Нора Робертс - Red lily

“But.” He nodded. “It’s okay. We should give it a little time. Be sure.”

“Be sure,” she repeated, and hurried to pick up Lily’s things. “I need to go, or I’ll forget about a little time and being sure, because, man, you sure can kiss. And I need to get Lily ready for bed. I don’t want to mess things up, Harper. I so don’t want to mess things up.”

“We won’t.”

“We can’t.” She took Lily, though the baby cried pitifully at being pried away from Harper. “I’ll see you at work.”

“Sure, but I can walk you back.”

“No.” She hurried toward the door with Lily struggling and crying in her arms. “She’ll be okay.”

The crying escalated into a full-blown temper tantrum with kicking legs, stiffly arched back, and ear-piercing shrieks. “For God’s sake, Lily, you’ll see him again tomorrow. It’s not like he’s going off to war.”

The diaper bag slipped off her shoulder to weigh like an anchor on her arm while her sweet baby morphed into a red-faced demon from hell. Tiny, hard-toed walking shoes punched bruises into her hip, her belly, her thighs as she struggled to cart twenty pounds of fury through the dragging summer heat.

“I’d like to’ve stayed, too, you know.” Frustration sharpened her voice. “But we can’t, that’s just the way it is, so you’re going to have to deal.”

Sweat dripped into her eyes, blurred her vision so that for a moment, the grand old house seemed to be floating like a mirage. An illusion she’d never reach.

It would just keep swimming farther away, because it wasn’t real. Not for her. She’d never really belong there. It would be better, smarter, easier if she packed up, moved on. The house and Harper were one in the same—things that could never be hers. As long as she stayed here, she was the illusion.

“Well, what’s all this?”

She saw Roz through the shimmer of heat, the daze of twilight, and felt her own body sway as everything snapped back into focus. A sly tongue of nausea curled in her stomach. Then Lily, tears streaming, all but launched herself out of her arms and into Roz’s.

“She’s mad at me,” Hayley said weakly, and tears stung her own eyes as Lily wrapped her arms around Roz’s neck and wept into her shoulder.

“Won’t be the last time.” Roz rubbed Lily’s back, going into that instinctive side-to-side rocking motion as she studied Hayley’s face. “What set her off?”

“She saw Harper. She wanted to stay with him.”

“It’s hard leaving your best guy.”

“She needs a bath and bed. Should’ve had them already. I’m sorry we bothered you. I guess they could hear her screaming clear down to Memphis.”

“You didn’t bother me. She’s not the first baby I’ve heard in a temper, and she won’t be the last.”

“I’ll take her up.”

“I got her.” Roz turned to take the steps up to the second floor. “You frazzled each other out. That’s what happens when babies want one thing and their mama knows they need something different. Then you end up feeling guilty because they act like it’s the end of their world, and you’re the one who pulled the rug out.”

A tear spilled over, and Hayley rubbed it away. “I hate letting her down.”

“And how did you let her down by doing what’s best for her? This baby’s tired,” Roz said as she opened the door to the nursery, turned on the lamp. “And sweaty. She needs her bath, a nightie, and a little quiet time. Go on, get her bath started. I’ll get her clothes off.”

“That’s all right, I can—”

“Honey, you’ve got to learn to share.”

Since Roz was already carrying a now calm Lily away, Hayley moved into the bathroom. She ran the water, adding the bubbles Lily liked to splash in, the rubber duck and frogs. And caught herself swallowing back tears a half dozen times.

“I got myself a naked baby,” she heard Roz say. “Yes, I do. And look at that belly, just calling out to be tickled.”

Lily’s laughter had Hayley sniffling back more tears as Roz stepped in.

“Why don’t you go have yourself a shower? You’re hot and you’re blue. Lily and I’ll have some fun in the tub.”

“I don’t want you to have to do all this.”

“You’ve been around long enough to know I don’t offer to do something if I don’t want to do it. Go on. Clean up, cool down.”

“All right.” Since she feared she’d burst into tears at any moment, she fled.

SHE WAS CLEANER, and she was cooler, if not a great deal steadier when she came back to find Roz putting a little cotton nightgown on a sleepy Lily.

The nursery smelled like powder and sweet soap, and her baby was calm.

“And here’s your mama come to give you good night kisses.” She lifted Lily, and the baby stretched out her arms to Hayley. “Come on over to the sitting room when you’re done putting her down.”

“Okay.” She held Lily close, breathing in her hair, her skin. “Thanks, Roz.”

She stood where she was, holding her little girl, letting the embrace center her. “Mama’s sorry, baby. I’d give you the world if I could. The whole wide world and a silver box to put it in.”

There were kisses, and quiet murmurs as she laid Lily down in the crib with her little dog to cuddle. Leaving a low light burning, she slipped out of the room and down the hall to the sitting room.

“I got us some bottled water out of your stash.” Roz held one out. “That do for you?”

“Perfect. Oh, Roz, I feel so stupid. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d do fine. Better with me, but then everybody does.” Roz sat, stretched out her legs. Her feet were bare tonight, and her toes painted a gumdrop pink. “You keep beating yourself up because your child had herself a tantrum, you’re going to be permanently black and blue before you’re thirty.”

“I knew she was tired. I should’ve brought her straight into the house instead of letting her visit Harper.”

“And I bet she enjoyed the visit as much as he did. Now she’s sleeping peaceful in her crib, and no harm done.”

“I’m not a terrible mother, am I?”

“You’re certainly not anything of the sort. That baby is happy and healthy and loved. She has a sweet disposition. She also knows what she wants when she wants it, and that’s a sign of character in my opinion. She’s got a right to a temper, hasn’t she, same as anybody else?”

“Boy, she’s sure got one. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Roz.” Hayley set the bottle down without drinking. “I’m emotional and bitchy one minute, on top of the world the next. You’d think I was pregnant again, except there’s no possibility of that unless the Second Coming’s scheduled some time soon.”

“That might be your answer right there. You’re young and healthy. You’ve got needs, and they’re not being met. Sex is important.”

“Maybe, but it’s not easily, or safely come by for somebody in my situation.”

“I know what that’s like, too. You know if you’re interested in dating again, you have all manner of willing baby-sitters.”

“I know.”

“Actually, Hayley, I think sex might be one of the keys to Amelia.”

“I’m sorry, Roz, I’d do most anything to help, but I have to draw the line at having sex with Amelia. Ghost, female, psycho. That’s a full three strikes.”

“There’s our girl,” Roz said with a laugh. “Mitch and I were talking about what happened to you the other evening, sort of expanding on our theories. Sex is what Amelia used to get what she wanted in life. It was her commodity. In any case, that’s our conclusion: She was Reginald’s mistress. And it was how, obviously, she conceived a child.”

“Well, maybe she loved him. Amelia. It’s possible she was seduced by him, in love with him. We really only have Beatrice’s viewpoint of her from the journals, and she wouldn’t be an objective source.”

“Good point, and yes, possible.” Roz took a thoughtful sip of water. “But that still points to sex. Even if she was in love and being used, it came down to sex. Reginald went to her for his pleasure, and his purposes. To conceive a male heir. It’s not far-fetched to assume Amelia’s view of sex is far from healthy.”

“Okay.”

“Then we come into it, the three of us, living together in this house. Stella hears her, sees her—not that unusual as there were children involved. But there’s Logan, and not just an emotional spark between them, but a sexual one. And the episodes begin to escalate. We move to me and Mitch, another sexual contact, and more escalation. Now you.”

“I’m not having sex.” Yet, she thought. Oh boy.

“You’re thinking about it. You’re considering it. As Stella was. As I was.”

“So . . . you think her focus is on me, the sexual energy kind of thing being the magnet. And things will escalate again.”

“I think that may be, and particularly if that sexual energy becomes tied together with genuine affection. With love.”

“If I got involved with someone, emotionally, sexually, she could hurt them. Or Lily. She could—”

“Now wait.” Roz laid a hand over Hayley’s. “She’s never hurt a child. Never in all these years. There’s absolutely no reason to think she might cause Lily any harm. But you’re another matter.”

“She could hurt me, or try. I get that.” Hayley let out a shaky breath. “So I have to make sure she doesn’t. She could hurt someone else, too. You or Mitch, David, any of us. And if there was someone I cared about, someone I wanted, he’d be the most likely target, wouldn’t he?”

“Maybe. But I know you can’t live your life on maybes. You have a right to your life. Hayley, I don’t want you to feel obligated to stay here, or to keep working at In the Garden.”

“You want me to leave?”

“I don’t.” Roz’s hand gripped tighter. “On a purely selfish level, I want you here. You’re the daughter I never had, that’s the God’s truth. And that child in the other room is one of the brightest lights of my life. It’s because of what you mean to me I’m telling you to go.”

Hayley took a deep breath as she rose, first to cross to the window. To look out over the summer gardens, so bold and bright in the hazy dark. And beyond them, to the carriage house, with the porch light glowing.

“My mama left us. Daddy and I weren’t enough to keep her. She didn’t love us enough. When he died, I didn’t even know where to write and tell her. She’ll never see her granddaughter. That’s a shame for her, I think. But not for Lily. Lily has you. I’ve got you. I’ll go if you tell me to. I’ll get another place, get another job. And I’ll stay away from Harper House for as long as it takes. But you need to tell me something first, and I know you’ll tell me the truth because that’s what you do.”

“All right.”

She turned back, met Roz’s eyes. “If you were standing here where I am, having to decide whether to leave people you love—especially when you might be able to help—to leave a place you love, work you love. And you had to decide that because maybe something might happen. Maybe you might have trouble, have to face something hard along the way. What would you do, Roz?”

Roz got to her feet. “I guess you’re staying.”

“I guess I am.”

“David made peach pie.”

“Oh my God.”

Roz held out a hand. “Let’s go have a big sinful slice, and I’ll tell you about the flower shop I’m thinking of adding on next year.”

IN THE CARRIAGE house, Harper raided his stash of leftovers. And thought of Hayley while he ate some of David’s fried chicken.

She’d gone and changed the playing field, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the ball. He’d spent the last year and a half suppressing his feelings and urges when it came to Hayley, and assuming—from her attitude, from every damn signal—that she considered him a friend. Even, God help him, a kind of surrogate brother.

He’d done his best to fill that role.

Now she’d come waltzing in, and put the moves on him. Kissed the brains right out of his head, to the tune of—what the hell was it?—“Bingo.”

He was never going to be able to hear that ridiculous song again without getting hot.

What the hell was he supposed to do now, ask her out? He was good at asking women out. It was normal, but there was nothing normal about all of this, not when he’d convinced himself she wasn’t interested that way. That he shouldn’t be.

Add that they worked together. That she lived in the main house with his mother, for God’s sake. Then there was Lily to consider. It sliced him in two, the way she’d cried for him when Hayley had taken her home. What if he and Hayley got together, and something went wrong? Would it spill over onto Lily?

He’d have to make certain it didn’t, that’s all. He’d have to be careful, take it slow and easy.

Which crossed out any idea brewing in the back of his mind about going over to Hayley’s room after dark and letting nature take its course.

He cleaned up the kitchen, as was his habit, then went up to the loft that held his bedroom, a bath, and a small room he used as an office. He spent an hour on paperwork, ordering his mind back to the business at hand every time it drifted toward Hayley.