by Nora Roberts
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.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
HE STARTED CRAWLING IN THE MORNING. HE HAD THE SPEECH he’d edited, revised, and expanded most of the night in his head. The trick, as far as he could tell, would be getting her to listen to him.
She’d listen, he told himself as he turned into the Brown Estate. She was Emma. No one was more kind, more open-hearted, than Emma—and wasn’t that only one of the dozens of reasons he loved her?
He’d been an idiot, but she’d forgive him. She had to forgive him because . . . she was Emma.
Still his stomach clutched when he saw her car parked at the main house. She hadn’t gone home.
He wouldn’t just be facing her, he thought with genuine, back-sweating fear, but all of them. The four of them, with Mrs. Grady for backup.
They’d roast his balls.
He deserved it, no question. But, dear God, did it have to be the four of them? Fucking A.
“Strap it on, Cooke,” he muttered, and got out of the truck.
As he walked to the door, he wondered if the condemned walking the last mile experienced this same feeling of doom and dull terror.
“Get a grip, get a freaking grip. They can’t kill you.”
Maim possibly, verbally assault most definitely. But they couldn’t kill him.
He started to open the door out of habit, then realized as a persona non grata he wasn’t entitled. He rang the bell.
He thought he could get around Mrs. G. She liked him—really liked him. He could throw himself on her mercy, then . . .
Parker answered. No one, he thought, absolutely no one got around Parker Brown.
“Uh,” he said.
“Hello, Jack.”
“I want—need—to see Emma. To apologize for . . . everything. If I could talk to her for a few minutes and—”
“No.”
Such a small word, he thought, so coolly delivered. “Parker, I just want to—”
“No, Jack. She’s sleeping.”
“I can come back, or wait, or—”
“No.”
“Is that all you’re going to say to me? Just no?”
“No,” she said again without any hint of irony or humor. “It’s not all we’re going to say.”
Mac and Laurel stepped up behind her. As battle plans went, he had to admit it was superior. No choice but surrender.
“Whatever you’re going to say, I deserve. You want me to say I was wrong? I was wrong. That I was an idiot? I was. That—”
“I was thinking more along the lines of selfish prick,” Laurel commented.
“That, too. Maybe there were reasons, maybe there were circumstances, but they don’t matter. Certainly not to you.”
“They really don’t.” Mac eased forward a step. “Not when you hurt the best person we know.”
“I can’t fix it, I can’t make up for it if you don’t let me talk to her.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you. She doesn’t want to see you,” Parker said. “Not now. I can’t say I’m sorry you’re hurting, too. I can see you are, but I can’t say I’m sorry for it. Not now. Now, this is about Emma, not about you. She needs time, and she needs you to leave her alone. So that’s what you’re going to do.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Parker, if you’d just listen—”
“No.”
As he stared at her, Carter started down the hall from the kitchen. Carter shot him one brief, sympathetic look, then turned around and walked back again.
So much for male solidarity.
“You can’t just close the door.”
“I can, and I will. But I’ll give you something first, because I love you, Jack.”
“Oh God, Parker.” Why not just roast his balls? he thought. It couldn’t be more painful.
“I love you. You’re not just like a brother to me, you are a brother to me. To us. So, I’ll give you something. I’ll forgive you eventually.”
“I’m not on board with that,” Laurel told him. “I have reservations.”
“I’ll forgive you,” Parker continued, “and we’ll be friends again. But more importantly, Emma will forgive you. She’ll find a way. Until she does, until she’s ready, you’re going to leave her alone. You’re not going to call her, or contact her, or try to see her. We’re not going to tell her you came here this morning, unless she asks. We won’t lie to her.”
“You can’t come here, Jack.” The slightest hint of sympathy eked into Mac’s voice. “If there’s any problem or question with the work on the studio, we’ll handle it by phone. But you can’t come here until Emma’s okay with it.”
“How are you supposed to know when that is?” he demanded. “Is she just going to say, ‘Hey, I’m okay if Jack comes around’?”
“We’ll know,” Laurel said simply.
“If you care about her, you’ll give her all the time she needs. I need your word.”
He dragged a hand through his hair as Parker waited. “All right. You, all of you, know her better than anyone. You say this is what she needs, okay, it’s what she needs. You’ve got my word I’ll leave her alone until . . . until.”
“And, Jack,” Parker added, “you’ll take that time for yourself, too. Time to think about what you really want, really need. I want your word on one more thing.”
“Want me to sign in blood?”
“A promise will do. When she’s ready, I’ll call you. I’ll do that for you—and for her—but only if you promise to come here and talk to me before you go to her.”
“All right. I promise. Can you just get in touch once in a while, let me know how she is? What she’s—”
“No. Good-bye, Jack.” Parker closed the door, quietly, in his face.
On the other side of the door, Mac heaved out a breath. “It’s not being disloyal to say I have to feel a little bit sorry for him. I know what it’s like to be a complete jerk about this kind of thing. Having someone love you and being an ass.”
Laurel nodded. “Yeah, you do. Take a minute to feel a little bit sorry for him.” She waited, glanced at her watch. “Done?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“I guess I’ll take a minute, too, because the guy looked rough.” Laurel glanced toward the steps. “But she’s had it rougher. We should go check on her.”
“I will. I think we need to stick to routine as much as we can,” Parker added. “She’ll only feel worse if things get too backed up, if it affects the business. So for now, we work—and if we do get backed up or hit snags, let’s try to keep her out of it until she’s steadier.”
“If we need an extra hand with anything, we can ask Carter. My guy is the best.”
“Do you ever get tired of bragging about that?” Laurel asked Mac.
Mac considered. “Really don’t.” She slung an arm around Laurel’s shoulders. “I guess that’s why I feel a little bit for Jack, and a whole lot for Emma. Love can really screw you up before you figure out how to live with it. And once you do? You wonder how the hell you ever lived without it. I think I need to go give Carter a real kick-in-the-ass kiss. I’ll check back in this afternoon,” Mac added as she started toward the kitchen. “Call if she needs me sooner.”
“ ‘Love can really screw you up before you figure out how to live with it.’ ” Laurel pursed her lips. “You know, we could put that on the web page.”
“It has a ring.”
“She’s right about Carter. He’s the best. But that man is not coming in my kitchen when I’m working. I don’t want to have to hurt him, Parker. Let me know if Em needs another shoulder, or you need a soldier on the front line of the bride wars.”
With a nod, Parker started up the steps.
UPSTAIRS, EMMA ORDERED HERSELF TO GET OUT OF BED, TO stop lying there feeling sorry for herself. Instead, she hugged a pillow close and stared at the ceiling.
Her friends had drawn the curtains over the windows so the room would stay dark and quiet. They’d tucked her in like an invalid, with extra pillows, a vase of freesia on the nightstand. They’d sat with her until she’d slept.
She should be ashamed, she told herself. Ashamed of being so needy, so weak. But she could only be grateful they’d been there, they’d understood what she’d needed.
But now it was another day. She needed to move on, needed to deal with reality. Broken hearts healed. Maybe the cracks were always there, like thin scars, but they healed. People lived and worked, laughed and ate, walked and talked with those cracks.
For many, even the scars healed and they loved again.
But how many of those people had the one who’d broken their heart so entrenched in their life that they had to see him over and over again? For how many was that person like a thread that was so woven into the tapestry of their every day that to pull it out meant everything else unraveled?
She didn’t have the option of shutting Jack outside the structure of her life. Of not seeing him again, or only seeing him at specified times.
That was why office romances were so fraught with pitfalls, she decided. When they went bad, you had to face the pain every day. Nine to five, five days a week. Or you quit, you transferred, moved to another city. You escaped so you could heal and go on.
Not an option for her because . . .
Jamaica. Adele’s offer.
Not just another office, another city, but another country. A completely fresh start. She could continue to do the work she loved, but be a new person. No complicated relationships, no interwoven ties. No Jack to face whenever he dropped by the house, or whenever they happened to be in the market at the same time. Invited to the same party.
No looks of sympathy from the scores of people who’d know she had those cracks on her heart.
She could do good work. All those tropical flowers. A perpetual spring and summer. A little house on the beach, maybe, where she could listen to the waves every night.
Alone.
She shifted when she heard the door ease open.
“I’m awake.”
“Coffee.” Parker crossed to the bed, offered the cup and saucer. “I brought it just in case.”
“Thanks. Thanks, Parker.”
“How about some breakfast?” Moving briskly now, Parker walked over to open the drapes, let in the light.
“Just not hungry.”
“Okay.” Parker sat on the side of the bed, brushed the hair back from Emma’s cheek. “Did you sleep?”
“I did, actually. I guess it was an escape route, and I took it. I feel sort of musty and dull now. And stupid. I’m not suffering from some fatal disease. I don’t have broken bones or internal bleeding. No one died, for God’s sake. And I can’t even talk myself into getting out of bed.”
“It’s been less than a day.”
“You’re going to tell me to give myself time. It’ll get better.”
“It will. Some people say divorce can be like death. I think that’s true. And I think something like this, when the love is so big, so deep, it’s the same.” Parker’s eyes, warm and blue, radiated sympathy. “There has to be grief.”
“Why can’t I just be mad? Why can’t I just be pissed off? The son of a bitch, the bastard, whatever. Can’t I skip off the grief part and just hate him? We can all go out, get drunk, and trash him?”
“Not you, Emma. If I thought you could do it, if I thought it would help, we’d blow off the day, get drunk, and start the trashing right now.”
“You would.” Finding a smile, finally, Emma sat back against the pillows and studied her friend’s face. “You know what I was lying here in my ocean of self-pity thinking right before you came in?”
“What?”
“That I should take Adel
e’s offer. I could go to Jamaica, relocate, help her launch her business. I’d be good at it. I know how to set it up, handle the reins. Or at least find the right people to handle the various reins. It would be a fresh start for me, and I could make it work. I could make it shine.”
“You could.” Rising, Parker walked to the window again, adjusted the curtains. “It’s a big decision to make, especially when you’re in emotional upheaval.”
“I’ve been asking myself how, for God’s sake, how can I deal with seeing Jack all the time? Here, in town, at events. He’s invited to one of our events every month or so. We all know so many of the same people, our lives are so interlinked. Even when I get to the point where I can think about him, about us, without . . .”
She had to pause, dig for control. “Without wanting to cry, how can I handle all of that? I knew it could be this way, I knew it going in, but . . .”
“But.” Parker nodded, turned back.
“So I was lying here imagining taking the offer, starting fresh, building something new. The beach, the weather, a new challenge to focus on. I considered it for about five minutes. No, probably closer to three. This is home, this is family, this is you, this is us. This is me. So I’ll have to figure out how to deal with it.”
“I can be really pissed off at him for bringing you to the point you’d have considered that for even three minutes.”
“But if I’d decided it was best for me, you’d have let me go.”
“I’d have tried to talk you out of it. I’d have done spreadsheets, bullet points, graphs, charts, and many, many lists. With a DVD.”
Tears spilled over again. “I love you so much, Parker.”
Parker sat again, wrapped her arms around Emma and held tight.
“I’m going to get up, take a shower, get dressed. I’m going to start figuring out how to deal with it.”
“Okay.”
SHE GOT THROUGH THE DAY, AND THE NEXT. SHE BUILT ARRANGEMENTS, created bouquets, met with clients. She cried, and when her mother came by to be with her, she cried some more. But she dried the tears, and got through the day.
She dealt with crises, managed to handle her team’s spoken and unspoken sympathy when they dressed an event. She watched brides carrying her flowers walk to the men they loved.
