Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts Page A

without.
    And as she hurried back toward the dining room, she moved into the noise as colorful as the paints and fabrics.
    The big table held her parents, her two brothers, her sister, her sisters-in-law, her brother-in-law, her nieces and nephews—and enough food to feed the small army they made.
    “Mama.” She went to Lucia first, kissed her cheek before setting the flowers on the buffet and rounding the table to kiss Phillip. “Papa.”
    “ Now it’s family dinner.” Lucia’s voice still held the heat and music of Mexico. “Sit before all the little piggies eat all the food.”
    Emma’s oldest nephew made oinking noises and grinned as she took her seat beside him. She took the platter Aaron passed her. “I’m starving.” She nodded, gestured a go-ahead as her brother Matthew lifted a bottle of wine. “Everybody talk so I can catch up.”
    “Big news first.” Across the table her sister, Celia, took her husband’s hand. Before she could speak, Lucia let out a happy cry.
    “You’re pregnant!”
    Celia laughed. “So much for surprises. Rob and I are expecting number three—and the absolute final addition—in November.”
    Congratulations erupted, and the youngest member of the family banged her spoon enthusiastically on her high chair as Lucia leaped up to embrace her daughter and her son-in-law. “Oh, there’s no happier news than a baby. Phillip, we’re having another baby.”
    “Careful. The last time you told me that, Emmaline came along nine months later.”
    With a laugh, Lucia went over to wrap her arms around his neck from behind, press her cheek to his. “Now the children do all the hard work, and we just get to play.”
    “Em hasn’t done her part yet,” Matthew pointed out and wiggled his eyebrows at her.
    “She’s waiting for a man as handsome as her father, and not so annoying as her brother.” Lucia sent Matthew an arch look. “They don’t grow on trees.”
    Emma smirked at her brother and cut her first sliver of roast pork. “And I’m still touring the orchards,” she said sweetly.
    She lingered after the others to take a walk around the gardens with her father. She’d learned about flowers and plants, had come to love them under his guidance.
    “How’s the book going?” she asked him.
    “Crap.”
    She laughed. “So you always say.”
    “Because it’s always true at this stage.” He wrapped an arm around her waist as they walked. “But family dinners and digging in the dirt help me put the crap aside awhile. Then it’s never quite as bad as I thought when I get back to it. And how are you, pretty girl?”
    “Good. Really good. We stay busy. We had a meeting earlier in the week because profits are up, and all I could think was how lucky we are—I am—doing work we love, being able to do it with the best friends I’ve ever had. You and Mama always said to find what we loved, and we’d work well and happily. I did.”
    She turned as her mother crossed the lawn carrying a jacket. “It’s chilly, Phillip. Do you want to catch cold so I have to listen to you complain?”
    “You uncovered my plan.” He let his wife bundle him into the jacket.
    “I saw Pam yesterday,” she spoke of Carter’s mother. “She’s so excited about the wedding. It’s lovely for me, too, having two of my favorite people fall in love. Pam was a good friend to me, always, and a champion when some were scandalized your father would marry the help.”
    “They didn’t see how clever I was to get all the labor for free.”
    “The practical Yankee.” Lucia snuggled up against his side. “Such a slave driver.”
    Look at them, Emma thought. How perfectly they fit. “Jack told me the other day you were the most beautiful woman ever created, and he’s waiting to run off with you.”
    “Remind me to beat him up the next time I see him,” Phillip said.
    “He’s the most charming flirt. Maybe I’ll make you fight for me.” Lucia tipped her face up to Phillip’s.
    “How about a