“Aw.” Rising, Mac dashed over to grab Mrs. Grady in a rib-crusher. “Okay, Laurel.”

“Uh-uh.”

Mac snorted at Laurel’s reaction.“You’re a hardass when I need one, a friend through thick and thin.When I’m stupid, you tell me, but you never hold it against me.”

“That’s a good summing up.” Laurel laughed her way through Mac’s hug.

“Emma.Always a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on. You find a way to see the rainbow in the storm, and that’s gotten me through a lot of storms.”

“Lots more rainbows for you, sweetie.” Emma hugged Mac hard.

“And Parker.” Mac scrubbed her hands over her damp cheeks. “Never once in my life have you let me down. Let any of us down. You’re the one who gave us family, gave us home, the one who opened us up to what we could do, who we can be.”

“Mac.” Parker got to her feet, laid her hands on Mac’s teary cheeks. “We gave each other family, and home.”

“We did. But it started with you.” On a sigh, Mac wrapped her arms around Parker, laid her head on Parker’s shoulder. “I know I’m buzzed, but I wish everybody everywhere could feel as happy, as loved, as right as I do this minute.”

“After that, I think we do at least. So that’s a start.”

It was nearly midnight when everyone was tucked into bed, and the party debris cleared. Still revved from success, feeling sentimental about Mac’s sweet, half-drunken speech, Parker wandered through the house, doing a final check.

Home, she thought. Their home, as Mac had said. Not just what had been passed down for generations—though that was the base—but what they’d made it. Just as her parents had made it their own, adding touches, living lives.

People would always call it the Brown Estate, she reflected, but those who lived there knew it was so much more.

Maybe one day she’d be able to share it, build on it, with the man she loved.

That, she knew, remained the underpinning of all her dreams, her goals, her ambitions.To love, be loved, to share, to build on that love and partnership something strong and lasting.

She could be successful without it. She could be content without it. But she understood herself well enough to know she’d never feel complete, never feel fully happy, without that loving partnership.

She believed, absolutely, in the power and the strength of love, the promises made, the endurance of commitment.Weddings were a celebration of that, a kind of show full of symbols and traditions. But, at the core it was the vows, the promises, the emotional knot tied between two people believing it would hold for a lifetime that mattered.

And she’d come to understand, was well on her way to accepting, that Malcolm was the partner she wanted for those promises, for that lifetime.

Still, she mused, partnership required that sharing, a depth of trust, a knowing. There were still so many places and pieces in him he shaded, or even closed off from her.

How could that underpinning hold, for either of them, if parts of him remained locked down?

Restless, she adjusted a pillow on the sofa. Maybe she asked for, maybe she expected, too much too soon. But Malcolm wasn’t the only one who wanted to know how things worked, and why.

She caught the flash of headlights against the window glass, frowned. Moving closer, she recognized Malcolm’s car and, delighted—it was as if she’d conjured him—went to open the front door.

“It’s late,” he said as he stepped into the portico, skimmed his fingers through rain-dampened hair.

“That’s all right. Come in. It’s cold and wet out there.”

“I saw some lights on, so I figured you might be up.”

“You figured right.” Something’s wrong, she realized as she scanned his face, saw the tension in it.“We just finished cleaning up.”

“Right. Right. How did it go? The thing?”

“It was great.” He didn’t move to touch her, to kiss her. She leaned in, brushed her lips over his in as much comfort as greeting. “Start to finish.”

“Good.”

He wandered the foyer, obviously restless.

Tell me what’s wrong, she thought. She could all but see the barrier between them, hated pushing at it. “Malcolm—”

“Got a beer?”

“Sure.” Give him a little time, she told herself as she led the way back toward the kitchen. “I guess you had a long night. Did you get everything done you’d wanted to?”

“No. I made a dent in it, but something else came up.”

She got out a beer, started to get out a glass.

“Bottle’s fine.” He popped the top, but didn’t drink.

How could she not know how to handle this—him—she wondered, when she always knew? “Do you want something to eat? We have leftovers from the party, or Mrs. G’s—”

“No. I’m good.”

No, she thought as he wandered the kitchen, he wasn’t.

Enough, she decided. Just enough. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I had things to do. After I did them, I didn’t feel like going home so I took a chance you’d still be up.You were.” He lifted the beer now, but after a single sip set it down. “Since you are, maybe I can talk you into bed.”

Frustration and disappointment mixed uneasily with resentment. “If I thought you’d come by for a beer and sex, I might be amenable. Since I don’t, no, you can’t talk me into bed.”

“It was worth a shot. I’ll get going.”

And now anger sifted into the mix. Her eyes flashed as he started out.“Do you think you can come here, knock on the door, then turn around and go when you don’t get what you want on your terms?”

His face remained calm—neutral, she thought—and she imagined he’d wear that same expression playing poker.

“I don’t remember laying out any terms. The mood’s wrong, so I’m going home.We can both catch a few hours’ sleep.”

“Oh yes, that’ll work now that you’ve annoyed and upset me.”

He stopped, dragged a hand through his hair. “Sorry. That wasn’t the plan. I should’ve gone home in the first place.”

“Maybe you should have, since you seem to feel our relationship shouldn’t involve any sort of confidences on your side, or expression of actual feelings.”

Neutral shifted, lightning speed, to annoyance.“That’s bullshit.”

“Don’t tell me what bullshit is when I’m looking at it. You know the way out,” she added, and started by him.

When he grabbed her arm, frostbite burned his fingers.

“Look, bad night, that’s all. Bad night, shitty mood. I shouldn’t have brought them over here.”

“You’re absolutely right.” She shoved his hand away. “Take them home with you.”

She stalked over, poured the beer down the sink.

When she glanced back, she was alone. She felt the jab right under the heart.

“Well,” she mumbled, and carefully rinsed out the bottle. “Okay then. All right.This isn’t going to work for me.”

She imagined heaving the bottle against the wall, hearing the glass shatter. But, she admitted, that didn’t work for her either, so she took it to the recycle bin.

Switching off lights, checking locks, she made her way back through the house, walked upstairs to her wing.

In the bedroom, she undressed, put her shoes away, placed the clothes in the proper hampers before slipping into her oldest and most comforting pajamas.

She completed her bedtime routine, every step.

Then lay angry, miserable, and awake through the night.

“

WE DIDN’T HAVE A FIGHT.” PARKER PUSHED THROUGH HER SECOND mile in the gym. “What we have is an impasse.”

“It sounds like a fight to me,” Laurel said.

“A fight is where you argue, or shout, or say inappropriate things.This wasn’t a fight.”

“He left.You’re mad.Those are also elements of a fight.”

“Fine, have it your way,” Parker snapped. “We fought our way to the impasse.”

“He was stupid.”

“At last, we fully agree.”

“He was stupid,” Laurel continued, “to come over here at midnight when something was bothering him if he didn’t intend to tell you what was bothering him. And stupider to leave when you told him to leave because anyone who knows you understands you expected him to argue with you until you broke him down and he told you what was bothering him.”

With a nod, Parker grabbed her water bottle and chugged.

“Then again, he hasn’t known you as long as I have, so it’s possible he took ‘go home’ as just ‘go home.’”

A wet fist of tears clogged her chest. Parker pushed through them as she pushed through the next mile.“I can’t be with someone who won’t talk to me, who can’t be intimate with me except physically.”

“No, you can’t. But intimacy, the real kind, is harder for some than others. I’m not defending him,” Laurel added. “I’m assessing and extrapolating. I’m being you, since you’re too upset to be you.”

“Then I must be annoying. I’m sorry,” she said instantly, and stepped off the machine.“I’m sorry. I didn’t get any sleep, and I’m feeling mean.”

“It’s okay. Sometimes you are annoying.”

With a miserable half laugh, Parker grabbed a towel. “Yeah, I am. I’m annoying myself right now.” Burying her face in the towel, she scrubbed hard. Then just held it there when Laurel’s arms came around her.

“I don’t want to cry because it’s stupid to cry about this. I’d rather be annoying than stupid.”

“You’re not being either, and you know I’d tell you if you were.”

“I can count on you,” Parker said, and taking a steadying breath, lowered the towel.

“You’re pissed off, frustrated, sad, and really tired. So, take a few hours, get some rest. I can take anything that comes in. If I can’t, I’ll tap Emma and Mac.”

“Maybe I’ll take an hour. Go outside, take a walk, clear my head.”