A Veiled Deception Page 2

  I stepped back to read her. “Hey, Cherry Pie, you okay?”

  “Mad, I’m so glad you’re home.”

  “Need a rescue, sweetie?”

  Sherry stepped closer. “She’s ruining everything.”

  “Who is?” I asked, finding the preemptive Jezebel guilty without a sighting.

  “Jasmine Updike, Justin’s old college study partner, or so he says. She acts like she’s his hot ex, hanging all over him and playing ‘remember when, pookie pie?’” Sherry used the international hand signal for “barf,” particularly effective with a rhinestone-studded French manicure.

  I turned her toward the wall so no one else could read her agitation, smoothed the back T-strap that buttoned at her nape, and then I went around to face her, finger-combing the blonde waves away from her temples.

  “Dynamite,” I said, returning her self-confidence while keeping an eye on the players behind her. “What’s Justin’s ex . . . anything . . . doing here?”

  “The million-dollar question.” Sherry’s sapphire eyes narrowed and darkened. “She showed up a few weeks ago, not long after Justin and I got officially engaged, and Deborah welcomed her with open arms.”

  Deborah—never Debbie—the wannabe society queen of the country-club set, happened to be Sherry’s future mother-in-law. “And that’s bad?” I asked, “because . . .”

  “Deborah acts like Jasmine’s her long-lost daughter,” Sherry whispered furiously, “and I’m dog poop beneath her Vivier’s.”

  “Ah yes.” Deborah had made it clear when Justin and Sherry dated in high school that she’d like her son to marry a woman with a pedigree rather than a PhD.

  Lucky for Sherry, Justin had a mind of his own.

  How his easygoing father, Vancortland Four—or Cort, as he’d been dubbed early in life so as not to be confused with his father, Vancortland Three—could have chosen the social-climbing Deborah to marry stumped more than this Mystick Falls native.

  Just then, a woman dressed like a maid, except for her earrings, approached us with a tray of mini wedding cakes. With a napkin, she handed one to each of us. The white dots on white reminded me of dotted Swiss, and patterns of brocade and lace.

  “Dad hired a maid?” I asked after the woman left. “Is he running a fever?”

  I bit into the most delicious cake I’d ever tasted. Hazelnut heaven. “This is unbelievably scrumptious.”

  The maid served Justin’s father a cake, the two of them examining each other inquisitively, circling almost, but at a distance as if they’d caught some kind of shared radar. Did the unpretentious Cort have a wandering eye? I hadn’t thought it possible.

  Sherry watched them as well, but with less suspicion. “The server’s name is Amber, and she’s not a maid; she owns a shop called the Cake Lady,” my sister explained. “She offered us complimentary cakes in every flavor for the dinner party.”

  “Dad and dinner party do not belong in the same sentence,” I said, “which is why he asked me to come home and help plan your wedding in the first place.”

  Sherry shrugged. “The cake lady herself suggested this informal engagement party as a venue for us to try her cakes, and Jasmine or Deborah—not sure which, since they’re connected at the hip—ran with the suggestion.”

  “Why didn’t you speak up?”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “How dare they accept without you.”

  “Why wouldn’t they? They went cake shopping without me.”

  “Okay, so now I’m on board with my own case of battitude. Why did Dad buy into it and host the pretentious party?”

  “I think he wanted to prove that we can use utensils . . . and not with our toes.” Sherry gave me another bruising hug. “I’m so glad you’re home. Just talking to you makes me feel sane. It was pretentious of them, wasn’t it?”

  “And plain old ballsy. Hey, I like that smile.”

  Sherry let it blossom into a giggle.

  “Let the wedding plans begin,” I said, my heart lighter. “The real plans. Yours.”

  “Mine,” Sherry said with a sigh, her expression softening to reveal her quirky exuberance. “That reminds me. I bought a great vintage veil that I’m dying for you to see. I just know you can fix it.”

  Naturally effervescent, it had still taken Sherry way more than the usual beat to bounce from distress to animation.

  I fluffed her wavy blonde hair. “Which one’s the Jezebel?”

  “Jasmine? She’s the gorgeous blonde vamp clutching Justin’s sleeve and hanging on Deborah’s every word, of course.”

  I tilted my head and squinted to fuzz up the picture. “Nope, can’t shake it. She still reminds me of you.”

  Sherry gasped. “Bite your tongue!”

  “Not in personality. I mean her skin tone, hair color, height. They met in college, right? After you and Justin broke up? Hah. Be flattered. He wanted you and settled for a pale imitation. Look, Jezebel’s got him in her talons, and Justin looks like he wants out. “Why don’t you go and rescue him?”

  “He doesn’t deserve it, Maddie. He thinks this whole power play between me and Jasmine is amusing. Look at Deborah discussing cakes with her as if it’s her wedding, not mine, like Jasmine’s the second coming or something.” Sherry’s voice rose with her ire and not even my hand on her arm or my quiet “shh” reached her. “Well, she’d better not be coming . . . or I’ll kill the bitch!”

  That final clichéd declaration fell loudly into one of those unexpected wells of silence.

  The cake lady raised her brows. Other looks were not as kind.

  “Madeira! You’re home!” My father rushed over and gave me a bone-crushing hug. “Thank God,” he whispered, his effusive welcome having the desired effect of shattering the awkward moment.

  Everyone started talking at once.

  Jasmine nibbled a chintz-style wedding cake and coyly whispered something in Justin’s ear.

  He smiled, and she checked, from the corner of an eye, to make sure she had his full attention. For his benefit, she swung her hips as she left him to sashay our way, her grin as bogus as her “Klein.”

  Her flirty dress in white knee-length cotton voile was so evocative of a wedding dress, it came off as a bad joke.

  Seriously, only the veil was missing.

  And Jasmine’s perfume? Let’s just say my expertise was coming into play, and I smelled a skunk. The faux fashionista couldn’t know that I was head assistant to Faline, the world-famous designer, or she’d shrink in embarrassment and slither away. “So you’re the Jezeb—ouch!”

  I stepped away from my father and rubbed the back of my arm.

  He’d pinched me!

  “Excuse me?” Jasmine asked, nose in the air, as if she smelled something bad . . . like her counterfeit Opium.

  “Leg cramp,” I said, bending my knee back and forth. “I’ve been driving all day.”

  Jasmine the Jezebel looked me up and down with unveiled surprise, failing to conceal a greedy dislike. “Nice outfit,” she said, revealing the reason why.

  “Nice earrings,” I said. Costume jewelry, but a great design.

  She preened. She knew couture when she saw it, though my circuitous route around a return compliment missed her pea brain by a mile. I faked a smile. “Smart, as well as pretty.”

  The fraud raised a condescending brow, ignored me, and hooked an arm through Sherry’s, as if they were best buds. “Come along, darling. Mom’s got a surprise for you, and I get to keep you distracted so as not to spoil it.”

  “Oh, I’m distracted, all right,” Sherry said, rolling her eyes my way as Jasmine led her through our rabbit warren of a house, heading for the ladies’ or gentlemen’s parlors, dining room, taproom, or any of several stairways and outside doors at the back of the house.

  I shivered, as if someone had walked on my grave, I thought, quoting my mother, and nearly called Sherry back. But my dad was steering—well, propelling—me away from the keeping room, through the parlors, and into the blesse
dly empty taproom, his personal den, a rough-hewn tribute to leather, tweed, and cherry-blend pipe tobacco.

  I sat on the sofa and crossed my feet on the scarred cobbler’s bench he called a coffee table. “Jasmine thinks of Deborah as Mom?” I asked. “And she assumes that Sherry does, too?” I chuckled. “Deborah as a mother figure strikes me as something like the Tin Man trying to nurse a kitten.”

  “You’re being kind,” my father said, lowering himself into his voting-age easy chair and loosening his tie with a tired sigh. “Sherry’s just lucky Justin grew up unscathed,” he added. “What time is it?”

  “Sherry will be lucky if she gets Justin. It’s eight o’clock. Why?”

  “I’m wondering how long till this is over.”

  “Dad, why didn’t you tell me you were having a party?”

  “You were driving in from the city. I didn’t want you to get into an accident hurrying to make a party.” He took my hand and squeezed. “Madeira, do you know how happy I am to have you home?”

  “You’re not cut out to be the mother of the bride, are you, Dad?”

  “I’ve missed your mom every day for eighteen years, Madeira, but never more so than since Sherry got engaged.”

  I raised a brow. “Speaking of the engagement, what do you make of Jasmine?”

  He steepled his hands, his thoughts reflective and darker than I’d seen in ages. “Premeditation and desperation are driving the girl,” he said. “She’s out to prove she’s better than Sherry. Makes me think of a quote by Churchill: ‘I am easily satisfied with the very best.’” My father sat forward. “Madeira, I’m hoping you can help me become the anti-quote.”

  I raised the back of his hand and kissed it. “You’re a good dad . . . and a hell of an English prof.”

  “It’ll be great having you around for the next few weeks, sweetheart.”

  “It’ll be a busy month. When they finally set a date, they don’t kid around.”

  Feminine sighs of appreciation caught my attention as the taproom shrunk in proportion to Nick Jaconetti’s entrance. I wondered where he’d been, but I would never let him know I cared.

  Tall, dark, wide-shouldered, and classically handsome, a roman sculpture come to life, Nick left three young neighbors drooling in the doorway as he shook my father’s hand. “Let’s join forces, Mr. Cutler, to keep Maddie around for a good long while.”

  I schooled my expression as Nick bent to kiss my cheek—I thought—but he caught my lips with a finely honed skill that had nothing to do with his FBI training. My frustration melted and the years fell away. Winter Ball post-party, eleventh grade, my bedroom. The world slept while we lost our virginity to each other. What Nick had lacked in expertise that first time, he’d made up for in gentleness, gratitude, and enthusiasm.

  My father’s mumbled retreat from the den brought me back to my surroundings with a jolt, and though it had only been a short kiss, Nick packed a wallop.

  “Aren’t you married or accounted for, yet?” I asked in self-defense.

  His wide eyes and deep breathing matched mine, which I appreciated. Inwardly, I grinned and stretched like a satisfied cat, seeing exactly when his man brain stopped doing his thinking and his real brain caught up with my question.

  “I wasn’t accounted for when we hooked up in New York a few months ago,” he answered, still somewhat dazed; yay me. He gave my hair a half stroke, his expression inscrutable.

  I leaned against the cushions, kicked off my Versaces, curled my legs beneath me, and crossed my arms to keep from pulling him down, because we were both much too willing. “Oh, that’s right,” I said. “You did come to New York . . . once. About seven, eight months ago? I figured either you’d been on a secret mission since . . . or the FBI didn’t budget for cell phone batteries.”

  I damned myself for the slip. We never explained ourselves, Nick and I. That was the beauty of our non-relationship. Spontaneous combustion was just that, and any attempt to control “spontaneous” was to destroy it.

  With a wry, understanding grin, Nick sat beside me, invaded my space, shivered my insides, and put an arm around my shoulders to reel me in, with successful expertise. Scrap. He read me as well as I did him.

  He knuckled my cheek, and I embraced the sweet warmth that radiated through me like sunshine after a rainstorm.

  Lost, I fell into the depths of his dreamscape eyes. He moved closer and his warm breath at my ear washed over me in stroking waves. “Welcome home, Maddie girl,” he whispered.

  “I’m a woman, now.”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  The flirty feline inside me stretched again, this time in invitation, though I’d tried to keep the minx in check.

  Nick probed my expression with his gaze—hot, knowing, and suggestive—until Eve came in and fell into my dad’s chair with a huff of disgust. “Cut it out, you two. You’re making me nauseous.”

  Almost grateful, I ignored Nick’s sigh of regret while swallowing my own. “Saved by the lady in black.”

  “Damn straight.” Eve gave Nick a satisfied smirk.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like him. She just didn’t like the way he treated me, as if I’d always be there. I never could convince her that I liked playing with fire.

  “That Jasmine is such a snob,” Eve said. “She’s oozing sugar while pissin’ everybody off, except for Deborah. Even your father looks like he’s gonna blow. Tunney the butcher said that Jasmine’s such a pain, the historic district shop owners are talking about a lynching. And, get this, Mrs. Sweet, the younger, said, ‘Speaking for the neighborhood, they can have the sturdiest tree in Mystick Falls.’ Mrs. Sweet, who feeds the mice she catches before she puts them out.”

  I shook my head. “She only puts them out because she keeps mouse motels out there.”

  Eve hooted. “Fiona’s here, by the way. She called Jasmine a toad.”

  I sat forward. “And? Did Jasmine grow a wart, say ‘ribbit,’ anything?”

  Eve and I laughed. The Halloween we were twelve, after midnight, we’d set out to scare my unflappable god-mother.

  Fiona’s house stood down the road and across the street from ours, so it backed up to the woods, rather than the river.

  Several side-window peeks into our search, all the rooms dim and eerie, and too many nighttime noises for our comfort, we heard an animal coming through the woods, several maybe.

  An owl hooted and we jumped into each other’s arms, the hair at my nape rising. Then someone, or something, emerged from the woods wearing a long black cloak, hood up.

  It looked a lot like death.

  We squeaked and huddled close beneath the window.

  It was coming straight for us, except that he/she/it climbed Fiona’s porch steps and went into her house.

  Uh-oh.

  A dim light suddenly spilled from the window above us and after a minute, we peeked in. Fiona, still cloaked and hooded, her face starkly etched in candlelight, looked right at us.

  We screamed and ran.

  Dear, sweet Aunt Fiona, who’d soothed my every hurt over the years, inside and out, a witch? A lot of the kids whispered it, but this was our first sighting, and it scared the bejeebers out of us.

  Sure, Fiona saw ghosts, too, I’d learned years after making that pact with my mother, but that didn’t make her a witch, or I’d be one. Neither did wearing a cape or a cloak. Cloaks were back in style. Posh Spice had worn one last winter. I wore one.

  Anyway, Aunt Fiona recognized us because my father met us halfway home and read us our rights. We had none. He grounded us both. The next day, Eve’s parents gave him their blessing.

  “Remember that night?” Eve said.

  “Shut up.” Okay, so I’d wet myself, I was so scared, which Eve had used to torment and blackmail me until I had enough dirt to reciprocate. BFF/best friends forever, I thought, the two of us grinning.

  Nick cleared his throat. “Eve, Mad and I were having a moment, here.”

  “You could’ve had hours, days, if
you’d come to New York more often. Chill. Maddie’s in demand. Why don’t you go out and get her suitcases from the rental, boy toy, and bring them up to her room?”

  Nick stood and grinned. “Thanks, Eve. I didn’t think you were on my side.”

  Eve snorted. “I didn’t say to camp out up there. Just drop off the suitcases and go home.”

  Nick squeezed my shoulder and rose reluctantly. “You’re all heart, Meyers.”

  Eve smirked. “You’re all testosterone, Jaconetti.”

  “You got that right.” Nick gave me a bawdy wink as he left.

  Eve joined me on the sofa. “He’s a heartbreaker,” she warned.

  “But lower in calories and way tastier than cheesy fries.” I licked my lips.

  Eve twirled a finger in the air, an acerbic whoop-de-do, her favorite hand signal, right after the L for loser.

  “As a matter of fact, I could get him to help me work off a few of those calories, if—”

  Eve choked. “Do not finish that sentence!”

  I wrote in the air, “Maddie one, Eve zero,” and chuckled at her disgust. “I shouldn’t be enjoying myself,” I said. “It’s time to rescue the bride.”

  Eve checked her watch. “Right, and I have a date with your brother’s hockey buddy.”

  “Oh, is Ted a member of your stud-of-the-month club?”

  “Dahling, when you’ve got it, you’ve got it. I like hockey players.”

  “He’s the coach now.”

  She wiggled her brows. “He’ll always be a player to me.”

  “Are you notching your bedpost, Meyers? Or are you looking for a man with feet bigger than yours?”

  “Maddie wet her panties,” Eve sang in payback, beneath her breath, as we returned to the keeping room.

  She claimed Ted; they said their good-byes and left.

  I hugged Fiona Sullivan, lawyer, possible witch, confidant, and aunt to the Cutler brood, by virtue of her friendship with our mother.

  After that, I had fielded questions from our neighbors about my career and love life. Not my favorite sport, but everybody cared about everybody else in Mystick Falls, and to be fair, most of them had taken a hand in raising the four of us.