Lily and the Lawman

Lily’s heart was pounding so hard that she felt as though someone was doing a drumroll in her chest. “Felt more like the pocket hit us.” With effort, Lily pulled herself together. Realizing that she was still clutching Max’s forearm, she flushed and released him. It was then she saw that her nails had dug into his wrist, leaving a long, red mark. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Nice to know.” He glanced at the scratch. A small red line of blood was forming along its length, making it look angry. Digging into his pocket, he took out his handkerchief and dabbed at the line. Max raised his eyes to hers. Amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth as he deadpanned, “I guess I can always tell people you drew first blood.”

Lily shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She hated acting weak. It detracted from the image she had of herself, the one she liked to project.

“I’m not usually this jumpy.” Lily slid forward, her hand on the back of Sydney’s seat. “How much farther is it?”

The comparison to her own children’s “are we there yet?” was unavoidable, but Sydney kept that to herself. She had a feeling that Alison’s sister wouldn’t take kindly to being compared to a ten-year-old girl and a fourteen-year-old boy, not to mention her two-year-old toddler. But she said what every good parent who hadn’t yet lost their temper said in similar circumstances.

“Almost there.”

Couldn’t be soon enough for her, Lily thought. “Maybe I should have just rented a car at the airport and driven to Hades myself.” The thought, she realized by the look on the sheriff’s face, had been uttered out loud instead of safely left in the regions of her mind where she thought she’d left it. “That way I wouldn’t have inconvenienced anyone,” she tacked on, hoping that would get her out of the awkward situation.

“More of an inconvenience coming out to look for you,” Max informed her crisply.

She didn’t like being thought of as a helpless female. She hadn’t felt like a helpless female since fourth grade, back when she would have sold her soul to be part of Jenny Wellington’s club. Only the most popular girls in the class belonged to it and she had pointedly been excluded. She’d realized there and then that wanting something that badly only allowed other people to have power over you. She’d made up her mind that she wasn’t ever going to want anything that badly again. That with the exception of her family, nothing and no one was ever going to mean that much to her again.

Her mistake with Allen was in thinking that maybe she’d made up her mind too hastily all those years ago, that maybe she did need someone to round out her existence. Someone to start a family with.

All the more fool she, Lily thought now.

She had her family. She had Kevin and Alison and Jimmy. If she needed anything beyond that, she had the people who worked for her at the restaurant. They were a family of sorts in themselves, with her as the mother. She couldn’t help wondering how they were getting along right now without her.

As if on cue, the cell phone tucked away in her suit jacket pocket rang.

The tinny noise had Max quizzically raising his brow as he looked at Lily. The woman seemed to come to life right before his eyes, the altitude and the small plane that was carrying them completely forgotten.

“My phone,” she said needlessly. Digging it out, she flipped it open. “Lily.”

“Lily, thank God.”

She immediately recognized her assistant manager’s high, whiny voice, the one he used just before he began to crumble in front of her. She’d left for the airport from the restaurant, rather than from her home. Arthur had been in charge all of four hours. What could have gone wrong so quickly?

“The fool from Bradberry’s didn’t deliver enough lamb chops for tonight and we have that huge private banquet at eight.”

The man was a gem when he didn’t get in his own way. Unfortunately, that happened all too frequently. “So, call Bradberry’s and have them deliver more.”

There was a slight indignant huff on the other end. “I’m not an idiot, Lily. I already did that.” And then the whine replaced the indignation. “They don’t have enough.”

“Then find my phone book in the drawer and call Fenelli’s.” She gave him a second name, knowing the man needed backup at all times. “Or try Wagner’s Market if they don’t have any.”

Lily tried to keep her temper. It was hard to believe that Arthur Knight had a degree in restaurant management. The man was good at following orders, but still lacked a great deal when it came to thinking on his own. Of course, she allowed, he’d never been given the opportunity before because, other than the two days she’d taken off for Alison’s wedding, she hadn’t been away from the restaurant for more than a few hours. There’d been no occasion for Arthur to have to do anything on his own.

“Wait,” Arthur begged, afraid she would hang up before he found the address book.

Lily could hear the sound of a drawer being opened and then the shuffling of papers. The sound got more desperate. He had better pick up whatever he threw down, she thought, envisioning the chaos.

“It’s not here.”

Lily closed her eyes, summoning an image, trying to block out the fact that she was being observed. The two-bit sheriff was watching her as if she were a Saturday feature in the tiny theater she guessed he frequented.

“Left-hand side, in the back. Under the green folder,” she recited.

More shuffling. “Got it!” he cried in triumph with no less verve than if he were Jason and had just secured the Golden Fleece.

“Good. Now look up the phone number and call one of them. And, Arthur,” she said just as she was about to break the connection, “calm down. You can do this.”

“Right,” he said breathlessly. “I can do this. I can do this.”

Arthur was still reciting the mantra as she bid him a crisp, “Goodbye,” and terminated the connection. Placing the phone back in her pocket, she finally looked at Max. He’d been observing her the entire time she’d been on the phone.

“What?”

The woman sounded as if she were a five-star general in training. “What is it you do again?”

“I run a restaurant. My own restaurant,” she felt compelled to add since it was obvious that no one had said anything to him about her.

She had no idea why it mattered that he know she wasn’t just some flunky for a corporation, even though she had worked for a major insurance company for several years to save up enough money for a down payment on her restaurant.

If she was looking to impress him, she was disappointed.

Max nodded, taking the information in. “Sounds more like you’re a general planning some kind of major strategy.”

She didn’t know if he was just making an offhanded remark or criticizing her. She didn’t react well to criticism. In-law or not, she definitely hadn’t made up her mind to like Sheriff Max Yearling. “Arthur needs a firm hand.”

She sounded as if she were talking about a horse or a pet. It was as plain as the nose on his face that the lady liked being in control. He pitied the man who had the misfortune of falling for her face, not realizing what the total package involved.

“Arthur, your fiancé?”

Eyes widening, Lily laughed. It was the first time, she realized, since she had found Allen in bed with that former patient of his. Arthur was a dear in his own way, but definitely not someone she would even remotely think of in a romantic light. It wasn’t even his tall, gawky frame or the fact that he had an Adam’s apple that seemed to be in perpetual motion. It was that, quite truthfully, he was skittish of his own shadow and if ever she were to think about romance again, she wanted a man, not a mouse. Not even a tall mouse.

“Hardly. What makes you think that?”

Max lifted a shoulder carelessly, letting it drop again. “The way you were ordering him around, it sounded as if you had a relationship.”

Lily stiffened her shoulders. She didn’t like what he was implying. “We do. Arthur is my assistant manager.”

He studied her for a moment, thinking that she was probably one of those people who hadn’t a clue how to kick back. “I thought you came here to relax.”

Though his voice was low, and to an outside ear, easygoing, Lily felt as if she was being interrogated. “I did.”

He nodded at the pocket where she’d put her phone. “Don’t you think you should turn your phone off, then?”

She looked at him as if he’d just suggested that she practice skydiving without a parachute. She’d had a cell phone on her person ever since they’d been invented. In the early days that had meant carrying around something that had resembled a talking brick.

“Why would I want to do that?”

He heard the defensive tone in her voice and knew his estimation about her inability to relax was right on the money. “So that the people who work with you can’t bother you with questions.”