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“About what days didn’t count in the given thirty. It’s complicated. It’s a formula, but I’d worked it out. Once he caught up with me, logistically, he agreed it made sense, but thought we should just forfeit the bet. So we did.”
“Weekends, right?” Mac shoveled in some eggs. “I thought about that. Weekends don’t count.”
“Exactly. And the first and last days don’t count. It gets more complicated, but that’s the gist. But in all fairness, since we didn’t set those terms, we went with the forfeit. Then we ...”
Bizarre or not, these four women were her women. “It was wonderful. I had this place in my head that worried I’d be nervous, that we’d be awkward. But I wasn’t, and we weren’t. He wouldn’t rush, and wouldn’t let me rush, so it was slow and sweet. He was ...”
When she trailed off, Parker sighed. “If you think I’d squirm because you’d say my brother is a good lover, a considerate one, you’re wrong. It’s not just skill, you know. It’s also a sign of respect and affection for his partner.”
“He made me feel that there was nothing else that mattered but the two of us, then and there. That’s all there was. And after, I could sleep with him, feeling absolutely safe, absolutely natural. That’s always the hardest part for me. Trusting enough, I guess, to sleep.”
Emma rubbed Laurel’s thigh under the table. “That’s a really good sexy breakfast story.”
“We had a little tangle this morning.”
“A sexy tangle?”
“That, too, One-Track Mind,” she said to Mac. “I needed to find my clothes in the dark so I could call a cab and get back. Full day. But he woke up, which led to a sexy tangle even though I had bed hair.”
“I hate that,” Emma muttered. “There should be an instant cure for bed hair.”
“Then he insisted on driving me home.”
“Of course.”
Laurel rolled her eyes at Parker. “The two of you have this unshakable code of conduct. Why should he have to get up, dressed, drive me when I can get myself home?”
“Because you were in his home, that’s number one. Second, you were in his bed. Good manners are just that, and don’t threaten your independence.”
“Brown Rule of Thumb?”
Parker smiled a little. “I guess you could call it that.”
“He did. Well, that’s going to have to hold you, because I have to get to work.”
“Don’t we all? I have half a million lilies coming in this morning to be processed. And the crew’s starting today.”
“Here, too?” Laurel asked.
“Here, too, according to Jack.” Emma glanced at her watch. “Any minute.”
“You will now live in interesting times,” Mac told her. “And noisy ones.”
“It’ll be worth it. I’m going to keep telling myself it’ll be worth it. Thanks for breakfast, Mrs. G.”
“It was a good story, so paid in full.”
“If things get too crazy in my space, can I shift some of the work in here?”
“You can. Emmaline and Mackensie, you called for the story. You’re on dishes. I’m going to take a walk around the garden before the hammering starts.”
Parker walked out with Laurel. “Happy’s what counts. Remember I like seeing you and Del happy when you feel weird about it again.”
“I’m working on it. Tell me if I start screwing this up, okay?”
“Absolutely.” Her phone rang. “And there we have the opening bell. I’ll see you later. Good morning, Sarah. How’s the bride today?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EMMA’S LILIES SCENTED THE AIR AND BLOOMED IN SUMMER COLORS of brilliant scarlet and buttery yellow, bright, hard-candy pink and blinding white. The bride, who’d considered a mis-scheduled manicure a disaster on the morning of July fifth, posed radiantly for Mac while Parker dealt with a groomsman’s misplaced vest and tie.
After checking to see no emergencies required her attention or assistance, Laurel carried the cake’s centerpiece—a sugar vase she’d molded from a hexagon bowl and filled with miniature lilies.
Emma’s lilies had nothing on hers, Laurel thought—in execution or time spent. She’d embossed gum paste with a rolling pin covered with textured grosgrain ribbon, then meticulously cut out each individual petal. The result, once the stems had been wired and dipped in thinned royal icing, was both charming and elegant.
In the Ballroom, she ignored the buzz and hum of setup and studied the cake. More textured petals adorned each tier—a circular dance of those strong colors. More scattered over the cake board in what she considered a pretty and organic touch.
As she lifted the topper out of the box, someone knocked over a chair with a crash. She never blinked.
That’s what Del noticed. The noise, the shouts, the movement might not have existed. He watched her center the bowl of flowers on the top tier, step back to check the positioning, then take one of her tools out of the box to run a line—no, pipe, he corrected. He knew that much. She piped a couple of perfect lines, like a base on the bowl, around it with hands steady as a surgeon’s.
She circled the table again, nodded.
“Looks great.”
“Oh.” She took a step back. “I didn’t know you were here. Or going to be here.”
“It was the only way I could figure out how to have a Saturday night date with you.”
“That’s nice.”
He brushed his thumb over her cheek.
“Do I have icing on my face?”
“No. It’s just your face. How many flowers on that?”
“About fifty.”
He glanced around at the arrangements. “It looks like you and Em matched petal for petal.”
“We worked at it. Well, so far everything’s going smooth, so I might be able to—”
“Code Red!” Emma shouted in her earbud.
“Crap. Where?”
“Great Hall. We need everybody.”
“I’m on my way. Code Red,” she told Del as she rushed for the stairs. “My own fault. I said everything was going smooth. I know better than to say that.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I don’t know yet.” She hit the second-floor landing from one wing as Parker charged in from the other.
“SMOB and MOB altercation. Mac and Carter have the bride occupied and unaware.”
Laurel whipped the clip out of her hair, shoved it in her suit jacket pocket. “I thought we had detente there.”
“Apparently that’s over. Del, good you’re here. We might need you.”
As they approached, the sound of shouting pumped out of the Great Hall. And something crashed. Then someone screamed.
“You might need the cops,” Del commented.
They burst in to see Emma, her hair tumbling from its pins, trying desperately to separate the two snarling, elegantly dressed women. The bride’s stepmother’s hair and face dripped with the champagne tossed from the flute still in the mother of the bride’s hand.
“You bitch! You’re going down!”
Shoving, flailing arms sent Emma skidding on her heels then onto her ass as the women flew at each other.
Game, and with a hot beam in her eye, Emma scrambled up as Parker and Laurel sprang forward. Grabbing the closest body, Laurel hauled while curses spewed like grapeshot.
“Cut it out! Stop it now!” Laurel dodged a fist, then blocked an elbow with her forearm. The force of the contact sang straight up to her shoulder. “I said
stop! For God’s sake, it’s your daughter’s wedding.”
“It’s
my daughter’s wedding,” the woman Parker and Emma struggled to control shouted. “
My daughter.
Mine! Not this home-wrecking bimbo bitch’s.”
“Bimbo? Bimbo? You tight-assed lunatic, it’s your last face-lift I’m going to wreck.”
Emma solved the mother of the bride problem by sitting on her while Laurel grappled with her opponent.
As Del risked hi
s skin by stepping between the two women, Laurel spotted reinforcements coming. Jack, and oddly Malcolm Kavanaugh, rushed into the melee.
Kneeling on the floor, Parker spoke quietly and steadily to the MOB whose temper was already giving way to wild tears. Laurel put her mouth close to the stepmother’s ear. “This isn’t solving anything, and if you care about Sarah, you’ll put it away, you’ll suck it up for the day. Are you listening? If you want to fight, you’ll do it another time, another place.”
“I didn’t do
anything, and she threw champagne in my face. Look at my hair, my makeup. My
dress.”
“We’ll take care of it.” She glanced at Parker, got a nod. “Del, I need you to bring a couple glasses of champagne up to my room, then you can take—I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
