“Well, on the last part, I’d say that makes us sisters under the skin, except ... eww.” Her knees shook. She had to lock them to stay steady. “I’m going to ask you one more time to leave, then I’m going to make you. So I really hope you don’t listen.”

“There’s nothing here that interests me.” With another toss of her head, Linda strode to her car, then slid behind the wheel. “People are laughing at you.” She turned the key, fired the engine.

“They’ll laugh harder when he’s finished with you.” She gunned the engine, then drove off with her blond hair flying.

Laurel no longer felt like a swim, or a glass of champagne. She no longer felt like a summer cookout with friends. She stood where she was, making sure Linda kept going, turned onto the road, and sped off in her flashy car.

Her head ached now, and in her belly swam a vague sickness. She’d lie down, sleep it off, she told herself. Nothing that woman said meant anything.

Goddamn it.

Realizing she was very close to tears, she struggled to bear down and started back to the house. She had gone no more than a dozen steps when Emma hailed her. And Laurel squeezed her eyes tight, made herself breathe in hopes that the threat of tears wouldn’t show.

“God, it’s hot! I love it.” Emma threw out her arms. “Summer is my friend. I thought I’d never get done so I could take a break out- What’s wrong?” The minute she saw Laurel’s face, Emma’s smile faded. She quickened her pace, and reached out to take Laurel’s hand. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Just a headache. I was just going in to take something and lie down until it’s gone.”

“Uh-uh.” Eyes dark with concern, Emma took a long study. “I know that face. Not just a headache.You’re upset.”

“I’m upset I have a headache.”

Emma merely shifted until her arm looped around Laurel’s waist. “Then we’ll walk over to the house together, and I’ll badger you until you tell me what happened to give you a headache.”

“For God’s sake, Emma, everybody gets headaches. That’s why they make headache pills. Go fuss over your flowers instead of me. It’s irritating.”

“As if that’s going to work.” Ignoring Laurel’s bad-tempered shrug, Emma kept her arm in place and matched Laurel’s pace. “Did you have a fight with Del?”

“No. And my moods, aches, days, nights, my

life doesn’t revolve exclusively around Delaney Brown.”

“Um-hmm, something or someone else then.You might as well tell me. You know I won’t leave you alone until you do. Don’t make me have to rough you up to get it out of you.”

Laurel nearly laughed, but sighed instead. When Emma thought a friend was hurting, she’d stick like glue. “I just had a run-in with Scary Linda, that’s all. She’d give anyone a headache.”

“She was here?” Emma stopped in her tracks, looked over toward Mac’s studio. “Mac and Carter are gone, right?”

“Yeah. When I spotted Linda it didn’t look like that was going to stop her from walking right in.”

“It wouldn’t. She actually had the nerve to come here after Parker told her, flat-out, not to? Did Parker—?”

“Parker’s at a meeting.”

“Oh. So just you. I wish I’d come out before, then she’d know the true wrath of Emmaline.”

Which, when roused, Laurel thought, was considerable—if only because it was rare. “I got rid of her.”

“Yeah, but it obviously upset you.You’re going to sit out on the terrace in the shade while I get you some aspirin and a cold drink. Then you’re going to tell me exactly what happened.”

She could argue, but not only would it be useless, it would make the entire business more important than it was. Or should be.

“I want the sun.”

“Fine, you’ll sit in the sun. Crap, is the crew still here?”

“No, they left a while ago.”

“Good, then it’ll be quiet. I didn’t appreciate enough how Mac and Carter dealt with the whole ‘life in a construction zone’ thing until they started work on my place, and your mudroom. Former mudroom. Here, sit down.”

Laurel did what she was told as Emma hurried into the house. At least letting Emma fuss with aspirin and drinks would give Laurel time to smooth herself out. She told herself to consider the source, reminded herself that Linda loved creating upheaval and was particularly skilled at creating it when thwarted.

It didn’t help.

She sat and brooded until Emma came out with a pretty tray of iced tea and cookies.

“I raided your supply,” Emma said. “Cookies are called for.” She passed Laurel the bottle of aspirin. “Take two, then spill it.”

“I had a really good consult. Sherry and Nick.”

“They’re so cute together.”

“And so damn happy. They really put me in a terrific mood. I was actually walking down to your place, to see if you wanted to take a swim and tap into the champagne I’d opened for the consult when I saw Linda about to walk into Mac’s.”

“There goes the terrific mood—and my champagne.”

“Yeah. She started off the way she usually does. Big smile, all innocence.Just popping in since she’d come in to see some friends.” Laurel picked up a cookie, nibbling a little as she continued the story.

“You told her you’d knock her on her ass?” Emma interrupted, with relish. “Oh, I wish I’d been there. I really do. What did she say?”

“Basically, that I had no say around here, how I’m here on Parker’s sufferance—”

“What bullshit.”

“She jabbed me about my parents. I’m hard and cold like my mother, and that’s why my cheating father slept with her—among others.”

“Oh, honey.”

“I always figured he’d probably had a spin with Linda—basically every cheating husband in the county has—but ...”

“It hurts,” Emma murmured.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it hurts. I think it just pisses me off, and disappoints me. Which is stupid, considering.”

“But it’s Linda.”

“Yeah.” There was nothing more precious than a friend who understood exactly. “I shrugged it off. No way was she going to get a rise out of me on that score. So, I had to give it back to her, and told her to get gone again, or I’d make her.”

“Good for you.”

“Then she hit me with Del.”

“What do you mean?”

“How everyone’s talking about me and Del, how they’re laughing at me, how he’d never be serious about someone like me. I’m not in his class—the Brown class.”

“Vicious bitch.” Emma’s hand fisted. “I’d like to punch her. You are not going to tell me you bought one word of that, or I’ll have to punch

you.”

“Now I’m terrified.” Laurel sighed again. “It’s not a matter of buying it, Emma. I know the kind of person she is, and it’s just how she thinks. And I know even if she didn’t think it, she’d say it to slap at me. But the fact is ... The fact is, he’s Delaney Brown, so people are talking, and speculating, and some of them probably are getting a laugh out of it.”

“So what if they are?”

“I know, and I tell myself the same.” She hated,

hated that the tears burned again, and this time filled, this time spilled. “Most of the time I feel just that way. So what? But other times ...”

“It’s insulting to Del as much as you.”

“Maybe. We’ve never really talked about if we’re serious, or if we’re looking to make what we have long-term. It’s really just about the moment. Most of the time I’m good with that, fine with it, because the moments are really good. But other times ...”

“Do you think he’s with you just because you’re available?”

“No.” She brushed impatiently at the tears. “No, of course I don’t.”

“Do you think it’s just about the sex for him?”

“No.”

“Or that he’s given a single thought to the fact that your last name doesn’t have the same cachet as his?”

Laurel shook her head. “Emma, I know when I’m being stupid, but even knowing it doesn’t always stop someone from being stupid. I wish I didn’t have this vulnerable spot, and God knows I wish I hadn’t let Linda poke her sharp stick right into it. But it’s there.”

“We’ve all got them.” Emma covered Laurel’s hand with hers. “Especially when we love somebody. That’s why we need girlfriends.”

“She made me cry. How weak is that? I would’ve gone up to my room and blubbered over it if you hadn’t stopped me. When I think of how frustrated I’d get with Mac when she’d let Linda push her around emotionally.” She blew out a breath.

“The woman’s poison.”

“Damn right, she is. Well, at least I kicked her off the estate.”

“It’s my turn next time.You, Parker, and Mac have all had yours. I want a shot.”

“Only fair. Thanks, Emma.”

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah, I feel better.”

“Let’s go take that swim.”

“Okay.” Laurel nodded briskly. “Okay, let’s go drown my pity party.”


LATER, STEADIER, SHE SETTLED DOWN IN HER OFFICE. HER PAPERWORK could use some attention, she decided, and since she had some time on her hands, it might as well get it.

She took care of her filing, invoicing, bills, with Bon Jovi for company. Then shifted over to check out some of her suppliers’ websites.

She needed more pastry bags, cake boxes, pastry boxes, maybe some new transfer sheets. Liners, she thought, and paper doilies. After dealing with the necessities, she started to study tools and display items she really didn’t need—but might be fun to play with.

Icing at Vows’ budget could handle a few toys, she decided. Plus she could use some new crimpers, some new chocolate molds, and God, she really wanted that double guitar cutter.

Her practical side made her sit back, stew over the price. But when they finished with her new storage area, she’d have room for the bigger cutter. It would be practical, really. She’d be able to cut twice as many petit fours, chocolates, ganaches as she could now. And it had four frames.