Unending Devotion (Michigan Brides #1)(90)

The bed was empty. The quilt and sheets were unmade and in disarray—which wasn’t unusual, at least until the maid came in to tidy the room. What was unusual was that Daisy had gotten out of the bed, something she hadn’t done except to meet with Tierney that day in the library.

“Daisy?” Lily’s gaze swept around the room, and dread pooled in her stomach.

Tierney. She was with Tierney again.

“No!”

Where had that lying, cheating, no-good grayback taken her this time? To a secluded part of the house where Lily wouldn’t be able to find them?

“You won’t be able to hide from me.” She walked to the bed, her footsteps choppy and her mind formulating the hot lecture she would sling at Tierney once she found him. With a jerk, she tugged the knit blanket loose from the tangle of sheets, praying she could catch them before Daisy bared herself to Tierney again.

A piece of folded paper on the bedstead table caught Lily’s attention. She reached for it, and at the sight of her name in Daisy’s scrawled handwriting, her heart ceased beating.

She flipped the paper open and read.

Dear Lily,

I’m leaving. I want to live my life the way I want. I’m a grown woman now, and I don’t need you to tell me what to do or how to live anymore. Please, just let me go and don’t try to find me.

That was it. No “I love you.” No “Thank you.” No “I’ll miss you.”

“Oh, Daisy.” Lily pressed her fingers against her lips to hold back a cry.

She dropped to the edge of the bed and read the note again, hoping the words would say something different this time.

But the same cold message slapped her and brought stinging tears to her eyes.

“How could you?” After all she’d done for Daisy, how hard she’d tried to make things right, how much effort she was putting into trying to give them a new life.

And Daisy repaid her by running away again?

With a groan, Lily buried her face in her hands. She’d put her own life at risk to rescue Daisy. So had Connell. There was no telling what kind of trouble he was in with Carr now—all because of Daisy.

Sobs of anger and disappointment tore at Lily’s throat, begging for release.

Why had Daisy done it? Didn’t she love her? Didn’t she want to be with her?

She swallowed through the tightness of her throat. With a burst of determination, she stood. She wouldn’t let Daisy run away again. Not now. Not after she’d just found her.

With a shake of her head, she brushed away the nagging thought that maybe she was trying to take too much control of the plans for her life, that she’d taken over completely and wasn’t leaving room for God’s bigger plans.

All she needed to do was work harder, didn’t she?

A quick glance around the room revealed that Daisy had taken all of her dresses, even the ones Mrs. McCormick had loaned her. The silver-handled brush was gone. The decorative silver box. The candelabras.

Lily’s heart sank. Had Daisy turned into a thief too? How could she so thoughtlessly take the belongings of someone who’d generously opened her home and provided for their every need? What kind of girl would do that?

Certainly not the sweet little girl she’d raised.

Lily’s gaze landed upon the bedside table. The miniature framed picture of their mother and father was gone too.

Her body constricted.

“No!” She dropped to the floor and scrambled to find the photograph, the last connection she had with her mother and father, the only tie to her past.

A search under the bed, through the sheets, and around the room revealed nothing but the selfishness in Daisy’s heart.

“You had to take it, didn’t you?” Lily yelled at the rumpled bed, as if by doing so she could bring Daisy back. “You knew it was important to me. But you didn’t care!”

The pressure in her chest made her want to weep.

“You foolish, foolish girl!” She pounded a fist against the bed and caught the edge of a sob before it could escape.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.” Where would Daisy go? What could the girl possibly do besides return to a life of prostitution? And that was unthinkable. She couldn’t let Daisy make that mistake again.

Daisy had told her not to find her. But Lily had no choice. The girl couldn’t survive on her own. She needed Lily whether she thought so or not.

Lily raced from the room, down the winding staircase, and into the front hallway. She paused only to retrieve her coat before plunging out the front door into the wintry afternoon.

Large fluffy snowflakes were coming down thick and fast. The snow had formed a fresh blanket over her earlier footprints and covered any tracks that might lead her to Daisy.

But Lily didn’t care. She fixed her gaze on the redbrick Queen Anne home across the street. With its steeply pitched roofs, conical tower, and numerous gables, it was an elegant home, a smaller version of the one she’d just exited.

As she reached the end of the walkway and stepped onto the wide muddy street that was immune to the fresh snow, she ignored the others passing by.

Each footstep slapped louder against the muck in the street and each breath puff whiter in the frigid air. She couldn’t find the energy to complain about the fact that another winter storm was blowing in, that it was nearing the end of February and spring felt like it would never arrive.