“What’re you wearing?” Mac demanded.

“I don’t know. It’s the movies. Something movieish.”

“But he’ll be dressed for the wedding,” Emma pointed out, “so you can’t be too casual.You should wear the blue top. The one with the scoop-neck that ties in the back. It looks great on you. With the white capris I wish I could wear but would make my legs look stumpy. And the kitten-heel slides.”

“Okay, thanks for dressing me.”

“Happy to help,” Emma said with a bright smile that acknowledged the sarcasm.

“We have a betting pool going,” Mac informed her. “Nobody figures you’ll last the full thirty before you get naked. Carter gives your willpower the most credit with twenty-four days.”

“You’re betting on when I’m going to have sex with Del?”

“Damn right.You’re disqualified,” she said when Laurel started to speak again. “Conflict of interest. I give you sixteen days, not because of willpower but stubbornness—in case that might influence you to help me add to my wedding fund.”

“Unfair, unfair,” Emma caroled.

“How much is in the pool?”

“We kicked in a hundred each.”

“Five hundred? Seriously?”

“Six, counting Mrs. G.”

“Man.”

“We started at ten dollars each.” Emma shrugged and chose a strawberry to nibble on. “But then Mac and Jack kept challenging each other. I had to make them stop when we hit a hundred. Parker’s keeping the bank.”

Laurel cocked a challenging eyebrow. “What if we have sex and don’t tell anyone?”

“Please.” Mac just rolled her eyes. “First, you’d never be able to keep it to yourself, and second, even if you did, we’d know.”

“I hate when you’re right. And nobody gave us the full thirty?”

“No one.”

“Okay, here’s the deal—and I should get some say since it’s my sex, potentially. I will not be disqualified. I put in a hundred, and if we get to the thirty, pot’s mine.”

Objections broke out, but Parker waved them off. “You know, that’s fair.”

“You know how competitive she is,” Mac complained. “She’ll hold out just to win the bet.”

“Then she’d have earned it. Get me the hundred, and I’ll add your bet.”

“You’re on.” Gleefully Laurel rubbed her hands together. “At long, long last, the sexual moratorium pays off. I’ve got a cake to frost.” She did a quick boogie at the door. “See you later, suckers.”

“We’ll see who’s the sucker,” Parker said after Laurel danced out. “Okay, ladies, let’s get to work.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS STRANGE AND INTERESTING TO GO OUT WITH DEL AS A DATE rather than one of the group. Comfortable on many levels, Laurel discovered, which was probably good. Neither of them had to listen to the other’s life story, because they already knew each other’s life story.

Not the whole cake, she thought, but most of the layers. Which made it all the more fun to take samples of the filling.

She knew he’d served on the Law Review at Yale, and played baseball as an undergraduate, just as she knew that law and sports were two of his passions. But she hadn’t known he’d made a deliberate choice over which to pursue as a career.

“I didn’t know you were serious about professional baseball.” The things you learned, Laurel reflected, on a third date.

“Deadly. And serious enough I kept it to myself, mostly.”

They strolled the park eating ice cream cones while the summer moonlight silvered the pond—an activity she believed to be the perfect cap to a casual dinner date.

“What was the tipping point?” she asked him.

“I wasn’t good enough.”

“How do you know? I saw you in action when you played at the Academy, and a couple times at Yale—and since at softball games.” With the faintest of frowns she studied his profile as they walked. “I may not consider baseball my religion like some people, but I get the game.You knew what you were doing.”

“Sure. And I was pretty good. Pretty good isn’t good enough. Maybe I could’ve been if I’d put everything into it. I talked to some scouts from the Yankees’ farm team.”

“Get out.” She shoved his arm. “Seriously? I never knew that. The Yankees scouted you? Why didn’t I know that?”

“I never told anybody. I had to decide. I could either be a really good lawyer or a decent ballplayer.”

She remembered watching him play since ... always, she realized. Without much effort, she pulled out a mental picture of him as a boy playing Little League.

God, he was cute.

“You loved baseball.”

“I still do. I just realized I didn’t love it enough to give it everything I had, and to give up everything else for it. So I wasn’t good enough.”

She understood that, yes, understood that very well. She wondered if she could’ve made the same sensible, rational choice to give up something she loved and wanted.

“Do you ever regret it?”

“Every summer. For about five minutes.” He draped an arm over her shoulders. “But you know, when I’m old and sitting on the rocker on the front porch, I get to tell my great-grandchildren how back in the day, the Yankees scouted me.”

She couldn’t quite build that image in her mind, but the idea of it made her smile. “They won’t believe you.”

“Sure they will. They’ll love me. And my pocketful of candy. What about you? One regret.”

“I probably have a lot more of them than you.”

“Why?”

“Because you—and Parker—always seem to know what direction you need and want to take. So let’s see.” She crunched into the sugar cone as she considered. “Okay. Sometimes I wonder how it would’ve been if I’d gone to France, stayed there. Run my own exclusive patisserie—while having many passionate affairs.”

“Naturally.”

“I’d design and bake for royalty and stars, and run my staff like dogs. Allez, allez! Imbeciles! Merde!”

He laughed at her broad, undeniably Gallic gestures, and dodged her cone.