by Arlene James
Lily groaned. Why hadn’t she gone with the jeans and T-shirt? Why did she have to try to impress him? She considered going upstairs to change, but how would she explain that? She started turning off lights and shutting down the register. When she looked up a few seconds later, she spied him cutting across the street, sans cap, to the This ‘N’ That with a pair of jeans and a clean shirt on hangers. Was he going to change? For her? She couldn’t help feeling flattered, especially as he jogged across the street four or five minutes later in fresh garments, his boots darkened as if he’d washed them in Miss Mars’s restroom sink.
“Good thing I keep clean clothes in the truck,” he said, coming through the door. “Can’t hold a candle to you, but at least I won’t embarrass you.”
“You could never embarrass me!” she told him, blushing with the compliment.
“Why, thank you, ma’am,” he drawled, bowing slightly. “But a fella likes to think he at least has a chance to keep up with a beautiful woman.”
Lily caught her breath, embarrassingly close to tears. A beautiful woman. Her? No one had ever before called her beautiful, and she wasn’t silly enough to believe it. She wasn’t beautiful. Just a hopelessly smitten idiot.
* * *
They drove over to the Wilbur house on the northwest edge of town. The small clapboard structure stood almost hidden in the center of a large, double lot filled with a sizable garden, various sheds and detached garages. Tate explained that Kenneth did his own mechanic work and built planters for sale from salvaged materials, as well as bicycles, which he cobbled together from used parts. Lily took an instant liking to a rusty silver bike with a blue front fender.
Kenneth handed over the keys to the minivan and suggested that Danny go along to answer any questions they might have on the test drive. The boy made a valiant effort to sell the thing. Lily had driven several miles out of town and was on the way back again before Tate discovered what Lily had already realized.
“This is your vehicle, isn’t it, Danny?”
“Um, it’s the one I drive most,” the boy evaded. “Dad’s got to have the truck for hauling stuff. Besides, it’s been rebuilt so much it’s hardly worth anything at all. This here is a quality van. All the parts are original, and we have all the maintenance records, so the extended warranty is still in effect. Oh, and the seats come in and out real easy. I can show you when we get back to the house.”
“That’s fine,” Lily said with a nod.
Tate wished the boy didn’t have to part with his vehicle. Danny was a good son, though. He’d do what was needed without complaint, the same way he worked the garden and looked after his grandmother.
Back at the Wilbur place, they all got out and walked around the van, metaphorically kicking the tires. Kenneth stood back while Danny tried to close the sale, showing Lily how to remove the backseats inside the van to increase the cargo space.
“All right,” Lily said. “I’ll take it.”
Neither Kenneth nor Danny immediately reacted, which caused her to look to Tate in confusion. He leaned close and said, “You should make a counteroffer to their asking price. That’s how these things are done.”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat and offered fifty bucks less than the asking price. Tate literally gasped, but it was too late to suggest she try for five hundred less.
Kenneth and Danny traded incredulous looks and both yelled, “Yes!”
Lily nodded as if completely satisfied, and in a stern voice started laying out conditions. “Now, then, I’ll want that silver bicycle thrown in. Oh, and, Danny, I’ll be needing you to make deliveries. The hours are uncertain. I’ll simply need you when I need you. Meanwhile, of course, I don’t have a garage, so the van will have to stay with you. I’ll pay for the insurance, but I’ll expect you to keep the van gassed and ready. The pay is low, I’m afraid, but you’ll be free to keep any tips that you receive.”
Danny stood with his mouth hanging open for a full ten seconds before he shifted and asked, “I can keep it here?”
“And drive it. If you’re careful.”
The kid put his hands to his head and twisted away, but not before Tate caught the shimmer of tears in his eyes.
Lily cleared her throat. “I, uh, need you and the van together if you’re going to make the deliveries for me,” she pointed out. “You do have a cell phone, don’t you?”
He dropped his hands and turned, head and shoulders slowly bowing. “No.”
Lily made a face. “Well, I have a business plan and an extra phone. Nothing fancy. We can add you to it. But you’ll have to be responsible about your phone use.”
Danny’s head jerked up. He looked like he’d just received an electric shock.
“Danny’s very responsible,” Kenneth said quickly, his voice full of gravel.
“Well, then,” Lily concluded briskly, “I can leave a deposit and take the bicycle today. Then we can complete the transaction early next week.”
Kenneth insisted that a deposit was not necessary, and he agreed to drive with Lily to his bank in Manhattan on Tuesday to have the title changed and funds paid.
“Wait’ll I tell Matt!” Danny suddenly exclaimed. His face colored, and he shifted his feet, adding, “It’s just, well, we sort of been praying about selling the van.”
Lily smiled and nodded. Tate loaded the bicycle into the truck bed, handed Lily up into the front seat, said goodbye to his friends and calmly drove away from the Wilbur place. He saw son and father embrace as he did so, clapping each other on the back. Long minutes passed before he trusted himself to speak around the lump in his throat.
“That was a good thing you did back there.”
Lily shook her head. “I couldn’t take his van away from him, especially as it was just going to sit at the curb in front of my shop ninety percent of the time.” She rubbed her nose and straightened. “Besides, I know what it’s like to have to give up a vehicle you love.” She cleared her throat and added, “I sold mine to raise the matching funds to get the grant to come here.”
Tate had to let that rattle around inside his mind for a minute or two. When he’d extracted all the implications from it, he said, “I somehow don’t think that was a seven-year-old minivan.”
She gave him a wry smile. “More like a BMW Z8 Roadster. Late model. Red.”
Tate whistled. “That’s a top-end vehicle.”
“It was a graduation gift from my grandparents.”
“Graduation gift? From what? Is there a flower design school?”
She took a deep breath and let it out again. “Law school.”
He nearly ran the truck off the road. “You’re a lawyer?”
She literally cringed. “I was. But I’m not now, not really. Don’t tell anyone. I hated it, and that’s why I quit, but my family… You have to understand. I’m the lowly florist in a family of lawyers. Oh, I’m saying it badly.”
“Your whole family are lawyers?”
She nodded. “My grandfather is a judge.” While he digested that, she went on. “My grandmother and father are law professors. My mother works for the Justice Department. My sister is in general practice in Massachusetts. As a matter of fact we used to practice at the same law firm. Then I saw this newspaper story about a town in Kansas offering grants to get businesses to locate there. I mean, here.”
Tate shook his head. “No wonder your application was so well-prepared.”
Lily sighed. “The truth is, I was a horrible failure as an attorney, and I just couldn’t pretend anymore once my sister became engaged to—” She broke off, gasping back whatever she’d been about to say, but Tate wasn’t about to let her stop there.
“Engaged to,” he prodded, switching his gaze back and forth between the street and her, “engaged to who?”
“Er, her husband. I mean, the man who would become her husband.”
“Lily,” Tate said, “you’re leaving out something. What are you leaving out?”
She covered her face with her hands. “He wa
s our boss.”
Tate tilted his head, trying to hear what she still wasn’t saying. “So your sister married the boss. What’s the big deal? Happens all the time.”
Dropping her hands, Lily nodded miserably and confessed, “I had a terrible crush on him.”
Tate hit the brake, causing the truck to stop several feet short of the four-way stop sign. He corrected the distance, thinking aloud. “So, your sister stole your boyfriend?”
“No! He hardly knew I existed. I told you, I’m not the sort of woman that men notice. Laurel is. He had his eye on her from the minute she first walked through the door. It was inevitable, really, and I’m happy for them. I—I just didn’t want to hang around and watch them being happy together.” Head bowed, she smoothed the hem of her top.
Grimly Tate made the left turn and guided the truck to the curb in front of Lily’s shop. As soon as he put the transmission into Park, Lily erupted.
“I’m a terrible person, aren’t I? My baby sister marries some guy I like a lot, so I run off to Kansas! It’s pathetic.”
“No. It’s perfectly understandable.” Tate felt the words burn in his throat. “If you love the guy and he marries your sister…”
“I don’t love him,” Lily scoffed, her head still bowed. “I never loved him. I know that now.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I just wanted him to notice me. Instead he noticed her.”
“There must be something wrong with him,” Tate told her, “because I’ve noticed you. I can’t seem to help noticing you. And I don’t understand how you can say you’re a terrible person when you do things like you did this evening.”
She smiled, shook her head and pushed up her glasses. “It’s a good arrangement for everyone.”
“Especially Danny,” Tate pointed out. She shrugged, and he killed the engine. “I’ll unload the bike for you.”
“Would you mind taking it upstairs? I might paint it later.”
“Not at all. Say, what are you doing for dinner?”
“Oh, I have a casserole ready to warm in the microwave,” she said, glancing at him. “Would you, um, c-care to join me? There’s plenty.”
The sensible thing to do, of course, would be to make his excuses and go on his way, but he’d tossed aside sensible some time ago. Besides, Isabella had certainly already eaten with his parents. Why eat alone when he really wanted to spend this time with Lily, who had just done one of the nicest things he’d ever witnessed? What kind of fool wouldn’t notice a woman like her?
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, pulling the door handle.
Smiling, Lily did the same on her side. He lifted her bicycle out of the bed of the truck and carted it up the stairs for her. While she got dinner going, he looked around the apartment, taking note of the unusual red furniture and dark yellow trimmings. She’d come up with curtains from somewhere, dark yellow with a red design printed on them.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he called to her. She stuck her head out of the kitchen and smiled at him.
“Thank you. Miss Mars has been collecting bits and pieces for me.”
“I’ve never seen anything like your living room furniture.”
Lily chuckled. “You mean, you’ve never seen anyone paint outdoor furniture and use it inside before?”
He took a second look. “So that’s it. Wow. I didn’t even recognize it.”
“Same with this,” she said, carrying two plates, napkins and flatware to the round glass-topped dining table. She had no chairs for the table, just wood stools that she had painted and topped with cushions that matched her curtains. “Hope you like mac-and-cheese casserole and salad.”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
She went back to the kitchen. He stepped over to examine a framed photo on the wall. The girl in the strapless wedding gown looked a lot like Lily but with less natural beauty and more artificial polish. Her long hair had been professionally streaked and straightened and her makeup carefully done, but she lacked the lithe ballerina’s build and the wholesome, unconscious loveliness that was Lily. This young woman looked worldly and…like every other attractive blonde. She simply wasn’t as sweet and special as the maid of honor beside her. Lily looked slightly uncomfortable in a long strapless dove-gray dress, her hair swept up atop her head, fancy earrings dangling from her earlobes. He wished he’d been there to give her a hug and tell her to relax.
Hearing her emerge from the kitchen again, he said, “You’re not wearing your glasses in this photo.”
“I do have contact lenses, but I have problems with the solutions you have to store them in, so I don’t wear them very often.”
“I see. Just as well, if you ask me. I like the glasses. I like the way they look on you.”
“Oh. Thanks.” She blushed very prettily. Gesturing at the photo, she said, “They didn’t go with the outfit, though, especially not with those earrings.” She turned back to the kitchen.
He chuckled and moved to the table, where she had placed a steaming casserole and cool salad bowl. “You can choose the earrings for your own wedding,” he said, raising his voice. “That’s what Eve told her bridesmaids when we got married.”
A long silence followed, during which even he froze. Had he really just said that so easily?
Lily came out of the kitchen carrying two tall glasses of iced water. He bent and pulled out one of the stools for her before taking the glasses from her grasp and placing one at each of the place settings.
“Looks good,” he told her, dropping down onto his own stool.
“Thank you,” she said, bowing her head and folding her hands.
A moment ticked by before he understood that she was praying. Suddenly he realized that she’d been giving thanks before her meals all along. He hadn’t caught on before because she was so quiet about it and because she so often bowed her head. Now he realized that before every meal, she bowed her head and went quiet for a few seconds. He felt small and foolish and yet somehow right about it. She looked up, smiled and reached for the salad tongs.
For lack of anything else to talk about, he asked about her sister’s wedding and received a blow-by-blow account that would have bored him to tears under other circumstances. His tears were tears of laughter, however, given Lily’s witty telling of the “great engagement announcement,” during which two people choked—Lily and the senior partner at the law firm—and the “invitation list wars,” wherein the bride’s mother and the groom’s settled their guest list via professional arbitration.
Tate also learned that Lily had worked for a florist after earning a bachelor’s degree in design and then while she attended law school at her family’s behest. Later, because of her recommendation, the family had chosen her former employer to provide the flowers for her sister’s wedding. Lily had volunteered to oversee the project, and the same florist who had once employed Lily had shown her the article about Bygones’ Heart of Main Street grant project, which had given Lily the idea of applying for the grant.
“And here we are,” Tate said, pushing back his now empty plate to rest his folded forearms against the edge of the table.
“And here we are,” Lily said.
“I’m glad. I’m really glad.” Glancing around, he saw that night had fallen. “Here,” he said, rising to his feet. “Let me help you clean up so I can go. I’ve got an injured hog I need to check on before I can call it a day.”
“No, no,” she refused, staying his hands as he reached for the plates. “I’ll take care of it. You go on. I’m just glad you stayed. Eating alone all the time gets old.”
“I can see how it would, but I thank you all the same. I’ll be seeing you at the garden in the morning.”
She followed him to the entry. “That’s right. On my new bike.”
He opened the door and let himself out onto the landing. “Don’t forget about the party on Saturday.”
“Don’t worry,” she told him, following him out. He started down the stairs. “I won’t leave you alone
with all those little fingernails to paint,” she teased.
He paused, turned, walked back up the stairs and wagged a finger in her face. He’d intended to say something clever, something witty and smart, but when he saw her standing there with that relaxed, happy smile on her face and those deep blue eyes shining behind the lenses of those cute round glasses, every word, every thought went right out of his head except one. He swept his arm around her, folding her close with the crook of his arm. Sliding his free hand over her shoulder blade, he tilted his head and kissed her. This was no my-sweet-friend kiss, no thoughtlessly affectionate kiss, no accidental or grateful kiss. This was about the woman who made him smile and want and forget. This was about not being able to help himself, about not even wanting to.
Lily relaxed against him, leaned against his chest and yielded her sweet lips to him. Her slender, finely boned hands stole up and over his shoulders to slip around his neck and into his hair. He smiled into that kiss, and she smiled, and he kissed her again.
He heard Isabella saying Mama must like it in Heaven, and he felt a new gladness. It was too much, too shocking. He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to Lily’s. The apples of her cheeks were as pink as roses, her smile so wide that he couldn’t help smiling in return.
She had closed her fingers in the collar of his shirt and seemed to be having some trouble letting go, but her grip gradually loosened.
“I just thought you should know,” he said, “that I had noticed.”
Stepping back, he landed hard with one foot on the stair below the small platform where they stood. They both laughed. He turned, went quickly down the stairs and out into the night, thankfully without falling on his face or breaking his neck. Spinning away from the door, he caught a clean breath.
He must be losing his mind. He should be keeping his distance and instead what did he do? He kissed her! Worse, he wanted… God help me, I want Lily.
Tate’s thoughts stuttered to an abrupt halt.
Had he just reached out to God?
Yes, of course he had. And why not? He hadn’t stopped believing any more than he’d stopped breathing. He’d just stopped reaching out, stopped daring to reach out.
