Five Golden Wings – Donna Andrews

And fresh bread. And something involving cinnamon. Rose Noire was on the case. I checked my phone to see if anyone had tried to reach me. Miracle of miracles, no one had. Of course, it was only seven thirty. Most of my nearest and dearest knew better than to expect coherence from me before nine, and with luck all the brides and bridesmaids who didn’t know would still be passed out.

I probably hadn’t had enough sleep, but enough that I could function, and I didn’t fancy my chances of getting back to sleep. Maybe I’d manage a nap later. And a glance out the window showed that the snow hadn’t started yet. That was good for the chief’s investigation—and probably also good for Mother’s sanity. I suspected my aunts Betty and Letty would go into full panic mode at the first flake, no matter how much we’d done to reassure them that there were enough snowplows and snowmobiles in Caerphilly to make sure everyone got to the church on time.

When I was dressed and felt ready to tackle the day, I texted Michael. “How did Sleep with the Wombats go?” A minute or so later, my phone rang. “You’re up early,” he said. “Said the pot to the kettle,” I replied. “My body wanted more sleep, but my brain wants to find out how the chief’s investigation is going. I decided to go along with the brain.”

“I figured as much,” he said. “Sleep with the Wombats was enjoyable, although I don’t think anyone got an optimal amount of sleep. I’m planning a nap later. The boys are going to stay here with your grandfather for the rest of the morning. He’s got some educational projects on tap.” “Not another look at the mating habits of the naked mole rats, I hope,” I said.

“Oh, no.” Michael was chuckling. “He learned his lesson on that. I think he’s going to have them working on dissecting owl pellets. Right now we’re down in the employee café having breakfast. After that I’m going to bring Blaine over to talk to the chief, just so we can get it on the record that he’s in the clear and the chief can take him off the suspect list.”

“And Harry,” I reminded him. “The other groom,” I added, in case he was having as hard a time as I was remembering their names. “No idea where Harry is,” he said. Uh-oh. “I thought he went to the games with you,” I said. “And slept with the wombats.” “He came with us to the gym,” Michael said.

“But maybe ten minutes before tip-off for the first game he said he was getting a headache. I offered to run him back to your parents’ house, but he said no, he just needed to get some fresh air.

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Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy. OceanofPDF.com WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17 Chapter 1 The breeze rustled gently through the palm fronds overhead. I took a sip of my margarita, then parked it in the sand by my side and settled back on my beach towel. Somewhere behind me, someone was playing “Over the Rainbow” on a ukulele. “Mom?” I cracked one eyelid.

Michael and the boys were still clowning around in the surf. So who was calling me? “Mom?” Then I woke up and opened my eyes for real. Hawaii or Bermuda or wherever I’d been dreaming about vanished. Ocean breezes gave way to chill air and the faint sound of Christmas carols in the distance. At least the gale-force winds that had kept me awake part of the night seemed to have died down.

My son Jamie was peering down at me with an anxious expression on his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked. I braced myself to hear another complaint about his brother, Josh. The twins, normally the best of friends, were codirecting Trinity Episcopal’s annual children’s Christmas pageant and were suddenly having creative differences. Noisy creative differences that sometimes ended in scuffles. “Cousin Lexy and Cousin Emily are fighting again.”

I stifled my first reaction, which would have contained words I tried never to utter in front of my twin sons. “Actually fighting?” I asked. “I mean, have they come to blows? Or are they just arguing?” “They’re yelling a lot,” he said. I was opening my mouth to say that they did that all the time and to come back and wake me when their disagreement came to blows, when he added something. “And they both yelled at Rose Noire and told her to shut up.”

“That tears it.” I threw back the covers and hopped out of bed. Bad enough that they were being beastly to Mother.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 45223cd4d4e6e2fb
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,320,094 bytes (2.213 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 262
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 413.24 minutes
• Total Words: 82,647
• Total Characters: 458,750
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• Average Characters per Page: 1750.95

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