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.

Copyright © 2010 by Nora Roberts.

Excerpt from Happy Ever After copyright © by Nora Roberts.

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PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley trade paperback edition / May 2010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roberts, Nora.

Savor the moment / Nora Roberts.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-18712-8

1. Female friendship—Fiction. 2. Bakers—Fiction. 3. Businesswomen—Fiction.

4. Connecticut—Fiction. [1 . Weddings—Fiction.] I. Title.

PS3568.O243S38 2010

813’.54—dc22

2009053564

Dedication

For my brother Jim, the family baker

Praise

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers;
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.
I sing of Maypoles, Hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.

—ROBERT HERRICK

I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we lov’d?

—DONNE

PROLOGUE

As THE CLOCK TICKED DOWN ON HER SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH school, Laurel McBane learned one indisputable fact.

Prom was hell.

For weeks all anyone wanted to talk about was who might ask whom, who did ask whom—and who asked some other whom, thereby inciting misery and hysteria.

Girls, to her mind, suffered an agony of suspense and an embarrassing passivity during prom season. The halls, classrooms, and quad throbbed with emotion running the gamut from giddy euphoria because some guy asked them to some overhyped dance, to bitter tears because some guy didn’t.

The entire cycle revolved around “some guy,” a condition she believed both stupid and demoralizing.

And after that, the hysteria continued, even escalated with the hunt for a dress, for shoes, the intense debate about up-dos versus down-dos. Limos, after-parties, hotel suites—the yes, no, maybe of sex.

She’d have skipped the whole thing if her friends, especially Parker Right-of-Passage Brown, hadn’t ganged up on her.

Now her savings account—all those hard-earned dollars and cents from countless hours waiting tables—reeled in shock at the withdrawals for a dress she’d probably never wear again, the shoes, the bag, and all the rest.

She could lay all that on her friends’ heads, too. She’d gotten caught up shopping with Parker, Emmaline, and Mackensie, and spent more than she should have.