One Day at a Time (36 page)

The music began at six-thirty as they heard a helicopter whirring overhead. There were police guarding the house outside, and motorcycle cops cruising the street. They looked up at the helicopter and identified it as press. There was a photographer hanging out a window with a long lens. The cops shrugged. They wouldn't get much. Everyone was inside.

And when the caterer told her to, Coco came upstairs. She entered from the dining room, looking stately and spectacular in a white satin dress that molded her figure, and trailed behind her. There was a long train, and all she could see as she walked through the crowd seated in Liz and Jane's living room was Leslie, with the bay behind him and Chloe at his side. It was all she needed to see and all she wanted now. There was a helicopter flying past the house and she didn't care. She knew what it was, and that there were probably a lot of them in their future. All that mattered was Leslie, and Chloe, and the life they would share.

They exchanged their vows as everyone watched them and her mother cried. She was holding Gabriel's hand and pressed it lightly when the groom said “I do.” And then Leslie kissed Coco, and their life began.

It was a perfect wedding and exactly what Coco had wanted. Her family was there, and the people they loved and who loved them. Leslie's friends had come up from L.A. His family had come from England, and Jeff from the beach was there. He and his wife had been immensely flattered to be asked. They had had the wedding at Jane's house to avoid the press. It was safer here, behind closed doors, in her sister's home.

They were going on a honeymoon by chartered plane to an undisclosed location and taking Chloe with them. Coco had wanted her to come, and Leslie hoped she would have a little brother or sister soon.

There was a dance floor in the dining room, and people wandered through the garden on the warm night. And a disco had been set up with a Lucite floor over the swimming pool. It was the best party San Francisco had ever seen.

At midnight, after they served the wedding cake, Coco walked halfway up the stairs to throw her bouquet. She aimed it carefully and hit her in the chest. She didn't want her mother to miss it. Florence caught the bouquet and pressed it to her heart as Gabriel smiled at her. He knew what she had in mind, and it was fine with him. They shared a last dance after the bride and groom left, and he kissed her. By then, Jane and Liz were downstairs doing the samba in the disco with all of Leslie's friends from L.A.

Leslie, Coco, and Chloe drove off in a limousine. The police held the crowds back, and the helicopter whirred overhead. Two motorcycle cops were riding ahead of them, and they sped off to the airport with Chloe between them. Coco was smiling, and Leslie looked like the happiest man in the world. The three of them were holding hands.

“We did it,” Coco whispered to him with a victorious look. The paparazzi hadn't grabbed them. No one had gotten hurt. No one had terrified them or Chloe. They were safe, and together, and they had gotten there just the way he said they would.

“So are you going to do it now?” Chloe asked her father as they drove away.

“What?” He was looking at Coco, and his mind was on other things.

“The disgusting thing.” Chloe giggled.

“Chloe!” He scolded her and then grinned. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“You remember. When Mom said that…”

He cut her off quickly. “Never mind.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling up at Coco. “I love you guys,” she said happily. She loved her dad, and Coco was her best friend.

“We love you too,” Leslie and Coco said in unison, and then leaned over to kiss over her head, and then bent down to kiss her. And as they sped toward the airport, Coco smiled at Leslie. He had been right after all. Things had worked out just the way they should. One day at a time.

ONE DAY AT A TIME

A Delacorte Press Book/March 2009

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2009 by Danielle Steel

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Steel, Danielle.

One day at a time/Danielle Steel.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-307-56630-0

1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Family—Fiction.

4. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)—Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.T33828O64 2009

813′.54—dc22

v3.0

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