Forever…Again

by Maureen Child

“As I recall, you’re actually pretty good at games,” he murmured, one corner of his mouth tipping up into a wicked reminder of last night’s intimacy.

  In seconds her memory picked up the thread of what he was talking about. At one point they’d actually done a little role playing. She’d played the part of a saucy waitress to his lonely, long-distance trucker.

  And it’s a new world’s record, she thought a heartbeat later, when she blushed for the second time in one day.

  As she remembered their night together with an embarrassed smile, she could see the smile slide from his face and develop into a finely tuned scowl. Probably not a good sign, she told herself.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed thoughts of naked Ron to one side and said, “I’m here to see Myrtle.”

  “Of course. Come in.” He stepped back and waved her inside.

  She came close enough that her bare arm brushed against his chest, and she sucked in a long gulp of sweetly air-conditioned air, hoping to quell the fires already leaping inside her.

  It didn’t help.

  Ron, though, was apparently having no trouble restraining himself from grabbing her. “My mother’s in the front parlor, waiting for you.”

  She followed him in and told herself not to let her gaze stray down to his backside. But heck, she was only human.

  Cool and green were Lily’s first impressions. The room was very much like Myrtle in that it was stylish while being welcoming. Elegant and yet comfortable.

  She spotted the elderly woman—though she’d never use that word aloud to describe Myrtle Bingham, as she suspected it might be worth her very life—the moment she walked into the room. Ron’s mother was perched on a dainty, floral-fabric sofa, with an antique, Wedgewood china tea set on the low table in front of her. Two chairs had been pulled up opposite the table, and Lily dropped into one of them.

  “Thank you for coming, Lily,” the older woman said.

  “My pleasure,” she answered. It really was, though it might have been more comfortable if Ron hadn’t been present. Hard to face a woman when you were imagining her son naked.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll just pour the tea while we talk,” Myrtle said in her quiet, cultured voice. Hospitality had been born and bred in the woman, and she smiled even while she ordered, “I’d like to hear your final plans for the fund-raiser.”

  “Of course.” Lily fumbled in her briefcase and mentally cursed her suddenly uncooperative fingers for their inability to pluck the one paper she required from the folder within. Finally she snagged it and pulled it aloft like a victory flag.

  Shooting Ron a surreptitious glance, she read off a few of the figures and ideas she’d set into motion and then accepted the hot cup of tea from Myrtle.

  “It’s a good idea, I think,” the older woman said as she lifted her cup and took a dainty sip. “Ron, what are your feelings?”

  Ron, with his size and overt masculinity, looked like the proverbial bull in a china shop. Immensely out of place in the clearly feminine room, he nonetheless picked up his teacup and took a sip before answering his mother.

  Avoiding meeting Lily’s gaze, he said, “I’m sorry to disagree, but I don’t think an ‘old-fashioned county fair’ is the right way to go.”

  “Really?” Stung, Lily looked at him and waited for an explanation.

  He frowned slightly but didn’t bend. Turning to face her, he said, “I know you’ve worked hard on these plans, Lily, but don’t you think we should be holding the fund-raiser at a nice hotel? Say in Lexington maybe?”

  “Oh, what a clever, original, boring idea,” she said, a little hurt that he’d take a shot at the plans she’d been working on for weeks.

  He straightened as if jabbed in the back with a poker. “I’m trying to be reasonable,” he ground out, giving his mother a quick glance before continuing. “Which of these patrons are going to be willing to drive all the way out here to give away money?”

  “None of them if all we offer is another chicken à la king dinner,” she said, and heard the snap in her tone too late to stop it. Hurt and angry, she shifted her gaze from Ron to Myrtle, knowing that in the older woman she already had a formidable coconspirator. “If we make this fun, the people will come. We’ll give them a chance to play carnival games for great prizes. They can buy raffle tickets for a chance to win a new car. There’ll be ice cream and watermelon and hot dogs and cotton candy. It’ll be an end-of-summer celebration.” She sent Ron a long look. “And they will come.”

  “But in Lexington—” he began to argue.

  Lily cut him off, ignoring the fact that Myrtle had been about to jump into the conversation. “They don’t need to see Lexington. Most of them live there. They need to see the clinic. The research facility.”

  His scowl deepened.

  She took a breath and said, “Ron, there’s been a lot of bad press lately. People are worried. Some of our long-standing supporters have already pulled away. We’ve got to get these people down here to look over the place for themselves. They’ve got to see with their own eyes what a wonderful job the clinic is doing. How fabulously up-to-date and modern our hospital and school are. And just how much good that research facility will do for not only our little corner of Kentucky, but the world.”

  The silence rang when she stopped speaking.

  Several long seconds ticked past as she stared at the man who, only the night before, had kissed every inch of her body. There was distance between them now. The very wall she’d felt going up the night before now shimmered in between them with an invisible strength.

  She wanted him to believe her.

  Wanted him to trust her to pull this off.

  And it surprised her just how much she wanted his faith.

  “Well, Ron?” Myrtle said after the silence had stretched to impossible lengths.

  He didn’t take his gaze off Lily as he answered, “I still think it’s a risk.”

  “But—” she said.

  “But—” he interrupted her neatly. “I guess this is why Mari hired Lily in the first place. For her expertise. Her business sense in the PR game.”

  “True,” Myrtle said, her interested gaze sweeping from her son to Lily and back again.

  “And the bottom line is,” Ron added, “I may think it’s wrong—but Lily says it’ll work. And I believe her.”

  Lily released a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. He believed her.

  It wasn’t quite the same as believing in her.

  But in a pinch it would do.

  “Then we’re in agreement,” Myrtle said decisively, and Lily shot her a quick look in time to see a small, secretive smile curving the older woman’s lips. “And now that we’ve finished our little discussion, why don’t we indulge ourselves in the delicious cakes my cook has prepared for us?”

  As Myrtle passed a delicate, pink-rosebud-covered plate laden with iced finger cookies and tiny, hand-decorated cakes, Lily studied Ron from the corner of her eye.

  Whatever there was between them hadn’t been settled.

  And she had no idea where this was leading.

  But as long as she was already on the road, so to speak, she would enjoy the journey until it ended.

  There was always time for pain…later.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunlight sifted through the trees, tracing lacy shadows across Myrtle’s manicured front lawn. A warm breeze carrying the scent of pines slipped past the couple strolling down the drive, then hurried along the road as if racing to make an appointment. Birds and squirrels sang and chattered from the tops of the trees, and in the distance traffic roared faintly, like a bored lion.

  “My mother called this morning, asked me to be here for your meeting,” Ron said as he walked Lily to her car.

  “I was sort of surprised to find you here,” she said.

  He nodded, but didn’t look at her. Instead he kept his gaze fixed on her small sports car in the driveway. “I…meant to call you earlier today.”

  She
laughed shortly. “No, you didn’t.”

  He stopped dead and turned to face her. “What?”

  Lily sighed and looked up at him, squinting slightly into the afternoon sunlight. Another slap of wind pushed past them and lifted her blond hair into a wild twist around her head, reminding him of how it had looked the night before, stretched across his pillow.

  “You didn’t know what to say to me,” she said, “so you didn’t say anything.”

  “Know me pretty well, do you?”

  She gave him a small smile that looked more sad than amused. “Well enough to know that you’re not quite sure what to do about me.”

  Oh, Ron knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to pull Lily into his arms and hang on tight. To recapture the magic he’d discovered with her only a few short hours ago. But it was broad daylight now, and dreams only came at night.

  “Lily…” What was he supposed to say? How could he tell her that she was right? He didn’t know what to do next. Should he go on with Lily and take whatever happiness with her he could find? Would that be fair to her when he didn’t know if he could give her any more than he already had?

  But she didn’t wait for him to stumble around looking for the right words.

  “Don’t worry about it, Ron,” she said, turning toward her car again. “I told you going into this that I’m a big girl. We agreed on an affair, remember? Not a love affair.”

  Ron thought he’d seen a flash of pain in her eyes just before she turned from him, and he hoped to God he was wrong. He hadn’t meant to cause her grief. His hand at her elbow, he tried to ignore the slip-stream of heat sweeping from his fingertips up the length of his arm to center in the middle of his chest. Just touching her, even through the fabric of her white silk blouse, was enough to remind him of touching her more intimately. More deeply. And he wanted it again.

  After taking her home in the small hours of the morning, Ron had retreated to his condo, and the silence in the place had shouted at him. More than before, the rooms echoed with emptiness. He kept hearing Lily’s laughter, feeling her warmth, recalling her sighs.

  He’d been more alone after Lily left than he had been in ten long years.

  Those first few months after Vi’s death, he’d thought he would never laugh again. Thought he’d be lonely for the rest of his life. Slowly, eventually, he began living again, but always, always, Vi had been in the back of his mind. The memory of her sweet face, her slight figure, her quiet smiles and gentle nature.

  Those memories had become a part of him. He’d kept them close, needing only to shut his eyes to bring his late wife back to him. To feel her in his heart as she’d once filled his life.

  But now…

  Ron swallowed hard, and his fingers on Lily’s elbow tightened perceptibly. Now those precious memories were being supplanted one by one—by images of Lily.

  And he didn’t know if he could allow that.

  Bryce Collins braced his elbows on top of his cluttered desk and propped his head in his hands. The headache that had been his constant companion for the past few weeks had doubled its efforts to make him miserable.

  It was working.

  The pain behind his eyes throbbed and pulsed in time with his heartbeat. A mountain of aspirin wouldn’t be enough to soothe this pain away. He’d be carrying it as long as the ax was hanging over Mari’s head.

  Grumbling to himself, he pushed away from his desk and walked across the station house floor to the coffeepot in the far corner. Caffeine probably wasn’t the best idea when your head was exploding, but if he was going to die, he’d die happy.

  “Almost happy,” he corrected a moment later after taking a sip. Cop-shop coffee was legendarily bad. But this brew gave a whole new meaning to the words rotgut. Thick and black with an oil slick on its surface, the coffee was bad enough to punish.

  And since he figured he needed a little more punishment, he took a deep swallow and grimaced as the hot liquid slid down and hit the pit of his stomach like a balled fist. Outside his office, the Binghamton Sheriff’s Department hummed with activity. It was a small outfit, made up of only a few full-time deputies and a couple of part-timers Bryce could call in case of emergencies or big events.

  They weren’t big city, but Bryce was proud of his team and of the work they did. The work he’d devoted his life to. Which was only one of the reasons it was so difficult for him to deal with Mari—the woman he’d once loved more than life itself—as a potential suspect in a drug case.

  “Damn it,” he muttered around another hideous slurp of coffee, “why won’t she help me on this? Why would she fight me even now?”

  Because she was obstinate, hardheaded, stubborn…“Beautiful.”

  He jerked and shook his head, preferring to pretend that he hadn’t heard himself say that aloud. Mari wasn’t his anymore. Now their relationship was all business. Sheriff to suspect. The way it had to be.

  The phone rang, and he stalked across the room toward his desk, grateful for the interruption. He snatched the black receiver and snarled, “Collins.”

  “Hey, bro!”

  That’s perfect, Bryce thought. Since he already had a headache, why not add his little brother to the mix? “Hello, Joey.”

  “Dude, what’s with the bad attitude?” Joey’s voice sounded high, full of fun and attitude.

  And a part of Bryce wondered what he was on. Drugs this time? Or just drunk?

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just busy around here. What’s up?”

  “Can’t a guy just call to talk to his big brother?”

  He probably could, Bryce thought, but Joey didn’t usually call unless he wanted something.

  “Sure,” he said, unwilling to get into an argument with Joey and just too damn tired to play any games. “What’s new?”

  “Only the greatest thing ever,” Joey said, his voice crowing. Then he rushed on, words tumbling over each other in his rush to talk.

  While Joey rambled, Bryce dropped into his desk chair and leaned back, staring up at the water-stained ceiling tiles. Practically a new building, he thought, disgusted. Have to call maintenance in and have them check out the water pipes in the courthouse rooms above his office.

  “You’ll see, bro. It’s all coming together.”

  “What?” Bryce straightened up and frowned. “What’s coming together?”

  Joey sighed dramatically across the phone line. “Dude, you weren’t listenin’.”

  “Sorry.” He wasn’t, not really. Hearing Joey’s drunken ravings wasn’t one of his favorite pastimes. And with everything else he had on his mind, Joey’s wild schemes were not high on his list of priorities.

  “I said,” Joey repeated, his voice even more slurred now than it had been when he’d first started talking. “I got a plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “Perfect, bro. Perfect. I’m gonna get rich and screw the Binghams all at the same time.”

  Man. What was left of Bryce’s patience dried up. Joey had been singing the same song for years. According to him, the Binghams were responsible for everything from the high price of gas to ants ruining a picnic.

  “Right. Great. Look, Joey, I gotta get back to work.”

  “Okay,” Joey said quickly. “But you just wait, bro. It’s all gonna be great. Really soon. You’ll see.”

  “That’s good, Joey. You take it easy, okay? Lay off the booze for a while.”

  “Right. Right. Hey, bro. Don’t worry ’bout me. I can handle my liquor.”

  “Sure you can, Joey.”

  When his brother hung up, Bryce stared at the phone receiver for a long minute, before laying it back in its cradle.

  Family could really make you nuts.

  Lily opened the back door and waved a kitchen towel at the roiling cloud of black smoke lifting from her stovetop. The smoke and the scent of charred steak flew out into the yard to dissipate in the soft, evening wind.

  “A good thing your neighbors are used to you, Lily,” she muttered. “Or there’d be a f
ire truck pulling up in your driveway right about now.”

  Her eyes stinging, she kept waving the towel in the smoky kitchen, chasing the last of the billowing black clouds out the open doorway. Disgusted with herself, she shot an angry glare at the now warped broiler pan, sitting atop her stove. And on that pan was what was left of her filet mignon, now about the size, color and consistency of a charcoal briquette.

  “So much for dinner,” she muttered and tossed the kitchen towel onto the table. She pulled out a chair and sat down heavily.

  From the living room came the soft sounds of smooth jazz, drifting from her stereo as cool and haunting as the evening breeze sliding down off the mountain. Through the open kitchen window, she could hear her next-door neighbors laughing and talking as they barbecued what smelled like heaven. And here, in chez Cunningham, she thought with a sigh, one tasty baloney sandwich coming right up.

  But she wasn’t even hungry.

  Her stomach was twisted into so many knots, Lily was fairly sure she wouldn’t be able to choke down a bite of food. By trying to prepare a steak, she’d been trying to convince herself that everything was normal. As it should be. But it was pointless.

  What was the use of lying to yourself?

  Her world wasn’t normal.

  And it probably never would be again.

  Ever since leaving Myrtle’s house, she’d been remembering Ron. Standing beside him in the shade of the old trees, she’d almost been able to feel his confusion. His indecision.

  Her heart ached at the memory, and she felt foolish. For heaven’s sake, she’d known going into this that Ron didn’t—wouldn’t—love her. His loyalty, his affection, were still with the woman he’d married and lost.

  Nothing had changed.

  So why, then, did she feel so…disappointed?

  “Lily?”

  A deep, familiar voice called her name, and everything in her quickened. Her pulse skipped happily, and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Apparently, knowing that you were being foolish wasn’t enough to correct the situation.

  She straightened up in her chair and shot a look at the empty doorway leading to the living room and the open front door beyond. Lily was already pushing up from her chair when Ron’s voice came again.