“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.”

Flushed from the cold, Emma rushed in. “I wouldn’t be late, but I dropped a whole—” She stared when Mac shoved by her, and kept going. “What’s wrong with Mac? What happened?”

“Mac had her bitch on.” Temper smoldering in her eyes, Laurel picked up her coffee. “We didn’t want to play.”

“Well, did you ask her why?”

“She was too busy slapping us around for that.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. I’m going after her.”

“Don’t.” Temper iced in her eyes, Parker shook her head. “Just don’t. She’ll only put her foot up your ass for your trouble. I’ve got potential clients coming this morning, and we have current ones who need attention. We’ll work around her for now.”

“Parker, when one of us has a problem, we all have a problem. Not just in the business.”

“I know that, Emma.” Parker pressed her fingers to her temple. “Even if she’d listen right now, which she wouldn’t, we don’t have time.”

“Besides if we all went ’splody every time one of us had a lousy date, this room would be full of our bloody body parts.”

“Mac and Carter?” Emma shook her head at Laurel. “I don’t see how that could be it. My mother talked to his last night and called me after to try to pump me. As far as I know, everything went fine when they went out.”

“What else?” Laurel demanded. “What makes a woman bitchier than a man? And okay, maybe occasionally each other. But . . .” She trailed off, closed her eyes. “Her mother. God, we’re idiots. Nothing crawls up Mac’s butt like her mother.”

“I thought her mother was in Florida.”

“Do you think distance is any deterrent to the force that is Linda Elliot?” Laurel asked Parker. “Maybe that’s it. That’s probably it, or part of it. But it’s still no reason to rip at us the way she did.”

“We’ll deal with it. We will. But we’ve got three events lined up, and we need to go over the details.”

Emma opened her mouth again, then swallowed the words when she saw Parker flip a Tums off the roll she took out of her pocket. No point, she thought, in having two friends upset. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the urns for Friday.”

“Great.” Parker sat back down. “Let’s get started.”

SHE KNEW WHEN SHE’D ACTED THE BITCH. SHE DIDN’T NEED A diagram, or to be offered muffins like she was a two-year-old who needed a cookie. And she didn’t need her friends showing her the door. She knew exactly where it was.

She knew how to do her job. She was doing her job right this minute, wasn’t she? Mac cut the first mat for the photos she hadn’t had the heart or the energy to mount the night before. In a few hours, she’d have a completed custom package and a very satisfied client. Because she knew what the hell she was doing without explaining every damn step of the process to her business partners.

Did she need to know why Emmaline selected eucalyptus over asparagus fern as filler in an arrangement?

No, she did not.

Did she need to know Laurel’s secret ingredient for butter-cream frosting?

Right back with the no.

Did she need to discuss Parker’s latest entry in her Crack-Berry?

Dear God, no.

So why the hell did anyone care what filter she planned to use or which camera bodies she’d decided to strap on?

They did theirs, she did hers, and everybody was happy.

She pulled her weight. She put in the time, the effort, the hours the same as the rest. She . . .

She cut the damn mat wrong.

Disgusted, Mac tossed the ruined board across the room. She grabbed another, checked and rechecked her measurements. But when she lifted her mat knife, her hand shook.

With considerable care, she set it down, then took two steps back.

Yes, she knew when she’d acted the bitch, she thought. And she knew when she had to get a grip on herself. As in right now. She knew, too, she admitted with a sigh, when she owed two of the people she loved most in the world an apology.

Even if they had been snotty—and they damn well had—she’d been snotty first.

She checked the time and sighed. She couldn’t do it now. Couldn’t get this weight off, not when Parker was currently escorting clients through the house.

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