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“Chase,” she said, “you may be a dog person, or a cat person, but above all, you’re my person, and I can’t imagine life without you. It’s been a bumpy ride to get here, and there may be more bumps in the road ahead—in fact I’m sure there will be—but of one thing I’m absolutely sure: that I love you with all my heart, and that I want nothing more than to share my life with you, bumps and all.”

“Well said,” Max said with a grin, and resumed his place in the front row, next to Odelia’s relatives, who were all wiping away a little tear—or a lot of tears.

“I couldn’t have said it better,” Gran muttered, and gave Max a pat on the head.

Chase didn’t take out a piece of paper, but without further ado he said, “Odelia, the day we met was the beginning of a new chapter for me. I never thought I’d ever meet someone I’d want to spend my life with. And even though I might have said something along the lines of you being a busybody and nosy know-it-all, I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you in your uncle’s office that you were the one. I would have asked you to marry me the day you butted into my investigation and bested me at every turn, but that seemed a little forward. So I patiently waited until you were ready, and I may bewrong,” he added, gesturing to her wedding dress, “but I think you just might be ready now.”

“Yes, I am!” she said, sniffling.

Uncle Alec handed Chase a wedding ring, and he took it carefully, then slipped it ever so gently on Odelia’s finger.

She gratefully accepted a ring from her mom and slid it on Chase’s finger. They weren’t the rings they’d originally selected, but cheapos they’d picked up at the airport, but they’d have to do for now.

“Odelia Poole,” said Elvis, happy that this show was almost ready to go on the road and he could start belting out tunes again to his heart’s content, “do you take this man as your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

“Yes, I do,” said Odelia gratefully, gazing into her insufferable, wonderful man’s eyes.

“I do,” said Chase his eyes lighting up.

“Well, then kiss your bride, son!” Elvis said, throwing up his hands.

And so that’s what he did!

3

V esta, who usually wasn’t susceptible to sentiment of any kind, had to wipe away a tear as she watched her granddaughter and future grandson-in-law share a sweet kiss. Everyone who was present couldn’t help but feel touched by the scene, and even Scarlett, who wasn’t family in the strictest sense but then again almost was, was sniffling like a cat with the flu, going through her pack of tissues like the entire audience at a Titanic cinema re-release. Instead of shouting, ‘Jack, get your ass back on that raft!’ though, she gave two hearty cheers and clapped along with the rest of the company.

“I still think it would have been much better in church,” said an equally weepy Marge.

“Just think about this, Marge,” said Vesta. “If that wedding as originally planned had gone through we’d be all living on the street picking food out of a dumpster right now.”

“It would have been worth it!” Marge cried, causing Vesta to shake her head.

“And they call me sentimental,” she growled to her friend, seated on her other side.

“That’s probably because you love those soap operas of yours so much,” said Scarlett.

“So? It’s not because I like watching Days of Our Lives that I’m a sentimental old woman. I just think there’s so much you can learn from those kinds of shows.”

“Oh, please.”

“They show you what it’s all about! A regular slice of life!”

“How can you say that? Those shows are so over the top!”

“Not true. If you read between the lines they tell you everything you need to know about the human condition. About what makes a person tick.”

“What makes a person sick, you mean.”

“Will you two shut up already?” said Alec. “I’m trying to enjoy a wedding here.”

“We’re all trying to enjoy a wedding,” said Vesta. “And if you’d chipped in for the wedding instead of playing Ebenezer Scrooge we would all be listening to Father Reilly and enjoying a nice traditional wedding, instead of this clown dressed like Elvis.”

Uncle Alec, seated one row back, leaned forward.“I wanted to chip in, remember? You said it wasn’t necessary. You said that you and Marge could handle it just fine.”

“Oh, tosh. I never said any such nonsense.”

“You did!”

“I did not!”

“Please, no fighting on Odelia’s most beautiful day,” Tex intervened. The good doctor’s cheeks were wet with honest tears, too, and the sight softened Vesta to such an extent that she decided to let bygones be bygones. If you can’t forgive and forget on the day that your granddaughter ties the knot with a most deserving husband, when can you?

“I still think Alec should have chipped in,” she muttered to Scarlett.

“I heard that!” said Alec, before Charlene, his girlfriend, and also Hampton Cove’s proud burgomaster, put her hand on his arm and pulled him back from the brink.