Vision in White (Bride Quartet #1)(75)

"You have a good feeling about pretty much everything. If that's it, I have a mountain of work."

"Almost," Parker said as Mac started to rise. "What hurts, Mac?"

"My feet mostly."

"You might as well spill." Laurel chose a finger sandwich. "It's three against one."

"It's nothing. And I don't see why we have to gush every time one of us has a mood."

"We're girls," Emma reminded her. "Your mother has your car."

"Yes, my mother has my car. She ambushed me this morning. I'm irritated. I'll be irritated when she decides to bring it back, certainly out of gas, probably with a dent in the fender. End of story."

"I know when you're irritated." Parker tucked up her legs. "That's not what you were today."

"It's what I am now."

"Because that's the least of it. Carter was there when she ambushed you, wasn't he?"

"She came on to him, the way she does with anything that has a penis. Can you imagine how embarrassing that was?"

"Was he upset?" Emma asked.

"About her?" She pushed up to walk back to the window. "I don't know, I'm not sure. I was too busy being mortified to notice. So I gave her the keys to get her out."

"I won't ask what she wanted your car for." Laurel poured out a cup of tea. "What difference does it make? What I'm wondering is why you're upset with Carter."

"I'm not. I'm upset with myself. For letting it happen, for letting it get this far, and not thinking, not staying anywhere close to Planet Reality."

"You're not talking about Scary Linda now," Laurel concluded.



       
         
       
        

"Oh, Mac." Emma's eyes darkened in sympathy. "You had a fight with Carter."

"No. Yes. No." Frustrated, Mac spun around. "You can't have a fight with someone like him. People in a fight yell, or storm around. They say things they regret later. That's why they call them fights. All he can do is be reasonable."

"Damn the man," Laurel stated and earned a vicious glare.

"You try it. You try to make someone like Carter understand you've taken the wrong direction and have everything you say bounce off the wall of calm logic."

"You broke up with him." From the tone, Emma's sympathy took a sharp turn toward Carter.

"I don't know what I did. Besides, how can you break up with someone when you haven't said you're together? Officially. It's me, it's my fault, and he won't even listen to that. I know I let it go too far. I got caught up, swept up. Something. And when my mother walked in this morning, it was a solid slap back to reality."

"You're going to let her push your buttons on this?" Parker demanded.

"No. It's not like that." Mac spoke fiercely because part of her worried it was like that. Exactly like that. "I don't want to hurt him. That's what it comes down to. He thinks he's in love with me."

"Thinks?" Laurel repeated. "Can't be?"

"He's romanticized it. Me. Everything."

"This would be the same man who can only be reasonable. The calm wall of logic." Lips pursed, Parker tilted her head. "But about you he's stuck in fantasy?"

"He can have layers," Mac argued, suddenly feeling tired and defeated.

"I think the question on the table should be not how Carter feels or doesn't feel about you, but how you feel or don't about him. Are you in love with him, Mac?"

Mac stared at Parker. "I care about him. That's the point."

"I call evasion," Laurel said. "It's a question that can be answered yes or no."

"I don't know! I don't know what to do with all these feelings crammed inside me. He walks into my life, smacks his head into the wall, and I'm the one who's dizzy. You said he wasn't my type, right off the bat you said that. And you were right."

"Actually, I think that's one of the rare times I've been wrong. But you have to decide that for yourself. What'll piss me off, Mac, what'll disappoint is if you use Linda as your yardstick when it comes to love. Because she doesn't even rate a measure."

"I need some time, that's all. I need time to find my balance, my rhythm. I can't seem to find either when I'm around him." 

"Then take it," Parker advised. "Be sure."

"I will. I have to be."

"One thing. If he loves you, I'm on his side."





KATHRYN SEAMAN ARRIVED WITH HER DAUGHTER JESSICA AT exactly ten Monday morning. It was the sort of punctuality, Mac knew, that would warm Parker's efficient heart. But she found it just a little scary.