Red Lily by Nora Roberts Page A

out.”

    “Anything else happens, I want to hear it,” Roz told her.
    “That’s a promise.”
    Roz waited until Hayley was gone, then turned to Mitch. “We’re going to have to worry about her, aren’t we?”
    “Let’s not skip straight to worry.” He took her hand. “Let’s start with we’ll keep an eye out for her.”

five
    F ROM S TELLA ’ S KITCHEN window, Hayley could see the spread of the back gardens, the patio, the arbor, the treehouse Logan and the boys had built snugged into the branches of a sycamore.
    She watched Logan push Lily on a red swing that hung from another branch while the boys tossed an old ball for Parker to chase.
    It was, she thought, a kind of moving portrait of summer evening. The sort of lazy contentment that only comes on breathless summer days right before the kids are called in for supper and the porch light goes on. Yellow glows to chase the moths away and to shine a circle that says: We’re home.
    She remembered, so clearly, what it was to be a child in August, to love the heat, to rush through it to snatch every drop of the sun before it went down.

    Now, she hoped, she was learning what it was to be a mother. To be on the other side of the screen door. To be the one who turned on the porch light.
    “Do you get used to it, or do you still look out sometimes like this, and think ‘I’m the luckiest woman in the world.’ ”
    Stella moved over to the window, smiled. “Both. You want to sit out on the patio with this lemonade?”
    “In a minute. I didn’t want to talk about this at work. Not just because it’s at work, but because it’s still on the Harper estate. And she’s on the estate. She can’t come here.”
    “Roz told me what happened.” Stella laid a hand on Hayley’s shoulder.
    “I didn’t tell her that it was Harper. I mean when I was fantasizing, I was with Harper. I’m just not going to tell her I was fantasizing about getting naked with her son.”
    “I think that’s a judicious edit at this point. Has anything happened since?”
    “No, nothing. And I don’t know whether to hope something does or something doesn’t.” She watched Logan field the mangled slobbery ball that rolled his way, then toss it, sending dog and boys on a mad chase while Lily bounced in the swing and clapped her hands.
    “I can tell you this, if I have to star in someone’s life and times, I’d rather take a turn in yours.”
    “I believe in being a good and true friend, Hayley, but I’m not letting you have sex with Logan.”
    Hayley snorted out a laugh, then gave Stella an elbow nudge. “Spoilsport, and though I wasn’t going there, I bet—wow.”
    Stella’s smile was lazy as a cat’s. “You bet right.”
    “Anyway. I was just thinking how it would be to have someone as crazy about me as Logan is about you. Toss ina couple of great kids, a beautiful home you’ve made together, and who needs fantasies?”
    “You’ll have what you’re looking for one day, too.”
    “Listen to me, you’d think I was the redheaded stepchild. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.” She rolled her shoulders as if shrugging off a weight. “I keep catching myself doing a poor-me routine. It’s not like me, Stella. I’m happy. And even when I’m not, I look for a way to make myself happy. I don’t brood and bitch. Or hardly.”
    “No, you don’t.”
    “Maybe I’ve got a thing for Harper, but a little frustration’s not enough to bring me down. Next time you hear me feeling sorry for myself, give me a good smack.”
    “Sure. What are friends for?”
    S HE MEANT IT , too. She wasn’t the type to sit around ticking off the negatives of her life to see if she could make them outweigh the positives. If something was wrong, something was missing, she acted. Fix the problem and move ahead. Or if the problem couldn’t be fixed, she found the best way to live with it.
    When her mother had left, she’d been sad and scared and hurt. But there’d been nothing she