The Seeds Of A Daisy: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book One (Women's Fiction) Read Online Free PDF

of the entrance. As if on cue, three men and one woman, all in white coats, ran toward the car.
    “Oh shit, this can’t be good,” the driver said, almost to himself.

I t is finally 7:30 a.m. Three hours at a hospital is like three days anywhere else. If you can’t sleep, all you do is sit and wait. Everything happens in slow motion. It’s what I imagine water torture might be like. (Maybe you’ve guessed by now that patience has never been a virtue for me.)
    I am alone, sitting at a large rectangular table in a stark conference room of the Intensive Care Unit, waiting for my mother’s doctor to appear.
    I look around. The art on the wall consists of a few terrible prints of tractors. My mother is going to hate this room. When she gets better, I’ll make sure she avoids it.
    I remember the time we were in a hotel in San Francisco. Mom was on a book-signing tour and because I wasn’t working, I went to keep her company and do what we do best together—power shop!
    We got into the suite and it was lovely. We had a breathtaking view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Mom looked around the room and said, “Lily, you must always surround yourself with beautiful things. They don’t necessarily have to be expensive, but they must speak to you, move you, evoke emotions.”
    Five minutes after we got into the room, she called the concierge and told him that the artwork in the room was playing havoc with her Zen feng shui.
    When housekeeping arrived to take down the pictures, she was her charming self and asked if she could possibly choose other paintings to replace them. They walked her through room after empty room until she found the perfect ones.
    After she had hung them on the empty walls, she turned to me, hands on her hips, and said, “Much better. Don’t you feel better already, Lily? Don’t you feel your Zen centered?” I laughed and told her she was crazy, and that one of these days someone was going to lock her away.
    The buzzer on my cell phone goes off again, indicating someone has texted me. My phone has been beeping nonstop texts and messages since late last night. The cast and crew members started texting and emailing when I was on my way to the airport. I answered a few and then it just got too overwhelming. Franny must have gotten right on the phone with Bette Maloney, so I’m pretty sure the news about my mother must’ve hit the news and internet. I check the streaming news on my Blackberry and there it is:
Daisy Lockwood, well-known author and mother of
St. Joe’s
star Lily Lockwood, was in a near-fatal accident on Long Island Wednesday afternoon. There has been no statement yet from a University Hospital spokesperson or members of the family, but a reliable source tells us that Ms. Lockwood is in critical condition. Her daughter flew in late last night from Los Angeles to be with her
.
    Man, Bette is good! The texts and the calls are coming in nonstop and I can’t force myself to answer any of them. I’m too tired and too sick to my stomach to go through the whole thing over and over again. I check to see if there are any calls or texts from Jamie. None. I guess when you’re shooting a Western in New Mexico, riding horses all day and your costar all night, you’re probably too busy to watch the news.
    A nurse walks in with a pen and paper. I can’t believe my eyes—what a moron! She’s actually going to ask me for my
autograph!
    “Miss Lockwood, you might want to take notes when you speak to the doctor. This way you can remember everything, so you can tell the other family members.” I thank her. Feeling like a major jerk, I take the pen and paper.
    There are no relatives, not since Grams and Grandpa died. It’s just the two of us, Mom and me. My father and mother split up when I was five months old. Mom told me once that I was a colicky baby and cried nonstop for months. Maybe my father couldn’t stand the noise, or didn’t like kids. I’ve never really had the patience or that