Read Bride Quartet Collection Online
Authors: Nora Roberts
Bride Quartet Collection (52 page)
“Jack, we can’t go back and—”
“Not back, forward.” He took her arm then, shifted so they were face-to-face. “Forward. Emma, have some pity. Give me another chance. I don’t want anyone but you. I need your . . . light,” he said remembering Carter’s word. “I need your heart and your laugh. Your body, your brain. Don’t shut me out, Emma.”
“Starting from here, when we both want—both need—different things . . . It wouldn’t be right for either of us. I can’t do it.”
When her eyes filled, he drew her in.
“Let me do it. Let me take the leap. Emma, because with you, I believe. With you, it’s not just now. It’s tomorrow and whatever comes with it. I love you. I love you.”
When the first tear spilled, he moved with her. “I love you. I’m so in love with you that I didn’t see it. I couldn’t see it because it’s everything. You’re everything. Stay with me, Emma, be with me.”
“I am with you. I want . . . What are you doing?”
“I’m dancing with you.” He brought the hand he held to his lips. “In the garden, in the moonlight.”
Her heart shuddered, swelled. And all the cracks filled. “Jack.”
“And I’m telling you I love you. I’m asking you to make a life with me.” He kissed her while they circled, swayed. “I’m asking you to give me what I need, what I want even though it took me too much time to figure it out. I’m asking you to marry me.”
“Marry you?”
“Marry me.” The leap was so easy, the landing smooth and right. “Live with me. Wake up with me, plant flowers for me that you’ll probably have to remind me to water. We’ll make plans, and change them as we go. We’ll make a future. I’ll give you everything I’ve got, and if you need more, I’ll find it and give it to you.”
She heard her own words come back to her in the perfumed air, under the moonlight while the man she loved turned her in a waltz.
“I think you just did. You just gave me a dream.”
“Say yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“How well do you know me?”
Smiling, she blinked away tears. “Pretty well.”
“Would I ask you to marry me if I wasn’t sure?”
“No. No, you wouldn’t. How well do you know me, Jack?”
“Pretty well.”
She brought her lips to his, lingered through the joy. “Then you know my answer.”
O
N THE THIRD FLOOR TERRACE, THE THREE WOMEN STOOD watching, their arms around each other’s waists. Behind them, Mrs. Grady sighed.
When Mac sniffled, Parker reached in her pocket for a pack of tissues. She handed one to Mac, to Laurel, to Mrs. Grady, then took one for herself.
“It’s beautiful,” Mac managed. “They’re beautiful. Look at the light, the silver cast to the light, and the shadows of the flowers, the gleam of them, and the silhouette Emma and Jack make.”
“You’re thinking in pictures.” Laurel wiped her eyes. “That’s serious romance there.”
“Not just pictures. Moments. That’s Emma’s moment. Her blue butterfly. We probably shouldn’t be watching. If they see us, it’ll spoil it.”
“They can’t see anything but each other.” Parker took Mac’s hand, then Laurel’s, and smiled when she felt Mrs. Grady’s rest on her shoulder.
The moment was just as it should be.
So they watched as Emma danced in the soft June night, in the moonlight, in the garden, with the man she loved.
Nora Roberts
HOT ICE
SACRED SINS
BRAZENVIRTUE
SWEET REVENGE
PUBLIC SECRETS
GENUINE LIES
CARNAL INNOCENCE
DIVINE EVIL
HONEST ILLUSIONS
PRIVATE SCANDALS
HIDDEN RICHES
TRUE BETRAYALS
MONTANA SKY
SANCTUARY
HOMEPORT
THE REEF
RIVER’S END
CAROLINA MOON
THE VILLA
MIDNIGHT BAYOU
THREE FATES
BIRTHRIGHT
NORTHERN LIGHTS
BLUE SMOKE
ANGELS FALL
HIGH NOON
TRIBUTE
BLACK HILLS
Series
Born In Trilogy
BORN IN FIRE
BORN IN ICE
BORN IN SHAME
Dream Trilogy
DARING TO DREAM
HOLDING THE DREAM
FINDING THE DREAM
Chesapeake Bay Saga
SEA SWEPT
RISING TIDES
INNER HARBOR
CHESAPEAKE BLUE
Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy
JEWELS OF THE SUN
TEARS OFTHE MOON
HEART OF THE SEA
Three Sisters Island Trilogy
DANCE UPON THE AIR
HEAVEN AND EARTH
FACE THE FIRE
Key Trilogy
KEY OF LIGHT
KEY OF KNOWLEDGE
KEY OF VALOR
In the Garden Trilogy
BLUE DAHLIA
BLACK ROSE
RED LILY
Circle Trilogy
MORRIGAN’S CROSS
DANCE OF THE GODS
VALLEY OF SILENCE
Sign of Seven Trilogy
BLOOD BROTHERS
THE HOLLOW
THE PAGAN STONE
Bride Quartet
VISION IN WHITE
BED OF ROSES
SAVOR THE MOMENT
Nora Roberts
&
J. D. Robb
REMEMBER WHEN
J. D. Robb
NAKED IN DEATH
GLORY IN DEATH
IMMORTAL IN DEATH
RAPTURE IN DEATH
CEREMONY IN DEATH
VENGEANCE IN DEATH
HOLIDAY IN DEATH
CONSPIRACY IN DEATH
LOYALTY IN DEATH
WITNESS IN DEATH
JUDGMENT IN DEATH
BETRAYAL IN DEATH
SEDUCTION IN DEATH
REUNION IN DEATH
PURITY IN DEATH
PORTRAIT IN DEATH
IMITATION IN DEATH
DIVIDED IN DEATH
VISIONS IN DEATH
SURVIVOR IN DEATH
ORIGIN IN DEATH
MEMORY IN DEATH
BORN IN DEATH
INNOCENT IN DEATH
CREATION IN DEATH
STRANGERS IN DEATH
SALVATION IN DEATH
PROMISES IN DEATH
KINDRED IN DEATH
FANTASY IN DEATH
Anthologies
FROM THE HEART
A LITTLE MAGIC
A LITTLE FATE
MOON SHADOWS
(with Jill Gregory,
Ruth Ryan
Langan,
and
Marianne
Willman)
The Once Upon Series
(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)
ONCE UPON A CASTLE
ONCE UPON A STAR
ONCE UPON A DREAM
ONCE UPON A ROSE
ONCE UPON A KISS
ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT
SILENT NIGHT
(with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes,
and
Claire Cross)
OUT OF THIS WORLD
(with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie Shayne)
BUMP IN THE NIGHT
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
DEAD OF NIGHT
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
THREE IN DEATH
SUITE 606
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
THE LOST
(with Patricia Gaffney, Mary Blayney, and Ruth Ryan Langan)
Also available ...
THE OFFICIAL NORA ROBERTS COMPANION
(edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2010 by Nora Roberts.
Excerpt from
Happy Ever After
copyright © by Nora Roberts.
All rights reserved.
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / May 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roberts, Nora.
Savor the moment / Nora Roberts.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-18712-8
1. Female friendship—Fiction. 2. Bakers—Fiction. 3. Businesswomen—Fiction.
4. Connecticut—Fiction. [1 . Weddings—Fiction.] I. Title.
PS3568.O243S38 2010
813’.54—dc22
2009053564
For my brother Jim, the family baker
I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers;
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.
I sing of Maypoles, Hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.
—ROBERT HERRICK
I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we lov’d?
—DONNE
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
As
THE CLOCK TICKED DOWN ON HER SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH school, Laurel McBane learned one indisputable fact.
Prom was hell.
For weeks all anyone wanted to talk about was who might ask whom, who did ask whom—and who asked some other whom, thereby inciting misery and hysteria.
Girls, to her mind, suffered an agony of suspense and an embarrassing passivity during prom season. The halls, classrooms, and quad throbbed with emotion running the gamut from giddy euphoria because some guy asked them to some overhyped dance, to bitter tears because some guy didn’t.
The entire cycle revolved around “some guy,” a condition she believed both stupid and demoralizing.
And after that, the hysteria continued, even escalated with the hunt for a dress, for shoes, the intense debate about up-dos versus down-dos. Limos, after-parties, hotel suites—the yes, no, maybe of sex.
She’d have skipped the whole thing if her friends, especially Parker Right-of-Passage Brown, hadn’t ganged up on her.
Now her savings account—all those hard-earned dollars and cents from countless hours waiting tables—reeled in shock at the withdrawals for a dress she’d probably never wear again, the shoes, the bag, and all the rest.
She could lay all that on her friends’ heads, too. She’d gotten caught up shopping with Parker, Emmaline, and Mackensie, and spent more than she should have.
The idea, gently broached by Emma, of asking her parents to spring for the dress wasn’t an option, not to Laurel’s mind. A point of pride, maybe, but money in the McBane household had become a very sore subject since her father’s dicey investments fiasco and the little matter of the IRS audit.
No way she’d ask either of them. She earned her own, and had for several years now.
She told herself it didn’t matter. She didn’t have close to enough saved for the tuition for the Culinary Institute, or the living expenses in New York, despite the hours she’d put in at the restaurant after school and on weekends. The cost of looking great for one night didn’t change that one way or the other—and, what the hell, she did look great.
She fixed on her earrings while across the room—Parker’s bedroom—Parker and Emma experimented with ways to prom-up the hair Mac had impulsively hacked off to what Laurel thought of as Julius Caesar takes the Rubicon. They tried various pins, sparkle dust, and jeweled clips in what was left of Mac’s flame red hair while the three of them talked nonstop, and Aerosmith rocked out of the CD player.
She liked listening to them like this, when she was a little bit apart. Maybe especially now, when she felt a little bit apart. They’d been friends all their lives, and now—rite of passage or not—things were changing. In the fall Parker and Emma would head off to college. Mac would be working, and squeezing in a few courses on photography.
And with the dream of the Culinary Institute poofed due to finances and her parents’ most recent marital implosion, she’d settle for community college part-time. Business courses, she supposed. She’d have to be practical. Realistic.
And she wasn’t going to think about it now. She might as well enjoy the moment, and this ritual that Parker, in her Parker way, had arranged.
Parker and Emma might be going to prom at the Academy while she and Mac went to theirs at the public high school, but they had this time together, getting dressed and made up. Downstairs Parker’s and Emma’s parents hung out, and there’d be dozens of pictures and “oh, look at our girls!” hugs and probably some shiny eyes.
Mac’s mother was too self-involved to care about her daughter’s senior prom, which, Linda being Linda, could only be a good thing. And Laurel’s own parents? Well, they were too steeped in their own lives, their own problems, for it to matter where she was or what she did tonight.
She was used to it. Had even come to prefer it.
“Just the fairy dust sparkles,” Mac decided, tipping her head side to side to judge. “It’s kind of Tinker Bell-y. In a cool way.”
“I think you’re right.” Parker, her straight-as-rain brown hair a glossy waterfall down her back, nodded. “It’s waif with an edge. What do you think, Em?”
“I think we need to play up the eyes more, go drama.” Emma’s eyes, a deep, dreamy brown, narrowed in thought. “I can do this.”
“Have at it.” Mac shrugged. “But don’t take forever, okay? I still have to set up for our group shot.”
“We’re on schedule.” Parker checked her watch. “We’ve still got thirty minutes before ...” She turned, caught sight of Laurel. “Hey. You look awesome!”
“Oh, you really do!” Emma clapped her hands together. “I knew that was the dress. The shimmery pink makes your eyes even bluer.”
“I guess.”
“Need one more thing.” Parker hurried to her dresser, opened a drawer on her jewelry box. “This hair clip.”
Laurel, a slim girl in shimmery pink, her sun-shot hair done—at Emma’s insistence—in long, loose sausage curls, shrugged. “Whatever.”
Parker held it against Laurel’s hair at different angles. “Cheer up,” she ordered. “You’re going to have fun.”
God, get over yourself, Laurel!
“I know. Sorry. It’d be more fun if the four of us were going to the same dance, especially since we all look seriously awesome.”
“Yeah, it would.” Parker decided to draw some of the curls from the sides to clip them in the back. “But we’ll meet up after and party. When we’re done we’ll come back here and tell each other everything. Here, take a look.”
She turned Laurel to the mirror, and the girls studied themselves and each other.
“I do look great,” Laurel said and made Parker laugh.
After the most perfunctory of knocks, the door opened. Mrs. Grady, the Browns’ longtime housekeeper, put her hands on her hips to take a survey.
“You’ll do,” she said, “which you should after all this fuss. Finish up with it and get yourselves downstairs for pictures. You.” She pointed a finger at Laurel. “I need a word with you, young lady.”
“What did I do?” Laurel demanded, looking from friend to friend as Mrs. Grady strode away. “I didn’t do anything.” But since Mrs. G’s word was law, Laurel rushed after her.
In the family sitting room, Mrs. G turned, arms folded. Lecture mode, Laurel thought as her heart tripped. And she cast her mind back, looking for an infraction that might have earned her one from the woman who’d been more of a mother to her than her own through her teenage years.
“So,” Mrs. Grady began as Laurel hurried in, “I guess you think you’re all grown-up now.”
“I—”
“Well, you’re not. But you’re getting there. The four of you’ve been running tame around here since you were in diapers. Some of that’s going to change, with all of you going your own ways. At least for a time. Birds tell me your way’s to New York and that fancy baking school.”
Her heart took another trip, then suffered the pinprick of a deflated dream. “No, I’m, ah, keeping my job at the restaurant, and I’m going to try to take some courses at the—”
“No, you’re not.” Again, Mrs. G pointed a finger. “Now, a girl your age in New York City best be smart and best be careful. And from what I’m told, if you want to make it at that school you have to work hard. It’s more than making pretty frostings and cookies.”
“It’s one of the best, but—”
“Then you’ll be one of the best.” Mrs. G reached in her pocket. She held out a check to Laurel. “That’ll cover the first semester, the tuition, a decent place to live, and enough food to keep body and soul together. You make good use of it, girl, or you’ll answer to me. If you do what I expect you’re capable of, we’ll talk about the next term when the time comes.”
Stunned, Laurel stared at the check in her hand. “You can’t—I can’t—”
“I can and you will. That’s that.”
“But—”
“Didn’t I just say that’s that? If you let me down, there’ll be hell to pay, I promise you. Parker and Emma are going off to college, and Mackensie’s dead set on working full-time with her photography. You’ve got a different path, so you’ll take it. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“More than anything.” Tears stung her eyes, burned her throat. “Mrs. G, I don’t know what to say. I’ll pay you back. I’ll—”
“Damn right, you will. You’ll pay me back by making something of yourself. It’s up to you now.”
Laurel threw her arms around Mrs. Grady, clung. “You won’t be sorry. I’ll make you proud.”
“I believe you will. There now. Go finish getting ready.”
Laurel held on another moment. “I’ll never forget this,” she whispered. “Never. Thank you. Thank you, thank you!”
She rushed for the door, anxious to share the news with her friends, then turned, young, radiant. “I can’t wait to start.”