor her absence with an invitation to my wedding? He had
a point.
    “I guess I did
it … just because it seemed like the right thing to do.”
    “That’s why I
love you,” he said. “Always choosing the path anyone else would avoid.”
    “Even if there
might be a dead body on it somewhere?”
    Leo laughed.
“Even then. I’m surprised the town mortician hasn’t asked you to carry around
some of his cards.”
    “Very funny.”
    “What would you
do if she wanted to come to the wedding?”
    “First I would
try to recognize her,” I said. “I haven’t seen her since I was four, but don’t
worry about it. She won’t come. She didn’t come to my graduations, both high
school and college, she didn’t come to my first wedding, and she has never, not
even once, acknowledged that I have Zach. I mean, seriously. What kind of
mother is that?”
    I picked up a
pen and drew through her name