Veil of Night: A Novel Read online

  Current insane schedule aside, Jaclyn wasn’t against the idea of having a man in her life. In fact, she wanted one. She didn’t want to live her life alone; getting married and having kids someday were definitely in her long-range plans. Someday she’d find a man she loved, and who loved her, and they’d make it work, have one or two kids, and grow old together. Her first marriage had failed, but that didn’t mean she’d given up on men; she was just more cautious. Okay, maybe too cautious. Someday, though …

  But this wasn’t “someday,” this was now, and she had her hands full. A man like Eric Wilder was a time-suck; she instinctively knew it, even though she’d spent little more than an hour, if that much, in his company. He might not insist on having a woman’s undivided attention, but she had the feeling that the sheer force of his personality would make him as hard to ignore as an elephant in the living room. Just because he’d been playing nice tonight didn’t mean she couldn’t see the force beneath that civilized veneer. As a general rule, the meek and mild didn’t become cops. And as another general rule, cops were almost perpetually on call even on their days off, worked long, irregular hours, and, like marrying a doctor, a woman should go into a relationship with a cop accepting that the job wasn’t a regular nine-to-fiver in either schedule or importance. Having Eric around would do nothing but muck up her orderly life.

  Not that she’d mind being mucked by him.

  Crap!

  Exasperated by the way her thoughts kept going back to him, Jaclyn rummaged in her bag, snagged her cell phone, and hit the speed dial for her mom.

  Her mother answered with her usual, confident “Madelyn Wilde,” her husky voice touched with a Southern accent deeper and richer than Jaclyn’s. Madelyn had the type of accent that could turn a two-syllable word into four, slow and redolent with a lazy charm that was in no way reflected in her personality. Madelyn was charming, beyond a doubt, but she was also tough and ballsy. She’d been a rock for Jaclyn during the tough days when her marriage was disintegrating beneath her, though maybe that was more along the lines of returning the favor, because Jaclyn had comforted her mother more times than one could count during Madelyn’s own breakup with Jaclyn’s dad.

  “How did the rehearsal go?” Jaclyn asked. Sometimes she and her mother shared the duties of an event, if bookings were slow, but when things were busy they would split up. This week, things were way beyond merely “busy.”

  “As smoothly as can be expected,” Madelyn drawled, her tone calm and amused. “The groom was late, the bride went into hysterics because she thought he was leaving her at the altar, never mind that they weren’t even at the altar yet, and one of the bridesmaids showed up with a black eye. A door, she said, but no one believed that story. I heard she got drunk at one of the showers, knocked over the punch bowl, and the ladle hit her in the eye.”

  Jaclyn took a moment to imagine that scenario, and couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice. “Since you didn’t call earlier with bad news, I’m assuming the groom arrived and the wedding is on.”

  “Yes, and Peach called a friend of hers who’s a whiz with makeup. She made an appointment for the girl. Tomorrow evening, no one will realize that one of the bridesmaids is sporting a shiner.”

  Peach was Madelyn’s friend and assistant, and together the two women could work wonders. It was a large part of the reason Premier not only survived, but thrived. Between the two of them, they knew almost everyone who was anyone in the Buckhead area—and in Buckhead, everyone was someone. What made Premier different was their ability to handle any situation with aplomb, and Jaclyn was definitely her mother’s daughter.

  Middle-of-the week weddings were unusual but not unheard-of. The happy couple had been able to snag the reception site they wanted for a bargain price, and they hadn’t been forced to wait months for the church to be available for the ceremony. The affair wasn’t one of the big, extravagant presentations, but Premier handled weddings in all price ranges, and how many duties Jaclyn and Madelyn handled depended on how much the bride wanted to spend.

  Madelyn sighed, and asked the inevitable question. “How did your meeting with the bride from hell go?”

  “I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jaclyn said drily. Even though she was the one handling Carrie Edwards’s wedding, no detail was unshared. Madelyn and Peach knew everything about the problems with Carrie.

  “Diedra talked to Peach this afternoon, and brought her up-to-date. It’s a bad sign when no one has anything nice to say about the bride. Makes you wonder if the groom has lost his mind. Even if she can suck the chrome off a bumper, there’s no blow job good enough to be worth living with her.” While Jaclyn was still snorting with laughter at the incongruity of the bawdy insult drawled in Madelyn’s lazy-Southern-lady accent, her mother added, “It’s a big wedding, the money is nice, but I swear, if we’d known how much trouble this wedding would be, we would’ve tossed it back like a stinky fish.”

  They were all counting the days until Carrie’s wedding was over and behind them. In their years of business they’d dealt with some doozies: angry brides, demanding brides, brides who cried at the drop of a hat, brides who probably heard voices telling them to kill. Then there were the mothers of the brides, who could be even worse, and the toxic bridesmaids, the grooms, the grooms’ parents, the squalling flower girl and/or ring bearer … the list went on and on. But never before had they all been so anxious to be rid of a client. Carrie Edwards would be legend; she would be the bridezilla against which they’d measure all future bridezillas for pure meanness.

  Jaclyn sighed. Most brides were perfectly wonderful, happy women; some were even a joy to work with. It was a shame that a few bad apples had to stain the reputation of so many.

  “You’re on your cell. Are you in the car?” Madelyn asked.

  “On my way home.”

  “I thought you’d be home by now; were you working late?”

  “I stopped at a bar for a much-deserved drink.”

  “I should’ve done the same after the rehearsal, but I was anxious to get home and take my shoes off. I rubbed a blister on my foot today. If you ever see me wearing those navy blue shoes again, slap me.”

  Madelyn had been invited to the rehearsal dinner, but as usual she’d declined. After a long day, blistered foot or no blistered foot, a frozen dinner in front of the television was always preferable to being “on” for a couple more hours. Besides, without official duties to keep them busy, attending the rehearsal dinner meant hours of casual conversation with people they didn’t know and would likely never see again once the ceremony was over, so neither of them usually attended unless the bride specifically requested that they do.

  Jaclyn considered telling her mother about Eric, but really, what was there to tell? I met a nice guy who’s maybe more wolf than lamb. Jaclyn shivered, just a little. More accurately it would be, I met a guy who makes my toes curl, which wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with her mother. They shared all the details of work, but definitely not the details of their love lives. She didn’t want to think about her mother having a love life, though she knew Madelyn dated—much more often than she herself did, as a matter of fact—and she imagined Madelyn felt the same about her.

  They made plans to meet at the office in the morning before they both got busy with their workday, said good-bye, and Jaclyn ended the call as she pulled into the one-car garage that each condo possessed. To her, having the garage space was worth the cost of the condo. Though they weren’t rolling in money, she and Madelyn each made a nice living from Premier. She lived in a nice place: spacious but not huge, sort of upper middle of the road, if such a thing existed. Overall she was very happy with her life and home, and the business they’d built.

  There was something innately satisfying about what she did. She made sure marriages got off to the most spectacular, beautiful, and trouble-free start possible. She planned and executed wedding ceremonies and receptions that were events to remember with fondne