The pull of him was irresistible, like the tides.
“Jack. I didn’t expect to see you.” He caught her outstretched hands and didn’t let go. Jack had never let her go when she needed him. She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted him to be a part of her own landmark event until suddenly he was there. “I thought you’d be too busy at your new clinic to come.”
“How could I miss it?” His eyes searched hers. “You look beautiful. Are you happy, Lily?”
Stephen had asked the same thing. And she hadn’t hesitated. Why was it different with Jack?
“Stephen is a wonderful man. Annabelle and I will finally have the family we deserve.”
“Family is important.” Jack let go, and she took a step back. Cameras were turned in their direction. Pictures would tell their own story, and she didn’t want anybody to get the wrong idea, particularly reporters. “I wish Mom and Dad could have been here.”
“How are they?” She felt a twinge of guilt. “I’ve been so busy the last few months, I’m afraid I haven’t taken the time to visit.”
“They’re gadding around Europe and loving every minute of it. I’ve never seen two people embrace retirement with such enthusiasm.”
“Bob and Susan are enthusiastic about everything they love.”
Especially each other. The thought came to her unbidden as she stood under the spray of water, remembering. She wanted that kind of love. With Stephen. The foundation was there. She knew it was.
Time, that’s all they needed. Love like that took years to develop. It was built on shared experiences and memories, on the children they would have and the kind of home they would create together.
Wasn’t it?
“Mom?” Her daughter was back, calling to her from the bedroom.
“I’ll be out in a minute.”
Lily slipped into jeans and a lightweight pullover then joined her daughter. They hurried down the hallway past all the bedrooms in the west wing, including Cee Cee’s. Her door was open and her bed disheveled, as if she’d tossed her covers back and hurried out on some grand adventure.
Annabelle choked back a sob, and Lily squeezed her hand. “We’ll find her, sweetheart. Don’t worry.”
“Find who?” It was Stephen’s mother coming from the east wing then stopping on the second floor landing, her hands on her hips.
Though she was in simple slacks and sweater, she was every bit as forbidding and imposing as she’d been the previous evening in her jet beaded evening gown. The woman had ice water in her veins.
Lily’s hopes of gaining a warm motherly figure who would fill the void left by her beloved mom had died a thousand deaths last night. This meeting with Toni offered no improvement. Still, Lily refused to be intimidated.
“We’re looking for Cee Cee. Have you seen her?”
“I don’t keep up with the riffraff Stephen brings into my house.”
“You take that back!” Annabelle looked ready to drop the woman with a roundhouse kick.
Lily kept a tight grip on her daughter. “Cee Cee is an amazing girl, Mrs. Allistair. She’s like a daughter to me.” She was proud of how she kept her voice from shaking. “Furthermore, Stephen has asked me to redecorate this house and turn it into our home. What color would you like in your guest bedroom?”
Fury contorted Toni’s face. “Stephen will hear about this.”
Stephen’s awful mother stormed off in the direction of her bedroom suite while Lily hurried her daughter down the stairs.
“She’s mean,” Annabelle said, expressing exactly what Lily wanted to say but couldn’t. Sometimes being a grownup was too hard. “Is she scared her face will crack if she smiles?”
“I can understand why you’d say that, but we don’t know what her life is like. She might just be a very unhappy woman taking out her feelings on everybody else.”
“What was she doing in that part of the house, anyhow? It’s locked down tighter than Fort Knox.”
“Breeding roses is very competitive. Stephen said fifty-eight years worth of archives are housed in the east wing. If their award-winning rose formulas are leaked, it would be disastrous for the company. Let’s forget about all that and concentrate on finding Cee Cee.”
The first floor ballroom, empty now of music and party-goers, had an air of desertion, although last night’s decorations were still there. Several of the staff, as well as a cleaning crew Lily didn’t know, scurried about tidying up the vast room.
“Have you talked to any of them, Annabelle?”
When her daughter shook her head, Lily went directly to the man Stephen had introduced on her first visit to