Marry Me by Kristin Wallace Read Free Book Online

to explode.
    â€œMm, hmm. A lot of the vendors aren’t local, of course. Often we end up having to order from the bigger cities. We’re planning the mayor’s daughter’s wedding right now, and she won’t have anything local in her wedding.”
    â€œSo you order from out-of-town?”
    â€œIt depends on how fancy the client wants to go. We do have some great local talent. The owner of the boutique next door is also a designer, and she makes the most amazing wedding gowns you’ve ever seen. She’s even starting to get quite a reputation, with clients coming from as far away as Atlanta for her gowns.”
    â€œGood to know.”
    â€œAnd the local florist is a genius floral designer. She usually takes care of ordering anything from out-of-town, too. Then there’s our local caterer—”
    Julia understood the gist of it now. “Let me guess, she’s the finest chef in the South.”
    Betsy nodded and flashed her sunny grin. “Amazing. She’s not truly a local though. She only moved to town about three years ago. Used to work for some fancy restaurant in Chicago. We’ve also got fabulous local talent in the music department, too. Meredith Vining is the Music Director at Pastor Graham’s church, but she also has a band and they perform at weddings. She has the voice of an angel. She had a budding music career, but gave it up to come back home.”
    â€œSo, you’re telling me Covington Falls is populated by a bunch of wedding prodigies?”
    Betsy giggled. “Sort of. Sarah originally decided to open Marry Me to help tie all the town’s resources together.”
    â€œWhen opportunity knocks.”
    â€You are the funniest thing,” Betsy said, giggling again. “I can tell I’m going to love working with you.”
    Betsy started toward the door.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œI have to go pick up some invitations at the printers. The client is coming by this afternoon to look them over.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’ll only be gone a few minutes.”
    This was not reassuring. “But you’re leaving me here. Alone.”
    Betsy smiled. “You’ll be fine. It’s been pretty quiet around here. Everyone knows Sarah’s been in the hospital, and it’ll take at least a few days before word gets out you’ve stepped in.”
    â€œWhat do I do while you’re gone?” she asked, desperate to keep Betsy in the office.
    â€œStart reading the bible .” Betsy rifled through the mess on the desk and retrieved an appointment book. “Or if you feel too overwhelmed, you can look through this. It has the upcoming appointments and schedule of weddings. It takes months to plan a wedding, and the ones we have now have been in the works for a while. Mostly you’ll be making sure things get done on time.”
    Betsy left. Julia was still staring at the empty doorway when she heard the little bell above the door jingle. No doubt the bell was laughing at her. With a deep sigh, she sank into the battered office chair and opened Sarah’s bible. At least it had an index of sorts. Unfortunately, it was mostly a bunch of symbols and numbers.
    Julia was about to get a headache looking at it, so she snapped the cover shut and reached for the appointment book. These things she understood. Hopefully. Who knew what kind of hieroglyphics Sarah used for appointment making?
    Fortunately, this book was in English. She glanced at the week’s appointments. As Betsy said, it was pretty quiet. In fact, a couple appointments looked as though they’d been rescheduled. Probably after Sarah had the scare with the baby. Under the Saturday column there was a notation. “Ashley Wedding”.
    Wait a minute!
    Julia stared at the two words with a dawning horror. Looked at the date on the top of the page and then at the calendar.
    Betsy breezed back in with a cheery hello. “I’m