by Lisa G Riley
It had been, but Smith didn’t bother to tell him that as he was in college at the time it was perfectly normal for him to go off for vacations with friends sans parents. Why bother? Then he’d have to admit that part of the reason he was so eager to go on those vacations with his friends was because it did give him a perfect excuse to avoid Lily, who merely had to be to make his pulse jump. Instead, he said, “So, how many neighbors called about my being parked here?”
“An even eight. Now tell me if you’ve still got a thing for Lily.”
“I thought you said you were going to mind your business on that.”
“No, I said it’s her business what she does -- the two things are not mutually exclusive. I just want you to satisfy my curiosity, is all. Maybe if she got herself a man, she’d be less inclined to follow this whole private eye pig in a poke thing. Maybe she’d settle down to something normal, like using that teaching degree that’s going to waste.”
Unable to believe what he was hearing, Smith gave a bark of incredulous laughter as he shook his head. “You can’t be serious. I don’t believe her desire to become a private detective has anything to do with her status as a single woman.”
“You misunderstand me. I just think if she had her mind on something else -- particularly a man -- she wouldn’t have this urge to do something so dangerous.”
Smith was quiet for a moment as he stared at his old friend. He stuck out his hand. “Excuse me, have we met? I’m a man born and raised after the Women’s Movement. And you are…?”
John slapped his hand away. “You know what I mean, Smith. All I’m saying is that if you’re still interested in Lily, then you should go for it.”
“Thanks for your permission.”
“So, I take it you’re not going to help the family out with this little problem, huh?”
Arms folded, Smith stayed relaxed against the car as he tried to control his temper. “You mean be so damned egotistical as to believe that my mere interest in her will make Lily give up her dream? And so believing in my own hype, go ahead with such an asinine plan? If that’s what you mean by ‘helping the family out’, then yeah, you’d be correct in your assumption: request denied. And besides, I can’t believe the family would go along with this -- especially not Aunt Glenda and Uncle Peter.”
“Okay, so it’s not the family,” John admitted sheepishly. “It was my own little plan, which seemed like a good one when I thought of it just a few minutes ago. But after listening to your interpretation, I confess that it was a stupid one.” He paused. “And I guess insulting as well.”
Smith let go of his anger in relief. He thought he might have a fight with his old friend after all. “You really should stop thinking of Lily as a helpless little girl, John. She’s pretty smart.”
John laughed. “Not helpless, hapless. There’s a world of difference between the two. I’ll add a few more adjectives.” He used his fingers to tick them off as he named them. “She’s flighty, indecisive, clueless, pink...”
“Pink?”
John raised an eyebrow and looked at Smith impatiently. “That’s what I said.” When Smith just stared at him as if he’d lost his wits, he explained, “You know -- all those things associated with the color: fragile, gentle, soft, light, airy and therefore, unreliable. Like I said: pink.”
“I wonder if Lily knows that you have such a high opinion of her.”
“Of course not,” John dismissed the sarcasm and the idea with a wave of his hand. “And I do have a high opinion of her, but she wouldn’t see it that way. If she knew, she’d probably cry or go shopping or something. You know how she is.”
“Yeah, I do,” Smith said. “And I’m beginning to see that you don’t.” He thought about the woman who’d practically kicked his ass to the curb when she’d wanted him out of her car and chuckled as he shook his head. Gentle my ass.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” Smith said, deciding at that moment that it would be useless to try to get John to see Lily as anything other than that delicate little girl they’d all been charged with protecting. He slapped the other man on his back. “Listen,” he said reassuringly. “You don’t have to worry about Lily. I’ll make sure she doesn’t come to any harm.” As he made the promise, Smith wondered how he was going to do that when it was clear that she’d rather see him go to hell than be anywhere near her.
“I don’t know how you propose to do that,” John said skeptically, “when you couldn’t even keep up with her tonight. That’s what you’re doing here, right? Waiting for her because you lost her trail earlier?”
Smith hesitated, not wanting to look like he’d already failed on the job. “Yeah …sort of...in a way.” That was exactly it.
John snorted and turned to go back to his car. “Just let me know how it works out.”
After John had pulled off, Smith got back inside his car, grateful for the warmth. “Texas never gets this damned cold. Does any place on earth?” He’d been sitting there for another fifteen minutes when Lily finally made an appearance. She drove up the winding drive and parked right next to the house. Smith was out of his car before she was halfway up the drive. He was there in time enough to open the driver’s side door for her as she was pushing it open. He saw her surprise and her fear before she realized it was him and he watched in amazement as the two emotions quickly turned into anger.
“You all right?” he asked.
She exited the car. “Fine, thanks.” Her jaw was clenched so tight that the words came out clipped.
Smith knew her almost as well as he knew himself and knew he’d get nowhere with her in this kind of mood. Besides, he’d only wanted to make sure she was okay. “Good. That’s all I needed to know.” He touched the brim of his hat in parting, preparing to leave her. Her mouth fell open in surprise and he grinned, causing her to narrow her eyes in suspicion and snap her mouth shut. He could tell she’d been expecting an argument from him and that was precisely why he didn’t give her one.
She didn’t say anything, waiting to see what his next move would be.
His gaze went to her mouth. It was full and her slight overbite made the top lip protrude just a bit. He’d always loved that about her mouth. He looked into her eyes and caught that same flare of interest he was feeling before she masked it and scowled at him. He ran a finger so softly down the side of her face that it was barely touching skin. “Just wanted to make sure you were taking care of our Lily. She’s irreplaceable.”
This time when her mouth fell open, it was from the sudden sexual tension that they both felt. Taking in a shuddering breath, he traced the rim of her mouth with the same finger. “Such beauty,” he murmured, but was distracted a moment by the soft fullness of her mouth. When her breath trembled onto his finger, he repeated himself. “Such beauty is fragile and rare and we wouldn’t want to lose it.” He traced her mouth again, this time making sure to go for the inside seam of her bottom lip.
He stepped back. “I’ll see you tonight at your parents for dinner,” he promised and smiled when she frowned. “I can’t wait to sink my teeth into whatever succulence is on the menu.”
He saw her eyes narrow again before he turned to go to his car. “Good night, sweetness,” he called over his shoulder. He chuckled low in his throat when he heard her slam the front door in response.
Chapter Six
Lily sat cross legged on her bed with the photos from the night before spread out in front of her. She’d uploaded them to her computer and then printed them out. Mr. Benson had kept her out quite late the night before. First he and his sidepiece -- after what she’d seen, Lily would be hard pressed to call her anything but that -- had gone to a small Chinese restaurant in Chilmont, the next town over. This had gratified Lily because she’d finally been able to eat a decent meal.
She’d done just that, sitting behind and to the right of the couple at a small table for two and gorging herself on pot stickers and General Tsao’s chicken. She hadn’t gotten any photos then be
cause it would have been too noticeable, but there had been plenty of action if she had been inclined to snap a few shots. At first Benson and his girlfriend had done nothing but talk in low whispers and then eat. But as the evening wore on and the woman imbibed more alcohol, she’d gotten friskier.
Benson didn’t even try to stop her, indulging her in long drawn out kisses and intimate cuddling. Lily couldn’t decide if she was more disgusted with herself for being a voyeur or with them for their rampant public displays. She’d been more than ready to leave when he’d signaled to the waiter that he was ready to pay the bill. As he was paying, Lily had left and gone to her car.
From there the couple’s midnight ramblings had taken Lily to a dance club. She’d squeezed in, shoved through and begged pardon at least several dozen times, but she’d gotten the shots she was sure would help her client.
“He simply wouldn’t keep his hands off her,” Lily said aloud as she stared at a picture that showed the red-headed woman and Mr. Benson standing so close to one another that they might have been plastered together. His hands were splayed upon her butt. “Ugh.” Lily shuddered as she was reminded of how much bumping and grinding had gone on between the two the night before.
She picked up several more photos that showed the two kissing. “In this one it looks like he’s completely swallowed her tongue,” she tried to say with a detached tone as she studied a picture of the woman leaning over Benson as he leaned against the bar. “Her mouth is attached to his as if it were the suction hose of a vacuum.” There were several more just like that and then there was the coup de grace: Benson sat in a booth with the woman sitting astride his thighs. Her skirt was up, her panties were half way down her thighs and the fingers of one of his hands were hidden between her thighs, while the other hand had a firm hold on one of her breasts.
“Privacy booth my ass,” Lily murmured as she remembered how easy it had been to get the picture. The protective curtains had been left wide open and she hadn’t been the one to open them, which made her think that the two were a pair of exhibitionists. “But that’s neither here nor there,” she said as she gathered the images and began sliding them into a manila envelope. “My work here is done, and thank the good lord for that.”
She unfolded her legs and rose from the bed, her toes curling into the plush cream colored carpeting. Once she’d moved into her grandmother’s house, she’d commandeered the bedroom that her grandmother had given to her as a child. Telling her that the room would always be hers no matter what, Candace had let Lily decorate the large room to her own taste. As a result, the room had gone through at least three changes in Lily’s lifetime. The last one had been when she was seventeen.
Her grandmother had allowed the redecoration as a combined birthday and Christmas present. Lily had taken down the pink hearts and roses wallpaper and had covered the walls in a pale pink paint. She’d gotten a queen-sized four poster bed with posts that almost reached the ceiling. Her chest of drawers, bedside table and vanity were made from white oak heartwood. She’d liked the set because it was a pale brown with a pinkish overtone. A few framed Impressionist and ballet prints had completed the redesign.
Lily still liked the room. It appealed to her sense of romance, particularly the bed with its spectacular swish of rose pink sheer curtains that draped from the posts and even covered the top, serving as a canopy. She remembered that Smith had taken one look at the bed all those years ago, shook his head, muttered one word: “Jesus!” and walked away.
Thinking of Smith made Lily stomp, more than walk, as she headed from the room and down the hall to the bathroom. “Sadistic bastard,” she said as she thought about the scene he’d orchestrated on the front walk in the wee hours of the morning. “Just what is he up to?”
She looked at herself in the mirror over the sink and frowned at the dark circles under her eyes and the tangled hair that hung messily past her shoulders and around her face. It was still damp from the washing she’d given it when she arrived home. She snatched up a wide-tooth comb from a shelf behind her, carefully worked through the tangles, and then using several hairpins, pinned her hair up atop her head. That finished, she grabbed her favorite bubble bath from another shelf and stalked over to the claw-feet bathtub. The slipper tub was long and wide with one end angled upward so that the bather could recline in comfort.
“I need to relax,” she said over the rushing water as she watched bubbles begin to foam. “Oh, forget it,” she murmured and dumped more liquid in so that the tub began to look like it would be overrun with bubbles. “After the night I had, I can afford a few more. I deserve a few more.”
The bubble bath was an expensive brand and try as she might, the last time she’d purchased a supply, she hadn’t been able to find a way to get it discounted. “Not a promo code or coupon to be found anywhere,” she said with a soft frown, still mildly upset at having had to pay full price. But as the clean scent of powder and fresh linen rose in the air, she took a deep breath and didn’t regret using so much of the wonderful stuff. She’d had a quick shower before going to bed, but still felt soiled after last night’s work and after stripping off her boxers and T-shirt, sighed in relief as her body slid under the calming cleanse of the water.
There was a floor cabinet next to the tub, and she opened one of the double doors to grab a small silk pillow she kept there. She affixed it to the lip of the tub and leaned her head back. A smile on her face now, she closed her eyes as she felt her muscles begin to relax under the gentle lapping of the water. “Aaah,” she said, feeling as though the muscles were actually dissolving. She picked up her fluffy body sponge and squirted some body wash of the same scent as the bubble bath onto it.
Starting with her neck, she began to wash. An image of Smith as he’d looked the night before popped into her head and annoyed, she tried to think of something else. But the image was persistent -- even beating out a new jacket she’d had her eye on -- and she finally decided to go with it. “He always looks so good,” she said softly with resignation as she thought of how good he’d looked in his jeans and cowboy boots. She was moving the sponge across her shoulders now and the movement became more of a shivering caress than anything else as she stared into space and remembered the way he moved – there was an unhurried sexy rhythm to his walk, even when he was rushing.
“God, there’s just something in the way that man moves.” One hand went to her throat where she stroked her fingers across the hollow there as she pictured his long, loose gait. “Mmm…delicious.”
“And his smell. Yummy,” she murmured breathlessly as heat fiercely curled low in her belly. Her fingers squeezed the sponge tighter so that water dripped onto her suddenly hot skin. Memories of the one night they’d been together assailed her mind and she moaned aloud. As she remembered how good he’d felt on top of her as he’d thrust powerfully and repeatedly into her body, she whimpered and slid her hand between her suddenly opened thighs. Her body went hot with need, her breath quickened and the sponge fell forgotten to the floor.
***
Lily emerged from her room with her body feeling amazingly fluid and her stomach growling with hunger. Feeling completely stress-free, she’d dressed in blue jeans and topped them off with two long-sleeved Henley shirts, navy on top, white beneath, for a layered look. Her hair flowed into a French braid down her back. In stocking feet she padded down the stairs where she made a right into the living room and after stopping to turn on the television so she could listen while she cooked, she walked through the dining room and went through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen.
Just as she was reaching in the fridge for the bacon, the doorbell rang. Baffled, she went to answer the door, wondering who would be visiting so early on a Sunday morning. It was a few minutes past ten and most people she knew were in church. The door had long narrow windows on either side and she peered through one of them. A spurt of dismay went through her when she saw who stood on the porch. “Oh, no!” she said, but a huge smile split her f
ace as she rushed to unlock and open the door.
“I’m so sorry!” she said to Sue Carlson as she hugged her. “I completely forgot you were coming. Oh, but it’s so good to see you!” She tightened her arms around her best friend. “It’s been so long!”
“It’s really good to see you, too, but what do you mean you forgot I was coming?” her friend inquired. “I just talked to you Friday about my stopping through on my way to meet with that art gallery owner in Geneva.”
They were inside now, and Lily had taken her friend’s coat and was hanging it in the small closet in the foyer. “So much has happened since then, I don’t know where to begin,” she said and led Sue into the living room to sit on the sofa. She looked at her best friend. Sue was a petite, feisty woman with a mess of curly blond hair and dark brown eyes. She’d been Lily’s best friend for more than ten years. The two had met when they were both sophomores at DePaul University. They’d both been education majors. Sue was still a teacher, but she was also an artist with a pretty good following.
Sue pushed some hair out of her face and widened her eyes in excitement. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me everything!”
Lily put a hand to her stomach. “What would you say to us having that discussion over breakfast? I’m starved.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sue said. “Can we go to that great little place your parents used to take us to for brunch when we’d come up for the weekends? Is it still around? You know the one,” she said and snapped her fingers as if the act would improve her memory. “What was it called again? Olivia’s? Owen’s?”
“It’s called Ollie’s, and yes, it’s still around, and yes, if that’s what you’d like, we can certainly go there.” Ollie’s was a fixture in Sheffield-Chatham and had been run by the same family for more than a hundred years. “It will save me the chore of cooking.”
