Wedding Bell Blunders: A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery

had called the places we were going to stay, and they thought they wouldn’t be over-booked for the next few weeks, and I hoped they were right. There was a lot to see in our two weeks on the road.
“Well, you know how I love quaint and picturesque,” he said, teasing me. “I don’t care where we go. As long as we’re together, we’ll have a good time.”
“Aw, you two are so sweet,” Lucy said. “Wait until you’ve been married a few years, and you’ll treasure the time apart.”
I looked at her and chuckled. “Wait a minute. You treasure the time you spend apart from Ed?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Makes the time that we’re together more bearable.”
I gasped. “You don’t mean that. Lucy, tell me you don’t mean that.”
She chuckled. “No, I don’t really mean that. Honestly, as long as we’ve been together, our marriage is still pretty decent. And it better be because no one else would have us. When you’re set in your bad habits, no one else will have you.”
Alec chuckled. “Familiarity breeds contempt, but sometimes it also breeds laziness. I know most people think laziness is a bad trait, but it’s not that bad. As long as the two of you stay unmotivated to change or to look for somebody else, you’ll be fine.”
Lucy nodded. “Those are my sentiments exactly. Honestly, I can’t imagine being with anyone else for the rest of my life. I’d have to shave my legs more often if someone else came along.”
I shook my head and took a sip of my coffee. “Honestly, Alec, how long do you think it’ll be?”
He sighed. “Allie, I don’t know. But I promise if it goes beyond two weeks, I’ll get somebody from the police station to step in for me. They can keep me apprised of what’s going on.”
My heart sunk at the mention of two weeks. It would be that long? I wanted to be on our way and spend some time with just Alec, and I didn’t want to be interrupted by phone calls from the police department telling him what was going on in the investigation. “I’ll try to be patient, but don’t be surprised if I’m not.”
He nodded. “Duly noted. I’ll do my best to get this thing cleared up as quickly as I can.”
“Now that that’s settled, Allie, what are you making us for dinner?” Lucy asked.
I glanced at her. “Us? What do you mean us?”
“Didn’t I tell you? We’re having our kitchen remodeled, and we don’t have a stove right now.”
“No, you didn’t tell me that. Why didn’t you tell me that?”
She shrugged. “It’s my anniversary gift from Ed. See? Sometimes he is romantic. I’ve wanted the kitchen remodeled for years now. I’m finally going to get granite countertops. I can hardly wait.”
“That’s something worth celebrating,” I said. “As far as dinner? I don’t know. Let me rummage through my freezer and see what I’ve got.” If I’d known that Lucy and Ed were going to be hanging out at dinner time, I would have picked up some more food from the grocery store. I suppose it didn’t matter. I could make another trip. I heard that there was somebody in the frozen foods department that I might want to have a conversation with.

Chapter Twelve
I was wary of going to talk to Jared after what Alec had told me. If Alec thought enough of it to say that Jared was a bad person and to stay away from him, then it made me pause. Sure, all criminals were bad people and were people that I needed to stay away from, but Alec had been direct about this. But he hadn’t said anything about Skip Thomas. Skip was Richard’s younger brother, and I knew him fairly well. He worked at the hardware store, so I took a drive over there the next morning.
The new house we had moved into still needed some work done, so I had a reason to stop in. We had had some major renovations done by a contractor, but there were a few projects that I was going to work on. One of them was the garden in the backyard. I really envisioned it looking like an English garden with a large variety of flowers growing in the yard. And I wanted a fountain of some sort in the backyard. It was still early in the spring, but I knew that the hardware store would be starting to get some of their spring merchandise in. I headed inside and then out to the back patio where they kept the seeds, planters, and other outdoor items.
When I stepped outside, I was a little disappointed at the offerings as far as fountains were concerned. It looked like they hadn’t gotten their spring stock in yet. But there was a lovely, scalloped fountain with a cherub standing in the middle of it, and I thought it was cute. It would look nice in my garden once the ground warmed up enough to get things planted. I ran a finger along the edge. It was made of a manufactured material that was lighter than the cement I had envisioned. Glancing around, I realized that I was going to have to look into what grew well here in Maine. At my old house, I had mostly planted a handful of rosebushes, and I had filled the planters along the front with petunias and marigolds. I wanted more than that for my new garden.
I glanced over and saw Skip waiting on a customer at the outside register. When he finished, he looked at me, and I smiled and nodded.
He grinned and came over. “How are you doing, Allie?”
“I’m doing well, Skip. I’ve got my eye on this fountain. Are you going to get any more in for spring?”
He nodded. “Oh yeah, any day now