Save the Date Read Online Free PDF

jaunty new-looking red tin roof, but there were cracks in the wavy glass of the front windows, and she could see that two or three of the clapboards were perilously close to falling off the house.
    Cara called the police again. This time, a bored-sounding dispatcher informed her that the police had actual crimes to solve, and that an officer might not show up for another hour.
    “But he’s got my dog,” Cara protested. “And he won’t even open the door or listen to reason.”
    “Ma’am?” the dispatcher said. “Try to work it out like adults, why don’t you?”
    She disconnected and walked back over to the house. She climbed onto the front stoop and peered in through the dust-caked window. The room inside held a battered leather sofa and a flat-screen television squatting on a sheet of plywood stretched across sawhorses. The room was littered with stacks of lumber, tools, and paint buckets. There was no sign of Poppy. She would have cried, but she had a wedding to get to.

 
    4
     
    “Did you find Poppy?” Bert asked, as she raced back into the shop.
    “He’s still got her locked up,” Cara said. “And the police were no help at all.” She was pulling her sweat-soaked T-shirt over her head as she raced for the back stairs to her second-floor apartment above the shop.
    “Never mind,” Bert called up after her. “I’ve already taken the altar arrangements, the pew bows and centerpieces out there. But we’ve still got the bouquets and boutonnieres and the buffet arrangements here, so hurry! I’ll get the van loaded. After the wedding, I’ll help you get Poppy back.”
    Ten minutes later, she was back downstairs, her still-damp butterscotch-colored hair pulled into a careless French knot, dressed in a floaty vintage flower-sprigged pink silk garden-party dress, and pink cowboy boots.
    The ride out Skidaway Road to the Isle of Hope was a nail-biter, but they pulled up to the quaint, white wood-framed Methodist church at exactly five o’clock, with only an hour to spare before the wedding.
    Cara toted the cardboard carton with the bride’s flowers into the back of the church, where she was met by Lillian Fanning, her carefully made-up face contorted with anger and anxiety.
    “Finally!” Lillian snapped, snatching the box of flowers from Cara’s hands. “I’ve been having heart palpitations for the last hour. Where on earth have you been? Didn’t you get any of my calls or texts?”
    “So sorry,” Cara responded. “The battery ran down on my cell phone. But we’re here now. Bert’s taking the rest of the arrangements over to the reception. Honestly, Lillian. We have it all under control.”
    “Mama? Is that Cara with my damn flowers?” A willowy brunette in a stunning strapless cream satin Vera Wang gown poked her head out the door of the bride’s room.
    “It’s me, Torie,” Cara said. “I was just telling your mom, everything’s good.”
    A small, nervous woman in a pale blue dress fluttered out of the room. “Whatever you do, don’t upset her any more,” Ellie Lewis, the wedding planner, whispered in Cara’s ear. “She’s already threatened to strangle one of the flower girls.”
    “I’m coming,” Cara said, scuttling into the room with the box of flowers held before her like a peace offering.
    Torie Fanning was a gorgeous mess. Her glossy black updo was coming unpinned, and the tight-fitting bodice of her gown gaped in the back where the last half-dozen tiny satin-covered buttons refused to fasten. The dress fit snugly over her hips—a little too snugly, Cara thought—then flared out with multiple layers of spangly tulle that made the bride look like a mermaid. An overwrought, undermedicated mermaid.
    “It’s about damned time,” Torie said.
    “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Cara said. She moved behind the bride and began fastening the buttons. “You look amazing, Torie,” she said, her voice low and soothing. It was the same voice she used to coax Poppy to take her