Deborah Donnelly - Death Takes a Honeymoon (Carnegie Kincaid, Book 4)

Table of Contents

For Kristina Schnur, who is truly
her fathers daughter

Pop the champagne! Warmly witty, Deborah Donnellygrabs you by the heart every time.

Nancy Martin, bestselling author of the Blackbird Sisters Mysteries

Donnelly rings more than wedding bells with her wittywriting and frisky female sleuth!

Mary Daheim, USA Todaybestselling author of the Bed-and-Breakfast Mysteries

Fabulous praise forDeborah DonnellysWedding Planner Mysteries

May the Best Man Die

Joy to the world! Donnelly returns with long, tall Carnegie Kincaid, who spends Christmas juggling Bridezillas wedding, three ardent suitors and a new professional rival, as she shakes up Seattle in pursuit of a killer. Stuff this one in your stocking!

Marcia Talley, award-winning author of Occasion of Revenge

Fun for readers of mystery and romance.

Portland Oregonian

Charming, funny, fast and fresh, with an interesting cast of characters and a bubbly mystery swimming throughout.

Mystery Reader

Delightful... Ms. Donnelly masterfully guides the reader along numerous paths of misinformation and false leads.... I do look forward to reading future, as well as past, books in this series.

Reviewing the Evidence.com

Died to Match

A delightful mix of brides, bodies and mayhem thats a treat to devour.

BookPage

[A] brisk, buoyant cozy with quirky humor and nonstop adventure. Like a slide down the rabbit hole, this compulsively readable mystery gains speed with every turn of the page, culminating in a chaotic conclusion that leaves enough threads dangling to keep readers coming back for more.

Publishers Weekly

Always a bridal consultant, but seemingly doomed to never be a bride, Carnegie Kincaid is the kind of woman anyone would want for a best friend.

April Henry, author of Learning to Fly

Donnelly is a writer who knows her stuff. This is a great mystery and I highly recommend it.

Romantic Times, Top Pick

Another tasty confection in what is fast becoming my favorite cozy series.

Mystery Reader

If you like amateur sleuths with challenging professions, problematic private lives, and plenty of personality, youll truly enjoy [this] series.

Romance Reviews Today

Carnegie is an off-beat heroine that readers will adore.... Died to Match is a humorous amateur sleuth novel with many serpentine twists and turns.... Deborah Donnelly is a fresh new voice in the mystery genre.

Midwest Book Review

Romantic and brightan odd atmosphere for a murder mystery. But it works!

Every Other Weekly (Washington)

Offers droll humor, interesting background, cunning whodunit misdirection, and what amateur-detective cozies so often lack: real detection from fairly presented clues.

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Veiled Threats

Reminiscent of Donna Andrewss Murder, With Peacocks, this zany mystery is a bubbly blend of farcical humor, romance and intrigue. First-time author Donnelly will beguile readers with her keen wit and mint descriptions, but it is her characters that make this a stellar debut.

Publishers Weekly

Donnellys fast-moving story and likable sleuth will please readers....

Booklist

A solid start for what could be an entertaining edition to the cozy ranks. With her charm, intuition and the unpredictability of weddings, Carnegie could find herself a very busy sleuth.

Mystery Reader

A nice mix of romance, suspense and humor... Like Elizabeth Peters, Donnelly offers a solid read, lively and entertaining, with a spunky, independent heroine.

BookLoons

An exciting and highly entertaining ride through danger and suspense with a dash of sensuality along the way.

Romance Reviews Today

Acknowledgments

There is no smoke-jumper base in Ketchum, Idaho. I placed one there for the sake of my story, the way I took a few liberties with the Pioneer Saloon and other landmarks. But there are certainly smoke jumpers in Idaho, several of whom helped me with this book by showing me around the real bases in Boise and McCall. My special appreciation goes to smoke jumper Dave Estey and his wife Flap, as well as to flower wizard John Carpenter and wedding planners Lona Schuster and Glenna Tooman. Many thanks also to Libby Hellmann, Roberta Isleib, Laurel Sercombe, and Gemma Utting for their generous moral support, and to Caitlin Alexander, my excellent editor. Finally, and as ever, my love and gratitude to Steve, who makes it all a honeymoon.

Chapter One

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, THATS WHAT THEY SAY. And whoever they are, they were certainly right this time. When I wished for heat, serious heat, I got what I wished for and then some.

It all started in the middle of a Sunday morning in the middle of June, as I stood in my houseboat sulking up a storm. A rainstorm, to be precise. This was Seattle, after all.

Huddled in sweatshirt and jeans, I leaned my forehead against the sliding-glass porch door and glared outside. Beyond my narrow wooden deck, the surface of Lake Union was the color of pewter. Dull, wet, rain-speckled pewter.

In addition to sulking, I was sipping hot strong coffee and yearning for hot strong sunshine. I wanted clear skies and high temperatures, the higher the better. You call this June?

Even in Seattle, June should bring at least a hint of summer. An arched eyebrow, a mischievous wink, a suggestive nod in the direction of halter tops and sunscreened shoulders and watermelon leaking pink through paper plates. Was that so much to ask?

This June we had sunscreen, all right: a coffin lid of cloud that screened the sun like an SPF 30 lotion. For weeks now, the temperature had been just high enough for cotton clothing, just low enough to skip the gin and tonics after all. Day after day after day of Mostly Cloudy, Some Chance of Showers, and I was Pissed Off, No Chance of Smiles.

The phone jangledthe business line. On a Sunday? Business wasnt all that good, so I set down my mug and answered briskly.

Made in Heaven Wedding Design.

Relax, its me. Jeez, Muffy, you sound a hundred and three years old.

Please understand, my name is not now, nor has it ever been, Muffy. Its Carnegie Kincaid, and Im about seventy years shy of a hundred and three. But this wasnt a wrong number. The familiar voice, as raucous as a magpie and as subtle as an elbow in the ribs, was Brenda Jervis, better known as B.J.

B.J. was my high-school buddy from Boise, Idaho, where I grew up and where my mother still taught school. She and I and a third girl, Tracy Kane, had called each other Muffy throughout the long, hilarious, hot-blooded college summer that we spent working at the Sun Valley Lodge. Tracy was younger, a tagalong friend, but B.J. and I were bonded for life.

The resort village of Sun Valley is a two-hour drive from Boise, but just ten minutes up the road from the mountain town of Ketchum. Tracys mother, CeciliaCall me Cissy lived in Ketchum, and Cissy Kane wanted to give her teenage daughter a little freedom after her graduation from high school. So she kept a tolerant eye on the three of usblonde Tracy, brunette B.J., and redheaded meas we shared a cheap apartment and waited tables at the venerable old Sun Valley Lodge.