Tell Them Emily Sent You

Book 1: Everything Is Fine!

by Katie MacAlister

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A missing father. A hotel filled with ghost hunters. A renegade pigeon in a cowboy outfit. Sounds like the makings of a perfect wedding! Dive into New York Times bestselling author Katie MacAlister's romantic comedy catch up!

All Emily Williams wanted was a simple, unremarkable wedding, one in which a few family members could share the day. What she ended up with was something completely unexpected. With her aunt and uncle-by-marriage (Kathie and Iain from MEN IN KILTS, her parents Brother and Chris (from the Emily series), and newfound friends Amy and Corbin (from BLOW ME DOWN), Emily figured all would be well.

She so should have known better.

Hiding a fugitive pigeon named Herbert is only one of Emily's worries, but all her plans go pear-shaped when the police, a particularly odd group of thieves, and viral filmmakers threaten to turn her simple wedding into maddening chaos.

Catch up to date with Emily, Fang, and all the others in this Everything Is Fine! series story that brings together beloved characters from MEN IN KILTS, BLOW ME DOWN, and the Emily series.

 

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Release date: December 19, 2023

Publisher: Fat Cat Books

Print pages: 144

Sample

ONE

GAME OF PHONES

 

EMILY

February 12

“Brother,” I said.

“Daughter,” he answered, which is probably confusing to anyone who doesn't know that everyone calls my father by the name Brother, despite (a) it not being his actual name, (b) him not being a member of a religious organization, and (c) it not being his actual name. Which I realize I said twice, but I didn't want only two pertinent points in my reference to my father. He's a three-points sort of guy.

Where was I? Oh, the call.

“Brother,” I said again, and gave the side paddock a meaningful look, just as if Brother could see it. Which he couldn't, because he refuses to video chat, claiming that every time he does, his phone is screwed up for weeks after. It's not—he's just old. But I digress.

“The time has finally come,” I told him, and rapped firmly on the window overlooking the aforementioned paddock. The landlady’s two rescue donkeys, Elton and Elton, who lived in our paddock, were busily chomping on the new snap lock I'd put on the gate. Elton I looked ashamed, and busied himself with the empty grain bucket in apparent nonchalance, but Elton II maintained a steady, and highly discomforting, eye contact with me while he tried to consume first the metal lock, then the wooden fence itself.

“For what? Death? It comes to all of us in the end, Emily,” Brother answered, oofing a little as he obviously sank down into his favorite oversized leather chair. His voice had that rich timbre that it gets when he goes into one of his history lectures. “I, myself, am now well into my sixties, and I can honestly say that I stare death straight in the eye every morning when I stagger into the bathroom. There’s nothing we can do to stop the relentless push, push, push of the clock as time streams past us. Take you, for instance.”

“Take me where? Hey! Knock it off or I’m calling your mom, and you know how testy she gets when she has to climb the fence just to yell at you guys.” I covered the mouthpiece of the phone when I bellowed the last bit, stomping as I marched out of the door, and pinned back the errant donkey with what Fang has come to call the Emily Look. Elton I scampered off after a swift glance at my face. Elton II paused, considered what he knew about me, and wisely stopped chewing on the fence in order to casually move off. No doubt to inflict his naughtiness elsewhere, but so long as he left the fences alone, I was willing to look away for a little bit. “I swear, if Mrs. Fliss wasn’t knocking a hundred quid off the monthly rent for us watching those two, I’d send them back to her farm. What? No, I have not had a hit at a crack pipe. Really, Brother! Not only do you know me better than that, but that sort of comment is seriously 1990s and not at all fitting for someone who refutes his boomerhood.”

“I know that you can talk the hind leg off of one of your foster donkeys,” he corrected.  "

And I’m not a boomer. Now, if you wouldn’t mind coming to the point—not that I’m unhappy talking with you, since you only see fit to call once every few months—”

“The phone works both ways,” I pointed out, giving Elton II one last gimlet glance before I checked their water and returned to the house. “It’s so sad now that Sparkle and Leonardo are gone.”

“I believe your mother sent a bereavement card from us both on the loss of the pony and cat. I take it you haven’t gotten another? Cat, that is, since I assume you aren’t looking for another rescue pony.”

“No. Fang believes animals come to you when they need you, so he likes to leave us open for receiving, rather than letting me look for a couple of indoor cats.”

“Ah. How is Francis?” Brother is an odd dichotomy of a man—he refuses to call Fang by anything but his given name, and yet gets highly offended when anyone calls him Henry. As he once explained to my friend Holly, he had been known as Brother since my aunt Kathie first saw him as a baby, and it just made sense to stick with the name.

As I said, Brother is a three-point sort of person, but he’s still my father, and I figured he’d want to be here.

“He’s delicious as ever,” I said, moving back into the small cottage we rented from a neighboring farm. “Handsome as the day is long, a wonderful, caring vet, and a highly talented and inventive lover.”

Brother knew better than to call me out. “Good, good. All is well here, although your mother is searching for a new focus.” His voice dropped even though I knew he was in his study with the door closed. “You know how she gets.”

“She does love to hyperfixate on a good project,” I agreed. “That actually brings me to the reason I’m calling—Fang and I have decided to get married.”

“You what? One moment. CHRIS! CHRIS! COME IN HERE AND LISTEN TO YOUR DAUGHTER. SHE’S GONE INSANE. NO, THE OTHER ONE.

EMILY.”

I held the phone away from my ear for a few seconds until he stopped yelling. Brother put me on speakerphone just as Mom entered the room, asking, “What’s all this about? I was watching a seminar on the latest Egyptian mummies discovered. Emily? Is something wrong?”

“Not a damned thing. What mummy seminar? Is it good?”

“She said she’s getting married,” Brother told Mom.

“Oh? That’s nice. I’ll email you the URL, Emily. It’s put on by one of the universities. When are you and Fang having the ceremony?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you guys about. As you know, neither of us is particularly hot and bothered about getting married—”

“If you call living in sin for fourteen years not being hot and bothered, then yes, I agree,” Brother said with another oomph and a resulting rude noise from the leather chair as he plopped into it again. “Your sister was married at twenty.”

“I am not Bess. Fang is not Monk. We are stable people with jobs and responsibilities,” I pointed out, not wanting to dis my sister. She had always been one to follow her own path, and if she spent the last fifteen years deep into animal rights, that was her business. “Fang and I looked at the calendar, and there are three dates that work with our schedules.” I gave them the date options for the next six months.

“August?” Brother’s 

voice rose half an octave. “You did say August, didn’t you?”

“August eighteenth, yes. That’s a Saturday, so we planned to take Friday and Monday off for the festivities. We won’t be having a real honeymoon, but there’s a small hotel in Cornwall that we absolutely love, and they said they could do a micro wedding for us, and that we would have the run of the hotel, because there are only eight rooms. We can stay on through Monday and we’re happy to spend the extra time with you guys, because we can honeymoon anytime.”

Mom asked questions about the small hotel that perched on a chalky cliff overlooking the sea. It was our favorite getaway place, and I knew my family would love it, as well.

The whole time we were discussing the hotel, and what family could make it to England—keeping in mind we had to limit participation to ten to twelve people—the sounds of fingers tapping on a keyboard were audible. I was about to ask Brother why he was not interested in the wedding when he interrupted Mom musing about whether they could tack on a week to have a vacation in England.

“I knew it!” Brother crowed. “And you think my memory is going, Chris! Well, this is proof it’s as sound as ever.”

“What is?” Mom asked.

“The International Medievalist Educators’ Society Annual Mystery Tour.”

“The what, now?” I asked.

“It’s a weeklong mystery tour and contest organized by a group of my colleagues,” Brother answered, sounding more like a hyper twelve-year-old at Comic Con than a middle-aged medieval-history professor. “I’ve always wanted to go on it, but we were never in England at the right time. Well, your wedding is smack-dab in the middle of the tour. I’ll be able to go on it after all! Don Setlo—you remember him, Chris; he left Stanford to go to that new university that started in Belgium—Don was telling me that last year’s tour had them going behind the scenes of the Mousetrap play in London, and they got to meet the cast, as well as tour Agatha Christie’s house later.” Brother’s words seemed to tumble over one another, his voice rising with excitement.

Mom was made of much more phlegmatic stuff. “It does seem like the timing is right for a visit, but, Brother, you won’t want to miss walking Emily down the aisle.”

“That’s all right,” I said quickly, not wanting to build expectations that I preferred remain out of sight.

“Emily doesn’t want me hanging around for days before the wedding,” Brother protested. “Do you, Emily? No, of course she doesn’t. Besides, it’s not

as if you’ll never see me. The tour leaves several hours out of each day for personal time. I can pop over to where you are whenever I want.”

“Brother—” Mom started to say.

“That sounds good to me,” I interrupted, flipping on the electric kettle. “I don’t mind Brother having his tour around the wedding. It’s only for a week, and if you guys are here for the week or so after, then we’ll have loads of time together.”

“But the wedding—” Mom tried again to protest. “It’s your wedding, Emily. I wouldn’t want you making a rash choice you’ll regret just to please your father.”

“Eh,” I said, fishing out a bag of my favorite orange spice tea from Seattle. Brother sputtered in the background about knowing me better than Mom, and that he was certain I was down with the tour. “We’re not really doing any pre-events other than the stag and hen parties. I imagine Fang would survive if Brother didn’t go to the stag party. And if he can pop over to the hotel during downtime, then that’s fine with me. Neither Fang nor I particularly cares about the ceremony except for legal reasons, so it’s going to be very low-key—”

“Legal reasons? Deus rex! You’re not pregnant, are you?” Brother asked, his voice now flinty with suspicion.

I fought the urge to giggle. Brother informed Bess and me every year that he was not yet ready to become a grandfather, and if we could both keep our ovaries on lockdown, he’d tell us when the time was right for us to fire off kids.

“No. I told you Fang got snipped a few years ago, and just as soon as my doctor admits I’m old enough at thirty-two to decide whether or not I want kids, I’ll have my tubes tied to be doubly sure. We’re animal people, not kid people.”

“A wise choice,” Mom murmured. “Not that I regret having you or your sister, but if we’d settled down with cocker spaniels instead of thinking we could raise intellectual children who would better the world, life would have been a great deal easier. It looks like we could add twelve days to the trip before your classes start, Brother.”

He snorted something in Latin, then tapped more on the keyboard.

“So you two are a go, then,” I said fifteen minutes later, after Mom and I chatted about

about the plans, and Brother and I convinced her that I would not be secretly heartbroken to not have my parents at my side every minute of the day.

“Yes,” she said slowly, in the same dreamy voice she got when she was considering her Next Big Thing. “You know, one of the ladies in my book club mentioned that her cousin in Scotland has started a school for Neo-Picts, teaching ancient fiber arts and the like. They have woad dyeing. I’ve always been passionate about woad.”

“Odd, but true,” I said, wondering if I should take the last of the cookies that Fang and I favored, then decided that the love of my life deserved them after having to get up at four a.m.

“If you truly don’t mind us not being in attendance before your wedding ...” Mom let the sentence dribble to an end.

“I absolutely do not mind. I’ve got a project deadline two days before you’d arrive, and I’m going to be dead tired from dealing with the idiot team who refuses to listen to reason. You go indulge in the wild Pictish woad without a worry about us,” I answered with perfect honesty.

Brother signed up for his mystery tour with a lot of exclamations and declarations that “This year, the Brits are going to have to contend with a strong American contingent,” then asked, “What are you yammering about?”

“Let me know if you get any of those logic puzzles that have you filling in grids. I love doing those. Fang is good on the crosswords. And I was not yammering. I said that Aunt Kathie is next on my list to call. Er ... should I ask Grandma?”

“Hmm,” Mom said, obviously thinking about it. “Brother, what do you think?”

The keyboard clacked away wildly. “I think that I’m going to have to buy a couple of British crossword books in case Francis isn’t handy. The tour committee is sure to throw crosswords in as one of the daily puzzles to solve, and I—no!”

“No, what?” I asked, yawning. Fang had been called out in the middle of the night for a bovine-related emergency, and I’d ended up staying awake after he left, running through the endless list of things I needed to get done.

“No as in I don’t believe it.” Brother spoke in a hushed tone, as if he were in one of his beloved cathedrals. “This year’s author is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the tour organizers say they’re waiting for final approval to set up not only a visit to Conan Doyle’s home, but a tea with one of his living relatives. His actual relative!”

“Wow,” I said, seriously impressed. Like Brother, I had a deep and abiding love of mysteries, and also shared a passion for those books written in the first thirty years of the twentieth century. I’d grown up cutting my literary teeth on Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers, so I understood just how thrilling was the thought of visiting Sir Arthur’s home and having tea with one of his relations. “That is very cool. Can you take a visitor with you? Just for the visit and tea? I’d pay my own way if you could.”

“I’ll ask,” Brother said, followed by more key clicks. “I’m going to sign up now in case they get a sudden rush of participants, and we’ll work out the logistics later.”

“Grandma?” I prompted.

“I don’t think so, dear,” Mom answered, sounding distant as if she’d moved away from Brother’s phone and was looking through a Neo-Pict course catalog. “She’s getting close to ninety, and that many hours in a plane wouldn’t be good for her legs. What about Dru?”

“She’s going to try, but she just found out she’s pregnant again, and she’ll be about eight months by wedding time. Don’t mention it to anyone, please. She says they’re going to wait to announce it, although both their parents know. Holly and her wife, Marla, are coming, though.”

“You’ll ask your sister, of course,” Mom said a few minutes later, when I had finished my tea and was seriously reconsidering eating the last two cookies.

“I’ve left a message for her to call me, although god knows why she’s using a vegan bakery as her answering service. In fact, they didn’t want to take the message until I told them I was Bess’s sister, and then all they said was that she was on the continent working with a group to take down a fur-processing plant. You know that I admire what Bess and Monk are doing, but damn. They live like they’re eco–Jason Bournes.”

Mom murmured something in an increasingly distracted tone, so I said my goodbyes, and flopped down on the couch, suddenly hit with a sense of grief, loneliness, and isolation.

That’s how Fang found me an hour and a quarter later.

“How did the calls go—ah, Emily. Not another Leonardo day?”

I lay curled up in a ball on the couch, clutching a small blue scrap of blanket.

He pulled me upright, sat down in my spot, then opened his arms. I splatted myself against his chest, trying hard not to cry on him, but he was so warm, and solid, and wonderful, that even though he stank of a particularly slovenly barnyard, just holding him made life infinitely better. “I know. It’s pathetic of me to still be crying over a cat who lived his life the way he wanted, and died surrounded with his family, but it just kind of hit me after I got off the phone with Mom and Brother.”

“I told you that we can get another cat,” Fang said into my hair, rubbing my back as I snuggled into him, relishing his body heat. “We can go to the animal society this afternoon and pick one out.”

“No,” I said, leaning far to the side to blow my nose before returning to droop on him. “It’s your turn. We agreed that the next pet would be a dog.”

“But you’re sad because Leonardo is gone,” he pointed out in that matter-of-fact manner that sometimes irritated me, but mostly made me grateful he counteracted my impulsiveness so nicely. “And since you’re working from home, it makes sense for you to have a cat as a daytime companion. Speaking of which—” He glanced at the clock. “I only have twenty minutes, and I need to change before I go in to the office for the afternoon appointments.”

“We’ll get a dog,” I told him fifteen minutes later when he’d had a fast shower and changed to clean clothes more suited to a handsome—if taken—vet in a thriving Cotswolds practice. “I like dogs, Fang. You know this. If we get a dog, he can be my buddy, and I’ll stop having blue

Leonardo days.”

He paused on his way out the door and tipped my head back, his lovely peaty-brown eyes smiling at me as he said against my lips, “I love you beyond reason. You know this, yes?”

“Yes,” I said, biting his lower lip until he kissed me the way I wanted. “Because I’m just as unreasonable about you.”

“We’ll get both a dog and a cat,” he said, kissed me soundly, and squeezed my left butt cheek before hurrying off.

“Sexy, loving, and with exceptionally good brains,” I said, waving as he tooted the car horn at me when he drove off with a cloud of warm exhaust on the cold air. I clutched Leonardo’s blue blanket, and told it, “If he isn’t the perfect man, then I don’t know who is. And he’s mine, mine, mine. A cat and a dog. Hmm. Let’s think about this, shall we?”

Thankfully, the blanket didn’t answer. I did keep it with me for the rest of the day, but my spirits felt a bit brighter, as if Leonardo approved of the plan. ...