Southern Lights: A Novel

“Maybe it’ll keep snowing and we can have a snowball fight tomorrow,” Alexa said, sounding hopeful, with a hand tucked into his arm.

“I don’t think so,” Edward said, looking down at her with a serious expression.

“No? Why not? Don’t you like snowball fights?” It seemed so unlike him not to. He was a good sport about everything else.

“I do like snowball fights,” he conceded, as he stopped walking again and looked at her. “I just don’t know if it’s a good idea for a senator’s wife to be lobbing snowballs at people in the park. You might hit a stranger and wind up on the news.” Her eyes opened wide as he said it. “What do you think about that?” he asked softly.

“The snowball fight?” she asked breathlessly.

“No…the other…the senator’s wife thing. Does that sound too crazy?” He knew how terrified she was of marriage, but he was sure now himself. He had waited a long time to find her. Sybil was right. Alexa was the one. The perfect one for him.

“I…yes…no…” She stumbled on her words, and he kissed her again. “Yes. I mean no. No, it doesn’t sound too crazy…and yes, I want to.” She was crying and laughing when he kissed her again, and then with her hand tucked tightly into his arm, they walked into the Carlyle. Alexa was grinning broadly, and looked ecstatic, despite the butterflies doing somersaults in her stomach, and the senator from South Carolina looked extremely pleased.

Southern Lights 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.

Copyright © 2009 by Danielle Steel

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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.

Southern lights : a novel / Danielle Steel. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-440-33911-3

1. Public prosecutors—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 2. Divorced

women—Fiction. 3. Single mothers—Fiction. 4. Trials (murder)—Fiction.

5. Serial murderers—Fiction. 6. Mothers and daughters—Fiction.

7. Rich people—South Carolina—Charleston—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.T33828S65 2009

813′.54—dc22

2009020768

www.bantamdell.com

v3.0

Table of Contents

Cover

Other Books By This Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Copyright