This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars #5)(68)

Lilly's inherent good manners forced her to respond. "Just the herb garden. I started experimenting with it yesterday."

"Do you work from a drawing?"

Lilly shook her head, attempting to put an end to the conversation. Molly considered letting her do it, but she didn't want to. "How can you make something this complicated without a drawing?"

Lilly took her time responding. "I start putting scraps together that appeal to me, and then I pull out my scissors and see what happens. Sometimes the results are disastrous."

Molly understood. She created from bits and pieces, too—a few lines of dialogue, random sketches. She never knew what her books were about until she was well into them. "Where do you get your fabrics?"

Roo had propped his chin on one of Lilly's pricey Kate Spade sandals, but Molly's persistence seemed to bother her more. "I always have a box of scraps in my trunk," she said brusquely. "I buy a lot of remnants, but this project needs fabrics with some history. I'll probably try to find an antique store that sells vintage clothing."

Molly gazed back at the herb garden. "Tell me what you see."

She expected a rebuff, but, again, Lilly's good manners won out. "I was drawn to the lavender first. It's one of my favorite plants. And I love the silver of that sage behind it." Lilly's enthusiasm for her project began to overcome her personal dislike. "The spearmint needs to be weeded out. It's greedy, and it'll take over. That little tuft of thyme is fighting to survive against it."

"Which one is the thyme?"

"Those tiny leaves. It's vulnerable now, but it can be as aggressive as spearmint. It just goes about it more subtly." Lilly lifted her eyes, and her gaze held Molly's for a moment.

Molly got the message. "You think the thyme and I have something in common?"

"Do you?" she asked coolly.

"I have a lot of faults, but subtlety isn't one of them."

"I suppose that remains to be seen."

Molly wandered to the edge of the garden. "I'm trying hard to dislike you as much as you seem to dislike me, but it's tough. You were my heroine when I was a little girl."

"How nice." Icicles dripped.

"Besides, you like my dog. And I have a feeling that your attitude has less to do with my personality than it has to do with your concerns about my marriage."

Lilly stiffened.

Molly decided she had nothing to lose by being blunt. "I know about your real relationship with Kevin."

Lilly's fingers stalled on her needle. "I'm surprised he told you. Maida said he never spoke about it."

"He didn't. I guessed."

"You're very astute."

"You've taken a long time to come see him."

"After abandoning him, you mean?" Her voice had a bitter edge.

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it. What kind of woman abandons her child then tries to worm her way back into his life?"

Molly spoke carefully. "I doubt that you abandoned him. You seem to have found him a good home."

She gazed at the garden, but Molly suspected the peace she'd felt here earlier had vanished. "Maida and John had always wanted a child, and they loved him from the day he was born. But as torturous as it was to make my decision, I still gave him up too easily."

"Hey, Molly!"

Lilly tensed as Kevin came around the corner with Marmie lolling fat and happy in his arms. He stopped abruptly when he saw Lilly, and, as Molly watched, the charmer gave way to a hard-eyed man with a grudge.

He approached Molly as if she were alone in the garden. "Somebody let her out."

"I did," Lilly said. "She was with me until a few minutes ago. She must have heard you coming."

"This is your cat?"

"Yes."

He put her on the ground, almost as if she'd gone radioactive, then turned to walk away.

Lilly came up off the bench. Molly saw something both desperate and touching in her expression. "Do you want to know about your father?" Lilly blurted out.

Kevin stiffened. Molly's heart went out to him as she thought of all the questions she'd had over the years about her own mother. Slowly he turned.

Lilly clutched her hands. She sounded breathless, as if she'd just run a long distance. "His name was Dooley Price. I don't think that was his real first name, but it was all I knew. He was eighteen, a tall, skinny farm kid from Oklahoma. We met at the bus station the day we arrived in L.A." She drank in Kevin's face. "His hair was as light as yours, but his features were broader. You look more like me." She dipped her head. "I'm sure you don't want to hear that. Dooley was athletic. He'd ridden in rodeos—earned some prize money, I think—and he was convinced he could get rich doing stunts in the movies. I don't remember any more about him—another black mark you can chalk up against me. I think he smoked Marlboros and loved candy bars, but it was a long time ago, and that could have been someone else. We'd broken up by the time I discovered I was pregnant, and I didn't know how to find him." She paused and seemed to brace herself. "A few years later I read in the paper that he'd been killed doing some kind of stunt with a car."