Red Lily

honeymoon.
    It had been so nice, so much fun, to watch both Stella and Roz fall in love. She’d felt a part of it all—the excitement, the changes, the expansion of her new family circle.
    Of course, Roz’s marriage meant Hayley’d have to stop dragging her feet on finding a place of her own. Newlyweds were entitled to privacy.
    She wished there was a place close by. Even on the estate. Like the carriage house. Harper’s house. She sighed a little as she rubbed a hand over Lily’s back.
    Harper Ashby. Rosalind Harper Ashby’s firstborn, and one delicious piece of eye candy. Of course she didn’t think about him that way. Much. He was a friend, a co-worker, and her baby girl’s first crush. From all appearances, that love affair was mutual.
    She yawned again, lulled like the baby by the rhythm of the rocking and the early-morning quiet.
    Harper was, well, just flat-out amazing with Lily. Patient and funny, easy and loving. Secretly she thought of him as Lily’s surrogate father—without the benefits of smoochies with Lily’s mother.

    Sometimes she played pretend—and what was the harm in that?—and the surrogate part of father didn’t apply. The smoochies did. After all, what red-blooded American girl—currently very sex-deprived girl—wouldn’t fantasize now and again about the tall, dark, and ridiculously handsome type, especially when he came with a killer grin, heart-melting brown eyes, and a pinchable butt?
    Not that she’d ever pinched it. But in theory.
    Plus he was completely smart. He knew everything there was to know about plants and flowers. She loved to watch him working in the grafting house at In the Garden. The way his hands held a knife or tied raffia.
    He was teaching her, and she appreciated it. Appreciated it too much to indulge herself and take a nice hungry bite out of him.
    But imagining doing it didn’t hurt a thing.
    She eased the rocker to a stop, held her breath and waited. Lily’s back continued to rise and fall steadily under her hand.
    Thank God.
    She got up slowly, moving toward the crib with the stealth and purpose of a woman making a prison break. With her arms aching, her head fuzzy with fatigue, she leaned over the crib and gently, inch by inch laid Lily on the mattress.
    Even as she draped the blanket over her, Lily began to stir. Her head popped up, and she began wailing.
    “Oh, Lily, please, come on, baby.” Hayley patted, rubbed, swaying on her feet. “Ssh now, come on. Give your mama a little break.”
    The patting seemed to work—as long as she kept her hand on Lily’s back, the little head stayed down. So Hayley sank to the floor, stuck her arm through the crib slats. And patted. And patted.
    And drifted off to sleep.

    I T WAS THE singing that woke her. Her arm was asleep, and stayed that way when her eyes opened. The room was cold; the section of the floor where she sat beside the crib a square of ice. Her arm prickled from shoulder to fingertip as she shifted to keep a protective hand on Lily’s back.
    The figure in the gray dress sat in the rocker, softly singing the old-fashioned lullaby. Her eyes met Hayley’s, but she continued to sing, continued to rock.
    The jolt of shock cleared the fuzziness from Hayley’s head, and had her heart taking one hard leap into her throat.
    Just what did you say to a ghost you hadn’t seen for several weeks? she wondered. Hey, how are you? Welcome home? Just what was the proper response, especially when the ghost in question was totally whacked?
    Hayley’s skin was slicked with cold when she pushed slowly to her feet so she could stand between the rocker and the crib. Just in case. Because it felt as if a few thousand needles were lodged in her arm, she cradled it against her body, rubbing it briskly.
    Note all the details, she reminded herself. Mitch would want all the details.
    She looked pretty calm for a psychotic ghost, Hayley decided. Calm and sad, the way she had the first time Hayley had seen her. But she’d also seen her with crazed, bulging eyes.
    “Um. She had to get some shots today. Inoculations. She’s always fussy the night after she gets them. But I think she’s settled down now. In time to get up again in a couple of hours, so she’ll probably be cranky for the baby-sitter until she gets her nap. But . . . but she should sleep now, so you could go.”
    The figure faded away seconds before the singing.

    D AVID FIXED HER blueberry pancakes for breakfast. She’d told him not to cook