SLACK FRIDAY: NOVEMBER 28, 2014
Avoid crazed shopping crowds!
Keep calm and carry on at home with these great
Merr-E Holiday Treats from Pocket Star eBooks!
A LAST GOODBYE
J.A. Jance
November 24, 2014
.99
An Ali Reynolds e-novella
SUMMARY:
Find out where
fan favorite Ali Reynolds’ new adventure takes her in A Last Goodbye as New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance brings her trademark breakneck pace to
this fun and exciting e-novella, in which Ali Reynolds takes on double
responsibilities as both sleuth and bride.
Ali Reynolds is
finally getting married to her longtime love B. Simpson. They wanted a simple
Christmas Eve wedding, but nothing is ever simple with Ali. Even as a motley
crew of her friends—Leland Brooks, Sister Anselm, and others—descend on Vegas,
the bride-to-be finds herself juggling last-minute wedding plans and a mystery
in the form of a stray miniature dachshund. Ali’s grandson rescues the little
dog, but Ali’s not in the market for a new pet right before her honeymoon, and
leaves no stone unturned in hunting for the dog’s owner. But what she finds is
more than just a shaggy dog story…Bella’s elderly owner has vanished, and her
son seems to be behind it. So it’s Ali and B. to the rescue—and still making it
to the church on time!
EXCERPT:
Ali Reynolds leaned her head back against the pillow in the soaking
tub and closed her eyes. With
the help of the pummeling water jets, she let the rush of the past few
days recede into the background.
She and B. had made it. They were finally in Las Vegas. The rest of
the wedding party was there, too.
Back in November, when she and B. Simpson had first settled on a
Christmas Eve wedding at the Four
Seasons, it seemed entirely doable—a piece of cake. After all, how
hard could it be?
Because Ali and B. had chosen to be married in a hotel, much of the
planning was done by simply
cruising through the wedding planning pages on the Four Seasons
website. Arranging the time, date, flowers, type of ceremony—including their
preferred verbiage in the vows—was just a matter of making a few mouse clicks
on her computer. Ditto for the menus. One was for what they were calling the
rehearsal dinner despite the fact that there would be no rehearsal until the
morning of the wedding. She also used the website to choose separate menus for
both the reception and the post-ceremony supper. Ali stepped away from her computer,
thinking that she had most everything handled. Unfortunately, she had failed to
take her mother’s reaction into consideration.
Preparations for Ali’s previous weddings had been well beyond Edie
Larson’s geographic reach—Chicago
for the first ceremony and Los Angeles for the second. Caught up in
running the family business,
the Sugarloaf Café in Sedona, Arizona, 363 days a year, all Ali’s
parents had been able to do on the two
previous occasions was arrive in time for the rehearsal dinners and
depart immediately after the nuptials.
This time around, Ali wasn’t so lucky. Her parents, Bob and Edie
Larson, were both retired now,
having sold the restaurant. Bob had found plenty to do in retirement,
but Edie, left with too much time
on her hands, had hit the wedding planner ground at a dead run, a
reaction for which Ali herself had
been totally unprepared.
In the past, Ali had found the term “bridezilla” mildly amusing, but
when it came to dealing with an
Edie who had suddenly morphed into what could only be called the
bride’s “momzilla”? That wasn’t amusing in the least. To Ali’s surprise, Edie
had whipped out her long-unused Singer sewing machine and set about stitching
up a storm. In keeping with the season, Edie’s mother-of-the-bride dress was a
deep-green velvet and probably the most sophisticated attire Ali had ever seen
in her mother’s wardrobe.
With her own dress safely in hand, Edie had gone on to tackle outfits
for the twins, Ali’s grandchildren,
Colleen and Colin, who would serve as flower girl and ring bearer
respectively. Colleen’s dress was a ruby-red taffeta, and Colin’s tux, also
homemade, came complete with a matching rubyred taffeta cummerbund. Once that
was finished, Edie took it upon herself to sew identical cummerbunds for all
the men in the wedding party.
Ali’s father, Bob, was not an official member because Ali’s son,
Chris, would do the honor of walking her down the aisle. Even so, Edie had gone
so far as to bully her husband into actually buying a tux as opposed to renting
one so Bob would have one to wear to formal dinner nights on their next cruise.
Edie had been in despair about Ali’s ever finding a suitable wedding dress, and
her sense of dread deepened when her daughter abruptly removed herself from the
wedding planning equation. For the better part of two weeks in early December,
Ali avoided all the frenetic pre-wedding activity by, as Edie put it, “larking
off” to England.
That’s what Ali and B. had both expected her trip to Bournemouth would
be—a lark. She went along for the ride when her longtime majordomo, Leland
Brooks, returned home to the British Isles after living in self-imposed exile
in the U.S. for the better part of sixty years. The trip was actually a
thank-you from B. and Ali for Leland’s years of loyal service, including his
having saved Ali’s life a month earlier in a nighttime desert confrontation
with a kidnapper.
Ali had expected that her responsibilities would entail providing
backup in case any of Leland’s long-lost relatives decided to go off the rails.
She was also there as the designated driver, since most
car rental agencies didn’t allow octogenarians to rent vehicles.
In a role-reversal variation on Driving Miss Daisy, Ali had
taken the wheel of their “hired” Range Rover and driven Leland through the
snowy English countryside from London to Bournemouth, Leland’s hometown, on the
south coast of England. Together they even took a sentimental side trip to one
of Leland’s favorite childhood haunts: Stonehenge.
In a small fashion boutique in Bournemouth, Leland had helped Ali find
the perfect dress for her third and, as she put it, hopefully last wedding.
Even now, her lovely lace-adorned ivory silk knee-length
sheath was hanging in its original clear plastic wrap in the closet
here at the Four Seasons. Needless to
say, Edie was greatly relieved to know that the wedding dress issue
had at last been handled even if she
hadn’t been allowed to make it or choose it.
AUTHOR:
J.A. Jance is the New York Times
bestselling author of the Ali Reynolds series, the J.P. Beaumont series, the
Joanna Brady series, as well as four interrelated Southwestern thrillers
featuring the Walker family. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Brisbee,
Arizona, Jance and her husband live in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson,
Arizona. Please visit http://www.jajance.com/.
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