you to keep you quiet!'
'I can't imagine what could possibly have given you that idea,' Mother said stiffly.
'You kept going on about married couples keeping each other's little secrets.'
'I'm sure you were asking something highly personal about Dr. Langslow.'
'I was asking if he knew what you knew.'
'Knew what?' Mother asked.
'About Emma!' Jake shouted.
'You needn't shout, Jake,' Mother reproved. 'If he did, he certainly didn't tell me, or I would never have accepted your proposal.'
'Are you suggesting,' Pam asked, 'that although Mother knew you had killed your first wife, she was so eager to marry you that she was willing to blackmail you into doing it?' Put like that, it seemed so implausible that even Jake was taken aback.
'Well,' he waffled, 'it seemed so at the time.'
'And then Mrs. Grover tried to blackmail you, and you killed her,' Dad picked up the tale. 'But you realized that you'd never feel safe as long as I was around asking difficult questions about Mrs. Grover's death. So you decided to shut me up by getting rid of me. And Meg, once you decided she was a threat.'
'No you don't,' Jake said, suddenly, dragging me with him as he whirled about to look behind him. Some of the deputies had edged their way around there. I assume they were trying to surprise him.
'Get out of my way,' Jake snarled, and dragged me with him until he had his back to the garage. 'Someone bring my car around. We're leaving.'
Great. From maid of honor to hostage. I suddenly realized that I was still holding my bouquet in the hand that wasn't clutching at the arm that was choking me.
'Jake, you don't have to do this,' Mother said in her most soothing tones, and started to walk toward us as she talked. 'I'm sure Dr. Langslow knows a psychiatrist who could help get you off. Why don't you just turn Meg loose and we'll sit down and talk to him--'
'You stay away from me,' Jake wailed. 'Stand back or I'll shoot her! I swear I will!'
Everybody stood back. Stalemate. What did Jake have in mind--fleeing the country with me as his hostage?
Suddenly we heard the usual unearthly peacock shrieks coming from directly overhead. Two peacocks were fluttering down from the roof toward us. Jake dodged to one side to avoid them, dragging me with him, and I could feel that the barrel of the gun was no longer pointed at my back. The peacocks were followed almost immediately by Michael, who landed with a thud where Jake would have been if he hadn't dodged. But the diversionary tactic worked--Jake loosened his grip on me and started to point the gun at Michael.
Here was my chance! I jerked Jake's arm skyward, the gun started firing, guests began screaming and dropping to the ground.
Luckily my ironwork had given me a great deal more upper body strength than most women have. A lot more than Jake, too. I could keep the gun pointed harmlessly in the air until it was empty. Then I shoved Jake away from me and watched as he was tackled, first by Mother, then by Michael, and then, belatedly, by the sheriff and most of the deputies and ersatz cousins. The lawmen began fighting over who got to handcuff him, their efforts hampered by Mother, who had one knee on Jake's neck and was beating him over the head with her wedding bouquet.
'Of all the nasty, mean things!' Mother said, punctuating her remarks with blows. 'I hope they put you under the jail!'
'Now, Margaret,' Dad said. 'I think the sheriff can take care of him. Come and have some champagne.'
Mother allowed Dad to help her up and, after they were sure I was unharmed, they waltzed off toward the refreshment tent. A few guests stayed to gawk as Jake was led away to the car by six of the deputies, or to shake my hand or pat me on the shoulder soothingly. Most of the herd wandered off behind Mother and Dad and started in on the champagne and the buffet. I shooed away the well-wishers, sat down in one of the folding chairs, and put my head in my hands.
'Here, have some champagne,' Michael said, waving a glass of it under my nose. 'Or I could get some water if you're feeling faint.'
'I'm not feeling faint,' I said, glancing up. He looked worried.
'Sorry I ran away with your rescue attempt,' I said.
'Once again, you didn't need much rescuing,' he said, with a grin. 'I don't know why I bother with these useless acts of chivalry.'
'It gave me the chance I was looking for,' I said. 'And now I know what was bothering me last night. Leaving Mother in the car while I went in to fetch the cake, and then seeing Dad hiding in the tool shed. It was staring us all in the face. I should have realized then how Jake got away with it. He was miles away from here when Mrs. Grover was killed--but so was she. He knew exactly how to manipulate Mother to give himself that cast-iron alibi.'
'Well, he didn't get away with it, thanks to you. If you hadn't figured it out, the rest of us would still be wondering. Cheer up!'
'Yes; after all, no one will ever ask me to be their maid of honor again. After Samantha's wedding and now this, I will be considered a complete and total jinx. People will pay me to stay out of town for their weddings.' I took the glass of champagne and drained it.
'Oh it's not that bad,' Michael said soothingly. 'I'm sure it will all blow over.'
'I don't want it to blow over. I never, ever want to be involved in a wedding again.'
'At least not as a maid of honor.'
'Not in any capacity. Ever.'
'What about your own?' he asked. 'Assuming, of course, you're interested in having one?'
'I'm not. If I ever get married, I shall elope. That has now become my prime requirement in a husband. Willingness to elope.'
'Sounds perfectly sensible to me,' he said, surveying the chaos around us. 'Which reminds me, for some strange reason, and apropos of nothing in particular except that I've been trying to drag the conversation around to the subject for what seems like half the summer, do you think there's any possibility that you might--'
'What on earth is Dad doing?' I interrupted.
'What an odd coincidence,' Michael remarked. 'He seems to be proposing to your mother.' Dad was down on one knee at Mother's feet, and as we watched, she said something to him that provoked applause and raised glasses from the surrounding relatives.
'Hardly coincidental at all. I'm sure he's been planning this for days.'
'Weeks,' Michael replied. 'Possibly months. I always found it slightly odd that he was going to so much trouble to make your mother's remarriage a success. Of course, you realize this probably means another wedding.'
'No, I think not,' I said. 'All they have to do is drag the guests back in and take it from the top.'
'Without a marriage license?'
'I imagine they'll manage. The man shaking Dad's hand right now is Judge Hollingworth--Mother's cousin Stanley. Dad is probably arranging some sort of special license.'
'I do like your family's style,' Michael remarked.
'That's because you're not related to them. You'd feel different if they were your crazy relatives.'
'We'll see,' he said, cryptically. The sheriff and his remaining deputies used their bullhorns to reassemble the guests. After a pause while Dad gathered an impressive new bouquet to replace the one Mother had destroyed on Jake's head, the revised wedding went forward. I made my absolutely, positively final appearance as a maid of honor.
After the ceremony, the sheriff and the deputies drove off with their prisoner, and the rest of the friends and family settled down to celebrate in earnest.
Rob, I was glad to see, had already found someone to console him for the loss of Samantha. A tall, slightly gawky young woman with bright orange hair.
'Meg, this is Red,' he said, in a tone that would have been quite appropriate for presenting the Queen of
