the poets.”
Most of the reporters laughed, but others shouted questions.
“Why has Wyler given no interviews in thirty-eight years?”
“Stephen, how do you respond to rumors that your father is mentally ill?”
“Why does Toni Allistair refuse to talk about her husband in interviews?”
“Why did a beauty like Toni Allistair never divorce Wyler and remarry?”
Making his face a careful mask, Stephen stuffed his hands into his pockets to hide his balled-up fists. He wasn’t about to let them keep digging into his family history.
“We have nothing to add to our original statement about my father’s rare disease and his subsequent retirement to Switzerland. Thank you for coming. Before you leave, do take the time to say hello to my beautiful fiancée.” He gestured to the back of the room where Lily stood with the girls. “Enjoy the food, the music and the roses, especially my new blue and white floribunda, the Mariposa. It was nine years in the making, and we’re delighted to add it to the collection of award-winning Allistair roses.”
He was turning to leave when a reporter shouted, “What’s next for you, Stephen?”
“The Margaret. A blue tea rose so vivid it will be neon.” Adrenaline burst through him, and the flush crept over up his neck. “The inspiration is a Carl Sandburg poem by that name.” He glanced toward the back of the room. Her face was glowing, and his heart picked up speed as he quoted from the poet. “’In your blue eyes… I saw many wild wishes.’”
The reporters turned their attention and their cameras on Lily, and Stephen rushed from the conservatory. He had to have some air.
Chapter Two
“Wake up!” The panicked voice filtered through Lily’s bizarre dreams. Someone was shaking her shoulder. “Wake up! She’s gone!”
Lily sat up so fast her head spun. The clock on the bedside table said ten a.m. What on earth was happening? She never overslept. Rubbing her bleary eyes, she peered at her daughter. Annabelle’s face was deathly pale.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mom, I can’t find her.” She cast herself into Lily’s arms and mumbled into her shoulder. “She’s not in her room, she’s not outside. I looked everywhere.”
“Who?’
“Cee Cee.” Annabelle leaned away from Lily, sniffling and wiping her nose with the end of her sleep shirt. You have to kiss a few frogs before you find a prince it said. “We stayed up late talking. She couldn’t shut up about the party. She even enjoyed those stupid reporters shoving microphones into our faces.”
“So, when did you go to bed?”
“It was about two thirty.”
Annabelle looked sheepish, and Lily smoothed her tangled hair. “It’s okay. We had lots to celebrate.” Her daughter made a face, but she let it go. “Maybe Cee Cee went running.”
“No way! She’d never drag herself out of bed just to run. And she’d never go without me. She’d have come into my room to wake me up.”
“Have you tried to call or text?”
“A zillion times, Mom! She won’t answer.”
“Maybe the staff knows something. Cee Cee often eats breakfast before you do.”
“That grumpy old woman in the kitchen said she hadn’t seen her.”
“Go put on some clothes, and we’ll see what we can find out. I’m sure she’s somewhere around here. Maybe holed up in the library reading.”
As she headed to the shower Lily struggled less from alarm than with a head that felt stuffed with cotton. Cee Cee was enchanted with the sprawling Allistair estate. Maybe she was off exploring. Maybe she’d asked Stephen or Clive to take her on a tour of the greenhouses.
An hour was an eternity to a teenager. And they were ultra dramatic. Annabelle more than most. Lily hoped having a father would ground her. If only her daughter would warm up to Stephen.
That fell into the category of when pigs fly. The only man Annabelle had ever wanted in their lives was Jack Harper. Uncle Jack, she called him--Lily’s childhood and forever friend, the boy who had defended her all through school, the man who had spent weekends away from college driving back to Ocean Springs for Annabelle’s birthdays and Easter egg hunts and dance recitals. Even throughout the eight years of medical school, internship, and a fellowship, he’d tried to attend every one of Annabelle’s landmark events. When he couldn’t come, he’d sent cards and gifts.
Jack had been at the engagement party last night. Lily had spotted him after the ceremony in the conservatory.
As water sprayed around her, she relived the moment.
He was leaning against the jamb of the French doors that led to a courtyard.