Page 27 of A Dead End Wedding

“I have a pool,” I told him. “I’m frantically busy with work and getting ready for the wedding, plus this whole charter renewal process. And my guest room is filled with boxes. But if you don’t mind sleeping in a tent by the pool for a few days while you look for something better?” I winced. How rude to offer the poor troll a tent.

He froze. “You would invite me into your home?”

“Sure. I mean, a tent, but we can probably find someplace far better?—”

“I accept. I will gather my things and find my way to your house.” With that, he turned and strode off, leaving me frozen, wondering what had just happened.

When Jack walked back to find me, he took one look at my expression and groaned.

“Now what?”

“Um … it’s not my fault.”

“Just spit it out. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together,” my wonderful, ridiculously handsome fiancé said.

I kissed him, right there in the middle of town. I couldn’t help it.

He put his arms around me but raised an eyebrow, and I sighed.

“Okay. I may have invited a troll to stay with us.”

11

Tess

Friday: Wedding minus 8 days

Somebody bought the dog collar.

I made it to work on time after only a few hours of sleep, because first I had to explain to Jack why I’d invited a flirtatious troll to stay in our backyard with only one week before the wedding, and then I had to find the tent and get it set up.

Jack offered to help, but I thought it was better … not.

He and Braumsh didn’t like each other much, but the troll agreed when I asked him to be nice to Jack while he stayed with us.

The oddest thing of all?

My catlovedhim. She never likes strangers, especially male strangers. However, not only did she come out to meet him, but she let him pick her up! And pet her!

She even slept in the tent with him.

“Maybe because he smells like fish,” Jack said darkly, after I got Braumsh all set up, offered him food (he declined), and offered him beer (he accepted).

Jack and I spent some timediscussinghis belief that he had to be the one to accept the hand-to-hand challenge, but I couldn’t talk him out of it, so I finally let it go. Uncle Mike called, and he was equally determined to handle the chess challenge, so I threw my hands in the air at the stubbornness of my family and soon-to-be family.

“If they hurt you right before the wedding, there will be trouble,” I said grimly, yanking open a drawer to pull out my favorite summer pajamas.

“It’s okay if they hurt meafterthe wedding?” Jack gave me a wicked grin and gently took my pajamas out of my hands. “You won’t be needing those.”

Turns out I didn’t.

But today, I was paying for the lack of sleep with a fuzzy brain. So, when three of my customers got into a bidding war over the dog collar, it was Eleanor who was quick enough to turn it into an auction.

By the end, I cleared two hundred dollars on the collar. This was great, but I kept cautioning them when they bid: “Mostly, they’re only thinking about bacon.”

They didn’t care. I got the money, and a very sweet old man was on his way home to find out what his beloved Schnauzer had to say.

(It was probably something about bacon.)

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