Free Four Weddings and a Fiasco: The Wedding Caper by Patricia McLinn

to pay less.
    They finally compromised in the middle.
    "Oh, my dears! You haven't tried the rings on!" Mrs. Schmidt said.
    Eric's fit well. But the bride’s ring was much too large on her.
    Mrs. Schmidt clicked her tongue. “My niece, she’s a good woman, but even then the fat fingers.”
    It made K.D. chuckle. She was grateful, because that prevented any sound of disappointment escaping her.
    “They’re lovely, and it’s a shame but —”
    “Jacob will fix,” Mrs. Schmidt said, and he nodded.
    “But we need them now.”
    “Oh, dear,” the elderly couple chorused with as much disappointment as she felt. “We have a birthday dinner for our granddaughter. We should have left already.”
    “We don’t need them now,” Eric said. “But we do need them tomorrow. Figuring an hour to get back in time for the wedding — say by three in the afternoon.”
    “By three in the afternoon? By nine in the morning,” declared Mr. Schmidt, already taking her hand in his to measure her finger. “Not a minute later they will be ready. You will pay then, so we can get on to our party.”
    “Absolutely,” Eric said, hooking a hand around her arm. “Thank you so much. We need to go now, so we don’t hold up the Schmidts. Happy birthday to your granddaughter.”
    Mrs. Schmidt followed, waving them out the door, then locking it behind them and turning over the sign to read “Closed.”
    “I’m not sure —” She started once they were on the sidewalk.
    “I am. So, you took them into your confidence, but not Mrs. Cavendish.”
    It took her a second to realize what he meant — she'd told the Schmidts they were putting on a performance, pretending to be married.
    "They live so far from Marriage-Save, I doubt they’d come in contact with anyone there. But if you think I've compromised the investigation—"
    "Didn't say that.” He took her arm, and steered her toward where his car was parked. “I'm just trying to understand how you think. Trying to figure out what makes my wife-to-be tick."

THURSDAY
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    H er wedding day
.
    From the moment K.D. awakened, the words drummed in her head and tumbled her stomach.
    Now they were trimmed down to
Her wedding
.
    This wasn’t supposed to be happening. She’d been so sure it would never happen, she hadn’t even considered that she might need to be braced against it happening, and now, here it was. Oh, God.
    It’s fake. Pretend. A necessary part of their cover story
.
    A make-believe wedding, that’s what Anne had called it . . . and there was Anne sitting on her side of the aisle, smiling so broadly at her. All of them turned to look at her, smiling and smiling and smiling at her.
    She clung to Ken’s arm and tried to focus on the strange outfits of these supposed wedding guests. Anything to get her mind off the short walk she was about to take.
    Ella’s idea to make it seem that there were more guests than this small group had been embraced by everyone here. Patrick Knight, RJ’s brother, who was involved with Phoebe, had even found a reversible sports jacket to add another look.
    Ella would call out when she was shooting them from the waist down or the waist up — doubling the “guests” who appear in the video without increasing the number of attendees. Ken wore one suit jacket now to walk her down the aisle, with another waiting for when he played best man. Myrna, now sitting in the audience, would slip on an oversized maid of honor dress over her clothes, both to add another attendee and to give her a different silhouette. With a quick clothes change, Tyce would portray minister and multiple guests.
    It was going to take careful editing by Ella to make sure there were no slip-ups. Only she and Eric wore a complete outfit from head to toe.
    Eric
.
    She hadn’t seen him since last night.
    Not because of superstition. That would have been ridiculous.
    It simply worked out this way. She’d had the final fitting this morning, while he’d driven back to