The Cliff House. RaeAnne Thayne

to become a mother.

      “Right.”

      To her astonished dismay, he leaned in and kissed her cheek, then turned around and walked through her door, leaving behind a little swirl of his distinctive scent that took her right back to those intense college days when she had been young and completely in love.

      Those heady months they had been together had seemed full of amazing possibilities. She had been close to graduating, in the middle of her last semester of coursework before doing her student teaching.

      It had been an important time for her scholastically but she had barely been able to keep her mind on her schoolwork that final semester because she’d been in love for the first and only time.

      Stella sank into her favorite chair, the one she had saved and saved to buy, with its whimsical forest scene created by her favorite artist, the anonymously infamous Marguerite.

      The chair usually centered her. It was the one she meditated in, read in, sat in to write in her diary. This time she couldn’t seem to find anything resembling peace as the memories crowded in.

      She had been so in love with the gorgeous medical student she’d met at the UCLA student health clinic when she had sprained her ankle playing beach volleyball with friends over the holiday break.

      Sparks had flared between them instantly and she had slipped him her phone number, something she had never done before or since. He called her the next day, ostensibly to check up on her ankle, and the two of them ended up talking for hours. Ed had dropped by the next night with a pizza and a bouquet of flowers and she had fallen hard. From that instant on, they spent every available moment together. They studied together, met up for meals on campus, spent all their free time hiking, riding bikes, or just taking a drive and talking.

      He had proposed after two months. It was entirely too early in their relationship and they were both too young. Plus, he had years of med school, residency and internship ahead of him.

      Both of them knew getting married had been a crazy idea but things seemed so right and real and perfect. Ed had been old-fashioned, hadn’t wanted to move in together without marrying her, and by that point neither of them could imagine being apart.

      She had known she wanted to build a life with him, so she had said yes. He was warm and loving, honorable and kind and amazing.

      She wasn’t sure what he saw in her, a former foster child with an alcoholic mother and a deadbeat father who had disappeared long ago, but she didn’t care. She had been lost in the wonder and magic of knowing he would be hers and they would build the family she had always wanted.

      And then she had found out purely by accident that her sister, Jewel, had died months earlier of a drug overdose, and Jewel’s daughters, her nieces, had been put in separate foster homes.

      And that was that. In that single moment her entire future had changed and she had known exactly what she had to do.

      The girls needed her.

      She had broken things off with Ed. What choice did she have? She could never ask him to help her raise two troubled girls, not when he needed all his energy and focus to become the brilliant doctor she saw inside him.

      He would have done it. He would have put all his dreams on hold to help her obtain custody of the girls and would probably have quit med school to help support them all.

      She couldn’t let him. So she had just...walked away. Eventually, she had told him she wasn’t in love with him, that she was too young to be married. That part was probably truth. She told him she had an offer to do her student teaching in Cape Sanctuary, at the other end of the state and a world away, and she was taking it.

      She had cried herself to sleep the first three months she was away from him and had tortured herself by keeping a picture of them on the beach in the drawer of her bedside table until she had finally forced herself to put it away.

      And now he was here.

      What kind of weird wind had carried him back into her life now? And what was she going to do?

      She wiped at the tears she hadn’t realized she still had inside her for Ed Clayton and a love that seemed as real and strong now as it had then.

      It didn’t matter. She touched her abdomen, to the tiny life growing there. She couldn’t let it matter. She had more important things to worry about now, like how in the world she was going to raise this child by herself.

       4

      DAISY

      She was late, and if there is one thing she hated more than last-minute tax filers, it was being late.

      Daisy pressed the buzzer at the wrought iron gates leading into her ex-brother-in-law’s estate along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. Casa Del Mar was beautiful. It was by far the most luxurious and expensive house along this area of coastline. Built in the Spanish Colonial style, it was massive, around seven thousand square feet, with a recording studio, huge swimming pool, tennis courts and even a two-lane bowling alley. Its biggest draw was the view, though, spectacular from just about every window.

      She lived in a house on the cliffs above the ocean, as well, just a half mile down the road, and had a stellar view herself, but the entirety of Pear Tree Cottage would probably fit inside Cruz’s master suite.

      He could afford it. As one of his team of financial advisers, she had a full picture of just how successful Cape Sanctuary’s hometown boy had become. The commission she earned handling his interests went a long way to helping her afford the property taxes for that house on the cliffs she loved.

      “Yes?” A disembodied voice spoke out of the tastefully hidden speaker. She didn’t recognize the greeter, which wasn’t a big surprise. Cruz’s staff rotated with dizzying frequency.

      “Daisy McClure. I have an appointment with Cruz.”

      The voice went silent for a moment then returned to the intercom. “Mr. Romero is busy right now. He’s about to have a massage.”

      She glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her BMW and frowned. She was five minutes late, granted, but she had a feeling the massage wasn’t some not-so-subtle dig at her punctuality. She was fairly certain that Cruz had completely forgotten about their appointment. He had a bad habit of doing exactly that.

      “Tell Mr. Romero he’s the one who called me to meet him at this time. He said it was important. This is the only time I’m free in several days. I’m here now. He can have his massage when we’re done. If you’d like, I can tell him that myself.”

      She spoke firmly, not worried about offending Cruz. She had known him since he was a kid living with his grandmother. She used to help him with his math homework after his grandmother had to go into assisted living and he came to live with Stella. He knew she wouldn’t take his crap—which might be why he entrusted a substantial share of his wealth to her keeping.

      “One moment.”

      An instant later the door glided open silently and she drove up the long, winding driveway lined with cypress and pine. Here and there, she caught glimpses of blue as the ocean peeped through.

      When she pulled up to the house, she saw several luxury SUVs there, indicating he had guests. From here she saw two people playing tennis and was positive that if she walked around the house, she would find more in the pool.

      Where was Cruz, however? That was the question du jour.

      She rang the doorbell and waited three or four moments, then finally pushed her way inside.

      As she might have expected, no one was there to meet her in the huge entryway, with its soaring ceilings and the colorful tile-work staircase and wrought iron banister focal point.

      “Hello?” she called out.

      Silence echoed through the entryway