Bride Quartet Collection (49 page)

Now the trembling came, so that she shook as she stumbled from the car, up the walk. She made it inside, safe, home, before the first sob took her.

“Emma?” Parker’s voice carried down the stairs. “What are you doing back so early? I thought you were—”

Through the flood of tears, Emma saw Parker rush down the stairs. “Parker.”

Then there were arms around her, strong and tight. “Oh, Emma. Oh, baby. Come on now, come with me.”

“What’s all this commotion? What’s . . . Is she hurt?” Like Parker, Mrs. Grady hurried forward.

“Not that way. I’m going to take her upstairs. Can you call Mac?”

“I’ll see to it. There now, lamb.” Mrs. Grady stroked a hand down Emma’s hair. “You’re home now. We’ll take care of everything. Go on with Parker.”

“I can’t stop. I can’t make it stop.”

“You don’t have to stop.” With an arm around Emma’s waist, Parker led her upstairs. “Cry all you want, as long as you need. We’ll go up to the parlor. To our place.”

As they started up to the third floor, Laurel bolted down. Saying nothing, she simply wrapped an arm around Emma from the other side.

“How could I be so stupid?”

“You weren’t,” Parker murmured. “You aren’t.”

“I’ll get her some water,” Laurel said, and Parker nodded as she led Emma to the couch.

“It hurts, so much. So much. How can anyone stand it?”

“I don’t know.”

When they sat, Emma curled up, laid her head in Parker’s lap.

“I had to get home. I just had to get home.”

“You’re home now.” Laurel sat on the floor, pushed tissues into Emma’s hand.

Burying her face in them, Emma sobbed out the pain and grief throbbing in her chest, twisting in her belly. Raw sobs scorched her throat until there were none left. Still, tears spilled down her cheeks.

“It feels like some horrible illness.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Like I may never be well again.”

“Drink a little water. It’ll help.” Parker eased her up. “And these aspirin.”

“It’s like a terrible flu.” Emma sipped water, took a breath, then swallowed the aspirin Parker handed her. “The kind where even when it’s over, you’re weak and sick and helpless.”

“There’s tea and soup.” Like Laurel, Mac sat on the floor. “Mrs. G brought it up.”

“Not yet. Thanks. Not yet.”

“This wasn’t just a fight,” Laurel said.

“No. Not just a fight.” Exhausted, she rested her head on Parker’s shoulder. “Is it worse, do you think, since it’s my own fault?”

“Don’t you dare blame yourself.” Laurel squeezed Emma’s leg. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not letting him off the hook, believe me. But I got myself into it. And tonight, especially tonight, I worked myself up to wanting—expecting,” she corrected, “things that weren’t going to happen. I know him, and still I jumped off the cliff.”

“Can you tell us what happened?” Mac asked her.

“Yeah.”

“Take a little tea first.” Laurel held out the cup.

After one sip, Emma blew out a breath. “There’s whiskey in here.”

“Mrs. G said to drink it. It’ll help.”

“Tastes like medicine. And I guess it is.” Emma took another sip. “I crossed his lines, I guess you could say. I don’t find those lines acceptable. So we’re done. We have to be done because I can’t feel this way.”

“What are the lines?” Parker asked.

“He doesn’t make room.” Emma shook her head. “I wanted to do something for him. Part of it was certainly for me, but I wanted to do something special. So I went by the nursery,” she began.

When she finished the tea, the ache throbbed behind a thin cushion. “I had this moment, when I had to tell Michelle I didn’t have a key. Part of me stepped back, said: Stop.”

“What the hell for?” Laurel demanded.

“And that’s what the rest of me said. We were together, a couple. And under that, good friends. What could be wrong with going into his place to surprise him with dinner? But I knew. That other part of me knew. Maybe it was a test. I don’t know. I don’t care. And maybe it was worse—the buildup, the crash—because I’d run into Rachel Monning at the bookstore. Do you remember her, Parker? I babysat her.”

“Yes, vaguely.”

“She’s getting married.”

“You
babysat
for her?” Laurel held up her hands. “They’re letting twelve-year-olds get married?”

“She’s in college. Graduating next year, followed by her wedding. Which she wants here, by the way. And when I got over the genuine shock, all I could think was, I want that. I want what this girl I
babysat
has. Damn it, I want what I see on her face. All that joy, that confidence, that eagerness to start a life with the man I love. Why shouldn’t I want that? Why aren’t I entitled to that? Wanting marriage is as legitimate as not wanting it.”

“Preaching to the choir,” Mac reminded her.

“Well, I do want it. I want the promise and the work and the children and all of it. All of it. I know I want the fairy tale, too. Dancing in the moonlit garden, but that’s just . . . Well, it’s like a bouquet or a beautiful cake. It’s a symbol. I want what it symbolizes. He doesn’t.” She leaned back, closed her eyes a moment. “Neither of us is wrong. We just don’t want the same thing.”

“Did he say that? That he doesn’t want what you want?”

“He was angry to find me in his house,” she said to Parker. “Not even angry. Worse. Annoyed. I’d been presumptuous.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mac muttered.

“Well, I had presumed. I presumed he’d be pleased to see me, to have me willing to fuss over him a bit after he’d had a long, hard day. I had my copy of
Truly, Madly, Deeply
with me. We joked about doing a double feature so he could see why I loved it, and we’d pair it up with
Die Hard
.”

“Alan Rickman.” Laurel nodded.

“Exactly. I had sunflowers, and the planters—God they’re really beautiful—and I’d nearly finished making the appetizer when he came in. I just bubbled along for a while. Let me get you some wine, why don’t you relax? God! What a moron. Then it got through, loud and clear. He . . . picked up the spare keys, and put them in his pocket.”

“That’s cold,” Laurel said with quiet fury. “That’s fucking cold.”

“His keys,” Emma stated. “His right. So I told him what I thought, what I felt, and that I was finished trying
not
to want and
not
to feel. I told him I was in love with him. And all he could really say to that is to give him a minute to think.”

“There’s your moron.”

Emma nearly managed a smile at Mac’s disgusted tone. “I got the ‘caught him off guard, wasn’t expecting.’ Even the ‘caught me at a bad time.’ ”

“Oh my God.”

“That was before I told him I was in love with him, but it doesn’t matter. So I ended it, and I walked out. It hurts. I think it’s going to hurt a really long time.”

“He called,” Mac told her.

“I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Figured that. He wanted to make sure you were here, that you got home. I’m not taking his side, believe me, but he sounded pretty shaken up.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to care. If I forgive him now, if I go back—settle for what he can give me—I’ll lose myself. I have to get over him first.” She curled up again. “I just need to get over him. I don’t want to see him or talk to him until I do. Or at least until I feel stronger.”

“Then you won’t. I’m going to reschedule your consults for tomorrow.”

“Oh, Parker—”

“You need a day off.”

“To wallow?”

“Yes. Now you need a long, hot bath, and we’re going to heat up that soup. Then after your second cry—there will be another.”

“Yeah.” Emma sighed. “There will.”

“After that, we’re going to tuck you into bed. You’re going to sleep until you wake up.”

“I’m still going to be in love with him when I wake up.”

“Yes,” Parker agreed.

“And it’s still going to hurt.”

“Yes.”

“But I’ll be a little bit stronger.”

“You will.”

“I’ll fix the bath. I have a formula.” Mac rose, then leaned over and kissed Emma’s cheek. “We’re all here.”

“I’ll take care of the soup, and I’ll ask Mrs. Grady to make a batch of her fabulous french fries. I know it’s a cliché.” Laurel gave Emma’s leg another squeeze. “But it’s a cliché for a reason.”

“Thanks.” She closed her eyes, reached for Parker’s hand when they were alone. “I knew you’d be here.”

“Always.”

“Oh, God. Parker. Oh, God, here comes the second one now.”

“It’s okay,” Parker soothed, and rubbed Emma’s back as she wept. “It’s okay.”

W
HILE EMMA WEPT, JACK KNOCKED ON DEL’S DOOR. HE HAD TO do something or he’d drive over to Emma’s. If she hadn’t made it clear he wasn’t wanted—and she had—Mac had made it double.

Del pulled open the door. “What’s up? Jesus, Jack, you look like shit.”

“It goes with how I feel.”

Del’s brow creased. “Oh man, if you’re coming over here to cry in your beer over a fight with Emma—”

“It wasn’t a fight. Not . . . just a fight.”

Del took a harder look, stepped back. “Let’s have a beer.”

Jack shut the door behind him, then noticed Del’s jacket and tie. “You’re going out?”

“I was heading that way in a while. Get the beer. I have to make a call.”

“I should say it’s no big deal, it can wait. But I’m not going to.”

“Get the beer. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Jack got two beers and went out on the back deck. But instead of sitting he walked to the rail and stared out at the dark. He tried to remember if he’d ever felt this bad before. He decided other than waking up in the hospital with a concussion, a broken arm, and a couple of cracked ribs after a car wreck, the answer was no.

And even then, the seriously bad had been only physical.

No, he thought, he remembered feeling like this before, nearly exactly like this. Sick and baffled and confused. When his parents had sat him down, so civilized, to tell him they were getting a divorce.

You’re not to blame, they’d told him. We still love you, and always will. But . . .

In that moment his world had turned upside down. So why was this worse somehow? Why was it worse to realize that Emma could and would walk away from him? Could and would, he thought, because he’d made her feel
less
when he should have done everything in his power to make her feel
more
.

He heard the door open. “Thanks,” he said as Del came out. “Really.”

“I should say it’s no big deal, but I’m not going to.”

Jack managed a weak laugh. “God, Del, I fucked up. I fucked it up and I’m not even sure exactly how. But what I know is I hurt her. I really hurt her, so you’re welcome to kick my ass as promised. But you’ll have to wait until I’m finished doing it.”

“I can wait.”

“She said she’s in love with me.”

Del took a pull on his beer. “You’re not an idiot, Jack. Are you going to stand there and tell me you didn’t know?”

“Not completely, or altogether. It’s all just happened, and . . . No, I’m not an idiot, and I knew we were heading toward something. That. But then there’s this leap, and I’m flat-footed. Can’t keep up, can’t figure out how to deal with it, or what to say, and she’s so hurt, so hurt and pissed off she won’t give me a chance. She hardly ever gets mad. You know how she is. She hardly ever blows, and when she does, you don’t have a prayer.”

“Why did she blow?”

He went back for the beer, but still didn’t sit. “I had a pisser of a day, Del. I’m talking the kind of day that makes hell look like Disney World. I’m filthy and pissed off and have a motherfucker of a stress headache. I pull up, and she’s there. In the house.”

“I didn’t know you gave her a key. Major step for you, Cooke.”

“I didn’t. I hadn’t. She got it from Michelle.”

“Uh-oh. Infiltrated the front lines, did she?”

Jack stopped, stared. “Is that how I am? Come on.”

“It’s exactly how you are, with women.”

“And that makes me, what, a monster, a psycho?”

Del hitched a hip onto the deck rail. “No, a little phobic, maybe. So?”

“So, I’m filthy and my mood matches it, and she’s there. She’s made these pots for the deck. What are you laughing at?”

“Just imagining your shock and dismay.”

“Well, Jesus, she’s cooking, and there’s flowers, and the music’s blasting, and my head’s screaming. God, if I could rewind it, I would. I would. I’d never hurt her.”

“I know.”

“She’s hurt and pissed because . . . I’m being a prick. No question, but instead of having a fight, maybe yelling at each other for a while, clearing the air, it turns.” Because the headache wanted to bully its way back, Jack rubbed the cold bottle over his temple. “It turns and dives south. It’s how I don’t trust her, and she’s not welcome in my house. How she’s not going to settle. She’s in love with me, and she wants . . .”

“What does she want?”

“What do you think? Marriage, kids, the whole ball. I’m trying to keep up, trying to keep my head from just blasting off my shoulders and
think
, but she won’t give me time. She won’t let me deal with what she just said. She’s done with me, with us. I broke her heart. She cried. She’s crying.”

Her face flashed back into his mind until he was sick with regret. “I just want her to sit down, to wait a minute, and sit down. Just until I can get my breath, until I can think. She won’t. She told me to stay away from her. I’d rather she’d shot me than look at me the way she did when she told me to stay away from her.”

“Is that it?” Del asked after a moment.

“That’s not enough?”

“I asked you once before, and you didn’t answer. I’ll ask you again. Yes or no this time. Are you in love with her?”

“Okay.” He took a long drink of beer. “Yes. I guess it took an ass-kicking to shake it out of me, but yes. I’m in love with her. But—”

“Do you want to fix it?”

“I just said I was in love with her. Why wouldn’t I want to fix it?”

“You want to know how?”

“Goddamn it, Del.” He drank again. “Yes, since you’re so fucking smart. How do I fix it?”

“Crawl.”

Jack blew out a breath. “I can do that.”