At first the trail had been ice cold and it had stayed that way for months, but once it had warmed up it had not been hard for Lily to track down Simon. It would have been one thing if he'd run off under an alias and was pulling off cons to make a buck, but now that he was a wealthy man, well, that was a different story. It was still hard to believe that he wasn't the penniless charmer that she had fallen in love with. It didn't matter in the least to Lily, though. She knew Simon. Money would not change what he had become.
He had been located in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. He had rented a small cabin a few miles south of the village of Sanborn near Indian Lake. As Lily drove she glanced now and then down at the map and directions that sat on the seat next to her. She didn't have much further to go.
She recalled the scene that awaited her at Emma's after she had returned from her retreat. She hardly recognized the farm as she drove in. A huge beautiful Kentucky style stable now occupied the land that had made up the north pasture. To her disbelief it belonged to Rose. Rose had built it with the money that she and Simon had split. Lily had been overwhelmed by the story of the recovery of the diamond and amazed that Rose was even willing to compromise with the 50/50 agreement to boot. But Rose was a different woman. Her pregnancy had changed her. She hadn't known about Rose's condition until after Holden had told her that he was sorry but that along with their drifting apart he had somehow, somewhere along the line, fallen in love with Rose and wanted to make a life with her.
The admission had hit Lily like a ton of bricks as she did not see it coming but along with pain of loss came the relief that she would not be hurting Holden so much. She had come to make her peace. Together they would work things out about the children. When Lily had hesitantly asked about Simon, Katie and the baby she was told that there never had been a child and that Simon had divorced Katie and disappeared. Lily thanked Holden for sharing the news with her. She had hugged him tightly and in turn wished he and her sister the best in their horse training venture and future together. As she stepped out the door of the farmhouse, bitter tears sprang to her eyes and anger filled her being. She had felt so manipulated by Katie's lies. So much time wasted. But then she realized that if she had not spent this time away, she may have never known for sure what she wanted and she knew that within every fiber of her being that she wanted Simon. How many times had she told some former lover that they were apart of her. She laughed a hard laugh. Simon was not just a part of her, He was one with her and he was in her blood.
She wanted to run in search of him immediately but she had decided that since she had waited this long, a few more weeks would not make a difference. He had said that before they could truly be together, in every sense of the word, they had to be free and she was not about to be delayed much longer. So off to the Dominic Republic she'd flown on a wing and a prayer. When she had returned it had been an agonizing wait as the months passed until his whereabouts were made known but she was a patient woman and her patience had paid off. Just yesterday her hired PI had delivered the information of his destination and was well paid for his efforts. As Lily thought back on those last events she unknowingly pressed harder on the accelerator. Her car suddenly went into an uncontrollable fishtail and before she knew it she was heading down an embankment into a heavily snowladen stand of pines.