The Wedding Question: Crystal Magic, #0

By Patricia Rice

While juggling the demands of their busy lives, Theodosia Devine-Baker and Kurt Kennedy find that love and living together require just as much work. Halloween always brings out Hillvale's spooks, but when Teddy declares a ceramic dragon is sending smoke signals, Kurt wonders if it's time to flee the eccentric community to look for a more normal life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia Rice
• Release date: Oct 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781611387544

Book preview

The Wedding Question

The Wedding Question

A Crystal Magic Novella

Patricia Rice

Book View Café

Contents

Author’s Note

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Character List

Join My Readers’ List!

Crystal Magic Series

About the Author

Also by Patricia Rice

About Book View Café

The Wedding Question

Patricia Rice

Copyright © 2018 Patricia Rice

Book View Cafe, 2018

First Publication: 2018

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.

This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Rice Enterprises, Dana Point, CA, an affiliate of Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

Cover design by Kim Killion

Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624

http://bookviewcafe.com

ISBN 978-1-61138-754-4

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Thank You.

Hillvale

Author’s Note

Welcome to Hillvale, population 325 lives and countless ghosts. For those of you who have visited Hillvale in my earlier Crystal Magic books, welcome back! I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the story for the couples who appeared in the mysteries. I adore romance and hated to let my characters go without giving them a proper love story. Wedding Gift was Sam and Walker’s story. Wedding Question is Teddy and Kurt’s.

For those of you who are just joining us, I’ve tried to make my novellas stand on their own, but every person in Hillvale has his own story. So you’ll see threads of all those tales throughout because love isn’t just about a couple, but their friends and families as well. I hope you’ll be curious enough to follow them into the future!

One

October

Smoke curled from the dragon’s shimmering, red-scaled snout.

Teddy blinked in surprise. Trailing behind her significant other, and the lodge manager he’d just hired, she stopped and studied the exquisite piece of ceramic art. Pottery did not smoke.

This piece did. A lovely red plume curled upward as the men stood beside it, talking.

With dread, she glanced around the gallery of valuable art the town would soon be auctioning off. Yes, Hillvale artwork leaned toward the weird. No, none of the other pieces appeared to be smoking.

Steadying herself, she waited for the two-foot-long creature to breathe fire. Her life was such lately that she was inclined to be very open-minded about fire-breathing ceramic dragons.

Emerald wings glazed in crystal paint shimmered in the dim light—the same crystal paint they now knew had untapped paranormal potential. Correction, the paranormally-gifted Lucent Ladies—Lucys—knew about the crystals. The mundane Nulls, like the two men in front of her, weren’t exactly believers.

I understand your concerns, the new lodge manager said, probably for the fiftieth time that morning. I’ll have to review your staffing. That’s the best place to cut costs, especially going into the winter months.

The colorfully feathered wyvern snorted another red plume—in response?

Bullshit, Teddy muttered, watching the dragon in fascination.

It breathed a lovely purple plume.

Kurt, her suavely handsome, horribly overworked partner turned and arched a sexy eyebrow at her. Normally, he could turn her to a puddle of goo with that look, but she was irritated by the pompous jackass he’d hired, and she’d rather be figuring out how crystals worked than listen to this self-serving blather.

Cutting staff means we’ll have even fewer people to eat at Dinah’s and shop at Pasquale’s, she said, just to see if Kurt cared what she thought. If we lose the café and the grocery store, there will be even less reason for tourists to rent cabins. Cutting employees is always the start of a downward spiral.

The dragon purred purple again.

Ah, you’re an economics major, Miss Baker? The slightly balding manager regarded her with bland disinterest. He’d been introduced as Frederick Roper, a former executive for a large hotel chain, looking for a less stressful position after a mild scare with a heart attack. He was only in his thirties but middle-aged spread had started early.

Neither man apparently noticed the smoking dragon, so it was crystal magic that they couldn’t see.

Teddy didn’t despise Roper for his looks. She despised him for condescending questions like that one. I have a degree in business and a rather large operation of my own, Mr. Roper, but I speak from personal experience and common sense.

Now that her sister’s ex was behind bars, Teddy didn’t mind that people knew she was Theodosia Devine Designs. Her high-end jewelry sold in fine department and jewelry stores throughout the west. But these days, she preferred her low-key shop in Hillvale, where she could study the power of the crystals she included in her designs.

Mr. Roper knows the hotel business, Kurt said, not exactly denying her opinion but skirting around it. Kurt had been forced to learn tactful at an early age.

The dragon billowed a smaller purple plume. Did the amount of smoke signify anything?

In the interest of scientific research, Teddy egged on the argument. But Mr. Roper does not know Hillvale’s economy. I was pointing out that Redwood Resort has an intricate relationship with the town. In a small community, laying off employees has deep repercussions.

The dragon huffed purple agreement.

If the local community cannot support them, employees can find work in a larger economy, Roper said stiffly, apparently not appreciating argument.

That was wrong on soooo many levels. . .

The dragon agreed. Angry red billowed upward.

Red for incorrect, purple for right? Quantity for amount of right or wrongness?

How in hell would a ceramic dragon know?

The dragon’s wide mouth gaped in a rakish smile, revealing a crimson tongue—but fortunately, no fire.

I appreciate you showing Roper the art galleries so he knows what we’re trying to do, Kurt said, hunting for the proper phrases. He wasn’t good at words or relationships and didn’t want to discourage Teddy’s eagerness to help. But he couldn’t have her running his business as well as her own.

He’d left Roper with the lodge’s head housekeeper and security manager while he returned to town to have lunch with the woman he loved in so many ways that it almost hurt. But he’d been alone for so long, he was sometimes too brittle to be flexible.

He’s a pompous ass, Teddy replied, studying a book on crystals, one of many she’d