Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 by Susan Wiggs Page B

to happen. Unless Prince Charming was willing to take on Daisy and Charlie both.
    Logan O’Donnell, the baby’s father, kept trying to convince her that he was the one. There was one problem with that. Logan wasn’t Prince Charming. Oh, he looked like a prince, which was what had landed Daisy in trouble in the first place. But now that reality had hit Daisy like a brick to the head, she knew it took a lot more than looks to make a prince.
    She lifted Charlie against her and draped a cloth over her shoulder to catch the spit-up, which was his custom after every meal. Thanks to Charlie, she had missed the very tail end of the wedding. He’d been great right up until the final reading. She’d promised her dad and Nina that she wouldn’t let him interrupt and, true to her word, she’d whisked him away at the first squawk.
    Now she rubbed the baby’s back, standing up and swaying back and forth on the balcony. “We don’t need a prince, do we?” she whispered in his ear. “We just need to fanta-size about something different. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I mean, I know you’re really little, but I wonder if you’d mind staying with a babysitter for a few hours a week while I take a photography course at the college.”
    He rewarded her with a gentle belch.
    Daisy smiled. “That’s right, I got in. My portfolio was approved for the class, and it all starts in a few weeks. I’m going to feel totally guilty about leaving you, though. Mom left Max and me a lot when we were little. She had to, because of her work. I wonder if she felt like this, too. Just totally guilty—”
    â€œHey, Daisy!” Standing two stories below, Sonnet Romano waved at her. “Come on down. They’re about to cut the cake.”
    â€œDon’t let them start without me,” Daisy called.
    â€œYou want some help?”
    â€œThat’s okay. We’ll be right there.”
    Nina’s daughter Sonnet was the first friend Daisy had made in Avalon, New York, where they’d moved after Daisy’s parents divorced. She was the first person Daisy had told, after her dad, about being pregnant. Now Sonnet and Daisy were stepsisters. She hoped that didn’t mean the end of a beautiful friendship.
    â€œYou hear that?” Daisy said to Charlie as she put her camera into the ever-present diaper bag. “Cake! I love cake.” One of the best things about breastfeeding was that you could eat anything you wanted—cake, peanut butter, cookie dough, you name it—and you didn’t gain weight, because it took a lot of calories to be a milk factory.
    She buckled the baby into his carrier and headed out the door. The hotel had open-air hallways and stairwells, and a warm breeze flowed through, carrying the scent of exotic flowers. Here in the tropics, winter seemed a million miles away.
    At the bottom of the stairs, she headed toward the reception, but stopped when she saw Max running toward her.
    She took one look at her brother’s face and knew something was wrong. Well, whatever it was, they weren’t going to bug Dad about it. Not today, of all days.

Part Four
    Three weeks later
    Decision
    Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.
    â€”Andrew Carnegie, founding contributor of the Peace Palace

Seven
    The Hague, Holland
Three weeks later
    W hile waiting for Tariq in the courtyard of the Peace Palace, Sophie turned in a slow circle, waiting for the flashbacks to hit like a bolt from the sky. She’d been told by her post-trauma treatment team to expect unsettling reminders of the ordeal she’d suffered here. But nothing happened, not even when she thought about André staggering toward her, bleeding into the snow. She felt a wave of grief, but no panic, no insanity. The sky remained its usual brooding gray. The neo-Gothic walls of the palace, stained