Happy Ever After

by Nora Roberts

  water bottle.“New steps, new risks. I like to think we’re tough enough and smart enough to risk taking those steps onto new ground.”

  “Well, when you put it that way.” Laurel blew out a breath. “What’ve we got to lose but ego if we suck at this?”

  “I choose optimism and not sucking,” Emma decided. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve already put together, Parker.”

  “I think it’s got real potential. Mac, I inserted some of the photos from our files that show your skill set, and with the shots of Emma’s and Laurel’s work, theirs. It gives the flavor, in visuals, of what we do.”

  “I’m somewhere between Laurel’s ego suck and Emma’s optimism. And from that position I really want to see the platform.”

  “Good. When everybody’s gone over it, when you’re ready, we’ll hash it out. Then when, and if, we’ll send it to the agent. If, again, we’re all agreed.”

  She let out a big breath. “And that’s that.”

  “I’d like Carter to look at it. English professor,” Mac added. “Aspiring novelist.”

  “Absolutely. He can also edit, adjust, and so on.That’s all I have. Anyone else have anything to discuss since we’re all here?”

  Emma shot up a hand. “I do. I want to know what’s going on with you and Malcolm.

  Really going on, with details.”

  “Seconded,” Laurel said.

  “And once again, unanimous.” Mac leaned over the table. “Come on, Parks, spill.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  PARKER SCANNED THE THREE FACES SURROUNDING HER. FRIENDS, she thought. Can’t live without them. Can’t tell them to mind their own business.

  At least not these friends.

  “What do you mean what’s going on? You know what’s going on. Malcolm and I are seeing each other, and when schedules and mood mesh, sleeping with each other.Would you like me to detail our sexual adventures?”

  “I would, but hold that for Girl Night,” Laurel advised. “One that includes lots of wine and Mrs. G’s pizza.”

  “Question A.” Mac held up a finger. “Is it mutual banging, an affair, or a relationship?”

  Knowing she was stalling, Parker rose to pour another cup of tea. “Why can’t it be all three?”

  “Okay, mutual banging is for fun and gratification. An affair is more in-depth, and something you may or may not think may lead to something else. But it’s generally what you have until the juice runs out or you move on.” Emma paused, glanced around the table for general agreement. “And a relationship is something you put effort into, it’s making and maintaining a connection.You can have elements of the first two in a relationship, but it’s more than the sum of those parts.”

  “She should do a talk show.” Laurel raised her cup in toast.“So, going by our resident expert, are you just having fun, are you considering there may be more, or are you making a connection?”

  Parker decided she wanted a petit four.“The problem with the three of you is you’re all in relationships, and more, you’re madly in love and about to get married. So you’re looking at me through that prism.”

  “Which not only avoids the question, but turns it so it’s invalid. And it’s not,” Mac insisted. “We tell each other how we feel. It’s what we do. Not telling us says to me that you’re still chewing on it, and maybe a little bit worried. Just not ready. That’s okay. We’ll wait until you are.”

  “That’s such a low blow.” Scowling, Parker bit into the pretty little cake.“We’ll wait—subtext—because we’re the good and true and loyal friends.”

  Mac took a cake for herself. “Did it work?”

  “Bitch.”

  “It worked.” Laurel smiled.“And only Emma feels any sense of guilt. She’ll get over it.”

  “It’s only a tiny bit of guilt, but I don’t think we should push Parker if she’s not ready to talk to us.”

  “You, too?”

  Emma lowered her gaze at Parker’s deadly stare.“They’re a bad influence.”

  “Fine. The simple answer is I don’t know what it is, exactly. I guess I am still chewing on it. It’s only been a few weeks. I like him. I’m enjoying him. He’s interesting and smart without any of those pompous or overpolished or self-satisfied aspects that, well, either irritate or bore me. He understands what it takes to run a business, and respects what I do, how I do it. I respect what he does, even if I don’t really know too many of the details of how he does it.You almost have to pry him open with a crowbar to get him to talk about himself.”

  “You have a whole toolbox of crowbars in various shapes, sizes, and colors,” Mac pointed out. “And you know how to use them so well people tell you everything.”

  “Apparently Malcolm’s not people. Under-the-surface details, I mean, which is frustrating because I want to say if it was a long time ago and no big deal—two of his default positions—then why not just tell me about it when it’s obvious I’d like to know? Instead, I back off because I think it probably is a big deal, and that’s why he won’t talk about it. Then he redirects the conversation, something he excels at, or makes me laugh, or we have sex, and I really don’t know much more than I did in the first place.

  “Plus, he’s cocky.” She swallowed a bite of petit four, gestured with the rest.“He’s got that attitude that shouldn’t be appealing, it just shouldn’t appeal to me at all, but at the same time he can be charming and just . . . just easy.And he looks at you—me—people, I don’t know. A lot of men don’t really look at you, but he does, so it’s like he’s not just taking in what you’re saying, but taking you in. And that’s powerful.”

  She grabbed another cake.“How was I supposed to know how much that combination of powerful and easy would get to me? Really, I couldn’t be expected to know.”

  “Hmm,” Laurel said, cutting her gaze to her two friends, hiking up her eyebrows.

  “Exactly.” Parker bit into the cake. “Conversely, he’ll interrupt me a half dozen times when I’m trying to make a point or argue a position, which makes it hard to stay on target. So, obviously I don’t know exactly what this is because he’s slippery. He’s slippery,” she repeated, and reached for another cake. “What?” she demanded as her friends stared at her.

  “You ate five petit fours,” Mac told her.“You’re going for six.”

  “I did not.” Shock hit when Parker looked at the plate. “Five? Well . . . they’re petite.”

  “Okay. Back away from the pastries.” Gently, Laurel took the cake out of Parker’s hand, set it on the plate, pushed the plate out of reach. “The problem is you’ve bottled that up, and once you popped the cork you instinctively fed the spew with sugar.”

  “Apparently.”

  “You’re in love with him,” Emma stated.

  “What? No.” Parker shook her head, said it dismissively. “No.” More firmly.Then just shut her eyes. “God. I think I probably am, but if I am, where’s the lift, the tingle, the glow? Why do I feel just a little bit sick.”

  “That’s probably the petit fours.” Mac glanced at Laurel. “No offense.”

  “None taken. They’re meant to be savored, not popped like candy corn.”

  “It’s not the petit fours.” Parker pressed a hand to her stomach. “Or maybe just a little. I don’t have my footing with him, not really.”

  “Which is harder on you than most,” Laurel commented. “Love can kick your ass.”

  “I always imagined it would be a kind of lifting, that everything got just a little better, and more . . . And more.”

  “It does,” Emma insisted. “It can. It will.”

  “But first it kicks your ass.” Mac smiled as she lifted her shoulders. “At least in my experience.”

  “I don’t like it. I like doing the ass kicking.”

  “Maybe you are, and don’t know it,” Emma suggested. “He might be feeling the same way you are. If you told him—”

  “Absolutely no way in any circle of hell.” Parker swiped a hand through the air as i
f to banish the very idea from the face of the planet. “Things are fine, they’re just fine. Besides, let him tell me something for a change. I feel better,” Parker insisted. “I should have vented or spewed or whatever I did before.We’re both enjoying ourselves, and I started overthinking it. It is whatever it is, and that’s just fine. I’ve got a client coming in.”

  As Mac started to speak, Emma squeezed her knee under the table. “Me, too. Hey, it’s poker night.Why don’t we have our version. Wine, pizza, movie?”

  “I’m in,” Laurel said.

  “Sounds good. Why don’t we—” Mac broke off as Parker’s phone rang.

  “Somebody run it by Mrs. G. If it’s okay with her, I’m all for it. I have to take this.” Rising, Parker clicked on the phone as she left the room. “Hi, Roni, what can I do for you?”

  She had to be grateful the call, the meeting with a client, two more calls, and an emergency consult with the caterer regarding last-minute menu changes took up her time and attention. She couldn’t overthink and obsess about Malcolm or her own feelings when she focused on the details, mini crises, and demands generated by clients.

  In any case, she told herself as she finally walked downstairs, she probably wasn’t in love with Malcolm. It was more likely a kind of infatuation blurred by an undeniable sexual haze.

  Infatuations were harmless and fun, and could be looked back on when the vision cleared with fondness, even amusement.

  Yes, she much preferred the infatuation theory.

  Lighter, steadier, she swung into the kitchen to confirm the proposed Girl Night with Mrs. Grady.

  “Mrs. G, did you . . .” She trailed off when she saw Malcolm at the breakfast nook.

  An old cloth protected the surface of the table, and on it were scattered various tools, various unidentifiable parts of what she assumed was the vacuum cleaner lying gutted on the floor.

  “On the phone,” he said, and jerked a thumb toward Mrs. Grady’s rooms.

  “I didn’t know you were here.” And that was another thing, wasn’t it? she thought. He so often gave her no time to plan, to prepare, to strategize. “What are you doing?”

  “I had a Porsche to baby out this way, so I dropped by. Mrs. G was about to haul this to the household appliance graveyard.” He shook his hair out of his eyes as he loosened a screw, or a bolt, or something that connected a thing to another thing.

  “I can fix it.”

  Parker walked a little closer. “You can?”

  “Probably. Worth a shot.” He tipped his head to smile at her. “It’s not as complicated as a Porsche.”

  “I suppose not, but how do you know where everything goes when—if—you put it back together?”

  “Because I took it apart.”

  She’d have made a list, Parker thought. Drawn a diagram. She watched him fiddle with what might’ve been a motor or part of one. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “According to Mrs. G, it started clunking.”

  “Clunking?”

  “Some clattering, too. You want a lesson in appliance repair, Legs? I can give you some basics, buy you some nice, pretty tools.”

  She looked, very deliberately, down her nose at him. “I have tools, thank you very much.”

  “Are they pink?”

  She flicked the side of his head, made him grin.“Those are my tools.”

  “Yeah? They’re good ones. Are you done for the day?”

  “Hopefully.” Look at his hands, she thought. Naturally she was infatuated. They were so competent, so sure. Just as they were when he put them on her. She took a step back, decided she’d go ahead and have a glass of wine now.

  “I thought it was poker night.”

  “It is. I’m heading over to Del’s later.”

  He hadn’t shaved, she noted, and there were tears and grease stains on his jeans. She supposed the dress code for poker was very, very casual.

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  He worked in relative silence while she poured herself some wine. Just a muttered curse, a hum of satisfaction now and then. His foot tapped as if to some inner tune, and his hair fell in a dark, disordered mass that made her fingers itch to get into it.

  Maybe she was a little in love with him, but that was as harmless as infatuation.Wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if she was planning the rest of her life around him, or with him.

  God, why couldn’t she just relax and keep it simple?

  “How’s that coming for you, Malcolm?” Mrs. Grady walked back in, winked at Parker.

  “I think I’ve got it.”

  “Well, once you’ve got that thing back together, you wash up. You can have some cookies and milk.”

  He glanced back at her, grinned. “Okay.”

  “It’s nice having a handyman around the house.We’ve been a household of women for some time now. Not that we don’t muddle through, but the next time one of the washers gives me grief, I know who to call.”

  “

  One of the washers?”

  “We’ve a utility room with a set on every floor.”

  “Convenient.” He cocked a brow at Parker. “And efficient.”

  “It is that. I’m going out with some of the girls tonight. I’ll see to your pizza before I leave,” she said to Parker.

  “We can just throw something together,” Parker began. “Just go have fun.”

  “I plan to, but I can do both. I’ll be seeing your mother tonight, Mal.”

  “Yeah? She’s going?”

  “A bite to eat, plenty of gossip.Then who knows what trouble we’ll get into.”

  “I’ll make your bail.”

  Mrs. Grady laughed in delight.“I’ll hold you to it.” Lips pursed she walked to the table. “Look how you’ve shined up those innards.”

  “Needed some adjusting, some cleaning, and the indispensable WD-40. How many of these do you have?”

  “Only one like that. It’s an old one, but it’s handy for my rooms. Otherwise Parker’s brought in a fleet of new, spiffy ones so I don’t have to haul a machine up and down the steps if I want to do the floors between cleaning crews. Oh, I ran into Margie Winston. She told me you breathed new life into that rattletrap she drives.”

  “That old girl’s got a hundred and eighty-five thousand miles on her.The Pontiac, not Mrs.Winston.”

  Parker listened to them talk, easy conversation, as he put the machine back together. That was another point in his favor, she mused, the easy conversation, the way he knew and obviously interacted with his client base.

  And the way, when he plugged in the vacuum, tested the suction, he grinned. “She sucks.”

  “Would you look at that! And it doesn’t sound likes it’s grinding metal while it’s at it.”

  “She should be good for a few more miles.”

  “Thank you, Malcolm. You’ve earned the milk and cookies. Just let me put this away.”

  “I’ll do it.” He crouched to wrap the cord. “Where do you want it?”

  “Just in the utility room there, first closet on the left.”

  Mrs. Grady shook her head as he carried the vacuum out. “If I were thirty years younger, I wouldn’t let that one slip away. Hell, I’d settle for twenty and try my hand at being a cougar.”

  Parker nearly choked on her wine. “I didn’t hear that.”

  “I can say it louder.”

  Shaking her head, Parker caught her breath. “You’re smitten.” “Something’s wrong with you if you’re not.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Mrs. Grady said as she started putting tools back in the trim silver toolbox.

  “I’ll get those.You promised your sweetheart cookies and milk.”

  “I’ll see to that, then, and top off your wine. You keep him company awhile.”

  She set out a plate piled with cookies, a tall, cold glass of milk while Malcolm came back to wash his hands.“Drink that milk, and I’ll tell your mother you’ve been
a good boy.”

  “She won’t believe you.”

  After Parker stowed the toolbox, she found him alone in the kitchen.

  “She said she had some things to do, and you’re supposed to keep me company. So what does the Quartet do after pizza when the guys are away?”

  She sat across from him, took a sip of wine. “Oh, we have slow-motion pillow fights in our underwear.”

  “Another fantasy come true.Want a cookie?”

  “Definitely not,” she said, thinking of the petit fours.

  “You’re missing out.We’ve been here before.”

  She smiled. “Yes. But this time I’m not annoyed with you.Yet. Are you feeling lucky? Poker,” she said in mock scold when his grin flashed.

  “Feeling lucky can make you sloppy. It’s better to be lucky.”

  “All right. Here’s to being lucky.” She tapped her glass to his.

  “While you have homemade pizza and sexy pillow fights.What’s a guy have to do to get invited to one of those events?”

  “Not be a guy would be requirement one.Though we can arrange for the homemade pizza at some point.”

  “I could settle. Listen, speaking of invites, my mother wants you to come to dinner Sunday.”

  She’d lifted her glass halfway to her mouth, and now set it down again. “Dinner at your mother’s. Sunday? This Sunday?” It was odd to feel the tickle of panic, however slight, in her throat. “Oh, but we have an event, and—”

  “She’ll work around it. I told her you had a work deal, but she knows it’s a day thing.” He shifted a bit, studied his cookie.“I think she and Mrs. Grady have started talking a lot, or hanging out or something.”

  “Hmm,” Parker said, watching him.

  “Anyway, Ma’s dug in on it. I think she’s got the idea that I . . . I’ve been spending a lot of time here, scrounging meals, and she should, you know, reciprocate.”

  “Uh-huh.” Not what you were going to say, she reflected. And if she had felt a little tickle, she’d have to say Malcolm felt a deep scraping.

  Wasn’t that interesting?

  “So, she’s dug in, and believe me, there’s no budging her. I can tell her you can’t make it, but she’ll just keep at it until you do.”

  Not just panicked, she decided. Considerably worried. He’d been maneuvered into bringing a woman home to his mother’s for dinner. And she had a feeling he hadn’t quite figured out how that worked.

  “I’d love to come to dinner on Sunday.”

  His gaze zinged back to hers—wary. “You would?”

  “Sure.We should have everything wrapped here by five thirty. If there’s no holdup, I could be there by around six. I’ll just drive over when I’m done here, and call if I’m going to be any later than six.Will that work?”