‘IT’S HER,’ Jess said, when the phone rang at breakfast about a week later. ‘Lily.’
Daniel tried to keep his expression composed and neutral as he took the receiver. He and Lily had decided to make their phone calls late in the evening, after Jess was in bed, so he was surprised that she was ringing so early.
‘I’m sorry, Daniel, I had to ring you,’ Lily said. ‘I’m so scared. Fern’s just gone in. To the theatre.’
‘So, they’re operating now?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s going to be fine, Lily. She’s in expert hands.’
‘I know. But sometimes—I mean, in every operation there’s always a chance, isn’t there, that something might go wrong?’
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that this was a straightforward hip replacement, not open heart surgery, but he stopped himself just in time. After all, the fear in Lily’s voice was genuine. ‘Hey, this isn’t like you. You’re the girl who always looks on the bright side.’
‘Am I?’
‘Always.’ Lily was steady and generous, sensuous and loving…
She let out a deep sigh. ‘It’s just that I bullied Fern into this. I chased the money and I lined up the doctor. It’s a bad habit of mine—making people do what I think is best for them.’
‘From what you’ve told me, I’m sure you’re right about this.’
‘If Fern had her way, she’d stay clear of hospitals.’
‘But she’s crippled and in pain, isn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ Lily agreed. ‘But, left to her own devices, if the pain got too much, she would be just as likely to have a party on the beach with lots of wine and then do the hippie thing.’
‘What’s that? Drifting out to sea on a raft of rose petals?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Lily, your mother will shower you with her gratitude when this is over, when she’s fit and well again.’
‘Oh, I hope so.’
Daniel leaned a casual shoulder against the wall and smiled. ‘Take it from someone who has been bullied mercilessly by you—’ He stopped in mid-sentence.
Through the kitchen window, he could see Jess and Smiley outside. Jess was directly in his line of sight, standing at the fence, and hurling something out across an empty paddock. At first he thought she was throwing something for Smiley to fetch, but then he realised it was a small stone.
‘I bullied you into collecting Jess from Sydney,’ Lily was saying. ‘But that’s worked out well, hasn’t it?’
‘Absolutely.’
Frowning, Daniel watched through the window as Jess hurled another stone, before turning back to look his way. Through the window, across the back yard, his daughter’s eyes challenged him. Her jaw set stubbornly as, still watching him, she reached into the pocket of her school uniform and drew out another stone.
She was throwing away Lily’s stone people. Daniel was sure of it.
The little minx. She was doing this to punish him. To punish Lily. Horrified, he watched as Jess drew her arm back, ready to throw the last stone.
‘Stop it, Jess!’ he cried through the open window, but he was too late. The third stone was already winging its way to the far end of the paddock.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Lily, on the other end of the line.
‘Sorry. I was distracted for a moment.’
‘I know I’ve called at a bad time. You’ve got to get Jess off to school.’
‘Actually, yes,’ he said, watching Jess and Smiley coming back together across the yard to the house. ‘Can we speak later? I really hope everything goes well for your mother. I’ll be thinking of you, Lily.’
‘Thanks. I miss you so much, Daniel.’
Jess came into the kitchen.
‘And I miss you, too,’ he said, with deliberate tenderness.
Jess didn’t look at him. She picked up the plates and cutlery they’d used for breakfast and carried them to the sink, suddenly a perfect and dutiful daughter, planning to do the washing up.
Behind her, Daniel hung up the phone. ‘I can’t believe you did that,’ he said.
Jess turned with an expression of wide-eyed innocence. ‘Are you talking to me?’
‘You know I am.’ He made no attempt to hide his anger. ‘And you know what I’m talking about. Those were Lily’s stone people you were hurling out there, weren’t they?’
She looked only a little guilty.
‘Why did you do it, Jess?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t like them.’
‘You don’t like the stones? Or you don’t like it when I talk to Lily?’
Jess refused to answer.
‘Have you any idea how much those stones are worth?’
‘No,’ she said, looking puzzled.
‘The man who painted them, Lily’s father, was a very famous artist. Anything he painted—even those little stones—are worth a great deal of money.’
‘I didn’t know,’ she said unhappily. ‘You should have told me.’
Daniel could hardly admit that the monetary value of the stones had never been particularly important to him or Lily. He’d only mentioned it now because he was damn sure Jess wouldn’t care about their sentimental value.
‘I’m telling you now,’ he said. ‘And I’m telling you something else. You’ll be spending your afternoons, after school, hunting in that paddock until you find those stones. All three of them.’
As Jess turned back to the washing up, Daniel had a sinking feeling that his life was veering off-track again. And just when everything had been going so well.
Jess had settled into school after only a few minor road-bumps. Her two best friends, Jane and Susie, were coming for a sleepover next weekend. He’d been particularly pleased that the girls’ parents had agreed to it without any apparent qualms.
He’d begun to realise that his fears about people in the district had been unfounded. He had plenty of support. People were pleased to see him back. Life was returning to normal.
Now Jess had to spoil it all by taking a dislike to Lily. To the idea of Lily. And he found himself wondering if it was too much to ask to have both Jess and Lily in his life.
‘We’re home!’ Lily almost shouted down the phone when she rang ten days later. ‘Fern’s delirious with joy to be out of hospital and back under her own roof.’
‘That’s great news. And how are you feeling?’
‘So happy I almost hugged the doctor when we said our goodbyes.’
She heard Daniel’s deep, sexy chuckle.
‘The poor man doesn’t know what he missed,’ he said.
‘Oh, Daniel, you’re the man I really need to hug. I wish I could see you. Telephones are wonderful inventions, but they have their limitations.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘No hugging potential at all.’
Lily sighed. She was finding this separation so much harder than she’d expected. She wished she was brave enough to ask Daniel how he really felt about being apart from her.
At Ironbark, there’d been so many unspoken reassurances from him—in the way his eyes lit up when he looked at her, in the way he touched her, the way he made love to her.
These days her mind threw up constant pictures of Ironbark, with its rolling paddocks and its sleepy, slow river, and the half-circle of ancient palm trees standing sentinel around the homestead. And she felt a deep longing—for Daniel and his home.
‘Where are you now, Daniel? Which room in the house?’
‘I’m in the study.’
‘In that big brown leather chair with the high back?’
‘Yes,’ he said, sounding faintly amused. ‘That’s the one.’
‘I can see you.’ Smiling, she closed her eyes and imagined him there. ‘You’ve taken your boots off and left them outside the back door, and you’re just wearing socks. Navy blue ones. And you’re leaning back in your chair with your long legs stretched out in front of you, crossed at the ankles.’
Daniel laughed.
‘Am I right?’
‘Spot-on,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe I’m so predictable.’
‘I can’t believe I got to know you so well in under a week.’ She spoke in a kind of hushed and awe-filled whisper as she realised how deeply she felt about this man.
‘That was a very special time, Lily.’
Something about the way he said that scared her suddenly—a sense of things past, gone for ever and never to be retrieved.
‘I won’t be able to get away till Fern is strong again, but I was wondering if you and Jess could come here and visit us, now that we’re back,’ she said, needing to shake off that feeling of foreboding and rekindle the happiness and confidence that had filled her at the start of the conversation.
‘Yeah,’ said Daniel. ‘That sounds great.’
‘Sugar Bay’s only about half a day’s drive from your place. The weather’s beautiful this time of year. Jess’ll love the beach. It’ll be fabulous. Let’s set a date.’
‘Maybe—’
Lily hurried on. ‘And as soon as Fern’s mobile again, I promise I’ll come out to Ironbark to spend some time with you and Jess there.’ Lily paused and waited for Daniel’s answer. When it didn’t come, she said, ‘What do you think?’
Daniel sighed.
Her heart began an anxious thumping.
‘I might—We might need a little more time, Lily.’
‘I see,’ she said slowly. But she didn’t. She didn’t see at all. She’d thought Daniel was as impatient to get back together as she was. ‘So, you don’t want to set a date?’
‘I have to be honest with you. I don’t think Jess is quite ready to deal with the idea of—us. As a couple.’
Lily sat very still, unable to speak. She looked dully about her at the bright mishmash of furnishings in Fern’s sitting room and she thought, This is it. It’s happening all over again. As soon as I fall deeply, heart-and-soul in love with a man, it happens.
Daniel was going to break it off. And she didn’t know if she could bear it.
‘Lily? Are you there?’
‘Yes,’ she said, praying that she wouldn’t embarrass herself by bursting into tears.
‘Jess has been rather difficult,’ he said. ‘There’s been a lot for her to adjust to.’
‘Yes, I understand.’
The worst of it was that she did understand. She could imagine herself in Jess’s shoes at the age of eleven.
‘I guess it’s just like I warned you,’ she said. ‘Jess feels fiercely possessive about you now. I imagine she doesn’t want to share you. Certainly not with a strange female.’
‘That’s it. You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. It helps that you understand.’
No, it doesn’t, Lily thought, with a kind of wild desperation. It doesn’t help me at all.
‘And what about you, Daniel? How do you feel?’
She heard a soft sound on the other end of the line that might have been a groan or a sigh.
‘It’s a really delicate situation, Lily.’
She felt shaky, and she wanted to cry.
‘I need to play it very carefully,’ Daniel said. ‘After all, I dragged Jess away from Sydney with the promise that her life back home would be just the way it used to be. As far as she’s concerned, the way it used to be is just the two of us. That’s how it’s been since before she started school, and it’s what she expected. It’s what she wants. Right now, I don’t know if she can handle the idea of anything more.’
There was something terribly final about the way he said that.
‘That’s—that’s understandable.’ Lily was grateful that she managed to sound together, even though she was terrified inside. She was gripped by a mad impulse to say, I’ll wait. I’ll wait till Jess grows up and leaves home, if necessary.
But she knew she couldn’t begin to talk about a prolonged separation without breaking down. She’d been humiliated that way before. She’d tried to negotiate all sorts of pathetic bargains with Josh, when he’d first shown signs of wanting to leave her. She wasn’t about to go down that path again.
‘It’s probably best if we call it quits now, isn’t it?’ she said, very hurriedly. ‘Otherwise we might be trying to drag out something that’s never going to work anyway. There’s no point in prolonging the agony.’
‘Lily—I—’
‘I’m sorry, Daniel. I think I can hear Fern calling. I’d better go. Goodbye.’ And she hung up.
I can’t believe I let that happen.
Daniel sat in a horrified daze, staring at the telephone.
What have I done?
When he’d answered the phone and heard Lily’s cheerful voice, he’d felt a leap inside him, like a shout of joy. It happened every time; whenever he thought of her he was instantly happy. Lily Halliday was the most exciting woman he’d ever met—lovely to look at, and so much fun to be with. Sensitive and loving. Divine in bed. She’d helped push away the darkness that had haunted him after prison.
Covering his face with his hands, he pressed his fingers against his eyes and stifled a cry of angry despair.
Lily was the woman he should have wooed and won.
He knew that with damning certainty. He’d never met anyone like her, and he never would again.
But how was a future with her possible? When she’d asked him to come to Sugar Bay he’d thought of Jess, and he’d known at once that the trip wouldn’t work.
If he tried to leave Jess with a babysitter she would resent being farmed out, but if he took her to play gooseberry while he courted Lily she would be worse. She would pout and sulk. He would get angry. Lily would be upset. It would be a disaster all round.
And he couldn’t, in all honesty, blame Jess.
The poor kid had already suffered enough at her parents’ hands. A jailbird father and a runaway mother who had subsequently died were more than any child should have to deal with.
He couldn’t dump a new set of hurdles in front of her. Not yet.
Damn, damn, damn. It was painful to accept, but he knew that Lily had probably been wise to end things between them.
Lily was young and beautiful. Wherever she went, there would be guys lining up to win her. Why should he expect her to hang around, waiting till he and Jess let go of their past and woke up to their future?
I can’t believe I let him go.
Lily sat on the edge of the bed in her little room at the back of Fern’s cottage, hugging her arms tightly over her stomach.
How could I do that?
How could she have broken up with Daniel? She was mad about the man. She was totally in love with him. Didn’t he know that?
But his daughter loves him too, and she deserves him more.
There was the rub.
Lily had spent so many years feeling hurt about the way her own father had deserted her; she knew only too well how Jess must feel. She could imagine why Jess might want to put up barriers between Daniel and a new woman.
But the irony is that I was the one who sent him after you, Jess. I bullied and cajoled your daddy into reclaiming you. You want to cast me as some kind of wicked wannabe-stepmother. But I understand exactly how you feel.
It was so unfair.
If only she could fight for Daniel. Lily wanted to. Desperately. But she couldn’t fight with his daughter. That was the one battle she would never begin, the single territory she dared not invade.
But, dear God, losing Daniel was too high a price; it was unbearable. Without him what was the point of anything?
A heart-rending wail of despair broke from her, and she fell backwards onto the bed, giving in to her tears. She felt as if her last chance of happiness was draining away.