The Dysfunctional Wedding: The Dysfunctional Chronicles, #6

By Hadena James

Nadine Daniels knew that Alex’s wedding was going to make the next couple of weeks hectic, but she wasn’t prepared for the non-wedding chaos.  While Nadine, Alex, and Kenzie are out hunting UFOs, somebody soaked Alex’s house in jet fuel and set it on fire.  They arrived at Alex’s home to find it engulfed in flames, along with the wedding dress, Nadine’s maid of honor dress, and Kenzie’s bridesmaid’s dress.   

The presence of their Grandfather Leon is a sinister omen.  He never attends family disasters.  The fact that he is whispering with Melina leaves Nadine with a knot in her stomach. 

Melina isn’t known for always being cooperative, but Nadine will need to talk to her to get to the bottom of this mystery, along with buying a new maid of honor dress, dealing with Kenzie’s hormonal imbalance due to pregnancy, the arrival of her mother-in-law, and the knowledge that Alex and her fiancé are going to be moving in with Nadine for a while. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hadena James Publishing
• Release date: Nov 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540199102

Book preview

Hadena James

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead are completely coincidental.

Copyright © Hadena James 2016

All Rights Reserved

Dedication

Originally, I had planned to dedicate this book to my SO’s nephew and his new wife, both of which I dearly love and find my life is better for them being in it.  Then I realized they were just a single part of a huge mosaic that has helped make me, well, me. 

The three central characters of this book; Nadine, Alex, and Kenzie are a hodgepodge of my friend Beth, my friend Melinda, and myself.  Each female character carries the traits of the three of us... both the good and the bad.

However, it is the people around me, beyond these two lovely women, people like my SO’s nephew and his new wife, that give me the storylines.  It is from this group that I discover the comedy, the love, the dislike, the fear, and the happiness that goes into each of these stories. 

I am eternally indebted to everyone who has ever been a part of my life for these stories.

Also By Hadena James

Dreams & Reality Novels

Tortured Dreams

Elysium Dreams

Mercurial Dreams

Explosive Dreams

Cannibal Dreams

Butchered Dreams

Summoned Dreams

Battered Dreams

Belladonna Dreams

Mutilated Dreams

Fortified Dreams

The Brenna Strachan Series

Dark Cotillion

Dark Illumination

Dark Resurrections

Dark Legacies

The Dysfunctional Chronicles

The Dysfunctional Affair

The Dysfunctional Valentine

The Dysfunctional Honeymoon

The Dysfunctional Proposal

The Dysfunctional Holiday

The Dysfunctional Wedding

Short Story Collection

Tales to Read Before the End of the World

Prologue

Some years ago, I realized my life was the Universe’s idea of a practical joke. For a long time, the thought depressed me. Then I realized that I was not the only one the Universe found entertaining.

Burning Down The House

When I was ten, my younger brothers Vlad and Devlin were outside building a fort when the fort collapsed. The two came into the house screaming the walls down. My parents, being the dutiful parents they were, rushed both boys to the ER and left me under the care of my brother, Ivan. I wanted to do something nice for my brothers and decided to bake a cake. When I opened the pantry to get the cake mix, I found several 16.9 ounce bottles of water with a strange odor. The cake mix called for two cups of water, so I decided to use a bottle to keep from dirtying up a measuring cup on water. I’m still not sure what was in those water bottles. I do know that once I put the cake in our oven, something went terribly wrong. The cake burst into flames, and within moments the entire stove was engulfed. It took less than a minute for it to catch the wall behind the stove on fire.

My parents returned from the ER to find Ivan, me, and Grandfather Leon outside the house. There was much conversation that involved whispering and words in other languages between my mother and grandfather. I didn’t get in trouble, but the bottles of water disappeared and never reappeared.

The memory hit me suddenly as I stood on the street, nearly five hundred feet from Alex’s house. Her house, her lawn, the street, and a truck were all engulfed in flames. Someone had told us about ten minutes earlier that the truck was a jet fuel tanker, which explained why everything was on fire. The entire neighborhood had been evacuated as special firefighting equipment was being brought in from Kansas City International Airport. However, we were all convinced that by the time the equipment arrived, everything Alex owned was going to be ash.

For most people, your cousin’s house burning to the ground via arson would be weird. My family isn’t most. I was more concerned about the fact that it was two-thirty in the morning and my mother was whispering, in Russian, to my grandfather, who hadn’t showed up at such a trivial event as a house burning since that day when Ivan called him because my cake had spontaneously combusted. Even when a Russian crime lord had been in my house threatening to kill my mother and me in slow and painful ways ended up being foiled by the poor attachment of a stove that burned down my house, my grandfather sent me a text message to check on us, and it was the middle of the day.

Shit, my dress was in there, I mumbled.

Mine too, Kenzie answered. Kenzie was another cousin of mine. She was eight months pregnant with twin elephants or something equally large. She looked like she had swallowed a hot air balloon. Of course, no one said these things aloud because she was also hormonally distressed and could go from crying to throwing dishes in less than a blink of an eye. Her baby’s father, Anthony, a once very tough mercenary from Germany, was even worse. He was suffering from Couvade’s Syndrome, also known as Sympathetic Pregnancy. His doctor was starting to worry about him lactating. We’ll go get snacks. She announced loudly. Anthony nodded and the two disappeared in the crowd. I wasn’t sure what sort of snacks went with arson, but Alex and Sebastian didn’t protest, so neither did I.

In less than two weeks, Alex was supposed to be married. I currently had six Great Danes, three bobcats, Kenzie, and Anthony living with me, so my Maid of Honor’s dress and Kenzie’s bridesmaid’s dress were both being stored at Alex’s. Alex had a fourteen-thousand-dollar wedding dress. Not because she actually wanted a wedding dress that cost more than most cars, but because my mother wanted her to have a wedding dress that cost more than most cars and we were Russian. Russian weddings are similar to coronations of royalty. It didn’t help that Grandfather Leon was a Russian Orthodox priest. This wedding was costing more than most people made in a year and that was exactly as everyone except the bride, groom, maid of honor, and bridesmaids wanted it. Alex had even had a few people decline to be bridesmaids because the dress was outrageously expensive.

Now all three dresses would have to be remade, which meant they would also have to be paid for a second time. I was pretty sure arson wasn’t covered by the original dressmaking fee, even if the dressmaker was a family member.

Well? Zeke asked.

Well what? I asked my husband, leaning into his body. For the last several minutes, he and my brother, Ivan, had been shouting at the arson investigator.

Remember a few months ago, I asked if we could remodel the house again and put in master guest suites? Zeke and I had been married for one year and one and half weeks. We’d remodeled the house twice in that time already. I had nixed adding guest suites. Suddenly, I realized Alex and Sebastian were going to be moving in with me and I was regretting that decision.

Don’t rub it in or you may be sharing a room with Anthony and Kenzie. I told him.  He tried to hide the smile that flashed across his face.  I pretended not to notice it.

What is Dedka Leon doing here? Zeke changed the subject quickly. Dedka was the diminutive Russian form of Grandfather. We all used it, except when talking about him with non-family members.

I was wondering that myself. I was also wondering why he and my mother were conspiring. I told him. However, I’m exhausted and I don’t want to think about it too hard tonight. Alex ran a private detective agency. In theory, I ran a security agency. In reality, Alex mostly worked at the agency she owned and I helped her. Zeke, Sebastian, Anthony, and two of my brothers were actually running Daniels’ Security because I kept getting sent weird poisons in the mail and we couldn’t figure out who was behind it. So I was on leave, drawing a paycheck, and driving Alex and Kenzie around for their jobs. Kenzie