Veiled Threats Read Free

replied, while directing the photographer, paying the judge, and flinging my last handkerchief on some spilled champagne before it stained the oak floor and ate into our damage deposit.
    Suddenly I had company: Crazy Mary was on her knees, scrubbing at the spill with a napkin. Her hands were curled and knobbly with arthritis, just like my mother's.
    “Why, thank you,” I said.
    She turned her startled eyes to me and spoke, in a voice like dry leaves. “She said I could stay, the bride did! She said I could have a piece of cake.”
    Good for Diane. “Of course you can. And don't worry about this. I'll take care of it.”
    “Terrible,” she muttered, continuing to scrub. “People are terrible. Breaking things, stealing things. I saw him, you know. I saw him.”
    It was actually a woman who'd spilled the champagne, but I let it go. “It's all right, thanks for helping. They'll be cutting the cake soon.”
    “Terrible.” Her head went on shaking, like a pendulum. “Terrible, terrible. I saw him.”
    Then the crowd shifted around us, and she was gone. I rose and waved across the room at the photographer to takeher position near the cake. Oops. Just behind her, stepping aside from the knot of guests around Diane, was the green-eyed man in the heathery sweater. He raised an eyebrow and waved back at me, and I felt myself blushing again. Sometimes I hate being a redhead. He lifted his champagne glass in a private toast. Or was it an invitation to join him?
    I would have joined him, too, but my way was suddenly blocked by 265 pounds of Slavic fury: Boris, the Mad Russian Florist.
    “Kharrnegie! You rruined my bouquet! For what?”
    Boris Nevsky was not really mad, not entirely, but my pal Lily had nicknamed him and the name stuck. He was huge and loud and brilliant with flowers, and the fact that I'd dated him a couple of times apparently gave him license to harass me at wedding receptions. The dates had stopped when I went to his family's place for a lamb barbecue, and the lamb was still alive when I got there. He thought I was prissy and squeamish, and I thought he was a barbarian. Besides, any more of his embraces and I'd have had broken ribs.
    No one exactly invited Boris to their weddings, but once he delivered his flowers and arranged them with ferocious precision, he just never left. Yo u don't ask a force of nature to go home. I explained about Susie's bouquet, quickly and quietly. Boris stared at me, his thick black eyebrows parting and rising like the Fremont drawbridge. His face seemed to contract, like a fist, when he was angry, and then expand like the full moon when he smiled. Just now he was expanding, and erupting in laughter.
    “Sneezing? Sneezing! Yo u should have put her in string quartet, for percussion! Kharnegie, you look beautiful tonight.”
    “Well thanks, Boris, but—”
    But he was at it again, embracing me in a grizzly bear hug, then planting a big wet kiss. It was like being hit in the mouth by an affectionate truck. I pushed him away, and caught a glimpse of the green-eyed man, who was now heading for the bar. And there by the cake table was dear Dorothy Fenner. Bloody hell. She looked at me in a pained but sympathetic way, as you would at a four-year-old who's knocked over the orange juice again. Sighing, I headed for the ladies’ room to regroup.
    The Sercombe House cloakroom was sweet enough to induce diabetic coma: gilt cupids, blossom-and-ribbon wallpaper, and tiny china bowls of potpourri. But at least it was empty, giving me a chance to collect my straying wits while redoing my hair and lipstick. There. Lipstick on straight, eyeliner unsmudged. On the other hand, nose still beaky, eyes still an undecided hazel, and freckles still on parade despite foundation and powder. Ah, well. As I dabbed at my soggy dress—Boris must have been out in the rain—Nickie came in.
    “Carnegie, can I talk to you?”
    “Sure. What's wrong?”
    Nickie was a pretty, curvy girl, full lips and full