by Nora Roberts
She drew in the perfume of heliotrope, sweet peas, roses, and the more pungent aroma of earth. All of those scents, along with the different tones of growing green would forever make her think of Harper, and this place.
She caught up with Lily, knocked. On impulse she stepped back and to the side, leaving her little girl clapping her hands at Harper’s front door. Where the porch light was on, a glowing circle of yellow.
When the door opened, she heard Lily give her greeting—something between hi and hey and a cry of pleasure.
“Look what I found at my front door.”
From her vantage point, Hayley could see Lily’s arms go up; and Harper’s come down. When he scooped her up, Lily was already babbling in her excited and incomprehensible language.
“Is that right? Just thought you’d drop by to say hi? Maybe you ought to come in and have a cookie, but we’d better find your mama first.”
“She’s right here.” Laughing, Hayley stepped over to the door. “Sorry, but it was so cute. You know she can’t walk by your place without wanting to see you, so I thought I’d knock and let her stand there on her own.”
She reached out, but as usual when Harper was involved, Lily shook her head and wrapped herself around her favorite man.
“I mentioned the C word. Why don’t you come in and I’ll dig one out for her.”
“You’re not busy?”
“No. Was just thinking about getting a beer and doing some paperwork. Just as soon postpone the paperwork part of it.”
“I always like coming in here.” She glanced around the living room as he carried Lily back toward the kitchen. “You’re pretty tidy, too, for a single straight guy.”
“Comes from living with Mama, I guess.” With Lily on his hip, he reached in a cupboard and got out the box of animal crackers he kept on hand for her. “Now how’d these get here?”
He opened the box, let her dig one out. “Want a beer?”
“I wouldn’t mind. I stopped off at Stella’s after work. Ended up having burgers on the grill, but I passed on the wine. I don’t like sipping when I’m driving, even just a little when I’ve got Lily in the car.”
He offered her a beer, got one for himself. “How you doing?” When she only angled her head, he shrugged. “Word spreads. I heard about what happened. In any case, it’s something we’re all involved in, so word should spread.”
“It’s a little embarrassing to have word of my sex dreams spreading.”
“It wasn’t like that. Besides, nothing wrong with a good sex dream.”
“I’d as soon the next one I have be all my own idea.” She tipped back the beer, watching him. “You look a little like him, you know.”
“Sorry?”
“Reginald, especially now that I’ve seen him in what you could call a more intimate situation. Something more personal than an old photograph. You’ve got the same coloring, and the same shape to your face—your mouth. His build’s not as good as yours.”
“Oh. Well.” He lifted his beer, drank deep.
“He was slim, but soft. Like his hands. And he was older than you, a little gray in the hair. And some hard lines coming in around the mouth, out from the eyes. But still, very handsome, very virile.”
She got Lily’s sip-cup of juice and her music cube out of the diaper bag. Bribing her, she lifted her away from Harper and set her on the floor.
“You got better shoulders, and no pudge right here.” She poked her finger into his belly.
“Okay.”
Lily sat down with her music cube, playing with it so it switched from “This Old Man” to “Bingo.”
“I noticed all that,” Hayley said, “seeing as we were all naked and sweaty.”
“I bet.”
“I especially noticed the resemblance—the similarities and the differences because when I started out fantasizing—my own part of it—it was with you.”
“It was . . . what?”
Okay, a little shocked, but more confused, she decided, and moved in. “It started with you, something like this.”
She slid a hand around to the back of his neck, rose up on her toes. She stopped, her lips a whisper from his, to savor that instant when the breath catches and the heart stumbles. Then she closed the distance.
Soft, as she’d imagined it would be soft. And warm. His hair was a silky weight on the back of her hand, and his body such a pleasure to press against.
He’d gone so still, but for his heart that slammed against hers. Then she felt his hand on her back, the fist he made as he gathered her shirt in his fingers.
On the floor, Lily’s music cube was a jubilant crash of sound.
She made herself ease back. One step at a time, she reminded herself. Though her belly was quivering, she did her best to take a casual sip of beer while he stared at her with those dark eyes.
“So, what do you think?”
He lifted a hand, then dropped it again. “I appear to have lost the capability for rational thought.”
“When you get it back, you’ll have to let me know.”
She turned to gather the baby’s things.
“Hayley.” He reached out, grabbed her by the waistband of her jeans and tugged. “Uh-uh.”
Her belly jumped, joyfully. She glanced over her shoulder. “Which means?”
“The short way of saying you don’t walk in here, kiss me like that, then walk out again. Question. Was that a demonstration to catch me up with what’s happening with Amelia, or was it something else?”
“I’ve been wondering what it would be like, so I decided to find out.”
“Okay.” He turned her around, glanced down to be sure Lily was still occupied, then backed her into the counter.
His hands were at her hips when his mouth met hers. As his tongue dipped in, an intimate taste, those hands slid up, cruising over her, setting off little charges under her skin.
Then he stepped back, rubbed a thumb over her tingling lips. “I’ve been wondering what it would be like, too. So I guess we both know.”
“Looks like,” she managed.
Since Lily came over to tug at his pants, Harper boosted her up on his hip. “I guess it’s complicated.”
“Yeah, it is. Very. We’ll need to take it slow, think it all the way through.”
“Sure. Or we can say screw that and I can come to your room later tonight.”
“I . . . I want to say yes. I’m thinking yes,” she said on a rush. “Yes is screaming inside my head and I don’t know why yes isn’t coming out of my mouth. It’s exactly what I want.”
“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 does
n’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.”