“Did that asshat break your heart, honey?”
Norah considered the question rather than offering the flip response that sprang to her lips. Had Pierce broken her heart? In the few days since she’d confronted him, she’d felt no grief over the loss of their relationship, only for the damage to her career.
“Less my heart and more my pride.”
“Sometimes that hurts worse. And I’m going to make a confession here. I’m glad y’all broke up. He always felt like a very pretty accessory to that whole high-powered lifestyle rather real relationship material.”
Norah’s mouth dropped open.
“I’m sorry, I know you must’ve seen something in him or you wouldn’t have dated him in the first place but…you’re worth so much more than that.”
The laugh bubbled up, expanding in her chest until it burst out in a hoot. “Oh my God, Pierce would just die. A pretty accessory.” Norah bent over in helpless giggles. “God, he really was.” He was, she was shamed to realize, merely an extension of her career. And wasn’t that a sad testament to the state of her life? The thought sobered her up. “But seriously, I’ll take this as the sign it is.”
“Of what?”
“That I’m not made for the kind of deep, long-term relationships that lead to marriage and family.”
“That’s horse shit.”
The invective made Norah want to hug her all over again. God it was good to be back in the South.
“Is it? I’m ambitious and talented. The child of two equally ambitious, talented people who tried to make it work and failed spectacularly. Burkes excel professionally and absolutely tank in relationships.”
“That doesn’t mean you’ll fail. Just means you haven’t found the right guy.”
“I can’t imagine the right guy. The guy who can deal with my ambition and not expect me to put it away to do the whole wife and baby thing. I’d go crazy inside a year.”
“I’m sorry, did it turn back to 1954 and I missed it? Live in the now, girl. Anyway, I think you’re selling yourself short.”
Norah jerked a shoulder. “And what about you? You’ve been doing the perpetually single dance since med school. If you made it past the third date, that was a long-term relationship.”
“I’m careful,” Miranda corrected. “Especially since I came home. Wishful is a pretty damned tiny dating pool, and it’s not getting any bigger. Not usually anyway. I fully expect Liam to have half a dozen proposals before summer.”
There was something in her friend’s too off-hand manner. “That annoys you.”
“What?”
“That all these women are going to be interested in this Liam guy. Who is he?”
Miranda waved a dismissive hand. “The Campbells and the Montgomerys have always been kind of intertwined. There are four of them and five of us in similar age ranges. Liam’s the oldest. A good friend of Mitch’s. He went straight into the Marines from high school. He just finished his third term and decided to move home to be closer to his mom. She’s widowed.”
“You like the hot ex-soldier,” Norah proclaimed, happy to shift the conversation away from the dismal state of her love life.
“How do you know he’s hot?”
“Goes without saying. He risked his life for our country.”
“He was hot before that.”
“I knew it! You like him!”
“I did like him. I had a ludicrous crush on him in high school, of the variety you can only have for your older brother’s best friend. Of course, he never actually saw me as anything other than Randa Panda because my rat bastard of a brother told him I still had the bear I carried around as a toddler.”
Norah winced in sympathy. “Have you seen him since high school?”
“Once at a Christmas party a few years back, when he was home on furlough. Where I was still Randa Panda. I freaking hate that nickname.”
“So I gather you didn’t have plans to show up at his welcome home party tonight in some knockout dress to make him realize you grew up?”