Magnificent Folly (2 page)

“Yes.” Lily was silent a moment, trying to find the right words of caution that wouldn’t frighten. “Sometimes it’s not wise to be too friendly to strangers. If he ever tries to speak to you I’d like you to—”

“Oh, Mom, he’s not one of those creeps you told me about who tries to give candy to kids.” Cassie’s tone was impatient. “He’s okay.”

“You can’t be sure. It’s always better to be careful.”

“I’m sure.” Cassie frowned. “He … likes me.”

“For heaven’s sake, Cassie. You just said he’s never even spoken to you. How can you know that?”

Cassie’s jaw was set stubbornly. “He
likes
me.”

Lily knew she would get no further in trying to influence Cassie when her daughter’s characteristic obstinacy was in full bloom. She would have to drop the subject and approach it later from another angle. She smiled. “What’s not to like?”

A little of Cassie’s belligerence eased. “He’s not a creep.”

“If you say so.”

They walked in silence for a few moments, and they were climbing the steps when Cassie spoke again. “Andrew.”

Lily glanced at her inquiringly.

“You asked if I knew who he was. His name is Andrew.”

“How do you know?”

Cassie frowned in puzzlement. “I’m not sure.” Then her expression cleared. “I must have heard someone call his name sometime. Right?”

Lily nodded slowly. “That seems reasonable.”

But it was the middle of September, and this section of the beach was nearly deserted. Lily had never seen anyone else on the cliff. No one
at all. She shivered as she threw open the door. “Shower,” she said as she gave Cassie a gentle nudge toward her room. “Then put on your pajamas and robe while I make supper. Fifteen minutes.”

Cassie nodded, and a minute later the door of her room slammed behind her.

Was he still there? Lily turned slowly and looked out over the rock-strewn dunes toward the cliff. Darkness had almost entirely enveloped the sky, but she could still discern the shadowy figure on the cliff. There was no sunset to enjoy any longer, so why the hell didn’t he go home?

As if in answer to her question, the man rose to his feet. He stood quite still for a moment, a slim, powerful figure staring down into the darkness. Then he turned and walked away.

Lily breathed a sigh of relief before tension gripped her again. Now that he was no longer in sight he could be doing anything, going anywhere. He could even be coming down the cliff path toward the beach … and their cottage.

Lily slammed the door and shot the lock and
then immediately felt foolish. She was being incredibly stupid. The man was probably a bespectacled accountant renting one of the cottages down the beach; perhaps he climbed the cliff every evening to watch the sunset and to get away from his wife and kids. Togetherness could be overpowering in these postage-stamp-size cottages. Yes, it was only her imagination that was inflating that solitary shadow into a figure of power and mystery.

She turned and walked briskly toward the kitchen. The unknown was always frightening. The next evening she would march up the cliff path and introduce herself to the man. If he proved a decent sort, perhaps she’d invite him to the cottage for a cup of coffee. If he was some kind of weirdo she would handle that, too, even if it meant pushing the creep off the damn cliff.

Lily smiled with satisfaction as she opened the refrigerator door and began to riffle through the vegetable crisper for lettuce and tomatoes. Eliminate the mystery and any situation could usually be handled, and some of the mystery surrounding
the man on the cliff was already beginning to be dispersed. The shadow had a name.

Andrew.

“Mom, it’s Professor Kozeal on the phone,” Cassie called from outside the frosted-glass shower enclosure. “Shall I tell her to call you back?”

Lily grimaced. She had expected Mara Kozeal to track them down, but she’d hoped it would take longer than a week. “No, talk to her for a minute. I’ll be right out.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Cassie muttered, her shadow fading away from the shower door. “She won’t like it. She’ll yell at me, you know.”

“She never yells at you. She’ll just ask questions.”

“Same difference.” Cassie closed the door of the bathroom behind her.

Lily smiled ruefully as she turned off the spray, slid back the door of the shower, and reached for a towel. Cassie was right. The professor’s
questions often sounded like the third degree, and there was no question but that she was avoiding confronting Mara Kozeal’s interrogation herself. Mara believed Cassie was a child prodigy on the scale of Mozart, and would be furious to have her plans for her thwarted. Well, Lily would just have to gird herself for the battle. Mara was an exceptional teacher, and heaven knows Lily never would have been able to afford to hire anyone half so good if Mara hadn’t believed in Cassie’s genius enough to teach her for practically nothing, but there was no way she was going to have Cassie exploited. The national concert tour the previous year might have brought Cassie a good deal of critical acclaim, but the constant travel and paparazzi attention had given her a fine-drawn, haunted look by the time the tour had ended. Cassie possessed extraordinary talent, but she was still a little girl, with a child’s needs, and Lily was not going to let her be robbed of that childhood.

She slipped on her terry-cloth robe and tied the belt before striding into the bedroom and picking
up the extension. “Hello, Mara. Okay, Cassie, you can hang up now.”

“Bye, Professor Kozeal.” Cassie sounded distinctly relieved as she hurriedly hung up the extension in the living room.

Fifteen minutes later Lily replaced the receiver, feeling as if she’d gone through a major battle. Lord, the woman was stubborn. She marched into the living room and over to the upright piano, where Cassie was sitting. “Bed,” she announced. “It’s after ten.”

“Five minutes more.” Cassie scrawled another note on the sheet in front of her. “I’ll sleep late in the morning.”

“You never sleep late.” Lily strode across the room, took the pencil from Cassie’s hand, and put it on top of the piano. “Get up at dawn and work before breakfast. That will give you all night to let the music play in your head. That always helps you.”

Cassie looked longingly at the sheet already half covered with notes and then gave up. “Okay.” She got off the bench and padded barefoot
toward her room. “I could tell Professor Kozeal was mad. She kept muttering something about your dragging me from San Francisco to the wilds of Oregon. Did she give you hell?”

“No cursing, young lady.” Lily followed her into the bedroom and pulled back the coverlet on the bed as Cassie took off her robe. “She was very understanding when I explained. She just thinks you’d be better off in San Francisco, where she can give you lessons.” She made a face. “I’m sure she’d have a heart attack if she saw that upright piano I rented for you. She’d never understand why I left the Steinway in the apartment.”

Cassie climbed into bed and nestled back against the pillows. “Are we going?”

Lily tucked the coverlet around Cassie’s shoulders. “This cottage is kind of shabby, and there’s no Steinway. Do you want to go back?”

“No.”

Lily smiled as she leaned down and brushed a kiss on Cassie’s temple. “Then we won’t go back until we’re both good and ready. I have a lease on the cottage for another five weeks.”

“Good.” Cassie’s eyes closed. “I like it here. It’s so pretty.”

“Yes, it is.”

Cassie yawned and turned on her side. “And the music. There’s never been so much music. The wind and the sea …”

Lily picked up the music box on the bedside table, wound it, and set it down again. Nighttime rituals. She loved them as much as Cassie. She turned off the bedside lamp. “That’s nice, love.”

Cassie’s voice was a drowsy murmur over the silvery melody of the music box. “Isn’t it funny? It’s hard to hear the music except at sunset. Then it’s so clear. It’s beautiful, Mom.”

Lily felt a tightening in her throat. “Then you’d better go to sleep so that you can get it all down on paper tomorrow.”

“Yes, tomorrow I’ll …” Cassie’s words trailed away as her breathing deepened.

Lily stood looking down at her daughter. She should go to the darkroom and get to work on those photographs. She had at least three hours’ developing and enlarging to do before she could
get into her own bed, and the commission for the lobby of the Landaur Building was due in two weeks. Cassie didn’t need her any longer. She was sound asleep, worn out from a day or swimming and collecting shells and listening to the music no one could hear but her. Dear God, she was sweet. Honest, sensitive, mischievous, sometimes a child, sometimes an adult, always loving. If Cassie’s extraordinary gift vanished the next day, she would still be a very special child. There had been a time last year when Lily had almost wished Cassie were an ordinary child, when she had seen her daughter grow quieter and more and more bewildered under the barrage of publicity that had surrounded her when the world discovered her genius. Yet how could Lily wish for the music to vanish, when it brought Cassie so much joy? There had to be a way for Cassie to have the joy of creation without being in the glare of the spotlight, and by heaven, Lily knew she would find it. It wouldn’t be easy—but then, nothing had been easy since the moment she had made the decision to have a child, and she had never regretted the
choice. From the moment she had felt Cassie stirring in her womb she had known only passionate gratitude and the determination to give her child all the love and care she would ever need or want.

She straightened, and then turned and moved toward the door. Well, taking care also meant financial support, and she was wasting time. Her own career as a photographer was just beginning to flourish, and it was difficult enough to make ends meet these days. There was work to be done.

Lily was quietly closing the bedroom door behind her when she heard a half-audible murmur from the bed across the room. She paused, waiting to see if Cassie would stir into wakefulness. Then, when there was no further sound, she started to swing the door shut again. The drowsy murmur came once more, clearer this time, and Lily stiffened, her hand clenching the doorknob.

“Andrew …”

The man wasn’t on the cliff the next evening.

Lily had made sure she was available to oversee
Cassie’s entire stay on the beach, and had so primed herself to do battle, she felt flat when denied the opportunity. She sat down in the sand and linked her arms around her bare knees as she watched Cassie wade into the surf. “Your friend Andrew seems to have deserted us.”

Cassie plopped down in the water, her fingers digging into the wet sand. An abstracted frown creased her brow as she gazed out at the scarlet streaks mirrored on the water. “What?”

“Never mind.” Cassie was hearing her music, and Lily knew the child was lost to her for the time being. For a moment a wave of loneliness surged through her, before she firmly dismissed it. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, you said …” Cassie buried her fingers deeper in the sand. “Andrew’s around somewhere.”

“How do you know?”

“Hello.” The deep baritone voice behind Lily made her jump. “How are you this evening, Cassie? Ms. Deslin?”

Lily tensed as she glanced sharply over her
shoulder. A tall man was walking toward them. The brilliant light of the sunset made it impossible for her to see his features, but the way he moved was unmistakable. Then, as he came closer, she felt a little of the tension ease from her rigid muscles. This young man didn’t look at all threatening. He couldn’t have been over twenty-four or twenty-five, and had the lean, sensual grace of one of the college men on a USC calendar. His sun-faded jeans were rolled up to reveal muscular calves, and his navy blue sweat shirt was bleached by salt and sun until its original color was scarcely discernible. Barefoot, his toes curled with evident pleasure in the softness of the sand as he strolled toward them.

“Andrew!” Cassie grinned and waved. “Oh, great. You’ve come down from the cliff. Why didn’t you come before?”

Cassie was speaking to the man as if she had known him all her life, Lily realized with astonishment. Had Cassie not told her the truth about knowing him?

“It wasn’t time. How’s the concerto coming?”
The man was only a few yards away now, and Lily could see that his dark blond hair was sun-streaked and his golden tan had to have been acquired from a stronger sun than shone on this Oregon coast.

“Fine.” Cassie stood up and turned to face him. “How did you know that I was working on a concerto?”

“Yes, how did you know?” Lily stood up also, and there was a hint of belligerence in her stance as she dusted the sand from her shorts before taking a half step forward to stand nearer to Cassie. “You seem to be very well informed about my daughter’s activities, Mr.…” She trailed off pointedly.

“Ramsey. Andrew Ramsey.” He smiled, and his lean face was suddenly lit with an inner radiance. “Just a guess. Cassie’s last concerto made her an exceptionally famous young lady. It’s only reasonable that she would be working on another one.”

“Is it also reasonable that a perfect stranger
should recognize my daughter? Cassie isn’t exactly a household name.”

“It’s all right, Mom,” Cassie said quickly. “He’s not—” She broke off and grimaced at Andrew. “She doesn’t mean to be rude. She only wants to protect me. There are all kinds of weirdos running around, you know.”

“I know,” he said gravely. “And she’s quite right to be careful of you. I’d react the same way myself.”

“I don’t need you to apologize for me, Cassie,” Lily said in exasperation. “I think you’d better go back to the cottage until I finish talking to Mr. Ramsey.”

“I told you he isn’t a slimeball. You’d see that if you’d just—”

“I’ll see you later, Cassie.” Andrew Ramsey smiled down at the little girl. “Let me talk to your mother and straighten this out.”

“Okay.” Cassie started reluctantly up the beach. “But don’t let her chase you away. Make her understand.”

“I will.”

“You’d better,” Lily said as she whirled back to face him. “I don’t like what’s going on. Dammit, Cassie
knows
you, and she told me she had never spoken to you. My daughter has never lied to me before, and I’m mad as hell.”