A Wedding to Die For

by Radine Trees Nehring

Overview

Carrie McCrite and Henry King are getting married, but Carrie has problems. She has dreams of a traditional wedding, not one like she experienced with Amos many years ago, when standing in the courthouse while a judge who was a friend of Amos's said a few droned words. That hadn't seemed like a celebration at all. But now...why couldn't she have a traditional wedding dress, a minister, flowers, a white cake, family and friends standing with them-a celebration. Why couldn't the wedding of a mature bride and groom be like that? But preparations for a happy celebration are not working out like she has planned. For one thing, she's invited Henry's half-sister to the ceremony before learning why he's never wanted to see the woman. Then the florists they've hired are shot at, their flower shop is bombed, and someone is murdered. If that weren't enough, Carrie and Henry keep catching glimpses of a ghost dressed in a red bridal gown...an omen? Join Carrie McCrite and Henry King as they chase a killer and try to salvage their dream wedding at the historic, and reportedly haunted, Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781931206013
Publisher:	St Kitts Press
Publication date:	05/01/2022
Series:	Something to Die for Series
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.65(d)

Read an Excerpt

There were things to discuss. That’s why Carrie took a peach pie out of her freezer and turned on the oven. Her friend, Eleanor Stack, said discussions with men always went better if you were feeding them. Eleanor believed food was a panacea for many things. Feminine wiles? Maybe, but one might as well use every available tool.

When the oven reached 375 degrees, Carrie took the frozen pie out of its box and removed the aluminum pan, fitting the still-frozen crust into her own heat-proof glass pie plate before she stuck it in the oven. The rim of the crust with its machine-made crimps would be soft in the time it took her to pour a glass of iced tea. She bet that was something Eleanor didn’t know. As soon as the tea was ready, she opened the oven door and lifted the pie out. She used her fingers to make scalloped pinches all around the softened edge of the crust, just as she’d watched her mother do all those years ago. With the point of a knife she wrote "I Love Henry" on top, leaving the machine-stamped center hole as the "o" in Love.

There. The factory-made edge crimps were gone, the pie was personalized. She approved the result and put "I Love Henry" back in the oven to bake.

She’d never told Henry she made the pies she offered him, and he was probably smart enough to understand where they came from. He did say once that he thought she made better pies than Eleanor. All she’d done then was look at her plate, murmur, "Thank you," and scrape up the last bit of sugary juice from the slice of cherry pie she’d just finished eating.

Come to think of it, maybe he’d said she served better pies than Eleanor. That was probably it. Serving was different from making, and Henry never lied about anything.

As for Eleanor...Carrie had no idea whether her friend guessed the source of the pies she served or not. She didn’t really care, and if Henry hadn’t figured it out yet, he would soon enough. In a couple of months they’d be living together.

That was the reason they had things to discuss. It was time to talk about their wedding. Though Henry asked her to marry him three weeks ago at the Elderhostel in Hot Springs, and she’d said yes, they hadn’t made any real plans yet. She knew what she wanted, she just didn’t have a clue to what he had in mind. It was time to find out.

Three hours later Henry had come, they’d talked-more or less-and he’d left for Roger and Shirley Booth’s dairy farm in the valley. He and Roger got together every month to work on the agenda for the next Rural Water Board meeting, and today Shirley had invited Henry to have supper with them after the planning session. She’d included Carrie too, but Carrie declined. She needed time to make wedding plans and figured, after talking things over with Henry, she could settle down and get started.

Ha! Henry had no plans. He promised to think more about it, had a piece of pie, kissed her, and left for the Booths’.

The one thing she did find out was a huge surprise. Henry had a half-sister. She’d asked him, very cautiously, about inviting relatives to the wedding. He never talked about his parents or family-indeed, seemed to avoid the topic. But now that she was going to be his wife, Carrie thought it was time to know more. At first he’d insisted that his daughter Susan was his only living relative. He had no aunts or uncles, no cousins, nieces or nephews.

Then, finally, he admitted there was a much younger half-sister, saying it so reluctantly that Carrie was bewildered. What’s more, he added that he had never seen this sister and had no idea where she was.

After a conversational dragging session-Carrie asking question after question while Henry answered in monosyllables-she’d learned that Henry’s dad left his mother for a much younger wife, Elizabeth MacDonald, when Henry was already a married adult. The father’s second marriage produced one child, a daughter named Catherine MacDonald King. Henry "supposed" that had been around thirty years ago, which meant his half-sister and his daughter Susan were nearly the same age. He insisted he knew nothing at all about this young woman, the product of a marriage that had split his family.

But, Carrie thought, how could he possibly resent Catherine now? He obviously knew nothing about her, and the poor girl didn’t choose her parents or the facts surrounding her birth.

Carrie wondered whether the half-sister could be anything like Henry. She pictured Henry’s black hair, brown eyes, and square jaw on a woman. Well...maybe not quite that. But with both of his parents dead, it was now high time the two siblings met. She was going to do her best to find Catherine.

Finding her could be a wonderful wedding present to herself as well as Henry. She would give them both a sister.

As soon as Henry left she sat down at her computer, logged onto the Internet, and began a search for Catherine.

What People are Saying About This

Patricia Sprinkle

"Nehring's delightful novel features history and romance with murder thrown in. A winning combination and fun read."
— author of the Thoroughly Southern mysteries

Joe David Rice

"Radine Trees Nehring's superb mysteries really capture the pulse of the areas they're set in."
— Arkansas Tourism Director

Crow Johnson Evans

"Intrigue and true love-what a delicious combination."
— internationally acclaimed musician and board members of The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs

Carolyn Hart

"Readers will delight in Carrie McCrite, a spunky heroine who faces danger and finds love. A pleasure awaits mystery lovers.
— author of the Death on Demand and Henrie O mysteries