CHAPTER 1
“Listen up, girls! Now that the wedding shenanigans have arrived, I’m going to hunt down a man tonight,” Georgie announces, strutting across the sand in her coconut bra as if she’s heading into battle. “And by hunt, I mean the good kind of hunting, not the kind that requires a shovel. Unless, of course, he gets on my bad side. In that case, I’ll need you ladies to help me hide the body.”
You know you’re in trouble when Georgie Conner shows up to a luau wearing a coconut bra and announcing her intention to snag, or land in a body bag, an entire litany of eligible bachelors.
The sweet scent of coconut sunscreen battles it out with the smoky kalua pig roasting in the sand pit, while some guy with a ukulele is doing his best to make “Margaritaville” sound tropical. Tiki torches flicker to life as the late afternoon sun starts painting everything in that golden glow that makes even the most disastrous beach party look like a postcard from paradise. The air is thick enough to swim through—humid and sticky in that special Maine summer way that makes you question every life choice that brought you to this sweaty moment.
Mom grunts in Georgie’s direction. “You leave those poor, innocent souls alone. There’s not enough therapy or insurance to cover the damage you’re capable of causing.”
Mom, a redhead on the wrong side of sixty who never met an ’80s fashion trend she didn’t want to resurrect, adjusts her enormous shoulder pads while bouncing my sweet daughter, nine-month-old Ella, on her hip. Mom’s hair is teased higher than gas prices, and she’s wearing enough neon to guide aircraft safely to landing.
Georgie happens to be pushing eighty-something and is obsessed with both men and breaking expensive things, she has a tumbleweed of gray hair sitting on her head, and she’s never met a kaftan she didn’t love, with the exception of this moment. That’s basically Georgie in a coconut nutshell. Her kaftan obsession knows no bounds and she causes complete chaos wherever she goes.
Georgie and Mom are not only besties, but they’re business partners, too. And partners in crime on the side, but I’d rather not think about that right now.
The Country Cottage Inn is buzzing with more chaos than usual this evening, which is saying something considering I run a bed and breakfast in Cider Cove, Maine—a town that attracts trouble like seagulls to French fries.
Three weeks ago, I’d never heard of Charlotte Van Buren or Piers Pemberton, but when their original wedding venue mysteriously “fell through” just seven days beforetheirbig day, Piers called my husband Jasper in a panic. Apparently, old college friendships come with obligations, because before I knew it, I’d agreed to host what’s turning out to be the most elaborate last-minute wedding in the history of Maine.
The bride wants everything documented for her social media empire, the groom seems shadier than my beach umbrella, and their wedding planner showed up today with enough tropical decorations to transform my peaceful inn into something thatlooks like Hawaii exploded all over the coast. Now I’m standing on the beach, just steps from the inn, watching this circus unfold, wondering what exactly I’ve gotten myself into.
And tonight, we just so happen to be hosting a luau to kick off their wedding week.
I look over at their engagement picture, and I can’t help but wrinkle my nose. I’ve seen a lot of questionable engagement photos in my day—one on a paddleboard that ended with a broken front tooth, one with matching camel rides that felt legally dubious—but this might take the wedding cake.
The monstrosity is eight feet tall, four feet wide, and staked dramatically into the hot sand like it’s announcing a crime scene instead of a commitment. The billboard looms in front of me with all the subtlety of a marching band. It features the happy couple—Charlotte Van Buren and Piers Pemberton—locked in a windswept embrace, posed just off-center from a very real tornado funnel barreling toward them.
Yes, a tornado.
Like I said, the Country Cottage Inn is hosting this unexpected wedding extravaganza for an entire week, and judging by this photo, we’re in for one wild ride. And why do I get the niggling feeling that the tornado is a harbinger of dangerous things to come?
“I’m telling you,” Georgie says, peeling off her sandals and letting her toes sink into the sand as if she’s about to manifest something inappropriate, “tonight is the night I land a man. I can feel it. Right in my ankles.”
“It could just be the humidity,” Mom replies, bouncing baby Ella on her hip while adjusting her enormous wide-brimmed hat. “Or poor circulation.”
“Are you kidding, Red? It’s destiny.” Georgie squints toward the outdoor bar, where shirtless groomsmen are lined up like human bait. “Preferably tall, preferably shirtless, possibly dumb.”
“Georgie, you need something to keep you occupied other thanmen,” Mom mutters. “We’ll find you a project. Preferably one that doesn’t own three types of hair gel.”
And please let it be something that doesn’t require supervision, I muse to myself while nudging a sand toy out from under my chair.
“I’ll help you brainstorm,” I offer, sipping a frozen coconut concoction that tastes like sunscreen and regret. “Maybe something that doesn’t end with bail money.”
We’re all sprawled under a massive striped umbrella that’s doing its best impression of shade while what’s left of the sun beats down on our little corner of chaos as it quickly begins to dip toward the horizon.
My sweet daughter Ella babbles happily and claps her chubby hands together—a trick she mastered last week, along with pulling herself up to standing and saying what Jasper swears isDadabut sounds more likeBabato everyone with functioning ears. Her wispy dark hair sports a tiny flower lei that makes her look like the world’s most adorable beach baby, assuming beach babies came with the ability to grab anything within a three-foot radius and immediately try to eat it.
“Brainstorm all you want,” Georgie waves us off with one perfectly manicured hand, “but I’ve got my sights set on that delicious best man. Did you see those shoulders? Those eyes? That jawline that could probably open cans?”
Before I can point out that using someone’s jawline as a kitchen utensil might be taking things too far, my sweet pets, Fish and Sherlock Bones, come tearing past our umbrella in a blur of fur and determination. Fish is a black and white tabby, and Sherlock Bones is a red and white freckled blend of all things wonderful. In other words, a mutt.
The little yappy one is trying to organize a shrimp heist,Fish yowls without slowing down.This could be the best luau ever, or the start of my criminal career.
My money is on both,Sherlock barks, tongue hanging out as hebounds after her.Don’t worry, Bizzy. I’ll protect the inn from the furry little hurricane.
A small coffee-colored Chihuahua barks after them in a voice that could shatter glass, then takes off like a tiny furry missile. The whole pack quickly joins up with Cinnamon and Gatsby—Emmie’s labradoodle and golden retriever—plus Candy and Cane—my sister’s and my brother’s fuzzy white Samoyeds—as the entire lot of them turns the beach into their personal furry racetrack.
My name is Bizzy Baker Wilder, and I can read the minds of both people and animals. Not every mind, not every time, but most of the time, and believe me, animals almost always have better things to say.
