Vision in White

“The kids will be here first thing in the morning to shovel the path, clear the portico and terraces,” Parker put in. “So that’s cleared off our list.”

“Thank God,” Emma said with feeling.

“I’ve got the FOB taking pictures tonight at the rehearsal party with his pocket digital. I’ll play with them, put something fun together in one of the small albums. We’ll gift it to the bride. And now.” Mac pushed up. “I’m going home, ease my aching body into a hot bath.”

She walked home in the thinning snow, the path lights sparkling. It made her think of Carter, how he’d talked her into walking in the snow instead of wallowing.

She’d call him. Sink into that hot bath with a glass of wine, some candles glowing—and Carter on the line. She wondered how he’d react to phone sex, and heard herself laugh. He was always surprising her. She’d bet he’d be a phone sex champ.

She let herself in, listened to the silence. She liked the quiet, liked her space. Funny how he didn’t disturb either by being there. He just seemed to make it more theirs. Their quiet, their space.

Weird thought.

She glanced at the photo on her workstation as she stripped off her coat. Maybe not so weird. They framed up together nicely.

It was good, this phase they were in, she thought as she started upstairs. Not a holding pattern, not exactly, just staying in that nice, comfortable space. A kind of order and ease.

She walked into the bedroom, tossed the dress boots she hadn’t needed after all toward the closet. She took off her earrings, dropped them on the dresser.

Then stopped, hissing out a breath as she looked around. She hadn’t made the bed that morning. She’d tossed clothes on the chair. She’d dropped socks there, too. Her beautiful closet . . . It wasn’t a disaster, she thought, but why had she put the gray shirt with the white ones? And the black skirt belonged in the skirt section, not in the jacket section. And that was Carter’s jacket.

She’d fallen back into old habits, she thought in disgust. She had a place for everything now, so why couldn’t she

put it there. Control her own space, her own things, her own . . .

Life, she thought.

Because she was messy, she admitted. Because life was. Because Carter’s jacket was hanging with hers, and what did it matter? Socks got lost, beds got rumpled. Your mother was a selfish woman, your father was careless.

And sometimes it snowed on your wedding rehearsal.

What had Parker said?

Some things in life are out of your control. You can make it a party or a tragedy.

Or, Mac thought, you could refuse to take the next step. You could refuse to take what you wanted most because you’re afraid some day you might lose it.

She jogged back downstairs, picked up the photo. “He just happened,” she said quietly as she studied how they looked, framed together. “He just happened into my life, and everything changed.”

She looked up, saw the photo of three young girls under an arbor of white roses. And a blue butterfly over a clutch of wild violets and dandelions.

Her breath came out in a jerk that had her pressing a hand to her heart. Of course. Of course. It was so absolutely clear, if she just looked at it.

“Oh my God. What am I waiting for?”

WITH THE CAT WARMING HIS FEET AND THE MUSIC ON LOW, Carter stretched out on the living room sofa with a book and a short glass of Jameson.

He’d spent winter evenings like this before, he mused, with the cat and a book for company after work was done. It contented him.

He wished he had a fire. Of course, he’d need a fireplace first. But a fire would add a nice civilized evening-at-home touch. A kind of

Masterpiece Theatre touch.

The professor and his cat by the fire, reading on a snowy evening.

He could almost see the portrait as Mackensie would take it, and the idea both pleased and amused him.

He wished she could be here with him. Stretched out opposite him on the sofa, so he could see her face whenever he glanced up from the story. Sharing the quiet of a winter night, and the imaginary fire.

One day, he thought, when she was ready. Part of him had been ready the moment he’d seen her again; there was no point in denying it. No sooner looked but he loved—to paraphrase Rosalind. And the rest of him caught up so quickly with that part of him. But she hadn’t had that spark, that old flame inside her as he had, waiting to reignite.

Man for woman this time, not boy for girl.

He couldn’t blame her for needing more time.

“Well, maybe a little,” he said to Triad. “Not so much for needing more time, but for not trusting herself. How can a woman who has so much of it in her not trust love? I know, I know, Mommy Dearest, Absentee Father. A lot of scar tissue there.”

So he’d wait. He’d love her, be with her. And wait.

He settled back into the book, letting the quiet and the journey of the story lull him. He lifted the whiskey, took a small sip. His hand jerked at the pounding on the door, so whiskey splashed on his shirt.

“Oh, crap.”