A Catered Wedding Read Online Free Page A

was her father who’d put his foot down. Libby realized he was talking to her now.
    â€œIf they ask about me,” he was saying, “tell them I’ve gone to Nepal.”
    â€œThat wouldn’t help. They’d find you there. Courtney will be here if you need anything.”
    â€œI’ll be fine,” her father said.
    â€œBecause . . .”
    â€œJust go,” her father ordered. “I’m not a total invalid.”
    â€œI know,” Libby said. And she did know. It’s just when she left him like this she got worried. But there was Courtney. And Rob’s mom was going to give him lunch so everything would be fine. Libby gave her father a thumbs-up sign and got in the van. A moment later she and Bernie were on their way to the Raid Estate.
    â€œI hope this goes well,” Libby said as they headed out of Longely. At this hour of the morning, the only people out on the town street were runners.
    â€œWell, it’s got to go better than the high school reunion,” Bernie pointed out.
    When they’d catered their seventeenth annual high school reunion last year the guest of honor had been poisoned on the dais, which in Libby’s humble opinion was not a good advertisement for the shop.
    Libby groaned as she remembered. “God was that awful.”
    â€œYes it was,” Bernie agreed. “Especially for the poisonee.” Then she pointed to a slim woman jogging down the block to the left of them. “There’s Bree.”
    Libby glanced over. “I wish my thighs looked like hers.”
    â€œIf you didn’t eat anything and ran five miles a day they could.”
    Libby grunted. She couldn’t even manage running half a block. She kept on saying she was going to get in better shape, but somehow it never happened.
    â€œYou know she’s invited to the wedding, don’t you?” Bernie said as Bree turned the corner.
    â€œUnfortunately, yes.”
    This was another thing Libby was not happy about. Bree Nottingham, real estate agent extraordinaire and social arbiter of Longely could spot a water splotch on a glass at fifty yards away. As her mom would have said, Bree gave her the yips and had since kindergarten when she’d spotted the smudge on Libby’s blouse and pointed it out to everyone.
    â€œIt’ll be fine,” Bernie consoled her.
    â€œYou’re right,” Libby agreed as she turned north on Ash Street. She desperately wanted to believe her younger sister. “I mean what’s the worst that can happen?”
    â€œOne of the falcons can escape and attack the wedding cake,” Bernie said. “Just kidding,” she added as Libby shuddered. “They only go after living prey. But I guess they could use the cake as a perch.”
    â€œWhy would anyone keep birds like that?” Libby asked.
    Bernie tucked a strand of her hair back behind her ear. “I think they’re kind of cool in a vicious kind of way.”
    â€œWell I don’t,” Libby said as she darted a glance in Bernie’s direction. “That’s one thing that Leeza and I agree on.”

Chapter 2
    A s Bernie Simmons watched Jura Raid fishing around in the pocket of his jacket for the key to caviar storeroom, she wasn’t thinking about how upset her sister was with her for accidentally knocking the top two tiers off the croquembouche when they’d moved the cake into the kitchen from the van.
    After all, it would just take a couple of minutes to glue the tiers back on with sugar cement. No. Bernie was thinking about Jura and Leeza and how Leeza was going to run this guy ragged, not to mention cost him a small fortune. Well, she’d already done that with the wedding.
    Actually, Bernie decided, she felt a little bit sorry for Jura, even though she normally didn’t feel bad for older guys who married younger women, figuring that they got exactly what they deserved. But Jura wasn’t a player like his