To Die For Read online

  “If we have to, we’ll take the entire family to Gatlinburg and get married in one of those little wedding chapels.”

  “You want me to get ready in a motel?” I asked, my tone letting him know I wasn’t crazy about that idea.

  “Don’t see why not. You aren’t planning on wearing one of those long, big-skirted things, are you?”

  I wasn’t, but still . . . I wanted my stuff around me when I was getting ready. What if I needed something and had forgotten to pack it? Things like that can ruin a woman’s memories of her wedding.

  “I have to call Mom,” I said, pulling away from him and going to the phone.

  “Blair . . . it’s after midnight.”

  “I know. But she’ll be hurt if I don’t tell her right away.”

  “How will she know? Call her in the morning and tell her we decided over breakfast.”

  “She’ll see through that in a heartbeat. You don’t decide to get married over breakfast; you decide to get married after a hot date with making out and stuff.”

  “Yeah, I really liked that ‘stuff’ part,” he said reminiscently. “It’s been eighteen, nineteen years since I’d done it in the backseat of a car. I’d forgotten how fucking uncomfortable it is, and vice versa.”

  I started dialing.

  “Do you want your mom to know about the ‘stuff’ part?”

  I gave him a “you’re kidding me” look. “Like there’s any way she doesn’t already know.”

  Mom answered on the first ring, sounded harassed. “Blair? Is something wrong?”

  Caller ID is a wonderful thing. It saved so much time, bypassing the need for identification. “No, I just wanted to tell you that Wyatt and I have decided to get married.”

  “What’s the big surprise about that? He told us when we first met him in the hospital, when you were shot, that y’all were getting married.”

  My head whipped around and I glared at him. “He did, huh? Funny thing, he didn’t mention it to me until tonight.”

  Wyatt shrugged and looked totally unrepentant. I could tell I was going to have my hands full with him over the years. He was way too sure of himself.

  “Well, I wondered why you hadn’t said anything,” Mom said. “I was beginning to feel hurt.”

  “He’ll pay for that,” I said grimly.

  “Oh, shit,” Wyatt said, knowing good and well I was talking about him, but without knowing exactly what his transgression was. He could probably get in the ballpark, since he knew what we were talking about, but he hadn’t yet realized what a no-no it was to hurt Mom’s feelings.

  “There are two schools of thought concerning these situations,” Mom said, meaning she had considered two angles of approach. “One is that you come down hard on him, so he’ll learn how to handle things and won’t make that mistake again. The second is that you cut him some slack because he’s new to this.”

  “ ‘Slack’? What’s that?”

  “That’s my girl,” she said approvingly.

  “Why are you still awake? You answered the phone so fast you must have been sleeping with it.” I was a tad curious, because Mom always slept with the phone when she was anxious about any of us. It was a habit she developed when I started dating at the age of fifteen.

  “I haven’t slept with the phone since Jenni graduated high school. No, I’m still working on these damn quarterly taxes, and this stupid computer keeps freezing on me, then losing touch with its parts. Now it’s typing gibberish. I’d love to send in the taxes typed in code, since the IRS instructions and rules are so clear even they don’t know what they’re doing. How do you think that would fly?”

  “It wouldn’t. The IRS has no sense of humor.”

  “I know,” she said glumly. “I could have done this by hand much faster if I’d known this stupid machine was going to go bananas, but all of my files are in the computer. From now on I’m going to keep a paper copy.”

  “Don’t you have a backup disk?”

  “Well, of course. Ask me if it’ll work.”

  “I think you’ve got a major problem.”

  “I know I do, and I’m just about fed up with the whole mess. But it’s become a point of honor now not to let this demented monster win.”

  Meaning she would keep at it way past the point where any normal person would have thrown in the towel and taken the thing to a computer hospital.

  Then I thought of something, and looked at Wyatt. “Is it okay if I tell Mom about the hair y’all found?”

  He briefly thought about it, then nodded.

  “What hair?” Mom asked.

  “Forensics found some dark hair, about ten inches long, stuck under my car. Can you think of anyone with dark hair about that length who might want to kill me?”

  “Hmmm.” That was Mom’s thinking sound. “Is it black hair, or just dark?”

  I relayed the question to Wyatt. He got that expression that said he wanted to ask what the difference was, but then he thought about it and realized the difference. “I’d say black,” he said.

  “Black,” I relayed.

  “Natural or dyed?”

  Mom was on a roll here. I said to him, “Natural or dyed?”

  “We don’t know yet. The evidence will have to be analyzed.”

  “The jury’s still out on that,” I said to Mom. “Have you thought of someone?”

  “Well, there’s Malinda Connors.”

  “That was thirteen years ago, when I beat her out for Homecoming Queen. Surely she’s over it by now.”

  “I don’t know about that; she always struck me as a vindictive girl.”

  “But too impatient. She couldn’t have waited this long.”

  “That’s true. Hmmm. It has to be someone who’s jealous of you about something. Ask Wyatt who he was dating before y’all started going together.”

  “I’ve already thought of that. He says there aren’t any candidates.”

  “Unless he lived like a monk, there are candidates.”

  “I know, but he won’t even give me their names for me to check out on my own.”

  He came to sit beside me on the bed, looking worried. “What are y’all talking about?”

  “You and your women,” I said, turning my shoulder to him and scooting farther away so he couldn’t eavesdrop.

  “I don’t have any women,” he said in exasperation.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Mom.

  “I heard it; I just don’t believe it. Ask him how long he was celibate before he met you.”

  Notice my mother assumed he was no longer celibate. The fact that she was so unconcerned about my current love life told me that she thoroughly approved of him, which is a big thing. Having Mom’s approval goes a long way toward keeping our family life smooth and happy.

  I looked over my shoulder at him. “Mom wants to know how long it had been since you’d had any, prior to our engagement.”

  He looked deeply alarmed. “She does not. She didn’t say that.”

  “Yes, she did. Here. She’ll tell you herself.”

  I extended the phone to him, and warily he took it. “Hello,” he said; then he listened. I watched two spots of color start to burn on his cheekbones. He put his hand over his eyes as if he wanted to hide from the question. “Uh . . . six weeks?” he said sheepishly. “Maybe. Could be a little longer. Here’s Blair.”

  He couldn’t hand the phone back to me fast enough. I took it and asked, “What do you think?”

  “Six weeks is a long time to wait if you’re crazy and fixated on someone,” Mom said. “He’s probably in the clear. What about you? Have you had any former semi-boyfriends who have since hooked up with some nutcase who may have developed intense jealousy over his former relationships?”

  Semi-boyfriend means a couple of dates, maybe several, but nothing serious developed and we both sort of drifted out of each other’s orbit. Since Wyatt, I’d had a few of those, and at the moment I wasn’t certain I could even remember their names.

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