Lullaby and Goodnight Read Free Page B

pandemonium.
    There are times when she inexplicably longs for small-town Kansas, wondering why she ever traded serenity for chaos. But that always passes quickly.
    Especially today, she thinks, absently watching the hapless yellow cab attempting to retreat to the avenue. Nothing is going to burst her bubble today.
    Peyton is happy to be right where she is, just as she is, Kansas and her past a mere speck in a rearview mirror she rarely bothers to check.
    And that, Peyton tells herself, again resisting a strange pang of foreboding, is just as it should be.
    Startled by the sudden screeching of tires and the discordant clash of metal against metal, she looks up to see that the cab has backed into another car. Both drivers are already out in the street, shouting at each other in two different languages, neither of them intelligible.
    So much for not checking the rearview mirror, Peyton tells herself with a wry shake of her head as she heads on down the block on foot.
     
    Anne Marie Egerton would kill to have a nanny on days like this.
    Or at least, to have a husband who isn’t currently somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, flying off to London— again —on business.
    Since the second option is out of the question, she collapses into the nearest kitchen chair and briefly considers the first.
    Again.
    Jarrett has been telling her for months to hire somebody to help her with the boys. He doesn’t understand why she won’t. Money certainly isn’t an issue. His latest promotion has pretty much guaranteed that money will never be an issue for them.
    Not that it ever was.
    It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor one.
    Grandma was right about that. As for the rich man falling in love with Anne Marie in return . . . well, she’s always been certain that her Italian grandmother had a hand in that. There’s no doubt in Anne Marie’s mind that Grace DeMario is as controlling in death as she was in life, a celestial puppeteer. That would certainly be her idea of heaven.
    This—being married to Jarrett Egerton III, the mother of his children, living in Bedford, wearing the finest designer clothes and Italian leather shoes—would have been Anne Marie’s idea of heaven, at least in theory.
    She ruefully remembers another of her grandmother’s favorite sayings.
    Be careful what you wish for .
    She takes a deep breath to steady her nerves, gazing out the tall, arched window at the sunken brick terrace and the barren white trellises of her landscaped rose garden beyond. The New York winter has been harsher than usual. It’s hard to remember the lush foliage and fragrant blossoms that have been replaced by clumps of brown, thorny stalks.
    But the roses will come again. They always do, if you wait long enough.
    Anne Marie forces her weary body up out of the chair.
    “Mommy’s coming, boys,” she calls, picking up a tray that holds three individual portions of applesauce, three pieces of buttered toast, three sippy cups filled with whole milk, three napkins, three spoons.
    Three.
    Three of everything.
    All for a trio of three-year-olds who almost didn’t make it.
    Stepping into the breakfast room, Anne Marie smiles cheerfully at her noisy sons, who are seated at a small table parked directly in front of the enormous, wall-mounted plasma television. The Wiggles video she turned on before she left the room mere moments ago only adds to the cacophony.
    “All right, guys, snack time,” she chirps above the din, and begins handing out cups and spoons.
    In a matter of minutes, the floor is littered with crumbs, a puddle of spilled milk is seeping dangerously close to the imported wool area rug, and the boys are wearing most of their applesauce, clamoring for more.
    Anne Marie surveys the mess with a weary sigh.
    This is heaven?
    She smiles. It is. It really is.
    This is heaven.
    If anybody knows that, she does.
    Because if anybody has ever truly been to hell, it’s Anne Marie Egerton.
     
    Falling into step in