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Katie Gallagher Cooper felt every drop of blood in her body drain out of her as she stood in the conference room at her company, Wedding Protectors.

Because she was staring at a vampire. An emotional vampire, at least.

And possibly a real one.

"Why do I have an old wedding file from ten years ago on my tablet?" she said in a hoarse whisper that sounded like firm denial.

Ranney Martini, one of her associates at Wedding Protectors, Inc., the boutique wedding assistance firm she'd co-founded ten years ago, gave her a perplexed look.

"Wedding Protectors didn't have clients ten years ago," Ranney said with confidence, moving to stand beside Katie, looking over her shoulder. "It didn't exist. All I see is the Jacoby-McCormick file." She tapped the screen once with a perfect French-tipped index finger.

The words Jacoby , McCormick , and Wedding in the same sentence made white dots appear in Katie’s vision, the room beginning to warp.

This was a nightmare, right? A weird, spicy, food-induced fever dream? Her husband, Patrick, had insisted on trying a new South Indian place last night, and when he'd asked for their hottest vindaloo, she'd protested, but enjoyed it anyhow.

Now she was paying the price.

Except dreams didn't involve wafts of Ranney's Bleu de Chanel, which might as well be smelling salts.

"This is a joke, right? Did Kari create this? Am I being punked?" Trying to smile but feeling like a reanimated corpse, she looked at the names on the file.

Amy Jacoby.

Hamish McCormick.

Oh.

Oh.

Not Shannon and Declan.

But still...

"Katie?" Ashanti Bogosian strode confidently into the room, planted his soft hands on her shoulders, and began kneading gently. "You are human concrete," he said in a soothing, though slightly alarmed, voice. "We need a lavender eye pad, stat."

Ranney reared back slightly. "This isn't an emergency room, Ash. There is no stat when it comes to lavender."

"Look at Katie. She’s agitated about something." He peered at the glass screen in her hands, thick eyebrows knitting. "Trouble client?"

"Hot footballer," Ranney said in the same dispassionate tone she might use to describe a cardboard box. "Marrying Shannon McCormick's sister. Cousin of Declan McCormick."

"Oh," he said, peering at Katie, who licked her lips and stared into space, temporarily catatonic. "Something's bringing up trauma from her heart chakra."

"Not her again," Katie moaned, as if given permission to emote. The doorway to the conference room darkened suddenly, filled with the form of Patrick Cooper, carrying their sweet two-year-old, Annabel.

"Mama!" the toddler cried out, wriggling like a puppy in poor Patrick's arms. The sudden appearance of her child shook Katie out of her stupor and she reflexively reached for Annabel, who clung to her mother like a rhesus monkey, her pink and white striped leggings twisted at an awkward angle, princess tennis shoes lighting up like pastel fireworks.

Patrick, in his early fifties, rolled his shoulders and flexed his right arm, clearly willing the blood flow to return. Katie wondered if Ashanti would offer him a neck massage, but he had slipped silently out of the room.

The kiss from her husband made her feel better, but didn't wash away the adrenaline rush–the closest she came to panic at work–that seeing those two words had produced in her.

Jacoby. McCormick.

"What's wrong?" Patrick asked Ranney after emotionally inventorying his wife.

Ranney shrugged. "I haven't a clue. She just went... blank."

"Do you–do you know how Wedding Protectors began?" Katie asked in a hollow voice, as if beginning a lecture in a dissociative state.

Which, technically, was exactly what she was doing.

"Sure. You and Kari met at a wedding, and... oh." Ranney inhaled sharply. "Oh, dear. Oh, oh, dear ."

"I need to buy a clue," Patrick announced, bopping Annabel on her nose. "Someone explain this to me like I'm five."

"I two," Annabel said haughtily. "Two!" She held up two chubby fingers, which Patrick kissed. Then he made a face.

"Pickle juice," he muttered to himself, searching the room for a coffee carafe. Ranney handed him a small espresso cup, which he quickly inserted under the machine, pressing a few buttons that began a series of low hums.

Annabel was going through an intense pickle phase. Katie could practically taste the garlic and dill herself.

"Yes, honey, you're two," Ranney said with a grin.

"How old a’ you?" Annabel asked Ranney, who went as pale as Katie felt.

"I two, too," Ranney said quickly, blinking exactly once before smiling at the little girl. "Who wants a cookie?"

Ranney's toddler distraction game was on point.

Katie's phone buzzed as Ranney moved across the conference room, sliding open a door in the cabinet and finding a metal tin of emergency cookies someone had hidden. Perhaps for wrangling toddlers.

Or maybe for premenstrual crises. At Wedding Protectors, there was one mantra behind every action:

Avert disaster.

The text was from their receptionist, Carly. It read:

Fiona McCormick on line 2. About her son's event. Thick accent. Really hard to understand her.

Carly had worked at Wedding Protectors since she graduated from Curry College. She did a great job as first-line defense against the world, partly because she could quickly size up a person.

General impression? Katie typed back.

Not happy. You really need to take this call.

Katie made a strangled sound in her throat. Patrick stepped closer, real concern filling his features.

"You okay?"

"Another Jacoby-McCormick wedding, can you believe it?"

"McCormick as in... James? He's getting married again?" Patrick's demeanor shifted, and Katie felt a twinge of relief. Finally.

Someone else was dysregulated. She was starting to feel too aberrant and weird.

"Not James," she answered. "I'd be happy if it were James, because then I wouldn't have to deal with her ."

"Her? Her who? " Patrick asked, but Katie couldn't answer. She simply couldn’t find the words. It was too much to explain and even if she could, he wouldn’t believe it.

"It won’t be the same as the last one,” Ranney soothed. “Different bride and groom, and James isn't the father of the groom this time. He's related somehow. Uncle? But a side role. Nothing to worry about."

"I don't care about the bride and groom. Do you really not understand what this means?" Her voice went high and reedy, and Patrick's beautiful, short gray beard tightened around his mouth. Piercing blue eyes glittered at her, instantly protective.

"You don't have to take the project. Reject the client. Say no," he said firmly.

"Patrick, I can't."

"We can't!" Ranney said simultaneously.

Patrick ignored her, completely focused on Katie now as Annabel took the cookie from Ranney's outstretched hand. "Of course you can. You own Wedding Protectors. It's your company. You have complete control. Do whatever the hell you want."

Bzzz

Katie? Carly texted. What do I tell Mrs. McCormick?

The thought of spending the next–she looked at the screen and found the proposed wedding date–eighteen months hearing from Mrs. McCormick and worse– Mrs. Jacoby –filled her with dread.

Maybe it was time to retire. Patrick was older than she was and he’d cut back his hours since Annabel was born. If she retired before forty, that wasn’t quitting. It was an accomplishment.

Right?

Tap tap tap

Katie jumped, letting out a small, startled gasp that was so uncharacteristic, it forced her husband to take a step toward her. Even Annabel paused and stared at her mother with a tilted head, chocolate smearing the corners of her mouth.

"Mama scared! You get an owie?"

"Sorry to interrupt." It was Kari Whiteveldt-Mikelmas, Katie's partner in the firm, looking trim and sweet in a pale peach tweed suit. On her feet, however, were an enormous pair of Hokas. Kari could not get out of her Manolos fast enough after a client left the office. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Annabel pulled on Ranney's hand, pointing to the cookies. Katie realized her heart was pounding. A flashback to when she was dating James McCormick, many years ago, working for Anterdec as an event planner and handling the Jacoby-McCormick wedding, made her feel as if time were overlapping.

Universes were colliding.

"You never act like this," Patrick noted, his warm hand on her neck.

"You're breathing hard." She wanted to stop but couldn't, his concern making her feel guilty. They’d met when his eldest daughter, Mia, had contracted with Wedding Protectors for her nuptials.

Patrick had been a widower, and she knew his worry right now wasn't just about the present.

Like Katie, he had ghosts who reappeared when triggered.

Ashanti returned, a small cloth bag with a drawstring in one hand, an eye pad in the other. Lavender tickled her nostrils.

“I have cool wrist wraps and a nice, warm eye rescue,” he murmured in Katie’s ear. “You need a nervous system reset."

"Sorry, Ashanti," Kari cut in, "but before you do that, I need Katie."

Tap tap tap

"Aaaie!" Katie screeched.

"Katie, I'm sorry," Carly appeared in the doorway.

"But that Scottish woman is yelling at me and she won't leave a message. Says we’re all a bunch of–" Carly checked her notes–"bampots and numpties for making her wait, and that her son is paying us a lot of money.

She wants to make sure you won't talk to the American coo or listen to her blathering about the wedding. What's a coo? "

Katie's brain short-circuited at that. All she could do was blink and repeat the word coo in her head until she felt like a sad pigeon.

"That's enough. Everyone leave her alone.

" Patrick took charge, pulling her up from her chair.

Carly and Ashanti tried to protest but Ranney and Kari stayed silent, eyes on Katie, assessing her.

Patrick got her into the hall, where Ashanti deftly slipped the eye pad into the jacket pocket of her knight in shining armor.

"I've got Annabel," Ranney called out, and gratitude rushed through Katie's limbs as Patrick ushered her down the hall to her own little sanctuary. She was never more relieved to see her office.

Once there, Patrick guided her to the sofa. "You lay down," he insisted, frowning as he touched his pocket. When he extracted the eye pad, he pressed it and the scent of lavender filled the air.

"I cannot deal with her again," Katie insisted as he patted her arm, laying the eye pad on her stomach rather than her face. She almost protested, explaining where he'd gone wrong, but she had to admit that the warmth on her belly felt nice.

Relaxing.

Grounding.

This was why Ashanti got such a big bonus last year.

"Carly? Kari? Tell me who you need to back off."

"Not them. Her. Marie."

"Who is Marie?" Patrick's warm, inquisitive voice made her shoulders melt into the cushions.

"Marie Jacoby."

"Is this someone in the industry?"

"God, no." She shuddered. "It's a mother."

"Mother of a client?"

"Apparently."

"Sweetie, I don’t understand. And I need to check on Bel before Ranney gives her so many cookies that she’s up all night from the sugar."

"That's a myth, Patrick. We've been over this a thousand times."

"Hmph. When we were raising Mia, it wasn't a myth." Patrick had two children: his older daughter Mia, who was now nearly thirty years old, and two-year-old Annabel. The man didn't know what BPA was, and good luck explaining phthalates.

There was a tap on the door.

"Go away," Patrick growled. Katie smiled to herself; she had to admit, he was very sexy when he got protective. Patrick was a charmer, smooth and gentlemanly, the kind of guy you assumed was always calm and cool.

If he kept this up, they might make a little sibling for Annabel on her office couch.

"I'd love to," said a muffled voice from the other side. "But I'm a partner here and have no choice."

Katie gave Patrick the okay signal to open the door. Kari walked straight in, took a seat on the edge of the sofa at Katie's feet, and asked, "This is about Marie Jacoby, isn't it?"

Patrick's frown deepened by two DEFCON levels. "Who the hell is this Marie Jacoby, and why is everyone so upset?"

"He hasn't even proposed yet," Kari offered, ignoring poor Patrick, who looked around the room as if searching for someone who would listen to him. "Amy might say no."

"You have people booking weddings before the proposal?" Patrick asked in a voice tinged with awe.

"We have mothers booking weddings before their kids have even started dating," Kari informed him. She patted Katie's shin. "You're having a trauma response. This Jacoby-McCormick wedding won't be like the one with James."

Patrick's back went ramrod straight. "Is that really why you're so upset? You'll have to deal with him?"

Katie sighed. "Not him. James is a pussycat compared to Marie."

Tap tap tap

"Um, Kari? I know Katie's not talking right now, but I googled what a coo is." Carly's voice sounded tinny behind the door. "I think these mothers-in-law must hate each other."

Kari met Katie's eyes, brow touching her hairline. "Oh, boy."

"Oh, no."

Marie Jacoby was the coo.

Hamish McCormick hadn't even proposed yet, and already this wedding was lining up to be as bad as Katie feared.

"Hello?" Carly knocked louder. "The coo? Marie Jacoby? She's asking us to reserve Farmington Country Club for the wedding."

"Tell her I'll call her back," Kari said, then leaned in to whisper, "Do you still keep those little emergency bottles of prosecco in your desk?"

It was Patrick's turn to raise his eyebrows.

"Kari?" Carly called out louder. "I can't."

BANG BANG BANG

"CARLY!" Kari shouted. "Why are you banging like that? Just come on in."

The door flew open, Katie turning her head to find in an instant that it wasn't Carly banging on her office door.

"Hi, Katie," Marie Jacoby announced, eyes jumping to Kari then lingering on Patrick, taking him in with an increasingly delighted smile on her face.

Was she actually licking her lips? With platinum blonde hair and big blue eyes, lash extensions that looked like ski slopes for ladybugs, and eager, big eyes, she was so… distinct .

"I am so, so excited for my–for Amy's wedding! What's a coo? Like, the chief operating officer for a wedding? If so, I'm honored! I'll be Amy's coo!"

The woman actually clapped with glee.

"Is that a new trend? If it is, it should definitely be me. Or maybe the mother of the bride can't be the coo? Whatever. Wedding Protectors is known for giving you whatever you want, right? For making sure your special day is perfect." Her eyes turned to overeager slits as she lasered in on Katie.

Seemingly by instinct, Kari and Patrick both inserted themselves between Katie and the coo, acting as human shields.

Marie just smiled and said:

"And this time, no helicopters. I want all airspace over Farmington Country Club to be closed. Whatever it takes ."