"Say yes."
"You're sure?"
"How well do you know me?"
Smiling, she blinked away tears. "Pretty well."
"Would I ask you to marry me if I wasn't sure?"
"No. No, you wouldn't. How well do you know me, Jack?"
"Pretty well."
She brought her lips to his, lingered through the joy. "Then you know my answer."
ON THE THIRD FLOOR TERRACE, THE THREE WOMEN STOOD watching, their arms around each other's waists. Behind them, Mrs. Grady sighed.
When Mac sniffled, Parker reached in her pocket for a pack of tissues. She handed one to Mac, to Laurel, to Mrs. Grady, then took one for herself.
"It's beautiful," Mac managed. "They're beautiful. Look at the light, the silver cast to the light, and the shadows of the flowers, the gleam of them, and the silhouette Emma and Jack make."
"You're thinking in pictures." Laurel wiped her eyes. "That's serious romance there."
"Not just pictures. Moments. That's Emma's moment. Her blue butterfly. We probably shouldn't be watching. If they see us, it'll spoil it."
"They can't see anything but each other." Parker took Mac's hand, then Laurel's, and smiled when she felt Mrs. Grady's rest on her shoulder.
The moment was just as it should be.
So they watched as Emma danced in the soft June night, in the moonlight, in the garden, with the man she loved.
KEEP READING FOR A SPECIAL PREVIEW OF THE NEXT BOOK IN THE BRIDE QUARTET BY NORA ROBERTS
SAVOR the MOMENT
COMING IN MAY 2010
FROM BERKLEY BOOKS
PROLOGUE
AS THE CLOCK TICKED DOWN ON HER SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH school, Laurel McBane learned one indisputable fact.
Prom was hell.
For weeks all anyone wanted to talk about was who might ask who, who did ask who-and who asked some other who, thereby inciting misery and hysteria.
Girls, to her mind, suffered an agony of suspense and an embarrassing passivity during prom season. The halls, classrooms, and quad throbbed with emotion running the gamut from giddy euphoric-because some guy asked them to some overhyped dance-to bitter tears-because some guy didn't.
The entire cycle revolved around "some guy," a condition she believed both stupid and demoralizing.
And after that, the hysteria continued, even escalated, with the hunt for a dress, for shoes; the intense debate about updos versus down-dos. Limos, after parties, hotel suites-the yes, no, maybe of sex.
She would have skipped the whole thing if her friends, especially Parker Right-of-Passage Brown, hadn't ganged up on her.
Now her savings account-all those hard-earned dollars and cents from countless hours waiting tables-reeled in shock at the withdrawals for a dress she'd probably never wear again, for the shoes, the bag, and all the rest.
She could lay all that on her friends' heads, too. She'd gotten caught up shopping with Parker, Emmaline, and Mackensie, and spent more than she should have.
The idea, gently broached by Emma, of asking her parents to spring for the dress wasn't an option, not to Laurel's mind. A point of pride, maybe, but money in the McBane household had become a very sore subject since her father's dicey investments fiasco and the little matter of the IRS audit.
No way she'd ask either of them. She earned her own money, and had for several years now.
She told herself it didn't matter. She didn't have close to enough saved for the tuition for the Culinary Institute, or for the living expenses in New York, despite the hours she'd put in after school and on weekends at the restaurant. The cost of looking great for one night didn't change that one way or the other and-and what the hell, she did look great.
She fixed on her earrings while across the room-Parker's bedroom-Parker and Emma experimented with ways to prom-up the hair Mac had impulsively hacked off to resemble what Laurel thought of as Julius Caesar takes the Rubicon. They tried various pins, sparkle dust, and jeweled clips in what was left of Mac's flame-red hair while the three of them talked nonstop, and Aerosmith rocked out of the CD player.
She liked listening to them like this, when she was a little bit apart. Maybe especially now, when she felt a little bit apart. They'd been friends all their lives, and now, rite of passage or not, things were changing. In the fall Parker and Emma would head off to college. Mac would be working and squeezing in a few courses on photography.
And with the dream of the Culinary Institute poofed due to finances and her parents' most recent marital implosion, she'd settle for community college part-time. Business courses, she supposed. She'd have to be practical. Realistic.