A Wedding Tail Read online

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  Acknowledgments

  I owe a pawsitively huge thank you to Rose Hilliard for helping me discover and unleash the best in this story. I appreciated all of your support and encouragement when things got hairy. I will never furget you. Holly Ingraham, thanks for jumping on board this wiener with such enthusiasm and for seeing it through. And to Jennie Conway and the staff at SMP who have worked so hard to develop and promote the series, it’s been a real treat working with all of you.

  To Devin, my inspiration, my rock, and my heart, I wouldn’t have made it without you. Pooja Menon, my stories wouldn’t have been heard if you hadn’t stuck by me and believed in me. Thank you to my criminal subject-matter expert Pat McCormack and to my cultural expert Kacy Inokuchi. And finally, a shout-out to the amazing Fredwardo, the most special dog I know. You’ve given me all the inspiration I could ever ask for.

  And most of all, thank you to the fans of the series for your encouragement, dedication, and for sharing my silly sense of humor.

  1

  Top Dog

  Zoe Plum stood in front of St. Dominic’s church doors, greeting each wedding guest with a brilliant smile as they arrived, checking their names off a list on her tablet. However, she wasn’t exactly smiling on the inside. Internally, Zoe was pacing and biting her nails, cringing at each new arrival that wasn’t the guest she was hoping for: Levi Dolson. And boy was he going to hear it from her when he finally did arrive.

  Just that morning, Levi had been upgraded from guest to groomsman—that’s if he got there in time. The original groomsman had been hit with food poisoning late the night before—which Zoe suspected was more than likely a case of nerves, since everyone was on edge that day.

  This wasn’t a usual joyful wedding day. Her clients might have been the ones tying the knot, but it felt like the only thing in knots were Zoe’s insides. No one would have guessed it, however, as she welcomed people up the steps and through the double doors with a confident smile.

  Zoe could act like she was going for a facial while a zombie apocalypse was breaking out around her. But between each new arrival, she cast nervous glances down the street, wanting to throttle the fill-in groomsman who was running dangerously late.

  A glance at her watch told Zoe there were fifty minutes until “I do” time. She just wished that when Levi did arrive, it would be on the back of a white stallion. Not because she secretly wanted a Prince Charming—that ludicrous fantasy was the last thing she dreamed of. It was because the bride, Juliet, had insisted on riding into the sunset—or at least the mid-afternoon blazing sun—with her new husband after the ceremony. Unfortunately, her assistant informed Zoe that the beautiful horse she’d originally booked had come down with a case of acute synovitis.

  Summer was a busy time for the poor creature, what with the influx of tourists to show around San Francisco. The strain of pulling the cart for all those extra customers had put poor Puccini out of commission for the rest of the summer, and most annoyingly, for the wedding Zoe had been planning for the last year.

  But it would all be okay. No. It was going to be perfect, just like every other event that Zoe had ever been hired to plan. She wasn’t the best event planner in the city for nothing. And after all the added challenges that day had presented so far, she was really going to prove that by pulling it off without a hitch—or a hitch that anyone would know about.

  The Fisher-Wells wedding was one of the more extravagant weddings she’d planned for that year, with a commission to match. Once it was done, she would finally have the rest of the down payment to buy her own place. A place to call her own, instead of renting a small apartment barely big enough for her. She couldn’t wait to feel like she owned a little piece of the world.

  What was better, she could finally prove to her mother that she could support herself without a man—as often as her mother tried to convince Zoe otherwise. Because if you could afford to buy a place in San Francisco, there was no doubt you had your life together. It was her final puzzle piece to having complete independence, that grown-up feeling of being a homeowner.

  “Code red! Code red!” a panicked voice screamed out.

  Zoe turned from the guests filtering in through the church’s entrance. The disembodied voice carried around the side of the building and into the foyer. The guests exchanged worried glances.

  Inwardly, Zoe cringed, but she maintained her poise. She smiled, like everything’s cool. Nothing to see here.

  A moment later, a plump blonde appeared at the bottom of the church stairs, ponytail swinging behind her, sensible flats slapping the walkway. When she saw Zoe’s expression, she visibly gulped.

  Zoe gave her assistant, Natalie, a quirk of her eyebrow and nodded her head inside. Obviously chastised, Natalie mimicked Zoe’s “natural” air of confidence as she entered the church, past people congregating around the guest book. They ducked into a quiet vestibule so they were out of earshot.

  The epitome of serenity, Zoe began rearranging a bouquet of roses on a carved wooden table. However, her insides had cinched together like corset strings.

  “We can’t handle a code red right now,” she told her assistant. “We already have an MIA flower girl, a sick priest, a wild four-legged ring bearer, in-laws at each other’s throats, and a sweaty congregation.”

  As usual, Zoe was the first to arrive at the venue that morning, and it had taken her breath away. Literally. It had been like stepping into a sauna. The church’s air conditioning blew up the night before, and due to the heat wave that had hit San Francisco that week, no available repairmen could be found in time for the wedding.

  After a few emergency calls, Zoe had found industrial fans for rent that had blown the toupee right off the bride’s grandfather. Thankfully the fans came with protective guards so the magical day didn’t end with a magical amputation. That day was about joining two people together, not a finger back to its owner.

  The first crisis of the day averted, after that, everything that could go wrong had. So what now, Zoe wondered. “How bad is it?”

  “This trumps everything.” Natalie was practically vibrating. She took a deep breath, but it didn’t seem to calm her. It only made her start hyperventilating. “It’s the dress.”

  Zoe froze. “What about the dress?”

  Natalie hesitated, wincing a little. “It doesn’t fit.”

  The rose stem in Zoe’s hand snapped in two. The words echoed through her mind as it emptied of all other concerns. Family feuds she could squelch, flower girls she could track down, rampant dogs she could bring to heel, but this … And with this bride of all brides?

  “What do you mean?” Zoe asked. “How can it not fit? It was made for her.”

  Zoe hadn’t even moved, but something in her voice made Natalie take a step back. “I-I mean it won’t zip up. We’re talking total back fat blockage.”

  Not on my watch, Zoe told herself.

  She drew herself up and headed f
or the office building at the back of the church, or rather, the bride’s temporary room. “We’ll see about that. I’ll make that dress fit if I have to staple her into it.” She imagined this was why corsets were invented, because at the last second, it was easier to make alterations to the body than the dress.

  As Zoe skirted around the outside of the church, the afternoon sun beat down on her. And it was only one o’clock. It was bound to get hotter. She just hoped the fans could keep up.

  Natalie remained close on her heel, her footsteps on the paved path matching the quick beat of Zoe’s heart. Zoe couldn’t wait until this day was over. Planning the Fisher-Wells wedding had been her biggest professional challenge yet. Amongst the bride’s waffling desires, unrealistic expectations, and last-minute demands, Juliet Fisher had been a bridezilla from start to finish.

  But no one deserved a crisis like this on their big day.

  As they rounded the side of the building, Zoe hated to ask, “How is she doing?”

  Natalie groaned. “Total bride meltdown.”

  Zoe had figured as much. She remembered the day the gold-embossed invitations arrived and Juliet’s name had accidentally been placed last to read Wells-Fisher. To say the least, Fisher was not well that day. Somehow that had set the tone for their entire future marriage—something about feeling inadequate and her mother-in-law’s strawberry rhubarb pie. It was all very difficult to understand once she’d broken down into full sobs.

  As they made their way to the little office building where the bride was getting ready, Zoe mentally reviewed her to-do list.

  Double check on bride’s uncle (last seen nursing flask)

  Find flower girl

  Cough drops for priest

  Leash for Juliet’s golden retriever

  Replacement horse

  Levi Dolson

  She added a new item to the list:

  Get bride into dress

  Zoe could feel her shoulder muscles relax beneath her stylish cobalt blazer as everything fell into place in her mind. She could get through this day. It was going to be okay. Heck, the year before she’d thrown a party where someone kidnapped dozens of her guests. They might have been of the four-legged variety. But still. After that, she was officially experienced with any disaster an event planner could face. Only, she’d never faced them all at the exact same time. And what was she going to do about that horse?

  As Zoe and Natalie approached the separate building, they could already hear muffled screams coming from the other side of the door. They gave each other a look, like Here we go.

  Natalie looked downright ill. Zoe figured they didn’t both need to endure the impending abuse. So she turned to her assistant. “On second thought, could you please call around and find a horse for after the ceremony? Do whatever you can. Get me a zebra if you have to.”

  Relief caused Natalie’s eyes to roll into her head. She nodded, her ponytail flicking. Another peal of swear words drifted through the door, and she scrambled away as fast as she could.

  “Oh, and Natalie?” Zoe called after her. “If that Levi Dolson turns up, send him to me right away.”

  Zoe absently wondered what the weight restriction on ponies was, if it came to that. But there would have to be a ceremony before they’d need a horse, and the bride needed a dress before she could walk down the aisle. So tucking one of her stray jet-black locks of hair back into place, Zoe approached the “bride’s room.”

  Automatically, she reached inside her utility bridal bag—well, truthfully it was a fanny pack. It may not have been as stylish as a Coach purse, but it was a necessity that no good event planner could do without—it had saved her butt more times than she could shake a bridal bouquet at. Besides, Zoe could rock anything and make it look like she was strutting down the runway. Even a fanny pack.

  Unzipping a hidden pouch, she dipped her hand in. Her fingers brushed against super-soft polyester fur, and instantly, she could feel her worries melt away. She held the hidden object reverently, allowing its furry, comforting presence to sooth her. Because who could be upset when they were holding an adorable, lovable, huggable Fuzzy Friend?

  The collectible line of stuffed animals was on the top of every child’s Christmas list, and apparently on the list of stressed-out thirty-year-old Japanese-American women too. Or maybe that was just Zoe. While she couldn’t explain it, the cuddly sack of beans was like a private solace to her during the worst of times—and simultaneously her most embarrassing secret.

  Predicting a difficult day, she’d come armed with Pretty Puppy, one of her favorites. It was old and well loved, as evidenced by the multiple repairs over the years to seams, new eyeballs, and replacement plastic bean stuffing. It looked uncannily like her last dachshund, Buddy. While he’d died of old age more than a year before, the thought of him still brought those warm memories back.

  Zoe missed Buddy. Even now, she still hadn’t moved on. While she continued to volunteer at the San Francisco Dachshund Rescue Center where she’d first adopted Buddy, she sometimes felt pangs, painful reminders of what she was missing in her life ever since he’d left her.

  Ironically, she felt no such pangs of regret every time she attended a wedding, nor did she feel like she was missing a groom in her life. Certainly not the one that left her. She was better off on her own. In every way.

  Zoe didn’t need a man. There was only one thing a man could do for her and she did a better job of that herself. But that was the benefit of being a Pure Pleasure sex toy representative—an arsenal of free vibrators at her disposal.

  She sold the popular toy line as a side business by hosting Pure Pleasure parties, pulling in an average of two thousand dollars a month. But the best part was the incredible discount and free samples that came along with the job. Which was a lifesaver, since Zoe was convinced she had a higher-than-normal sexual appetite—the amount of batteries she bought on a regular basis could attest to that.

  She didn’t only exude sexuality, she studied sex, understood sex, taught sex secrets and tips, threw sexucation parties to sell merchandise. Zoe was a sexpert in practically every way. Except, of course, for one tiny detail: She didn’t have sex.

  As she gave her Fuzzy Friend a final squeeze, she took a deep breath, preparing for what lay on the other side of that door before finally knocking.

  “What!?” came a sharp reply.

  Zoe braced herself and turned the handle. She cracked the door open just wide enough to check for airborne shoes or bouquets aimed at her.

  When she saw the coast was clear, she poked her head inside and found a cluster of brightly colored bridesmaids, one for every color of the rainbow. They were huddled in the middle of the reception office, the desk and chairs pushed to the side of the room to make space for the wedding party.

  “Can I come in?” Zoe asked.

  At the sound of her voice, the rainbow turned in unison and seemed to part, revealing a billowing white tulle cloud in the middle. However, when Juliet spun away from the mirror to face Zoe, her expression looked as tempestuous as a hurricane. And she’d looked like she’d been through one too.

  Mascara ran down her cheeks in black streaks from a pair of puffy eyes. Wisps of hair escaped her veil and clung to her sweaty cheeks. Her dress sagged off her body, half-zipped up. Her maid of honor struggled to hold it up while Juliet’s body shook with sobs.

  Zoe didn’t skip a beat. “Look at you!” she gushed. “You look beautiful.” Which was probably the biggest lie she’d ever told in her life, and in a church, no less—which was fine, since she’d always assumed she was going to hell anyway.

  While she wasn’t normally one to hold her opinions back, there were times that demanded truth and times that demanded an outright bald-faced lie. This was one of those times.

  “No, I don’t!” Juliet wailed, wiping her reddened nose on a tissue. “I can’t go through with it. I’m calling the whole thing off.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” Zoe dared a few steps into the room. She need
ed to diffuse the situation, brush it off as though this kind of thing happens all the time—which unfortunately it did. But why, oh why did it have to happen to Juliet?

  Juliet spun to face the floor-standing mirror again, elbowing her maid of honor out of the way. “Just look at my dress. It’s a disaster! It doesn’t fit.”

  She tugged at the beaded bodice futilely before giving a little stomp of her silk heel. Her bodice shifted and began to slip down again. The maid of honor lunged and held it up to prevent an accidental strip-show.

  Zoe crossed the office full of tense bridesmaids. “I’m sure the zipper’s just stuck. Let me have a look.”

  “See? I told you it was the zipper,” Juliet snapped at the girl in the orange dress, then to Zoe she said, “I told her it was the zipper. She didn’t believe me.”

  Zoe grabbed the two pieces of unzipped fabric at the back and pulled them together. Extra hands joined in the battle, tugging on the dress. As they were stifled, Zoe could feel beads of sweat form along her brow in the stifling, air-conditioning-less room.

  Juliet sucked in, turning red, then purple, then blue. When she’d turned every color of her bridesmaids’ dresses, it became obvious that Natalic was right. It wasn’t going to close. Zoe stepped back to catch her breath.

  She frowned at the gown. “Hmmm.”

  Juliet eyed her in the mirror. “Hmmm? What is that supposed mean? That doesn’t sound like a good ‘hmmm.’ Like ‘Hmmm, what kind of ice cream do I want tonight?’” she said sarcastically.

  Zoe thought ice cream was likely the source of their dilemma. “It doesn’t look like the zipper’s the problem. But it will be all right,” she added quickly. “We’ll just have to make some emergency modifications to the design.”

  “How did this happen?” Juliet gripped her half-updo and tugged at her brown locks, making it more of a half-undo—yet, one more thing to fix. Her face screwed up. “It’s probably the seamstress’s fault,” she spat.