Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,3

I want things to be simple. I just want to concentrate on you. And on being the best wife I can possibly be.”

“You’re already the best possible person you can be; the wife part shouldn’t be so hard.” He slipped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a quick hug. “But remember, Annie dear, even when you have the best intentions, things don’t always work out the way you planned.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t expect our wedding to be perfect.”

“I’m saying that nothing is perfect. Not weddings, not marriages. Even the ones that look perfect from the outside. Especially the ones that look perfect from the outside!”

I gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “Ours is going to be. I’m going to make sure. Knowing what’s happening in the house where I’m going to live would be a good start.”

“Oh, no!” Jim threw back his head and laughed. “You won’t get around me so easily. Not when it comes to this.” He looked over his shoulder toward the closed front door. “Have you not seen Alex since you’ve been here?”

We were back to talking about everything I couldn’t see in the house, and just so he’d know I knew it, I harrumphed. “I can’t see anything. Not through the living room window or the kitchen window in the back or even the dining room window.”

“The dining room window? The one that’s so high off the ground you shouldn’t even be trying to look in it?”

I was too offended to be embarrassed. “Your neighbor’s tree has this low-hanging branch and—”

“You climbed Mrs. Malone’s tree? To try and get a peep into the dining room?” It was Jim’s turn to groan. “She’s a little old lady. She doesn’t need to see you lurking about like that, Annie, and I don’t need a bride with her arm in a cast. Besides . . .” His smile was mischievous. “I thought you’d do exactly that. Which is why I had the miniblinds installed in the dining room.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “And you keep them closed, too.”

“It’s my duty.” He grinned. “As a husband who wants to please his wife.”

“But—”

“No buts.” He stopped my objection with a quick kiss. “This is my wedding gift to you and I want it to be special. That means it has to be a surprise.”

“But—”

This time, he kissed me longer. Right before he hopped to his feet. “I just stopped home to see what Alex was up to. He didn’t answer when I called this morning. I’m going to pop inside and see if he needs any help.”

I got to my feet, too. “I could help you find him.”

Jim’s expression teetered between tolerance and I-can’t-believe-you-had-the-nerve-to-say-that. “It’s a small enough house that I think I can find him myself, thank you very much.” He unlocked the front door. “If I find ye back in that tree . . .” he warned, and he opened the door just enough to slip inside before I could see anything. I wasn’t imagining it; I heard the door lock behind him.

There was nothing I could do but wait, so I went back to the steps and sat back down. Now that I thought about it, I was surprised I hadn’t heard Alex rambling around in the house while I was trying to get a look inside. Alex is not quiet, especially when he’s working. Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard the radio he usually played at full blast, either.

The Alex in question was Alex Bannerman, Jim’s cousin who had come all the way from Scotland to be the best man at our wedding. Alex was as rough-and-tumble as Jim was quiet and laid-back, a strapping, handsome man of thirty-eight with a shock of hair as red as a Virginia sunset. Alex never talks, he bellows. He doesn’t walk, he sprints. Alex believes in taking in life not in tiny bites but in huge gulps, and he proves it by singing too loud, eating all the wrong foods (and still managing to look like a million bucks), and—as he himself admitted the very first time I met him—loving too many women with too much passion to ever make him a successful candidate for marriage.

It was impossible not to like Alex. He was like a big, friendly bear, all smiles and hugs. In fact, the only fault I could find with him was that, like his cousin, he loved to cook. I didn’t hold it against him. In fact, I’d