Page 21 of Holding On To Good

“That’s a lie. You love those boots. Why do you feel it’s necessary to pretend you don’t? Perhaps there’s something to that guilt after all?”

Willow slid Rose a dry look. Funny, but her sister looked normal enough today in a body-hugging black-and-white color-block dress with wide straps and a high neckline, her dark blond shoulder-length hair loose and wavy.

But once a shrink, always a shrink. No matter what outfit or situation.

“Nope. Not going to be psychoanalyzed today. I’m suffering enough.”

Plus, she’d spent her entire life being psychoanalyzed. Went with having a psychiatrist for a mother.

Thank God Lily had followed in their father’s footsteps into law. Willow couldn’t handle one more person poking at her psyche on a regular basis.

“Why do you feel you’re suffering?” Rose asked and, yes, that had to be the tone she used with patients. “It’s a beautiful day and you’re with your family celebrating your sister’s upcoming wedding-slash-baby.”

“Exactly.”

Not that she had anything against a beautiful summer day or her family. Truth be told, she adored every last member of the Kincaid tribe and loved spending time with them both individually and en mass whenever she could.

Just not in this particular situation.

Baby showers were very near the top of the Worst Way to Spend an Afternoon list, coming in above major dental work but far, far below the ultimate in female torture:

The bridal shower.

You would think she’d be tickled… well… pink to spend a gorgeous, sunny, Saturday afternoon watching Lily open dozens of ooh-and-ahh worthy baby gifts instead of doing one of the hundred things she should be doing as a partner in a successful small business. But she wasn’t. Doing any of the things.

And she wasn’t tickled. Not pink or any other color.

It was all her mother’s fault. Well, she supposed Lily deserved some of the blame for deciding to marry her baby’s daddy, Patton Raught, next month instead of after their daughter was born.

But while Lily had set today’s events into motion, their mother was the one who’d run with them.

“What kind of monster thinks a combined bridal-slash-baby shower is a good idea?” Willow asked.

“It’s the best of times,” Rose intoned as she refilled Willow’s champagne glass. “It’s the worst of times.”

Willow snorted then quickly covered it by taking a sip of her drink when she looked up and caught her mother’s raised-eyebrow look.

That woman missed nothing.

Even from across the huge yard.

“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously,” Willow said. “Then again, it’s not the worst of times for you. You’re married.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“You aren’t pitied. I’m the only single woman here—”

“Andrea is single,” Rose said, because that’s what older sisters did. Corrected their younger sisters. “So is Mrs. Johnson.”

“They don’t count. Andrea is divorced and Mrs. Johnson is widowed, so they’ve both been married. I have not, which somehow makes me a freak of nature just because I’m still single at the advanced age of thirty-two.”

“You’re exaggerating. It can’t be that bad.”

“Mrs. McLachlan told me I’m too picky because I politely declined to have her set me up with her nephew, the forty-five-year-old IT specialist, who lives in his mother’s basement,” Willow said, ticking items off on her fingers—not an easy task given that she still held her glass so she downed the rest of her champagne then set the glass aside. “Julia Kogan wants me to try online dating but only if I get a professional picture done and fudge my age on the application so I don’t seem desperate.”

Rose waved those examples away. “Mrs. McLachlan has been trying to set up her nephew since he was in high school. She even tried to set me up with him and that was after I told her I was gay. And Julie’s just excited about online dating since that’s how she met her husband.”

“Oh, I’m far from done.” Willow ticked another finger. “Lily’s friend Becca suggested—all the while flashing her brand-new, sparkling diamond engagement ring in my face—that I grow my hair out, as men, it seems, prefer women with long hair.” A fourth tick. “Elizabeth Reynolds shared with me that a thirty-year-old woman has a greater chance of being killed in a mudslide than getting married.” She held up her thumb. Wiggled all five fingers at her sister. “And Mrs. Taylor was kind enough to let me know how she just can’t understand why a wonderful young woman like me hasn’t managed to snag some nice young man yet, but it’s probably because I’m too focused on my career.” Willow pressed her lips together. “Then she tick-tocked, like she could hear my biological clock ticking away, counting down the minutes until my ovaries shrivel into nothing.”

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