Irresistible Stranger

by Jennifer Greene

  “No.”

  “No? Huh? You can’t say no. If you vote no, we stop. If I vote no, we stop. Those are the rules.”

  “Now, Lily, trust me. I know the rules. Come on, though. Give me a chance to be a hero. I’m in the striving class. Don’t know what I’m doing. You could help me learn. You could give me an achievement badge if I’m good. Or a whack upside the head if I goof this up. See? No risk.”

  She almost laughed at his words. Only, Griff wasn’t a fledgling, and he knew-awesomely, brilliantly, inventively-exactly what he was doing. She didn’t. Oxygen locked in her lungs when he dipped lower, scooped her legs in his arms, and sampled tastes and textures with his whiskery cheek and his lips and his tongue.

  She stopped thinking. Stopped breathing. Forgot her name. Forgot just about everything but that she was female, pure female, and Griff, damn him, was more man than she’d ever dreamed existed. She gulped in pleasure, greedily wanted more, needed more. Needed him. Yelped his name in her angriest tone, her bossy teacher tone. “Now, Griff, and quit fooling around-”

  “Okay, okay, I’m coming up,” he promised her-only right then his landline rang.

  Then her cell phone did its bell tone thing.

  And then his cell phone did some kind of jubilant chime.

  The three noxious sounds struck her as a blast from planet Earth. For a little while-for an insane, wonderful, breathtaking little while-she’d forgotten about reality. Her fire. His fire. The way that past seemed to be strangely spilling over into the here and now.

  Maybe she’d been haunted all her life by fire. But she’d never been afraid…until coming home again.

  Now she tasted fear. And the upsetting flavor of guilt-because somehow, her history with fire had managed to hurt Griff.

  “I got a proposition for you.”

  The only proposition Griff wanted was from Lily, but he turned around to face the new interruption. Debbie, from Debbie’s Diner, had straw-dry, big blond hair, boobs so big you wondered why she didn’t fall on her face just trying to walk and was decent to the core. She always chose the wrong men, made fried chicken so good it could make a rock salivate, never met a dog so ugly she wouldn’t take in. She was one of the best commerce neighbors on Main Street.

  She peered into the burned-out shell of Griff’s ice-cream parlor and clucked in sympathy. “I was thinking, Griff, I got spare freezer space. We could put your ice creams on the menu in the diner until your own place is up and running again. That way, you could use up the ice cream so it’s not wasted, and I’d get more customers coming into the diner just for the ice cream. We’d both win.”

  Debbie had barely left before Manuel Brook showed up, tapping him on the shoulder. Manuel came from a family of farm workers, and had gotten a business started cleaning carpets. He barely reached five-four, had beady little eyes, and a wife-some claimed-who regularly slapped him around. “Hey, Griff. You got a big mess here. I clean up fire and water messes before. Once you get the debris out, you call me. I’ll do the cleaning, my own time, on me.”

  “That’s not necessary.” Griff said immediately, but it had been the same story all morning. Neighbors and friends stopped by, didn’t waste time sympathizing, just dug straight in with offers of help.

  Margo, his insurance agent, had been on the site almost the minute he’d parked the car. “I know there are still questions as far as the investigation goes,” she told him. Margo was well over sixty, spare as a reed, hair the color of iron. “But I don’t want you worried about the claim. I sold you good coverage, and I’ll have a check to you as fast as we can get the details on paper and get it processed.”

  Every kid who’d ever worked for him showed up through the morning as well-the ones who’d been in jail, the ones who couldn’t stop fighting, the ones who’d been drinking hard liquor since fourth grade. Not a clean-cut kid in the lot. Yet all of them showed up, offering to help, offering to shoot whoever did this, offering to stand guard, offering to hang with Griff in case anyone else tried to hurt him.

  By noon, Griff couldn’t keep his eyes off the street. He hadn’t forgotten that wild body in bed with him this morning. For damn sure, he hadn’t forgotten what had unfortunately been interrupted by the blast of phone calls. He also hadn’t forgotten finding Lily sitting on the curb last night, waiting for him, hanging with his boys.

  When they’d split this morning, she said that she was going back to the B and B, needed to shower, clean up, change clothes, and then she’d be here. It wasn’t as if either of them had set a timetable.

  He hadn’t been worried about it-until the sheriff and fire chief had stopped by, taken him out back to have a quiet talk.

  His fire hadn’t been accidental. Maybe Griff had already guessed that, but it was still another thing to have “arson” put in indelible ink.

  His fire had started from a gasoline accelerant, exactly like the accelerant used in the deserted mill fire the day after Lily arrived in town. Exactly the same accelerant had been used in that long-ago fire that took her parents’ lives.

  Gasoline was one of the most common accelerants arsonists used, the fire chief told him.

  He got it.

  But he’d never liked coincidences. And he didn’t like not knowing where Lily was.

  Damn town was full of the best people a man could ask for in neighbors-friends, people who cared.

  But someone wasn’t so nice. Two fires in less than two weeks? No record of arson in years, until Lily suddenly came back in town? It just didn’t make sense.

  Lily couldn’t escape the B and B to save her life. As fast as she’d gotten here from Griff’s, she’d tiptoed in the back door, scooted up the back stairs in bare feet, and hustled inside her room. Trying not to make a sound, she’d peeled off her clothes, grabbed a satchel of toiletries and opened the door to go into the bathroom.

  And there was Louella, standing there with a heap of fluff-dried pink towels. “I thought you’d might appreciate some fresh towels, honey.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “The whole town’s talking about the fire at Griff’s. And I worried when you didn’t come in last night. But I told myself, Louella, it’s none of your business. She’s a grown woman, I told myself. But then I remembered, you don’t have any parents to watch out for you, and you’re young and pretty, and I don’t like to-”

  “Louella, I absolutely have to take a shower.”

  “Of course, you sweet thing. You just go on. I won’t say another word.”

  And she didn’t, she just turned around and headed for the stairs-yet somehow, her beaming face was there when Lily opened the bathroom door twenty minutes later. “I wanted to tell you that I’d saved you some cinnamon rolls from breakfast. But also, since you missed breakfast, I thought, well, you might like a little sandwich with me.”

  Lily had never lived with anyone so intrusive, but Louella was like an honorary grandmother. An unshakeable honorary grandmother. She managed to pull on clam diggers and a violet cami, swooshed up her hair with combs-she had to get it cut or she was going to go out of her mind. Louella watched her apply brush, lipstick, mascara.

  And since Lily still hadn’t managed to shake her by then, she figured she might as well try grilling Louella. “Were you living here when the mill closed?”

  “Of course I was. That mill closing almost killed the whole town.”

  “Did you happen to know my dad? My mom?”

  “Of course, honey pie. Your mom-she thought the sun rose and set on her daughters. She always had you dressed so cute. And y’all had manners, not like kids are raised now. All you girls could shake a stranger’s hand, say hello, sit quiet in church. You were angels, all three. Although I have to say, your older sister-”

  “Cate.”

  “Yes, that one. She had a little hellion in her. Used to make me laugh. I can remember one time, your mama must have wanted her to have a bath-she was maybe four? And Cate, now, she didn’t want it, ran out of the house stark naked with y
our mama chasing after her, carrying a baby under one arm, must have been you? And Cate, oh my…”

  Lily wanted to laugh. She could easily picture her independent older sister being that kind of handful-but just then, she couldn’t be diverted. “Louella, do you know if there are people still living here who were connected to the mill back then? Anyone who might have known my dad?”

  By then, Lily had herded Louella down the stairs, through the kitchen, had accepted a wrapped bag of something homemade and fragrant-but before Lily could leave, Louella had parked her ample body in front of the screen door.

  “Well, yes,” she said slowly. “The owner of the mill back then was Webster Renbarker. Your daddy was his second in charge. The mill didn’t close because it wasn’t thriving, you know. The place did real well, once your dad took on the management reins. Everybody said so. The problem with Webster was that he got a brain tumor. Started acting goofy. Hid his own money from himself. Sabotaged his own shipments. Nobody could figure out what was going on until it was too late.”

  “He died,” Lily assumed with a sinking heart.

  “Oh, he’s alive. It was just nothing at that point could keep the mill from bankruptcy, between Webster’s shenanigans and his medical bills. Came a point, they took out the tumor. He lost the sight in one eye, as I recall. And he’ll never be what you’d call normal. Lots of days he’s fuzzy. That’s what I hear from the grapevine, anyhow-”

  “I don’t suppose you know where he lives?”

  “Why, sure I do. Lives in North Carolina, some place for seniors. Has some supervision. You know. That kind of place.”

  “Okay.” For a few moments, Lily actually thought she had a real lead. She tried not to feel disappointed as she aimed firmly for the door. “Well, thanks for sharing all that, Louella-”

  “A course, he’s here now.”

  Lily whirled back. “Say what? You mean here? In Pecan Valley?”

  “Well, yes, for a couple more days. He’s visiting his wife’s cousin, Barbara Marr, it’s an annual thing they do in the summer, bring him here for a week, take him back. You know the Marr house, the red-tile roof at the far end of Magnolia Drive? He was here last week at least. Remember seeing him at Debbie’s Diner. Not like he can’t do some things on his own. He just tends to be unpredictable, bless his heart. And when he’s home here, people look after him, not like anything was his fault. Right after…”

  A minute later, Lily was gunning the engine of her rental Ford. If this Webster Renbarker was shortly leaving town, she had to try to reach him before the chance was gone. Griff was going to wonder where she was. She wanted to be with him, not gallivanting all over town on what was probably going to be a wild-goose chase.

  But if there was even a small chance the long-ago fire had a connection to the immediate fires, she had to try.

  She knew where the house with the red-tile roof was. It couldn’t take ten minutes to drive there-even less if she speeded, which she most certainly intended to do.

  Chapter 6

  O kay, Lily thought as she charged up the steps to the library, nothing was going to go smoothly today. She’d found Barbara Marr’s house, but not Webster Renbarcker. “Web” was at the library, his cousin claimed. She often dropped him off to spend a couple hours there. If Lily wanted to find Mr. Renbarcker, she needed to go there.

  So she had.

  She swung open the heavy library door, fretting that this was going to be a whole wasted morning, when she could have been with Griff. What she’d risked that morning-what she wanted to risk with him again-made her wonder if she was losing her mind.

  Chasing an old man who might not even talk with her seemed another symptom of insanity-yet she only took a few steps into the old, cool library to feel bombarded by a flush of great memories. Her dad had often brought the girls here-likely to give their mom a break, Lily thought now-but as a child she’d only known those mornings as a special treat. The smell of books, the tall windows letting in the long, yellow ribbons of light, the quiet, the big chairs that a little girl could curl up in…she’d loved it all when she was a child.

  Still did. The old blue rug looked the same, so did the giant, oak library desk. It was impossible not to feel safe here. She ambled through aisles in the adult section, not certain what Webster Renbarcker looked like-but for sure, he had to be a senior.

  There was no one over fifty in adult fiction, or in the reference room in back. Disappointed, she just glanced in the childrens’ room, even as she was aiming for the back door…and there he was. An older man with longish white hair and scratchy white whiskers was sitting on a cushioned stool, leafing through a child’s picture book.

  A couple kids huddled in the corner with an older sister; a mom and toddler had claimed the sunny spot under a window. Lily quietly approached the older man, said gently, “Mr. Renbarcker?”

  He immediately looked up with faded blue eyes.

  “My name is Lily Campbell. I used to live here. My dad used to work at your mill.”

  He brightened up as if she’d given him a present. Once he started talking, he couldn’t seem to stop. He tended to fade out now and then, but the past seemed clearer to him than the present.

  “Never thought I’d see any of you Campbells again. Your daddy never set that fire, honey. He loved the mill. He loved me. He’d been watching out for me from before I got sick, watched out for my wife the same way.”

  It was as if the old man’s heart hurt. Words just poured out of him.

  “He knew I was sick, your daddy, because he found me on the floor one day. I’d had some kind of seizure. He was just a boy then, almost fresh out of college. Had a young wife-your mama, prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, she was. I didn’t have a son. Didn’t have any children. Couldn’t. Maybe my body knew I was going to get sick, you think?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “The thing was…your daddy, he covered for me, every which way from Sunday. I made mistakes. He tried to catch them. I’d be fine one day, selling the farm the next, sending shipments to Canada instead of Louisiana, I could get that goofy. I couldn’t face it. Couldn’t believe it. Hid it from my wife as long as I could. I thought I was crazy.”

  “It sounds so frightening, Mr. Renbarcker.”

  “It was. It was. That was just the thing. I didn’t know it was an illness in the beginning, or for a long while. I just thought I was losing my mind. Your dad was better than a son to me. I loved him. I loved your mama, too.”

  Lily felt tears well. Good tears. Loved tears.

  “When it got real bad…well, I’m sure you know. I lost the mill. It had to be closed. I’d mucked up far more than your father could fix. But when they said he was despondent over losing his job-honey, it wasn’t like that at all. He knew I was sick. He knew what was coming. There was no shock to him, no sudden surprise. He knew we were going down.”

  Lily suddenly couldn’t breathe. For the first time, she was talking to someone who knew her dad back then. Who was describing her dad as a good man-a hero, not a coward. A man who’d never had a “depressed” reason to set that fire-or any other fire.

  “We’d talked about it many times, Lily. I urged him to quit and leave me with my own problems. He had you three girls by then-and nothing he adored more than his daughters. He had to be worried about finances, yet when I told him to leave me, find another job, he said that you girls loved mac and cheese, and none of you needed a fancy car. He’d saved. Enough to knuckle down and find himself another job when that had to be, but he was sticking by me to the end. You know what bothered me most, young lady?”

  “Tell me,” Lily urged him.

  But the old man suddenly leaned forward with a wheezing cough, and when he finally straightened again, there seemed a hazy fog over his eyes. “Danielle, did you make me some of your famous huckleberry pie for dinner tonight?” He winked. “You look so pretty today, my dear. I love that color of blue on you.”

  “I…thank you.” She’d learned so much.
She wanted to get to her cell phone, call her sisters. Wanted to figure out what all this information meant-if her dad had never set that long-ago fire, then who had? And did that have anything to do with the two fires since she’d come back to town?

  And then there was Griff. She wanted to get back with him, to see what was happening to his store, to dig into whatever she could help him with. And yeah, to dig into whatever crazy place they were going personally together, too.

  But she couldn’t just up and leave the older man. Mr. Renbarcker wasn’t thinking straight. She didn’t know if or when his cousin would come looking for him. The mom and her toddler had wandered off; the clutch of other kids had been picked up by their father. Another group of kids popped in. Mr. Renbarcker kept talking to “Danielle” as if Lily were the one and only love of his life.

  A boisterous group of tweeners piled in the doors, girls, giggling loud enough to raise the dead, finally arousing the librarian to stand in the doorway with a frown. It was the first thing that had distracted Mr. Renbarcker, who finally looked at her and said, “I know you, don’t I?”

  Putting a solution in motion seemed to take forever. The librarian, Sarah-Leigh Jenkins, was enlisted to track down Barbara Marr’s phone number, but Sarah seemed to think it was suspicious for Lily to take an interest in the old man. Lily managed to reach Barbara Marr; but really, it was easiest just to drive the older man back home, since he was willing to get in the car with her-even if the librarian was scandalized all over again. Driving him was just faster than waiting for his cousin to get there, and Lily couldn’t fathom why anyone would think anything was hokey about a young woman being kind to someone elderly.

  Only, by then, outside, it was hot enough to fry bacon on the pavement. Her rental car’s air conditioner coughed and sputtered like a pneumonia case.

  She got Mr. Renbarcker back to his relatives, then finally was free to drive back to Griff’s. By then she was frustrated and itchy-hot, and verging on cranky. Her cell phone registered five calls-all from her sisters. Admitting to Cate why she’d come back to Pecan Valley this summer had clearly alerted her sisters’ alarm bells. Now there’d be no end to their advice. And she’d call them both back.