THE STARLIGHT HILL COMPLETE COLLECTION: 1-8

by Bell, Heatherly

  His big warm hand squeezed hers. “Nah. I have the at-risk teen group tonight and I’m bringing them fast food. I just wanted to see you.”

  “You’ll see me tonight, won’t you?”

  “You bet.”

  He pulled her over to the dark corner of the room near the kitchen and kissed her right in front of Mama’s photo. When he pulled back, he looked to Mama’s picture. “Hey, Leah. You probably already know this seeing as you’re her guardian angel but I love your daughter. She just admitted today that she still loves me too, so now all bets are off. I’m never letting her go again.”

  Had anyone ever talked to Mama like this before, except for Sophia? Not even Angie, who saluted Leah’s photo at the end of a long day. Sophia was having a little trouble keeping her eyes from leaking. “Oh Riley, I love you.”

  “You better.” He kissed her one last time, squeezed her hand and was out the door.

  “How are those steel cables doing, honey?” Lizzie asked, stopping to bat her eyelashes before she pushed her way through the kitchen doors.

  “Shut up.”

  Sophia went back to visiting with her customers, pouring wine, taking photos. Lyric was still there, sitting in her booth alone. She met Sophia’s eyes and shyly looked away.

  “Can I get you anything else?” Sophia stared down at the half-eaten desserts.

  “Nope. Was that your husband?” she asked.

  “Yes, it’s—” Wait. Neither she nor Riley had put their wedding rings back on and how did this girl know that? She was from out of town, wasn’t she?

  “Never mind. I just thought—but I shouldn’t have said anything. Sorry about that. I have a big mouth.”

  Sophia froze. Hands shaking, she sat down across from Lyric. “Bruce?”

  Lyric got up so fast she almost took the tablecloth with her. She laid two twenty dollar bills on the table. “This should cover it.”

  “Wait a minute. Don’t go.”

  “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “You’re not in trouble,” Sophia insisted. “I want to talk to you.”

  Lyric didn’t move. “Really?”

  “I blocked your number because I thought you were a guy. I didn’t want…I mean, my husband.” Sophia took a breath. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

  “Sure. You dropped me because you got back together with your husband.” Lyric didn’t say it so much as spit it out.

  “That’s not fair.”

  Lyric sat back down, sneering a little bit. “You’re like all the others.”

  “I’m sorry, Lyric, but you also misrepresented yourself. You should know that I’m not gay.”

  “Neither am I!”

  “Wait. You’re not?”

  “I just like getting to know people. And women are different. They’ll talk to someone for a really long time before they insist on meeting. Guys don’t.”

  Sophia had done that. All along she’d thought it was the right thing, getting to know someone before meeting them in person and before getting too invested. “How did you know so much about medicine?”

  “My parents are both doctors and I’m pretty smart.”

  “I bet you are.” If only she’d channel all that intelligence in a different way. “Wait. So Bruce—”

  “My dad. He’s a doctor at Highland Hospital. I didn’t want to send his picture because he’s kind of ugly.”

  “I’m sure he’s not—”

  “Yeah. He is. Not like that hot guy you were just playing tonsil hockey with.”

  Sophia cleared her throat. “Don’t you have any friends you can talk to?”

  “My friends are all idiots. I don’t know, my psychiatrist says I’m almost too mature for my age. I can’t wait to be an old married lady. I hate all the social shit. Parties. Drinking. I’m no good at it.”

  Unless it was behind a computer screen, it would appear. “I thought you were good at it. You were always such a good listener.”

  “Honestly, I wanted to be like you. That’s why ‘Bruce’ liked you.”

  “You wanted to be like me?” She’d been a sexually frustrated, emotionally stunted woman who couldn’t even say the word ‘divorce.’ Couldn’t even think it.

  “Yeah, you’re hella successful. You own a restaurant, have like a gazillion Twitter followers—”

  “Thirty thousand.”

  “Still, that’s a lot. I have like five hundred and nobody ever re-tweets me.”

  “Listen, maybe I lied too. And not just about being married. I wasn’t too happy with my life.”

  Lyric looked at Sophia sideways. “Why wouldn’t you be happy with your life? Have you met your husband?”

  “At the time we started chatting, he wasn’t living here. We hadn’t seen each other for years and I thought I hated him. I was trying to move on, really, but I just couldn’t do it. I was lying to myself, to all the—” she held up finger quotes, “men I chatted with off and on for years. It’s safer living behind that screen, isn’t it?”

  Lyric shifted in her seat, touched her phone like it was a talisman and wouldn’t look at Sophia. “Maybe.”

  “Do you have any friends your own age?”

  “No, girls are so stupid. And guys don’t want to be my friend. They just want to have sex. At least you talked to me. About life and stuff. Hey, whatever happened with your friend who’s on drugs? Was that for real?”

  “Yes, that was real. And I’m afraid she still needs help.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Yeah. It’s a bummer.”

  Lyric almost cracked a smile and Sophia noticed for the first time what a pretty girl she was. Straight long, blonde hair and blue, no, cerulean eyes that she underlined with heavy black eyeliner. “I should go. Sorry if I scared you.”

  Sophia walked her outside. “How did you get here?”

  “I drove,” she pointed to a shiny red SUV. “My Dad’s car.”

  “Do you have a long way to drive?”

  Lyric snorted. “You’re starting to sound old. Like a mom. Don’t worry. I only live in Napa.”

  “So close?” Thirty minutes away and they’d met behind a computer screen. Ironic. “Listen, Riley has a group of teens that he meets with every Tuesday night.”

  “What for?” Lyric’s eyes narrowed.

  “It’s for kids about your age. High school.” Lyric, daughter of doctors, wasn’t exactly what she’d call a high risk teen and yet her behavior could have put her into a dangerous situation had she met anyone other than Sophia. “Maybe you’d find someone to talk to your own age.”

  “Okay, maybe.” She clicked the door unlock on her SUV.

  Sophia went ahead and asked. “Have you ever tried to meet anyone else in person that you met online?”

  “No, you’re the first.”

  “Let’s keep it that way?”

  “I’m not an idiot.” She rolled her eyes. “I watch ‘To Catch a Predator.’”

  “So do I! Hey, I’m sorry I blocked you.”

  Lyric climbed in. “You thought I was a guy, and I’m pretty sure Mr. Studly wouldn’t have liked it.”

  “Exactly. But now I can unblock you.”

  “Really? You’d do that?”

  “Sure! We should keep chatting. I don’t have any sixteen-year-old friends and I’m starting to feel kind of old.”

  “I actually, like, thought you’d be mad,” Lyric said.

  “I kind of thought I might be too but go figure.”

  “Cool. Bye, Sophia.” Lyric started up the truck and drove out of the parking lot, waving once more.

  By now the restaurant was nearly empty, and as Sophia said goodnight to the last couple, the busboys began clean-up. Meeting time. This would be fun. Sophia burst through the kitchen.

  “Guys, let’s have a little chat.”

  Angie brought out cheesecake and a chocolate torte to their favorite booth. “Tonight was awesome. I don’t know what I did to that wine and garlic sauce but it was wicked creamy.”
/>   “You outdid yourself tonight, Angie,” Sophia said.

  “So who was that teenaged girl?” Lizzie asked, using a fork to dig into the cheesecake.

  Angie sat up straighter. “What did I miss?”

  “Let’s see, you missed a make-out session courtesy of our very own Sophia Abella and the local police chief. And a teenage girl eating alone.”

  “You make that sound weird,” Angie said. “I used to do it all the time when I was a kid.”

  Lizzie rolled her eyes. “No doubt.”

  “Her name is Lyric. Otherwise known as Bruce.” Sophia waited a beat for that to sink in.

  Angie pounded the table. “No. Way.”

  Lizzie appeared speechless for a second. “This is great material for my stand-up comedy act. Can I use this?”

  “No!”

  Sophia explained the entire story to both women.

  “Poor thing,” Angie said. “And I thought Bruce was an asshole.”

  “So did I,” Lizzie admitted. “She’s just a lonely teenage girl. Ah, poor Bruce … I mean, poor Lyric.”

  “At least the mystery is solved.” Sophia didn’t have to worry any longer that some creepy guy would stalk her from a distance. “But now… we have to talk about closing on Mondays.”

  “Seriously?” Angie asked. “We’re doing this again?”

  “I hate to do it, but staying open is a losing proposition. It no longer makes financial sense,” Sophia said.

  “But we never did all that stuff we were going to do, like try ‘free dessert’ Monday. We’d get people in that way for sure,” Angie said.

  “Or lose more money by giving away free food,” Lizzie said.

  “Most restaurants close on Mondays,” Sophia felt compelled to say.

  “But that’s why we aren’t most restaurants.” Angie pouted.

  “I’m sorry, but this is happening.” Sophia steeled herself for Angie’s fit.

  Lizzie, who agreed with Sophia, got quiet and wouldn’t look at Angie.

  “Fine!” Angie got up and stalked into the kitchen and could be heard banging pots and pans around.

  Wincing, Sophia followed her into the kitchen, Lizzie lagging behind. “What’s going on?”

  “When are we doing this?” Angie asked. “How soon?”

  “I was thinking next month,” Sophia said.

  Angie took a stick of butter out of the refrigerator and waggled it at Sophia. “You watch. I’m going to create the cheapest dessert I can possible make. It’ll cost us pennies, and it will bring people in. Just you wait and see! And if I get it done, just tell me you’ll reconsider.”

  Sophia sighed. The restaurant probably meant more to Angie than it should, but Sophia understood what it was like to want to throw yourself into work and avoid whatever emotion was clogging up your life and making it hard to move forward. She had a feeling Angie had something going on in her personal life she too didn’t want to face. For now, maybe Sophia could be a good friend and try to ease her into this transition.

  She threw up her hands. “Okay.”

  18

  Riley waved to a few of the stragglers as he made his way to his Harley and shoved on his gloves and helmet.

  “Dude,” Eric Walters said, catching up to him. “Cool Harley.”

  “Yeah,” Paul Vane, Eric’s constant sidekick, said. “Way cool.”

  “Thanks.” At the outset, he’d decided to attend meetings with his youth group on his motorcycle. Yeah, okay, he was reaching.

  Despite what the mayor seemed to believe, Riley understood these teenage kids saw him as an ‘old man.’ More than a decade stood between them and he all too well remembered his idiotic teenage brain shutting down when anyone over twenty-five spoke to him. The bike came with him unless it was raining. Even on a cold night like tonight when he almost froze his balls off. The chief of police, authority figure also known as head party pooper, drove a cool Harley. Dichotomy.

  “Hey, you were a Marine, right?” Eric asked.

  “Yeah.” Riley shoved on his helmet.

  “Did you ever kill anyone?” Paul asked.

  Eric pushed him. “Not cool.”

  “I don’t talk about that,” Riley said.

  “I’m thinking of signing up, right after I graduate,” Eric said, puffing out his chest.

  Riley recognized the look as he’d worn it himself at sixteen. Signed up right after high school, too.

  “If you graduate,” Paul offered helpfully.

  “Talk to me before you do.” Riley started up the bike, pulled on his gloves and drove off with one last nod to the kids.

  It was going well, he thought. Could be he was reaching some of these young minds, shaping them.

  He thought it might be a little bit like being a father.

  Riley hadn’t wanted kids for years, convinced he’d screw it up just like his parents had. After he’d married Sophia, he didn’t want to bring a child into a world where he might not ever get to raise it. Selfish, maybe. Or maybe not at all. Sophia had wanted children immediately, but eventually she’d have grown to hate his absences even more. Unlike many of his fellow married Marines, he didn’t think ‘giving her something to do while I’m gone’ was a good enough reason to have a child. So he’d refused his lovely wife, and asked her to wait. She hadn’t taken it well, to say the least. But everything had changed now, hadn’t it? She’d waited long enough. Maybe they both had.

  Granted, he was amazed at how quickly she’d forgiven him for being an ass, but not when he considered the woman he’d married. From the moment he’d met Sophia, he’d recognized her as a kind and compassionate woman who understood suffering. Understood loss. And despite what he might have believed in the past, he saw now how compassionate she was. Shouldn’t surprise him at all, though it sometimes still did.

  As he made the turn onto Main Street, a chill crawled down his spine. A memory, long ago buried. Not unlike the feeling of being stalked. Watched. He turned and saw nothing but a sedan filled with a family. He was overreacting. It didn’t happen often, but every now and then the sound of a car back firing made him jump. Of course, there’d been no car back-firing tonight. Only an odd instinct that something wasn’t quite right. He didn’t usually ignore feelings like these, had been trained not to in fact, but he went ahead and stuffed it down. Reminded himself he was in wine country, not exactly the forbidding desert. He had plans for his wife tonight, a sort of prequel to Valentine’s Day. He wanted to get an early pre-emptive strike on Sophia’s favorite holiday, and he planned on talking her out of spending it at the restaurant.

  Right before he talked her out of her clothes.

  At his house, he dug through a box in the garage and found exactly what he’d been looking for. Then he picked up the dog treats, the wine and the bubble bath powder he’d had to humiliate himself by buying last week at the market when he’d been cautiously optimistic about Sophia. He walked next door to her still-dark house and yep, dammit all to hell, the spare key she hadn’t had before was right under the welcome mat. They’d have words about that later. He let himself in and flipped on the light switch. Hershee greeted him in full-fledged attack mode, yipping and biting his ankles.

  He bent down and pulled Hershee off. “Look, good job as a guard dog but I’m not the enemy. We’re going to have to find a way to get along. Here. A peace offering.”

  Hershee sniffed the dog treat as though it might be radioactive waste. Maybe finally convinced he wasn’t attempting to poison her, she finally carried the treat into a back room. Progress. Riley glanced at his watch. She could be home any minute. In the bathroom he filled the tub with warm water, then looked at the ridiculous pink bottle. How much of this should he pour in? Why not all of it? She liked bubbles, she’d said so once. While the tub filled, he stuck the wine bottle in the freezer.

  He glanced outside to see Sophia’s headlights shine in the driveway. Less than a minute later she let herself in the front door.

  “Hi, baby,” Riley said. “Do
n’t ever put the key under the welcome mat again.”

  Hershee came scurrying out of the bedroom presumably to let her owner know that she’d tried to defend her, but there was a cookie…

  Hands on her shoulders, he turned her and led toward the bathroom. “I ran a bath for you. Your feet are probably killing you, right?”

  She froze. “Who are you and what have you done with Riley?”

  “What do you mean? I can do this kind of thing. I can be romantic.”

  “Okay.” She smiled.

  “Here, you go take a bubble bath and I’ll get you some wine. Turn off the water when you get in there. I left it running but it should be ready now.” He practically shoved her through the door.

  He wasn’t sure if the wine had enough time to chill but hopefully this would work anyway. He uncorked the bottle and found one of her wine glasses. When he opened the door to the bathroom, balancing the bottle and wine glass in one hand, there was nothing but white puffy clouds rising about three feet out of the bathtub.

  “Soph? Where are you?”

  “Right here,” came her voice from somewhere inside the cloud. She moved a thick wall of bubbles.

  Well, shit. “Guess I used to much powder.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” She was laughing. “But nice try.”

  “Here’s your wine.” He pushed aside some more bubbles and handed it to her.

  “So what’s this all about?”

  “Can’t a man just draw his woman a bath?”

  “Draw a bath?”

  He moved some more bubbles and sat on the edge of the tub. “It’s a word.” Sophia was in the bathtub naked and drinking wine. And she was naked. What was he talking about?

  “Oh, I met a kid tonight and I told her about your youth group,” Sophia said.

  “Yeah?”

  “She had dinner at the restaurant and we chatted. I’m kind of worried about her.”

  “Why? Drugs?”

  “No,” Sophia seemed to hesitate a moment. “I think she spends too much time online. You know, like I was doing.”

  “You got all this out of her in one conversation? Was she there with her family?”