Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

“It’s all right. You’re all right.” He carried her across the wide ballroom with its ghostly dust sheets as rain lashed windows.

Before he reached the door, Mitch shoved it open. After one quick glance, Mitch let out a breath. “Your mother went to check on Lily. What happened?”

“Not now.” With Hayley shivering in his arms, Harper moved by Mitch. “We’ll deal with it later. She needs to get warm and dry. The rest will have to wait.”

nineteen

HE HAD HER bundled in a blanket from neck to toe, and sat behind her on the bed drying her hair with a towel.

“I don’t remember getting up. I don’t remember going out.”

“Are you warm enough?”

“Yeah.” Except for the sheen of ice inside her bones. She wondered if any heat would ever reach that deep in her again. “I don’t know how long I was out there.”

“You’re back now.”

She reached back, laid a hand over his. He needed warmth and comfort as much as she did. “You found me.”

He pressed a kiss to her damp hair. “I always will.”

“You took Lily’s monitor.” And that, she thought, meant even more. “You remembered to take it. You didn’t leave her alone.”

“Hayley.” He wrapped his arms around her, pressed his cheek to hers. “I won’t leave either of you alone.” Then laid a hand on her belly. “Any of you. I swear it.”

“I know. She doesn’t believe in promises, or faith, or love. I do. I believe in us, with everything I’ve got.” She turned her head so her lips could brush his. “I didn’t always, but I do now. I have everything. She has nothing.”

“You can feel sorry for her? After this? After everything?”

“I don’t know what I feel for her. Or about her.” It felt so wonderful to be able to lean her head back, rest it on his good, strong shoulder. “I thought I understood her, at least a little. We were both in a kind of similar situation. I mean, getting pregnant, and not wanting the baby at first.”

“You’re nothing alike.”

“Harper, erase the personalities, and your feelings for just a minute. Look at it objectively, like you do at work. Look at the situation. We were both unmarried and pregnant. Not loving the father, not wanting to s

ee our lives changed, burdened even. Then coming to want the baby. In different ways, for different reasons, but coming to want the baby so much.”

“Different ways and different reasons,” he repeated. “But all right, I can see that, on the surface, there’s a pattern.”

The door opened. Roz came in with a tray. “I’m not going to disturb you. Harper, you see that she drinks this.” After setting the tray at the foot of the bed, Roz skirted around to the side. She took Hayley’s face in her hand, kissed her cheek. “You get some rest.”

Harper reached out, took Roz’s hand for a moment. “Thanks, Mama.”

“You need anything, you call.”

“She didn’t have anyone to take care of her,” Hayley said quietly when the door closed behind Roz. “No one to care about her.”

“Who did she care about? Who did she care for? Obsession isn’t caring,” he added before Hayley could speak. He eased away to get up, pour the tea. “What was done to her sucked big-time. No argument, no debate. But you know what? There aren’t any heroes in her sad story.”

“There should be. There should always be heroes. But no.” She took the tea. “She wasn’t heroic. Not even tragic, like Juliet. She’s just sad. And bitter.”

“Calculating,” he added. “And crazy.”

“That, too. She wouldn’t have understood you. I think I know her well enough now to be sure of that. She wouldn’t have understood your heart, or your honesty. That’s sad, too.”

He walked to the doors. He was getting the soaker he’d wished for and could stand there, watch the earth drink in the rain.

“She was always sad.” He reached inside, beyond his anger and found the pity. “I could see it even when I was a kid, and she’d be in my room, singing. Sad and lost. Still I felt safe with her, the way you do when you’re with someone you know cares about you. She cared, on some level, for me, for my brothers. I guess that has to count for something.”