Mad, Bad and Blonde - Cathie Linz [2]
This book is also dedicated to the many Marines who are serving our country and to their families who give up so much. Semper fi!
Chapter One
It was the perfect day for a wedding. Too bad the groom didn’t show up.
Faith West shivered in the beam of May sunlight streaming through a small window in the bridal anteroom of the historical Chicago Gold Coast church. Fingering the rich white satin skirt of her wedding dress, she sat very still, unable to believe this was really happening to her. Alan Anderson, the man she’d agreed to marry, was late for his own wedding.
There had to be a reasonable explanation for Alan’s absence: car trouble, a dead cell phone, maybe even an accident, heaven forbid.
Faith caught sight of herself in the large mirror on the opposite wall. A few wisps of her brown hair had escaped the confines of her upswept hairstyle, and her blue eyes appeared haunted despite her perfect makeup. Did she look like the kind of woman a man would leave at the altar? Possibly. She was certainly no raving beauty. She was just a librarian. A librarian with a rich private investigator father.
Faith’s family flitted around her like a skittish school of fish, coming and going—offering help, offering suggestions, offering vodka. She remained calm in the center of all the chaos, strangely distant from her surroundings. The reality was she was probably going into shock and should accept the offer of alcohol purely for medicinal purposes.
The question was: What would Jane Austen do in this situation? Whenever Faith was in trouble, she looked to her favorite author for the solution. And Faith was armpit deep in trouble at the moment.
“I bet you scared the poor man away,” Faith’s pain-in-the-butt Aunt Lorraine interrupted Faith’s racing thoughts to declare. “A children’s librarian whose father taught her how to shoot a gun. A big mistake.”
Aunt Lorraine, also known as the Duchess of Grimness, was the bane of the West family’s existence. With her demonlike black hair and Hellboy eyes, she was scarier than anything written by Stephen King. Not exactly the model wedding guest, but Faith’s mom had insisted on inviting her.
For a wild second Faith wondered if Alan had stayed away because he was afraid of Aunt Lorraine, having met her for the first time at the rehearsal dinner the night before. Maybe she was the reason he hadn’t shown up. Could Faith really blame him for wanting to avoid Aunt Lorraine’s stinging barbs?
Hell yes, she could blame him! How could Alan leave her sitting here wondering what had happened to him? How could he be so cruel? How could anyone, aside from Aunt Lorraine, be that cruel?
Alan wasn’t just anyone. He was her fiancé, a reliable and respectable investment banker she’d known for two years. They’d been engaged for the past eleven months. They were perfectly suited for each other, sharing the same interests, values and aspirations. Neither one of them was blinded by passion or prone to wild behavior.
That’s not to say that the sex between them hadn’t been good; it had been. Not great but good. She loved him. He loved her. Or so he’d said last night before kissing her.
Faith looked around. Someone had led Aunt Lorraine away. She was replaced by Alan’s shamefaced best man. “Alan just sent you a text message.”
“Where is he? Is he okay?”
Instead of answering her anxious questions, the best man hightailed it out of the room, heading for the nearest exit and no doubt the nearest bar.
“Where’s my BlackBerry?” Faith asked her maid of honor, her cousin Megan, who was like a sister to her. Faith and Megan were born two days apart, grew up within a few blocks of each other, and had been known to complete each other’s sentences. Their dads were brothers. Faith had only had one bridal attendant, and of course that was Megan.
“I’m sure Alan has a good reason for being late.” Megan had always been the optimist in the family. “Maybe he was in an accident. Your dad