Нора Робертс - Vision in White

“Oh boy.”

After a calming breath, Carter stared down at the cat who stared up at him. “She’s right. Sex is a whopper.”

THE HOUSE ON CHESTNUT LANE WITH ITS BIG YARD AND OLD trees had been one of the reasons Carter had given up his position at Yale. He’d missed it—the blue shutters and white clapboard, the sturdy porch and tall dormers—and the people who lived inside it.

He couldn’t say he came to the house any more often now than when he’d lived and worked in New Haven. But he found contentment knowing he could drop by if the mood struck. He stepped in, turned out of the foyer to glance into the big parlor where Chauncy, the family cocker spaniel, curled on the sofa.

He wasn’t allowed on the furniture, and knew it, so his sheepish expression and hopefully thumping tail were pleas for silence.

“I didn’t see a thing,” Carter whispered, and continued on toward the great room, and the noise. He smelled his mother’s Yankee pot roast, heard his younger sister’s laugh, followed by multiple male shouts and curses.

The game, he concluded, was on.

He stopped at the entryway to study the tableau. His mother, raw-boned, sturdy as New England bedrock, stirred something on the stove while Sherry leaned on the counter beside her talking a mile a minute and gesturing with a glass of wine. His older sister, Diane, stood with her hands fisted on her hips, watching through the wall of windows. He could see her two kids bundled to the eyeballs, riding a couple of colorful sled disks down the slope of the backyard.

His father, his brother-in-law, and Nick continued to shout at the action on the TV on the other side of the breakfast counter. Since football either gave him a headache or put him to sleep, Carter chose the girls’ side of the room and came up on his mother from behind to lean down and kiss the top of her head.

“Thought you’d forgotten about us.” Pam Maguire offered her son a tasting spoon of the split-pea soup simmering on the range.

“I had a couple of things to finish up. It’s good,” he said when he’d obediently tasted the soup.

“The kids asked about you. They assumed you’d be here in time to sled with them.”

There was the faintest hint of censure in Diane’s tone. Knowing she was happiest if she had something or someone to complain about, he walked over to kiss her cheek. “Nice to see you.”

“Have some wine, Carter.” Behind Diane’s back, Sherry gave him a quick eye-roll. “We can’t eat until the game’s over anyway. Plenty of time.”

“We don’t put off family dinner for sports at our house,” Diane said.

Which, Carter thought, probably explained why his brother-in-law took advantage of the more lax Maguire rules.

His mother just hummed over her soup as, to a man, the football enthusiasts leaped from chair and sofa to cheer.

Touchdown.

“Why don’t you have a nice glass of wine, too, Di?” Pam tapped her spoon, adjusted the flame under the pot. “Those kids are fine out there. We haven’t had an avalanche in more than ten years now. Michael! Your son’s here.”

Mike Maguire held up a finger, pumping his other hand as the kicker set for the extra point. “And it’s

good!” He sent Carter a grin over his shoulder, his pale Irish skin flushed with joy and framed by his neat silver beard. “Giants are up by five!”

Sherry handed Carter a glass. “Since everything’s under control in here, and in there,” she added, nodding toward the stands, “why don’t you sit down and tell us all about you and Mackensie Elliot.”

“Mackensie Elliot? The photographer?

Really?” Pam said, drawing out the word.

“I think I’ll catch the end of the game.”

“Not a chance.” Sherry maneuvered him back against the counter. “I heard from someone who heard from someone who saw the two of you getting cozy at Coffee Talk.”

“We had coffee. And talked. It’s the Coffee Talk way.”

“

Then I heard from someone who heard from someone that you were even cozier at the Willows last night. What gives?”

Sherry was always hearing from someone who’d heard from someone, Carter thought wearily. His sister was like a human radio receiver. “We went out a couple of times.”

“You’re dating Mackensie Elliot?” Pam asked.

“Apparently.”

“The same Mackensie Elliot you mooned over for months back in high school.”

“How do you know I . . .” Stupid, Carter thought. His mother knew everything. “We just had dinner. It’s not national news.”

“It is around here,” Pam corrected. “You could’ve invited her here tonight. You know there’s always plenty.”

“We’re not . . . it’s not . . . We’re not at the point of family gatherings. We had dinner. It’s one date.”

“Two with the coffee,” Sherry corrected. “Are you seeing her again?”

“Probably. Maybe.” He felt his shoulders hunch as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know.”

“I hear good things about her, and she does very good work. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be doing Sherry’s wedding.”

“Isn’t she Linda Elliot’s daughter? Or it’s Barrington now.”

“I haven’t met her mother. It was dinner.”

The news pulled Diane away from the window. “Linda Barrington, sure. Her daughter’s close friends with the Browns, and Emmaline Grant, and that other one. They run that wedding business together.”

“I guess that’s the one then,” Carter acknowledged.

“Linda Barrington.” Diane’s jaw tightened as she compressed her lips in an expression Carter knew reflected disapproval. “That’s the woman who had an affair with Stu Gibbons, and broke up his marriage.”

“She can hardly be held responsible for her mother’s behavior.” Pam opened the oven to check her roast. “And Stu broke up his own marriage.”

“Well, I heard that she pushed Stu to leave Maureen, and when he wouldn’t she told Maureen about the affair herself. Maureen skinned Stu in the divorce—and who could blame her—and after that

she wasn’t so interested anymore.”

“Are we talking about Mackensie or her mother?” Pam wondered.

Diane shrugged. “I’m just saying what I know. People say she’s always on the hunt for the next husband, especially if he’s someone else’s.”

“I’m not dating Mackensie’s mother.” Carter’s tone was quiet enough, cool enough, to light a fire in Diane’s eyes.

“Who said you were? But you know what they say about apples and trees. You might want to be careful, that’s all, so you don’t have another Corrine Melton on your hands.”

“Di, why do you have to be such a bitch?” Sherry demanded.

“I’ll just keep my mouth shut.”

“Good plan.”

Pam cast her eyes at the ceiling as her oldest daughter stalked back to the windows. “She’s been in a mood since she got here.”

“She’s been in a mood since she was born,” Sherry muttered.

“That’s enough. She’s a pretty girl, as I recall. Mackensie Elliot. And as I said, I’ve heard good things about her. Her mother’s a difficult woman, no question. As I recall, her father’s charming and absent. It takes a lot of spine and stomach to make yourself into something when no one gives you a foundation.”

Carter leaned down, kissed his mother’s cheek. “Not everyone’s as lucky as we are.”

“Damn right. Diane, call those kids in so they can get cleaned up. That’s the two-minute warning.”

When dinner conversation jumped from a rehash of the game, to his niece’s school play, veered into wedding talk and skipped over to his nephew’s desperate desire for a puppy, Carter relaxed.

His relationship with Mac—if there was one—had apparently been taken off the table.

Nick cleared, a gesture that had endeared him to Pam since his first family dinner. Mike sat back, looked down the long length of table in the formal dining room. “I have an announcement.”

“Are you going to get me a puppy, Grandpa?”

Mike leaned down to his grandson, whispered, “Let me work on your mom a little more.” He eased back again. “Your mother and I have an anniversary coming up next month. You’re still my valentine,” he added and winked at her.

“I thought you might like a small party at the club,” Diane began. “Just family, and close friends.”

“That’s a nice thought, Diane, but my bride and I will be celebrating thirty-six years of marital bliss in sunny Spain. That is, if she agrees to go with me.”

“Michael!”

“I know we had to put off the trip we’d planned a couple of years ago when I took over as chief of surgery. I’ve cleared two weeks in February, written them in stone. How about it, sugar? Let’s go eat paella.”

“Give me five minutes to pack, and I’m there.” Pam shot out of her chair, raced over, and dropped into Mike’s lap.

“You’re all excused,” he said, waving at his children.

There it was, Carter thought, there was another reason he’d come home.

The constancy.

A CRAPPY MOOD DIDN’T SERVE AS AN EXCUSE FOR MISSING A Monday morning breakfast meeting. So Mac took it with her, like a snarling dog on a leash, to the conference room at the main house. Laurel and Parker sat nibbling on cranberry muffins in what had once been the Browns’ library.

The books remained, a kind of frame to the space. The fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth. The old gleaming library table held the setup for coffee, and she knew the engraved console hid a supply of bottled water.

Her friends sat at the round inlaid table in the center of the room. Bright and beautiful, she thought, both of them. Every damn hair in place at eight-freaking-A.M. Just looking at them made her feel sloppy and gawky and somehow

less in the torn jeans she’d dragged on.

“And when I called him on it?” Laurel lifted her cup of what Mac knew would be perfectly prepared cappuccino. “He said, ‘I never leave the house without my toothbrush.’ ” She let out a snort of derision, then smiled at Mackensie. “You’ve just missed my retelling of The Demise of Martin Boggs. Why the hell did I go out with someone named Martin Boggs anyway? I hope your date was better than mine.”

“It was fine.”

“Mmm, that good, huh?”

“I said it was fine.” Mac dumped her laptop on the conference table and stalked over to the coffee bar. “Can we get started on this? I have a lot to deal with today.”

“Somebody got up on the cranky side of the bed.”

Mac flipped up her middle finger.

“Right back at you, pal.”

“Girls, girls.” Parker let out a long, windy sigh. “Do I have to separate you? Have a muffin, Mac.”

“I don’t want a goddamn muffin. What I want is to get on with this meeting that’s a total waste of time anyway.”

“We have three events this weekend, Mac,” Parker reminded her.

“Which have all been outlined, organized, scheduled, discussed, blueprinted, and microscoped down to the last overblown detail. We know what we’re doing. We don’t have to talk it to death.”

“Drink some coffee,” Parker suggested, but her tone had cooled. “It sounds like you need it.”

“I don’t need coffee, or a stupid muffin.” Mac spun back around. “Let me just sum all this up. People will come. Two of them will get married—most likely. Something will go wrong and be fixed. Someone will get drunk and be dealt with. Food will be eaten, music will be played. People will leave and we’ll get paid. The two who most likely get married will most likely divorce within five years. But that’s not our problem. Meeting over.”

“In that case, there’s the door.” Laurel gestured. “Why don’t you use it?”

Mac slammed her coffee back on the counter. “Good idea.”

“Just a minute. Just a damn minute!” Parker’s voice snapped out, spoiling Mac’s furious exit. “This is business.

Our business. If you don’t like the way it’s run, we’ll schedule a meeting so you can air your grievances. But your bitch-fit isn’t on this morning’s agenda.”

“Right, I forgot we live and die by agenda. If it’s not on the Holy Spreadsheet or keyed into the Magic BlackBerry it isn’t Parker-worthy. Clients are allowed to believe they’re human beings with actual brains and emotions, while you herd them down your preordained path. Everybody falls in line for Parker, or God help them.”

Parker got to her feet, slowly. “If you have a problem with the way I’m managing the business, we’ll discuss it. But I have a group coming in about fifty minutes for a tour. I have an hour free today at two, so we can take this up then. In the meantime, I think Laurel had an excellent idea. There’s the door.”