Xara Smith Wedding Album

The Xara Smith Wedding Album

by Bill McGrath

Copyright 2014 Bill McGrath

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Other Books by Bill McGrath available on Smashwords.com:

The Xara Smith Mystery Series, including;

January Juggling The Jentons

February At Feldman's On Fifth

March Of The Mustangs

April At The Antique Alley

May Might Mean Murder

June Jumping The Jaguar

July Jill's Justice

August Avenging Arlene

September Surgeon Shamed

October Octagon Occult

November Naughty Nurse

December Deadly Dolls

The Xara Smith Wedding Album

Also by Bill McGrath:

Virika – Maiden

Bill McGrath Web Site:

WWW.WIX.COM/WGJM53/BILLMCGRATH

To contact author please send email to WGJM@Yahoo.com

Mr Harlan Smith and Mrs Bonnie Smith

would like to announce the upcoming nuptials

OF

their daughter; Xara Smith

TO

her life partner; Jana Little

This celebration with Xara's family and Jana's friends

will take place on Saturday,

January 20th at 3 o'clock

AT

Feldman's on Fifth, 2104 Fifth Street, Irving Texas

Reception Immediately Following

CHAPTER-01.

My dear friends. I am very thankful for all my followers who purchase time and time again my books expecting to find a mystery to read. Please forgive me for this document will not be a mystery. It is simply a record for any who wish it, of the private part of my life that has leaked so often into the mystery stories I have published to date. It is my supposition, because I have been told by so many of you, that you want to know about this event. Therefore, I will do my best to report it, but I assure you, there was no mystery lurking in the background to spoil the day.

So, since there is no mystery, I hardly know where to start or what all to tell you.

I do believe I would like to start by telling you about Samantha and how she fits in with Jana and me. The best analogy I can think of right now is that of a bomb.

The typical bomb is a hollow metal ball filled with gun powder. When the gun powder ignites it bursts the metal ball spreading chunks of metal in all directions like a whole lot of bullets, and it is the chunks of speedily moving metal that do the damage. So what? Well, there is one more component, and that is what I call the spark or some others may think of as the fuse. Something needs to cause the gun powder to ignite and explode.

To me, I see Jana as the metal ball so politely holding us together, and I see myself as the gun powder, so dormant at the moment but so ready to get out of control and rage with energy. The bomb, or rather the gun powder and metal ball could have existed together a few seconds or minutes, or, it could have rolled harmlessly through life causing no trouble for years. Until there was a spark, and I see Samantha as the spark that got this whole thing moving along.

Consider my life a full year ago. I owned my own house and business but was completely a loner. I awoke when it suited me, I worked hard when I had work to do, and I had many bad habits like eating rocky road ice cream out of the carton over the sink for breakfast. It was an unstructured life, but it was mine, and I was not uncomfortable in it. The house I lived in accommodated my life, my business, and eventually my business partner, Jill. There was no reason to consider making any changes.

Then in April, I was blessed to meet Jana Little. She too was a loner with her own bad habits, stubborn ways, a house of her own, and a business to run that she owned. There is no question about it, we started out rough and had to do a little work to become a couple, but when the dust had settled we were good for each other. My business will never come with regular hours, so it keeps me busy when it decides to. Jana's business is in retail, so she is busy every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday when she must devote all of herself to make the business a success, but then she has the rest of the week to work on me.

So we had worked our lives into a routine where Jana would dedicate herself completely to her business for about half of each week, then share my bed the other half of each week. When she was around we had some family structure, but it came with regular breaks. Things were going well for us and there just did not ever seem to be any pressure to move the relationship to the next level.

Then in December, ten year old Samantha Dover hired me to resolve some trouble in her life and help her find a missing friend. As a side effect, she provided the spark to set this bomb into action. You see, independently, both Jana and I fell in love with the ten year old girl who so much needed our help. We did not wish to simply settle the things she had hired us for because for both Jana and I, our biological clocks were ticking away and just passing some alarm state. We each wished to mother little Samantha, and guard her, and protect her, and hug her, and keep her safe from all the ugly parts of the world. We could hardly do all that in the cramped little house I owned, and we could hardly do all that with Jana gone half the week. So Jana came up with a solution.

Together, we, Jana and I, would buy a bigger house. She would sell the one she lived in, and we would either sell mine as well or keep mine so that I could use it as an office to run my detective agency from. We already had in mind the perfect bigger house that we knew well and had access to, but I realized that what we were really doing was, to benefit Samantha, Jana and I were making a commitment to be together for at least eight or ten years, hopefully longer, and enter into a real estate venture that could cost either or both of us a lot of money. Well, I knew it would be the right thing to do, but did not want to be this committed without making a formal commitment, so right there in my hot tub I asked Jana to marry me. Whew!

Getting back to Samantha though, when I read the previous couple of paragraphs it makes it sound as if we, Jana and I, came to Samantha's rescue, that we saved her, that we were her salvation. While it may be, in part, true, what I wish to convey is that on a much grander scale little Samantha saved me, and for the most part Jana as well. She gave us direction, purpose, and a reason to stabilize our lives. She brought structure and order to the chaos. She normalized us. She pulled me to earth and grounded me, gave me roots.

Because we met in December it just so happened that Samantha was there to help us decorate the Christmas tree, and she confessed that it was the first time in her ten years of life that she had ever been in a place where they actually set up a tree to celebrate the holiday. Jana and I, and of course Jill as well, gave Samantha an opportunity to decorate a Christmas tree. She gave us, all three of us, a reason to have a Christmas at all!

I guess one could say that the important stuff started on December 26th, which was the day after Christmas.

Finally we got to the day after Christmas. I remember quite clearly it was a Tuesday. None of us got up early. Each of us had received at least one new electronic device that needed batteries. Each of us had lots of new clothes to try on. The morning went quite well. In the early afternoon Jill took Samantha to establish yet another important holiday tradition. They both gathered up any clothing they had received that either did not fit well or was not to their liking. They sorted through receipts and then headed off to do the traditional day after Christmas gift exchange at several stores in the mall. Fortunately I had not received any clothing I wanted to return, and Jana was not in the mood to go back into the stores and stand in long lines. The after Christmas prices would be good for a few days so we could always hit the malls later.

While Jill and Samantha were away at the mall, Jana and I took the opportunity to officially close down an old tradition we would have to give up. We took full glasses of wine onto the back porch, we dropped every stitch of clothing we