Bride Quartet Collection Read online

  Nora Roberts’s Bride Quartet

  Vision In White

  Bed of Roses

  Savor the Moment

  Happy Ever After

  Nora Roberts

  Table of Contents

  Vision In White

  Bed of Roses

  Savor the Moment

  Happy Ever After

  Nora Roberts

  HOT ICE

  SACRED SINS

  BRAZEN VIRTUE

  SWEET REVENGE

  PUBLIC SECRETS

  GENUINE LIES

  CARNAL INNOCENCE

  DIVINE EVIL

  HONEST ILLUSIONS

  PRIVATE SCANDALS

  HIDDEN RICHES

  TRUE BETRAYALS

  MONTANA SKY

  SANCTUARY

  HOMEPORT

  THE REEF

  RIVER’S END

  CAROLINA MOON

  THE VILLA

  MIDNIGHT BAYOU

  THREE FATES

  BIRTHRIGHT

  NORTHERN LIGHTS

  BLUE SMOKE

  ANGELS FALL

  HIGH NOON

  TRIBUTE

  Series

  Born in Trilogy

  BORN IN FIRE

  BORN IN ICE

  BORN IN SHAME

  Dream Trilogy

  DARING TO DREAM

  HOLDING THE DREAM

  FINDING THE DREAM

  Chesapeake Bay Saga

  SEA SWEPT

  RISING TIDES

  INNER HARBOR

  CHESAPEAKE BLUE

  Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

  JEWELS OF THE SUN

  TEARS OF THE MOON

  HEART OF THE SEA

  Three Sisters Island Trilogy

  DANCE UPON THE AIR

  HEAVEN AND EARTH

  FACE THE FIRE

  Key Trilogy

  KEY OF LIGHT

  KEY OF KNOWLEDGE

  KEY OF VALOR

  In the Garden Trilogy

  BLUE DAHLIA

  BLACK ROSE

  RED LILY

  Circle Trilogy

  MORRIGAN’S CROSS

  DANCE OF THE GODS

  VALLEY OF SILENCE

  Sign of Seven Trilogy

  BLOOD BROTHERS

  THE HOLLOW

  THE PAGAN STONE

  Bride Quartet

  VISION IN WHITE

  Nora Roberts & J. D. Robb

  REMEMBER WHEN

  J. D. Robb

  NAKED IN DEATH

  GLORY IN DEATH

  IMMORTAL IN DEATH

  RAPTURE IN DEATH

  CEREMONY IN DEATH

  VENGEANCE IN DEATH

  HOLIDAY IN DEATH

  CONSPIRACY IN DEATH

  LOYALTY IN DEATH

  WITNESS IN DEATH

  JUDGMENT IN DEATH

  BETRAYAL IN DEATH

  SEDUCTION IN DEATH

  REUNION IN DEATH

  PURITY IN DEATH

  PORTRAIT IN DEATH

  IMITATION IN DEATH

  DIVIDED IN DEATH

  VISIONS IN DEATH

  SURVIVOR IN DEATH

  ORIGIN IN DEATH

  MEMORY IN DEATH

  BORN IN DEATH

  INNOCENT IN DEATH

  CREATION IN DEATH

  STRANGERS IN DEATH

  SALVATION IN DEATH

  PROMISES IN DEATH

  Anthologies

  FROM THE HEART

  A LITTLE MAGIC

  A LITTLE FATE

  MOON SHADOWS (with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)

  The Once Upon Series (with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)

  ONCE UPON A CASTLE

  ONCE UPON A STAR

  ONCE UPON A DREAM

  ONCE UPON A ROSE

  ONCE UPON A KISS

  ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT

  SILENT NIGHT (with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)

  OUT OF THIS WORLD (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie Shayne)

  BUMP IN THE NIGHT (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  DEAD OF NIGHT (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  THREE IN DEATH

  SUITE 606 (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  Also available . . .

  THE OFFICIAL NORA ROBERTS COMPANION (edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700,Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  VISION IN WHITE

  Copyright © 2009 by Nora Roberts.

  Excerpt from Bed of Roses copyright © 2009 by Nora Roberts.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley trade paperback edition / May 2009

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Roberts, Nora.

  Vision in white / Nora Roberts.—Berkley trade pbk. ed. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-03266-4

  1. Wedding supplies and services industry—Fiction. 2. Weddings—Planning—Fiction.

  3. Female friendship—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3568.0243V54 2009

  813’.54—dc22 2008046808

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Dan and Stacie.

  For Jason and Kat.

  For all the moments.

  Seduce my mind and you can have my body,

  Find my soul and I’m yours forever.

  —ANONYMOUS

  It is not merely the likeness which is precious . . . but the association

  and sense of nearness involved in the thing . . . the fact of the

  very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever!

  —ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

>   CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  PROLOGUE

  BY THE TIME SHE WAS EIGHT, MACKENSIE ELLIOT HAD BEEN married fourteen times. She’d married each of her three best friends—as both bride and groom—her best friend’s brother (under his protest), two dogs, three cats, and a rabbit.

  She’d served at countless other weddings as maid of honor, bridesmaid, groomsman, best man, and officiant.

  Though the dissolutions were invariably amicable, none of the marriages lasted beyond an afternoon. The transitory aspect of marriage came as no surprise to Mac, as her own parents boasted two each—so far.

  Wedding Day wasn’t her favorite game, but she kind of liked being the priest or the reverend or the justice of the peace. Or, after attending her father’s second wife’s nephew’s bar mitzvah, the rabbi.

  Plus, she enjoyed the cupcakes or fancy cookies and fizzy lemonade always served at the reception.

  It was Parker’s favorite game, and Wedding Day always took place on the Brown Estate, with its expansive gardens, pretty groves, and silvery pond. In the cold Connecticut winters, the ceremony might take place in front of one of the roaring fires inside the big house.

  They had simple weddings and elaborate affairs. Royal weddings, star-crossed elopements, circus themes, and pirate ships. All ideas were seriously considered and voted upon, and no theme or costume too outrageous.

  Still, with fourteen marriages under her belt, Mac grew a bit weary of Wedding Day.

  Until she experienced her seminal moment.

  For her eighth birthday Mackensie’s charming and mostly absent father sent her a Nikon camera. She’d never expressed any interest in photography, and initially pushed it away with the other odd gifts he’d given or sent since the divorce. But Mac’s mother told her mother, and Grandma muttered and complained about “feckless, useless Geoffrey Elliot” and the inappropriate gift of an adult camera for a young girl who’d be better off with a Barbie doll.

  As she habitually disagreed with her grandmother on principle, Mac’s interest in the camera piqued. To annoy Grandma—who was visiting for the summer instead of being in her retirement community in Scottsdale, where Mac strongly believed she belonged—Mac hauled the Nikon around with her. She toyed with it, experimented. She took pictures of her room, of her feet, of her friends. Shots that were blurry and dark, or fuzzy and washed out. With her lack of success, and her mother’s impending divorce from her stepfather, Mac’s interest in the Nikon began to wane. Even years later she couldn’t say what prompted her to bring it along to Parker’s that pretty summer afternoon for Wedding Day.

  Every detail of the traditional garden wedding had been planned. Emmaline as the bride and Laurel as groom would exchange their vows beneath the rose arbor. Emma would wear the lace veil and train Parker’s mother had made out of an old tablecloth, while Harold, Parker’s aging and affable golden retriever walked her down the garden path to give her away.

  A selection of Barbies, Kens, and Cabbage Patch Kids, along with a variety of stuffed animals lined the path as guests.

  “It’s a very private ceremony,” Parker relayed as she fussed with Emma’s veil. “With a small patio reception to follow. Now, where’s the best man?”

  Laurel, her knee recently skinned, shoved through a trio of hydrangeas. “He ran away, and went up a tree after a squirrel. I can’t get him to come down.”

  Parker rolled her eyes. “I’ll get him. You’re not supposed to see the bride before the wedding. It’s bad luck. Mac, you need to fix Emma’s veil and get her bouquet. Laurel and I’ll get Mr. Fish out of the tree.”

  “I’d rather go swimming,” Mac said as she gave Emma’s veil an absent tug.

  “We can go after I get married.”

  “I guess. Aren’t you tired of getting married?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. And it smells so good out here. Everything’s so pretty.”

  Mac gave Emma the clutch of dandelions and wild violets they were allowed to pick. “You look pretty.”

  It was invariably true. Emma’s dark, shiny hair tumbled under the white lace. Her eyes sparkled a deep, deep brown as she sniffed the weed bouquet. She was tanned, sort of all golden, Mac thought, and scowled at her own milk white skin.

  The curse of a redhead, her mother said, as she got her carroty hair from her father. At eight, Mac was tall for her age and skinny as a stick, with teeth already trapped in hated braces.

  She thought that, beside her, Emmaline looked like a gypsy princess.

  Parker and Laurel came back, giggling with the feline best man clutched in Parker’s arms. “Everybody has to take their places.” Parker poured the cat into Laurel’s arms. Mac, you need to get dressed! Emma—”

  “I don’t want to be maid of honor.” Mac looked at the poofy Cinderella dress draped over a garden bench. “That thing’s scratchy, and it’s hot. Why can’t Mr. Fish be maid of honor, and I’ll be best man?”

  “Because it’s already planned. Everybody’s nervous before a wedding.” Parker flipped back her long brown pigtails, then picked up the dress to inspect it for tears or stains. Satisfied, she pushed it at Mac. “It’s okay. It’s going to be a beautiful ceremony, with true love and happy ever after.”

  “My mother says happy ever after’s a bunch of bull.”

  There was a moment of silence after Mac’s statement. The unspoken word divorce seemed to hang in the air.

  “I don’t think it has to be.” Her eyes full of sympathy, Parker reached out, ran her hand along Mac’s bare arm.

  “I don’t want to wear the dress. I don’t want to be a bridesmaid. I—”

  “Okay. That’s okay. We can have a pretend maid of honor. Maybe you could take pictures.”

  Mac looked down at the camera she’d forgotten hung around her neck. “They never come out right.”

  “Maybe they will this time. It’ll be fun. You can be the official wedding photographer.”

  “Take one of me and Mr. Fish,” Laurel insisted, and pushed her face and the cat’s together. “Take one, Mac!”

  With little enthusiasm, Mac lifted the camera, pressed the shutter.

  “We should’ve thought of this before! You can take formal portraits of the bride and groom, and more pictures during the ceremony.” Busy with the new idea, Parker hung the Cinderella costume on the hydrangea bush. “It’ll be good, it’ll be fun. You need to go down the path with the bride and Harold. Try to take some good ones. I’ll wait, then start the music. Let’s go!”

  There would be cupcakes and lemonade, Mac reminded herself. And swimming later, and fun. It didn’t matter if the pictures were stupid, didn’t matter that her grandmother was right and she was too young for the camera.

  It didn’t matter that her mother was getting divorced again, or that her stepfather, who’d been okay, had already moved out.

  It didn’t matter that happy ever after was bull, because it was all pretend anyway.

  She tried to take pictures of Emma and the obliging Harold, imagined getting the film back and seeing the blurry figures and smudges of her thumb, like always.

  When the music started she felt bad that she hadn’t put on the scratchy dress and given Emma a maid of honor, just because her mother and grandmother had put her in a bad mood. So she circled around to stand to the side and tried harder to take a nice picture of Harold walking Emma down the garden path.

  It looked different through the lens, she thought, the way she co
uld focus on Emma’s face—the way the veil lay over her hair. And the way the sun shined through the lace was pretty.

  She took more pictures as Parker began the “Dearly Beloved” as the Reverend Whistledown, as Emma and Laurel took hands and Harold curled up to sleep and snore at their feet.

  She noticed how bright Laurel’s hair was, how the sun caught the edges of it beneath the tall black hat she wore as groom. How Mr. Fish’s whiskers twitched as he yawned.

  When it happened, it happened as much inside Mac as out. Her three friends were grouped under the lush white curve of the arbor, a triangle of pretty young girls. Some instinct had Mac shifting her position, just slightly, tilting the camera just a bit. She didn’t know it as composition, only that it looked nicer through the lens.

  And the blue butterfly fluttered across her range of vision to land on the head of a butter yellow dandelion in Emma’s bouquet. The surprise and pleasure struck the three faces in that triangle under the white roses almost as one.

  Mac pressed the shutter.

  She knew, knew, the photograph wouldn’t be blurry and dark or fuzzy and washed out. Her thumb wouldn’t be blocking the lens. She knew exactly what the picture would look like, knew her grandmother had been wrong after all.