Two days before her wedding to Will Abbott, Cameron Murphy shut off her laptop at exactly one forty-five in the afternoon and left it in the office she shared with her fiancé. She wouldn’t need the computer for two weeks. The next time she returned to the office, he’d be her husband and they’d be back from their honeymoon.

Filled with giddy excitement, Cameron turned off the office light and closed the door behind her. Will was already gone for the day, running last-minute wedding errands while she finished up at work.

Their office manager, Mary, stood up and came around her desk to give Cameron a hug. “Enjoy every minute of this special time,” she said, nearly reducing Cameron to tears.

“Thank you so much, Mary. I’ll see you tomorrow night, right?” She was one of a few special friends invited to join the family for the rehearsal dinner Will’s parents were throwing at the big red barn where Will and his siblings had been raised.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“I’ll see you then.”

Cameron skipped down the stairs and into the store where she was greeted with more hugs and good wishes from the employees. While no one would mistake her little old nuptials for the royal wedding, it sort of had that feel to it. In Butler, Vermont, the Abbotts were royalty. With a family of ten children and businesses that employed numerous members of the local community, an Abbott wedding was big news.

She accepted a hug, a kiss, best wishes and a cider doughnut from Dottie, who ran the doughnut counter. After talking wedding plans with Dottie and the other ladies for a couple of minutes, Cameron took her doughnut to the store’s front porch to enjoy it in relative peace. With only two days to go, she was no longer worried about fitting into her dress, so she took a seat on one of the rockers and ate her treat in guilt-free heaven.

She’d no sooner begun to relax than who should appear on a leisurely stroll down Elm Street but her very own stalker, Fred the Moose. Cameron sank deeper into the rocker, hoping Fred wouldn’t notice her. In all her years of living in New York City and after scores of first dates, she’d never had an actual stalker—until she came to Vermont and slammed her MINI Cooper into Fred, the Butler town moose. Since then he’d taken such a keen interest in her that Will’s dad, Lincoln, had recently concluded that Fred had a crush on her.

Fantastic. A moose with a crush. With her dad due at two, and Patrick Murphy always on time, the last thing she needed was yet another mooseastrophy. Fortunately, Fred didn’t see her sitting on the porch and continued on his merry way, leaving Cameron to breathe easier about Fred but not about her dad’s impending arrival.