The Nearness of You

by Dorothy Garlock

  Randall shook his head. “That could happen whether that son of a bitch took my picture or not.”

  Before Leo answered, a police car appeared on the road ahead, driving toward them, the telltale light on its roof barely visible in the dusk. Neither man said a word, staring hard as the vehicle approached, the older thief’s hands slowly tightening on the steering wheel. It wasn’t until the cop had finally driven past that Randall realized he’d been holding his breath.

  “You’re right,” Leo agreed, continuing their conversation. “But my way it’s a calculated risk. I case a place, I draw up a plan and then follow it to the letter, tryin’ to minimize all that can go wrong. That fella shows your picture—”

  “One we ain’t even sure he has,” Randall interrupted.

  “—to the wrong person either before we do the job or after, there’s a hell of a lot better chance that we end up nabbed.”

  “Wait a minute,” the younger man said, turning in his seat to look hard at his partner. “What’s this ‘after the job’ shit? Are you insinuatin’ that if I got pinched, I’d start blabbin’? That I’d turn snitch?”

  “I ain’t sayin’ you’d do it easy or on purpose,” the older man answered, his tone cautious, as if he understood that he’d waded into dangerous waters. “But cops got a way of usin’ things against you to make you tell ’em what they want to hear.”

  Randall shook his head. “That ain’t gonna happen ’cause nobody has nothin’ on me,” he scoffed, believing full well that it was true. After all, he had no family, least none he cared about, and the women who weaved in and out of his life were a dime a dozen, as easily replaced as a hat or a pair of shoes.

  “You don’t owe any money?” Leo asked.

  The younger thief bit his lip and kept staring straight ahead.

  “Yeah, I know all about you and gamblin’,” the other man continued. “I see it in the way you bet when we’re playin’ cards back at the cabin. You’re too reckless, makin’ bigger and bigger wagers when you get behind, hopin’ that one good hand will right the sinkin’ ship.” Leo paused, letting his on-the-mark observation hang between them. “What if you’re in deep to somebody when you get pinched?” he asked. “What if the cops offer to make your problems disappear if you roll over and give them the name of your partner? Somethin’ like that might make you sing a different tune.”

  Randall remained quiet. It was hard enough to silently admit that Leo was right; he wasn’t going to give the other man the satisfaction of saying it out loud.

  “We’re gonna do this like we planned,” Leo continued. “We go in to town, look for our guy, and if we find him, great. If not…”

  “Job’s done and we go our separate ways,” Randall finished.

  As they rounded a bend in the road, the lights of Hooper’s Crossing came into view ahead. In a matter of minutes, they’d be at the festival. Throngs of people would be there enjoying themselves, celebrating long into the night.

  The guy from Life magazine was there, somewhere.

  All they had to do was find him.

  As she and Boone stepped out of the theater, Lily was nearly bursting with excitement. The film had been everything she’d hoped it would be and more. Gary Cooper had been heroic and handsome as the marshal of Hadleyville, while Grace Kelly had been a vision of beauty as his new bride. Even the villains, with Ian MacDonald as their leader, had given incredible performances. Lily had been captivated, completely absorbed by what was up on the screen.

  Well, maybe not completely…

  All through the picture, Lily had been acutely aware of Boone sitting beside her. She’d stolen the occasional glance at him, his face illuminated by the movie, more attractive to her than any Hollywood star. She wasn’t the only one looking at him, either; from the moment they’d entered the theater, members of the audience had been checking them out, likely wondering who Lily Denton was with. When the movie had reached its climax, the villains making their move to gun down the hero, Lily had been so wrapped up in the story that she’d been momentarily startled when Boone had reached over and taken her hand. She’d glanced at him, his face illuminated by the light of the screen, and made no move to take her hand away, instead enjoying the pleasure of his touch.

  “That was great!” Lily gushed as they passed beneath the lights of the marquee and down the sidewalk.

  “You won’t get any argument from me,” Boone said.

  “I loved the outfits!”

  “And that shootout was something else.”

  “To say nothing of Grace Kelly! She’s so beautiful!”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty easy on the eyes. Nice to talk with, too.”

  Lily’s eyes widened. “Nice to talk with?” she repeated. “Wait, does that mean you’ve met her?”

  “Last time I was in Los Angeles, as a matter of fact,” he explained. “I had a shoot on the United lot and she was there. It’s no big deal.”

  “But she’s a movie star!”

  Boone shrugged. “With my job, I’ve met all sorts of famous people. Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Joe DiMaggio, the list goes on and on,” he said. “But the thing is, the more time you spend around folks like that, the more you realize that they really aren’t that different from you and me.”

  “I find that awfully hard to believe,” Lily disagreed.

  “It’s true. They get nervous, have money trouble, and they want other folks to like them more than they’d admit,” Boone told her. “They might be able to sing one heck of a tune, hit a baseball a country mile, write a book, or look pretty up on a movie screen, but once you get past the glitz and glamour, most of them are kind of ordinary.”

  Lily had never thought of it like that, but she supposed that if anyone would know, it’d be Boone. Still, in one way it was hard to believe him.

  “Ordinary, huh?” she said, her voice teasing. “I bet that when you were taking Grace Kelly’s picture, that word was the farthest thing from your mind.”

  Boone chuckled and held up his hands. “Guilty as charged.”

  “I bet you hoped she might have a thing for photographers.”

  “She’s way out of my league. If I was a betting man, I’d lay paper she ends up married to a big-time politician or maybe a king.”

  “I’ve always loved to watch the beautiful Hollywood actresses,” she said. “Olivia de Havilland, Veronica Lake, Gene Tierney. When I was little, I used to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon with my mother and we…” Lily hadn’t meant to bring up Sarah Denton, but at her mention, she fell silent. Walking beside Boone, the only sounds came from their footfalls and the noises drifting toward them from the festival. When the quiet became more than Lily could bear, she said, “My mother passed away when I was six…”

  “I heard,” he said.

  She turned to look at him, surprised. “You did?”

  Boone nodded. “After we met, I was curious,” he explained. “When I asked Marjorie Barlow about you, she told me that your mother had died.”

  It made sense. Everyone in town knew what had happened that bright spring day, what Lily and her father had lost.

  “What was she like?” he asked.

  “If I’m being honest, I don’t really know,” she answered, the sounds of the festival growing louder as they neared the park. “All I have are little bits and pieces for memories. The sound of her voice as she sings me ‘Happy Birthday.’ How she looked wiping sweat from her brow while digging in her flower garden. The two of us at the movies, laughing at Laurel and Hardy.” Lily paused. “But I clearly remember the afternoon she died. It happened while I was playing hide-and-seek with my dad. I can still see the look on his face after he’d found her, after he’d called the doctor. It was the first time I ever saw him cry.”

  Boone reached for her hand. She gladly gave it, along with a weak smile, happy she was with him.

  “I bet she’d be proud of you,” he offered.

  Lily didn’t know how to answer. She wondered if Bo
one was right. What would her mother have thought of her failed plan to leave town. Would she have been disappointed in her daughter for not chasing her dream? Or would she have been relieved that Lily hadn’t abandoned her father? What would she think of her spending time with Boone? In the end, Lily couldn’t answer any of these questions, and thought it might drive her crazy to try. “What about your family?” she asked. “I bet they tell everyone they know that their son works for Life magazine.”

  Boone chuckled. “I doubt either of them care all that much. My folks weren’t the kind who did much bragging. They were too busy spreading the Lord’s good word to notice much of what I got up to,” he explained. “I bought my first camera from a pawnshop on the edge of town. I used to go tramping around the country looking for something to photograph. Old rickety barns, flocks of geese on a frozen pond, the railroad depot when the trains came in, you name it, I took its picture. Somehow, I think I always knew that camera, and the ones that came after it, were my ticket out of Saybrook, Illinois.”

  “That’s where you’re from?”

  “Born and raised,” he answered. “But by fourteen, I was counting down the days until I could leave. The last thing I wanted was to grow old in some little town where nothing happened, a dot on the map most people found by accident.”

  A place that sounds an awful lot like Hooper’s Crossing…

  Almost immediately, Boone understood what he’d implied. “I’m sorry, Lily,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t want you to think that—”

  “You’d have to be nuts to live in a town like this?” she finished.

  Boone sighed but didn’t answer.

  “It’s all right,” Lily said. “I know just how you feel. My whole life, I’ve wondered what it would be like to go somewhere else, to know a little excitement. It would be nice not to see the same people day in and day out.”

  “They why are you still here?”

  Lily hesitated. The only other person who knew how she really felt about Hooper’s Crossing, her job at the library, and her complicated relationship with her father, was Jane. She’d never even revealed the truth to Garrett. But now she was considering coming clean to Boone, a man who had been a complete stranger only the day before. Lily glanced over and found him looking at her. In the photographer’s eyes, she saw curiosity, a desire to know the answer to his question. But she also saw compassion. It wasn’t hard to imagine that he would listen without judging, that he might understand the conflicting emotions that had influenced her decision to stay. Who knew, maybe Boone would even have an answer to the questions swirling around in her head.

  “I’m not supposed to be,” she admitted. “Right now, I should be far away. In New York City, as a matter of fact.”

  And with that, her story poured out.

  Soon after she began, the sidewalk they were walking on led them to the park; Lily never stopped talking as they moved around its edges. Even with the late hour, the festival was still in full swing. The air was filled with the tantalizing smells of roasting meats and sweet treats. Musicians played to appreciative crowds, enticing a few couples to twirl in the moonlight. Barkers shouted, selling their carnival games, the night punctuated with a joyful shout whenever someone managed to knock over all the milk bottles or pop a balloon with a dart. Cars slowed as they drove past, the necks of drivers and passengers craning for a closer look.

  But even with all the commotion and fanfare, Boone’s attention never wavered. He listened to Lily’s story attentively, only asking the occasional question. Though they were surrounded by hundreds of festivalgoers, Lily felt like they were the only two people on earth.

  “I feel like such a coward,” she finished.

  Boone shook his head. “For whatever reason, it wasn’t time for you to go. Maybe tomorrow or the day after will be different.”

  Lily wanted to believe that Boone was right. Just then, with Boone at her side, she allowed herself to dream a little, to imagine a future where someone would be going with her, or waiting for her to arrive, that special person with whom she could share it all.

  Boone suddenly chuckled, breaking Lily’s fantasy.

  “What’s funny?” she asked.

  “I was just thinking that I’m glad you didn’t leave with your friend.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you had, we never would have met.”

  Lily thought about it for a moment. “Yes, we would’ve,” she replied.

  The photographer’s eyes narrowed. “How do you figure?”

  “Something about this feels like it was meant to be,” she explained, giving his hand a squeeze, loving the way that their fingers entwined, how warm his skin was to the touch. “Like our meeting was fate. Even if I’d left, we would have bumped into each other on the street or sat at the same lunch counter.”

  Boone shook his head, chuckling again. “You really have no idea how big New York City is, do you?”

  Lily laughed at her own naïveté. “Maybe not,” she admitted.

  Boone suddenly stopped walking. They stood beneath the bare branches of the elm tree in front of the bakery, the festival behind them, the sidewalk theirs alone. He stepped into the dark shadows away from the street; Lily followed, her hand in his. Boone looked down at her, the smile on his face making her heart beat a little faster, then slowly ran his fingers along the gentle curve of her cheek. “You know, I think you might be right,” he told her.

  “About what?” she answered, feeling a little breathless.

  “Us,” Boone answered. “Maybe we would have found each other in the end, even in a city of millions of people. And if that’s true, then maybe I was supposed to get in trouble that morning on the dock. Maybe my editor was supposed to punish me by sending me here, and—”

  “Maybe we were supposed to bump into each other,” Lily finished.

  “Exactly,” he agreed.

  “If so, then what’s supposed to happen next?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Boone said, then lowered his face toward hers, moving to kiss her. With every inch he came closer, Lily’s heart beat that much faster, the anticipation making it race. Just before their lips touched, Lily shut her eyes and held her breath, giving herself over to a moment that felt as magical as any Hollywood movie. At first, their passion remained in check, each of them feeling a touch of nerves and not wanting to go too far, afraid to give the other a reason to stop. But it didn’t take long for whatever reticence they felt to melt away. It was then, as Lily’s desire grew, her mouth opened slightly, that she unexpectedly shivered. It might have been because of the cool October night, but Lily suspected that it was more likely due to the surprise and disbelief she felt at what she was doing. The emotion was simply more than her body could handle, unlike anything she had ever felt before. Regardless of the reason, Boone felt her body shake and pulled her closer, his arms enveloping her. Lily took his warmth, as well as the eagerness of his kiss, and returned them as best as she knew how.

  Lily might have spent years pining to leave Hooper’s Crossing, but right then, those thoughts couldn’t have been farther from her mind.

  There was nowhere else she would have rather been.

  Chapter Fifteen

  BOONE WALKED DOWN the sidewalk with a spring in his step, hardly noticing the chill in the night air. He couldn’t stop thinking about Lily. Their night together had gone better than he could have ever expected. From his first look at her as she stepped onto the porch, to the pleasant surprise of her grabbing his hand during the movie, to their talk as they walked around the festival, and finally the kiss they’d shared in front of the bakery.

  And what a kiss it had been…

  But Boone hadn’t been satisfied. In fact, it had made him greedy for more.

  Standing on the corner close to Lily’s house but far from the prying eyes of her father, Boone had kissed her again. Like before, he’d been captivated by her touch, the soft scent of her perfume, the pleasure of her body pres
sed against his. He hadn’t wanted it to end but had eventually let her go. Even though they had made plans to meet again the next day, Boone was certain he’d spend their time apart impatiently waiting for it to be over.

  And then what, hotshot? What happens next?

  Though Boone had enjoyed every second of his time with Lily, a sliver of doubt nagged at him. He and Lily came from different worlds. He lived in a teeming metropolis, the city that never slept, while she was here in a town that could best be described as just another dot on a map. He was a world traveler, a photographer whose job took him to every corner of the world. She was a librarian, someone who only saw faraway places as pictures in a book. The bonds between Boone and his family had become frayed and they had drifted apart long ago. Lily still lived with her father. Since the two of them came from such opposite directions, what chance did they have to meet in the middle? Was this nothing more than a fun time soon forgotten?

  Surprising himself a little, Boone truly hoped that it wasn’t.

  The truth was, he still wasn’t sure how all of this had happened in the first place. Just days before, he’d fought tooth and nail to keep from going on assignment to this far-off dot on the map. Now here he was, head over heels.

  The list of things about Lily that captivated him was long, but Boone’s attraction to her was about more than any one of them, even more than all of them put together. She’d touched him deep inside. Listening to Lily talk about her mother’s death had moved him, had made him want to take her in his arms and give her comfort. She was unlike any other woman he’d known, that much was for certain. And that was why he didn’t want to lead her on. They needed to talk, and soon. He had to know what she wanted from—

  Boone’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden, sharp sound of a dog’s bark. He froze on the sidewalk, certain that he recognized the animal who had made it. Then it came again, more insistent, angrier. This time, Boone was positive that it was Daisy; after all, an owner knew his pet best. He looked around. Though he wasn’t that familiar with Hooper’s Crossing, especially at night, he thought that he was only a couple of blocks from Marjorie Barlow’s place. He started to run.