“Jesus, Emma, I am committed. There’s no one else. There hasn’t been anyone else since I touched you.”

“It’s not about someone else. It’s about you and me. It’s about wanting me, but only on your terms, on your—your blueprint,” she said waving her hands in the air. “As long as we stick to that, no problem. But that’s not going to work for me anymore. It’s not going to work when I can’t pick up a quart of milk for you or leave a damn lipstick on your bathroom counter. Or give you some damn plants without pissing you off.”

“Milk? What milk? Jesus Christ, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s not going to work when cooking you a fucking meal is like a criminal act.” She snatched up the plate of scallops, tossed it into the sink with a crash of stoneware.

“Okay, that’s enough.”

“No, it isn’t enough.” She whirled, shoved him back with both hands as tears of anger and heartbreak clouded her eyes, thickened her voice. “And I’m not going to settle for what isn’t enough. I’m in love with you, and I want you to love me. I want a life with you. Marriage and babies and a future. So this? This isn’t enough, not nearly. It turns out you were right, Jack. Absolutely right. Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.”

“What? How? Wait.”

“But don’t worry, no need to run for the hills. I’m responsible for my own feelings, my own needs, my own choices. And I’m done here. I’m done with this.”

“Hold it.” He wondered his head didn’t explode. Maybe it already had. “Wait a damn minute so I can think.”

“Time’s up, thinking’s over. Don’t touch me now,” she warned when he started toward her. “Don’t even think about putting a hand on me. You had your chance. I’d have given you everything I had. If you’d needed more, I’d have found it, and given you that. It’s the way I love. It’s the only way I know how. But I can’t give where it’s not wanted and valued. Where I’m not.”

“Be pissed off.” He snapped it out. “Break dishes. But don’t stand there and tell me I don’t want you, don’t value you.”

“Not the way I want or need. And trying not to want, Jack? Trying not to love you the only way I know how to love? It’s breaking my heart.” She grabbed her bag. “Stay away from me.”

He slapped a hand on the screen door to stop her. “I want you to sit down. You’re not the only one with things to say.”

“I don’t care what you want. I’m done caring. I said stay away from me.”

She looked up at him then. It wasn’t temper or heat in her eyes. Those he would’ve ignored until they’d burned this out. But he had no power against her pain.

“Emma. Please.”

She only shook her head, and, pushing past him, ran to her car.


She didn’t know how she managed to dam the tears. She only knew she couldn’t see through them and she had to get home. She needed home. Her hands wanted to shake so she gripped the wheel tighter. Every breath hurt. How was that possible? How could the simple act of drawing breath burn? She heard herself moan, and pressed her lips together to hold back the next. It sounded like a wounded animal.

She wouldn’t let herself feel that. Not now. Not yet.

Ignoring the cheerful ringtones of her phone, she kept her eyes focused on the road.

The dam collapsed; the tears broke through when she turned into the drive. She swiped at them, a fast, impatient hand until she’d navigated along the curve, parked.

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.”