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By Root 325 0

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