Red Lily

been sure that’s where she’d been going.
    Her gown had been wet and muddy, he remembered as he ran. As if she’d been in the rain.
    He knew his way, even in the dark. There was no turn of the path that wasn’t familiar to him. He saw his front door hanging open, felt a trip of relief.
    “Hayley!” He slapped on the light as he rushed in.
    The floor was wet, and muddy footprints crossed the room, into the kitchen. He knew the house was empty even before he called for her again, before he ran through it, heart thundering, looking for her.
    This time he grabbed the phone, speed-dialing as he ran back out.
    “Mama, Hayley’s gone. She went outside. I can’t find her. She’s—oh Jesus, I see her. Third floor. She’s on the third floor terrace.”

    He tossed the phone aside and kept running.
    She didn’t turn when he shouted her name, but continued to cross the terrace like a wraith. His feet skidded on wet stone, and flowers were crushed as he leaped off the path into beds to cut to the stairs leading up.
    Lungs burning, heart screaming, he bounded up.
    He reached the third level as she flung open a door.
    She hesitated when he called out to her, and slowly turned her head to face him. And smiled. “Death for life.”
    “No.”
    He made the last leap, grabbed her arm and jerked her inside out of the rain. “No,” he said again, and wrapped his arms around her. “Feel me. You know who I am. You know who you are. Feel me.”
    He tightened his grip when she struggled. Held her close and warm even as her head whipped from side to side and her teeth snapped like a wild dog’s.
    “I will have my son!”
    “You have a daughter. You have Lily. Lily’s sleeping. Hayley, stay with us.”
    And swept her up in his arms when her body sagged.
    “I’m cold. Harper, I’m cold.”
    “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
    H E 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 see 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