Fed up

her shirt. She lay still.
    But I hadn’t fired the gun. I hadn’t so much as brushed the trigger with my finger.
    I whipped around and saw Nelson with the second shotgun still aimed at the immobile Robin. Thank God I hadn’t accidentally pulled the trigger myself. Why were these guns loaded? Willie and Evan, I realized, hadn’t just intended to march in with the shotguns. They’d planned to discharge the weapons!
    Guests began pouring out of the tent. “Call an ambulance!” someone shouted. “I’m an EMT. Get out of the way.”
    A young man, a friend of Owen’s family, pushed his way through the crowd and knelt down next to Robin. I turned and stepped away. Almost everyone at the reception took out a cell phone and dialed for help.
    “Baby?” My chef had materialized next to me. I almost drove my head into his chest.
    “Josh. Where is Ade? More importantly right now, where the hell are Evan and Willie?” I was beyond furious; I was livid.
    “They’re over there.” Josh gestured behind him. “What happened?”
    As we wove our way through shocked guests, I did my best to explain how Robin had ended up with a bullet in her back. At the same second when I located Owen’s brothers, ambulances, fire trucks, and police cruisers began to arrive. I paid no attention to the emergency vehicles; rather, I concentrated on Evan and Willie, who at least had the minimal decency to look appalled at the consequence of their aborted and unfunny prank.
    “What were you thinking?” I demanded. “Arriving at this wedding with shotguns was bad enough, but loaded shotguns? What if Heather’s kids had found them?”
    Evan was the first to brave my wrath. “We were planning on firing a resounding volley into the air at the end of the wedding ceremony. It was going to be very dramatic.”
    “Dramatic? You were going to shoot off guns in the tent? Endangering our lives? Not to mention puncturing the tent! You two are the stupidest, most—
    “Chloe, I need your help.” The voice was Adrianna’s.
    I felt terrible. Poor Adrianna must be a wreck. This was supposed to have been the perfect day she’d dreamed of. And now this! To my surprise, however, Adrianna looked remarkably happy for someone whose wedding had just become a crime scene.
    I put a hand on her arm and said, “I’m so sorry about this. About everything! What can I do to help you? This is just terrible. First Josh punched Emilio, and then the flowers got wrecked, and then... Well, it goes on and on.” Adrianna spoke with unusual force. “Chloe, I need you to focus.” She grabbed my shoulders and squared me in front of her. “Chloe, my water broke.”
     

 
    I stared at Ade. “Your what did what?”
    The exasperated bride put her hands on my cheeks and pulled my face an inch away from hers. “My water broke. Meaning, my water broke, and I’m going into labor!”
    “What?” I practically hollered. “The baby is coming now? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” I frantically looked around for I didn’t know what. Something! Should I find Ade’s hospital bag? Rush her to the hospital? And there was that pesky matter of the swarm of policemen roaming the grounds...
    “Chloe, get me out of this dress before it’s ruined. And then you can go find Owen. Crap, I wanted to go to the Ritz tonight.” She scolded her belly. “You couldn’t have waited another twenty-four hours?”
    I rushed Adrianna upstairs to the bathroom and helped her remove her dress before any icky things got on it. “Okay, you get changed. I’ll go grab one of those EMTs downstairs and find Owen.” I hung the wedding dress back in its garment bag and zipped it shut.
    “You will do no such thing!” Ade glared at me. “If you tell those guys, they’ll send me to whatever hospital they want, and I want to go to Brigham and Women’s like I planned and have my own doctor. I know that I have to go soon since my water broke, but I doubt this baby is going to fall out of me in the next few minutes. Oh, and for Christ’s sake, don’t let my mother know what’s going on!”
    “Gotcha!” I said. “I’m on it. Are you in pain? Do you need anything?”
    “No, I’m okay for now, but I don’t expect that to last, so you better find Owen. And one more thing,” Ade started as she yanked a shirt over her head. “Care to explain the gunshots, screaming, and sirens downstairs?”
    “Um, not really. Don’t worry about anything! It’s all under control. Gotta run!” I dashed out of