All of which had nothing to do with the fact that she’d just had the first one-night stand of her life, and in retrospect, she didn’t like the idea that she’d lost either her self-control or her mind. What would she do if he really did call her next week? Did she want a relationship? Was that even still on the board, or had she placed herself in the call-for-sex category?

Oh hell, of course she wanted to at least try for a real relationship with him. She’d never before had such an instant, compelling reaction to a man, and even though it scared the stuffing out of her, she wanted to see where it went. And if he thought she had been slotted into the call-for-sex category, well, she’d find out soon enough, and the sooner the better.

She took two deep breaths, squared her shoulders, then glanced at the clock and groaned. Introspection was a time-hog.

She grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl in the kitchen, poured the rest of the coffee into a to-go cup, and turned off all the appliances and lights before letting herself into the garage, locking the door behind her. A motion light in the garage came on, lighting her way to the car. Juggling her bag, coffee, and banana, she got into the car and locked the door before punching the garage door opener. Yep, “careful” was her middle name.

She backed smoothly out of the garage, and rain danced on her windshield. She braked, groaning in dismay. She was pretty sure rain hadn’t been forecast, but here it was. No bride liked rain on her wedding day. Thankfully today’s wedding wasn’t an outside event … and that Madelyn was handling it. Still, was it an omen that it was raining on the first wedding of the week?

She hesitated for a moment, thinking of going back inside and changing her kitten-heeled sandals for something more substantial, but another glance at the time had her resolutely lowering the garage door and backing the rest of the way into the street. If her feet got wet, she’d live with it. She didn’t have time to change.

It was still dark, the streetlights reflecting on the wet streets as she wound her way out of the residential area to the main road that would take her to Buckhead. Hopewell didn’t have any industry; there were businesses, office buildings, doctors and dentists and restaurants, dry cleaners, things of that sort, but no honest-to-God industry involving factories. Hopewell was newer than Buckhead, didn’t have the older stately mansions; instead, it had a sizable number of new stately mansions—not just the big McMansions, but actual estates, with large grounds, privacy walls, and gates at the end of the driveways.

Hopewell also had sections of what Jaclyn would term strictly middle-class housing, neighborhoods established before land prices soared. She had grown up in one of those houses; Madelyn had sold it only when Premier began taking up the lion’s share of her time, and she couldn’t handle the yard work and upkeep. Jaclyn hadn’t said anything to her mother, but privately she had cried on the day the sale was final. The neat brick house had been her home, even if she had long since moved out. Now the town house was home in that it was where she went at the end of the day; it was where she relaxed, felt safe and comfortable. But deep in her heart it was just a town house, and if she had to move it wouldn’t bother her one whit other than the aggravation of packing and unpacking.

Home was family, and Jaclyn wanted her own. How twisted was she, that she couldn’t trust herself enough to let down her guard and actually let a man get emotionally close to her, when what she wanted most out of life required that closeness? Maybe she should consider therapy. Or maybe, because she didn’t have her head in the sand and understood perfectly all the psychology behind her excessive caution, she should just kick herself in the ass and get on with life. Not only would that be faster, but she wouldn’t have to pay herself.

Premier was housed in a stand-alone brick building that had once been a dentist’s office, but she and Madelyn had liked it because the parking lot was spacious, in very good shape, and the landscaping was mature. They’d bought it in their fourth year of business, remodeling the interior to give it the look of a comfortable, upscale home that just happened to have two private offices. They had considered leasing space in a professional building, which would give them active security, but the cost had forced them to look at stand-alone buildings. Now they were both very happy with their choice, because the building was theirs and it actively reflected the sense of being solidly established, and of prestige, that the anonymous face of a professional building simply couldn’t provide.

Because they were four women working alone, sometimes late at night—or early in the morning, as was the case today—they’d tried to make the building as safe as possible. There were sturdy doors and locks, monitored security, camera surveillance on the entrances, and the casement windows were all protected by some very thorny shrubbery. They had never had even a hint of trouble. The area was wonderful and, really, what idiot would break into an event planner establishment? Everything they did was paid for by check or credit card, so at any given time the only cash on the premises would be what they had in their wallets. A vending machine would be a better bet for a thief.

She pulled into her designated parking slot right beside the back door, and Madelyn’s Jag pulled in not five seconds later. A pink umbrella bloomed like a giant exotic flower, then Madelyn got out of the car under its protective cap. Jaclyn mirrored her mother’s actions, though her own umbrella was an ordinary black one. The rain wasn’t heavy, but she didn’t want to start the day with wet clothes and limp hair.

“I have protein smoothies,” Madelyn said, then she leaned back inside to fetch the promised drinks.

“What flavor?”

“Don’t look a gift smoothie in the mouth. Vanilla. I was out of strawberries.”

“I have a banana I’ll split with you. We can slice it into the smoothies, run them through the blender again.”

“Deal.”

She couldn’t juggle everything at once, so Jaclyn got her briefcase and left the banana and coffee in the car for a second trip, then hurried to unlock the door. The security system began beeping and she set her briefcase on the small demilune table stationed in the short hallway, then coded in the number to disarm the system. Madelyn moved past her, carefully maneuvering the umbrella, her own briefcase, and the two smoothies.

Five minutes later they were sitting at the conference table with their jazzed-up smoothies, going over the wedding for that evening, making certain no detail had been forgotten. Madelyn had turned on the small television in the corner and they both breathed a sigh of relief when the local weather showed clearing by lunch. “Thank God,” drawled Peach Reynolds as she breezed into the conference room in time to hear the weather prediction. She automatically started making a pot of coffee; she was one of those who drank coffee almost nonstop all day. “And while I’m giving thanks to the Good Lord, I’ll throw in my heartfelt gratitude for air-conditioning, because the humidity is going to be unbearable. Are y’all drinking those god-awful smoothies again?”

Peach—whose real name was Georgia, of course—scorned anything that even remotely resembled healthy eating, evidenced by the chocolate-filled Krispy Kreme doughnut she’d brought in. She had a cloud of bright red hair, slanted green eyes, and fifteen or twenty extra pounds that put her just the other side of lush. It was evidently a body type that was very popular with men, because she never lacked for dates, though it was fair to say her exuberant personality also had something to do with that. Madelyn was more low-key, but barely. The two of them together could work a room in a way that would turn any politician green with envy.

“We are,” said Madelyn. “But when you drop dead at the age of sixty from a heart attack caused by sky-high cholesterol, I promise I won’t add insult to injury by toasting your poor stiff, cold body with a nutritious smoothie. Because you’re my friend, I’ll break out the good whiskey.”

“Consider me comforted.” Peach took a bite of her doughnut, delicately licking the chocolate that oozed out. “But I’m going to be cremated, so you’d better toast me before I’m toasted, if you want to keep to that stiff, cold idea.”

“You are not.”

“Are not what?”

“Going to be cremated. You’ve told me you want a lavish funeral with all your ex-lovers weeping over your beautiful body as you lie there in the casket, which, by the way, you said you wanted festooned with white lilies, though I think festooning is in poor taste for a funeral, with a bagpiper piping away and white horses pulling your gun-wagon thingie to the cemetery. You can’t be beautiful in a casket and be cremated. They’re kind of mutually exclusive.”

“You don’t get a gun carriage,” Jaclyn said. “Heads of state get gun carriages. Think of the traffic nightmare. I’m pretty sure you’d have to have permission from the governor.”

“Well, rain on my parade, why don’t you?” Peach grumbled. “You’d think the one time a person could have everything she wanted was at her own damn funeral. At least play the songs I want, okay?”

“Sure,” Madelyn agreed, “as long as it isn’t ‘You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille.’”

“Spoilsport. Okay, how about Floyd Cramer’s ‘Last Date’? Get it? Because it will be.”

“You’re sick. Just sick. You won’t be here anyway, so what do you care? I’ll give you a perfectly lovely funeral, in keeping with Premier’s reputation and standards.”

“You’re turning my funeral into an event? I don’t know whether to be flattered or pissed that you’d use my death to promote the business.”

“Oh, honey, I promise you, your funeral will be an event. I’ll just have to make sure it’s a tasteful one.”

“Speaking of taste … Jaclyn, sweetheart, you do know your Saturday wedding is a rolling disaster, don’t you?”

Jaclyn looked up, her lips already twitching. “I began to get a glimmer of that when the bride insisted her eleven-month-old daughter, who isn’t the groom’s child by the way, be pulled down the aisle in a red wagon.” She couldn’t help laughing. The wedding was going to be hilarious, but as long as the couple was happy with the arrangements, her job was to make the wedding happen the way they wanted. Taste, or lack of it, wasn’t her call to make. “Diedra is thanking her lucky stars we have so much booked this week, so she can take one of the Saturday rehearsals instead of doing the wedding.”

“I’ll be so glad when this week is over,” Madelyn said, looking at the schedule on the board. Because they were so booked for the week, they weren’t trying to slot in any appointments; they had their hands full, since six weddings also meant six rehearsals. She rubbed her hands together. “Our bank account, however, is very happy. None of the checks bounced.”

“Glory hallelujah for that,” Jaclyn said wryly. “Now, if I can just get through all of today’s appointments with Carrie without anyone quitting, including me, the rest of the week will be smooth sailing in comparison.”

“Quit if you have to,” Madelyn said, her lips pressing together. “Don’t take any bullshit from her. The amount we’d have to repay would be well worth getting rid of her.”

Their contracts were prorated, so Premier got paid for the work they’d done to date. That protected them from being fired at the last minute and then refused payment because they hadn’t completed the job. Several times some frugal, or fraudulent—depending on how you looked at it—brides and/or mothers had tried that. Once they’d learned they couldn’t get the hefty fees repaid, every one of them had then decided that Premier’s services were just fine, after all.

“If we can just get past that magic point where she thinks she can change her mind and still have time to get what she wants done, I think we’ll be okay. Not happy, but okay.”

Madelyn rolled her eyes. “We’re already past that point.”

“Not in her mind. I’m hoping she reaches it this afternoon. She isn’t exactly reasonable, though,” she added in the understatement of the year, and possibly the decade. She wondered if maybe she could get Eric to come stand behind her, with that big gun visible in his holster—

—and just like that, boom, he was front and center in her thoughts so sharply that for a moment she physically felt him inside her. A warm flush swept over her body, and her face got hot. Swiftly she looked down, hiding her expression. She should not be having thoughts like this with her mother sitting right there, for God’s sake. She should be concentrating on the job and nothing else.