Forever...Again

Vickie was on her way over and Lily took just a moment to turn around. She almost bumped her nose on his. He’d leaned in so close, he was practically draped over her shoulders. “Why do you want to sit with me?” she asked, and didn’t even care if that question came out a little more bluntly than she’d planned.

“You’re alone, I’m alone.” He shrugged.

“Joe Biscone’s alone, too.” She pointed to where a huge man in a plaid shirt and faded green fishing vest sat at the end of the counter.

Ron winced. “Lily,” he said, “sometimes there’s a reason people are alone.”

Her lips twitched. She didn’t want to smile, but damn it, he made it tough. He was so stiff, so serious, but the look on his face when she suggested he go sit by the man who always smelled like the bass he continually caught off the dock behind his house had been priceless.

“Here you go, Ms. Cunningham.” Vickie slid the pale-pink strawberry shake onto the table and then scuttled out of range as if afraid Lily was gearing up for round two.

Now it was Lily’s turn to wince. “Did you see that?” she asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. “That girl’s going to go home tonight and tell Billy and her mother and her mother’s hairdresser and the hairdresser’s cousin’s sister’s aunt’s best friend that mean old Ms. Cunningham yelled at her.”

“And that’s bad?” Ron asked.

“Of course it is.” Lily turned back around and dipped her long-handled spoon into the whipped cream on top of the shake. Taking a bite, she licked her lips and then said, “Don’t you think Mari’s got enough problems lately without me adding to them?”

Ron eased out of his booth. Then, grabbing his hamburger and cup of coffee, he moved and sat down on the bench seat across from Lily. He watched her for a long minute and simply remembered everything she’d said.

When Lily first slid into the booth behind him, he’d damn near groaned. All he’d wanted when he came to the Junction was a little peace and quiet. But the moment he heard that bracelet of Lily’s jangling and crashing like the cymbals in a brass band, he’d known his hope was a lost cause.

Then Vickie had started in with her whispering and gossiping, and it had been all he could do to keep from turning around and chewing the girl out. But he hadn’t gotten the chance. Before he could so much as open his mouth, Lily Cunningham had run to his daughter’s defense. He’d smiled as her words had rushed out, fast and furious—and yet, even while he enjoyed it, he’d known that she was doing nothing more than sticking her finger in the dike.

Vickie wasn’t alone in her love of gossip.

And thanks to Sheriff Bryce Collins and his insistence on treating Mari as though she were a common criminal, the whole damn town could talk of nothing else. Shamed Ron to think how much he’d always liked Bryce. How much he’d hoped at one time that Bryce and Mari would settle down together.

Just as well that hadn’t happened, he told himself now. Bryce had shown his true colors. If he couldn’t believe in Mari, then he damn sure hadn’t loved her.

“Do sit down,” Lily said, one corner of her mouth tilting into a smile that seemed to come back to haunt Ron far too often lately.

Why she was getting to him was a mystery. His wife Violet, God rest her, had been dead ten years—and in all that time he’d never once given another woman a single thought. Damn it, he’d loved Violet. She’d been everything to him.

Just keep that in mind and everything will be fine, he told himself and grabbed for his coffee. Taking a quick gulp, he nearly shrieked as the red-hot liquid ate a path down his throat. But the pain at least got his mind off Lily’s smile.

“About what you said.”

“I know,” Lily interrupted, holding up one hand. “I shouldn’t have shot my mouth off—”

“Thanks.”

Her mouth snapped shut. Her big brown eyes blinked at him in surprise. “What?”

He set his coffee down with a clatter. “You think it’s easy?” His voice whispered across the table as he leaned toward her. “Walking through town, watching people watch Mari. Talking about her, whispering? Hell, these people I’ve known my whole life. And all of a sudden, it’s like they’re strangers.”

Lily reached out, grabbed his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. The warmth of her touch slashed through him with all the subtlety of a lightning bolt. He pulled his hand back.

“They’re just people,” Lily said, shaking her head as she took another bite of whipped-cream-topped milkshake. “And people, in general, love to talk about someone else’s troubles.”

“True.” He flopped back against the seat and stretched his legs out, bumping into Lily’s neatly crossed ankles and then shifting guiltily away. “But this is Binghamton. I thought—”

“That because the town was named for you, your family would be gossip free?”

“Oh, hell—’scuse me—no.” He shook his head and smiled at the thought. “If anything, growing up a Bingham around here was like growing up in a fish tank. Everybody wanted to be the one to catch you skipping school or toilet papering the principal’s house.”

“So you already know what this is,” Lily said, picking up her straw and jamming it into the frothy pink ice cream.

“Sure. Human nature. The bigger they are, the more enjoyable the fall.”

“Exactly. But why,” Lily wondered aloud as she lifted the straw out and watched ice cream slide down and then drip into the glass, “does it seem to be that someone is actually going out of their way to make Mari look guilty?”

“You see it, too, do you?” Eager to hear someone else echo his own thoughts, Ron sat up straight again and automatically reached for his coffee.

“Of course. I’m not blind. How can you drink coffee when its so blistering hot outside?”

“I’m not outside.”

“Have some shake.”

“No.”

“Try it.”

He scowled at her. “I stopped drinking milkshakes when I was eighteen.”

“Wow.” Lily’s eyes widened dramatically. “I didn’t know you could outgrow milkshakes. Gee, what else? Sunshine? Rainbows?” She lowered her gaze to his plate. “I see that cheeseburgers are ageless.”

“Oh for—”

“You should probably break it to me gently,” Lily went on, scooping up another bite of ice cream, then licking her lips with a slow, thorough motion.

Ron’s stomach tightened, but damned if he could look away. “Break what to you?”

“What else is off-limits.” She waved her spoon in the air like a maestro with a baton. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to tempt you with anything else ‘unseemly.’ Lemonade, for instance, would that be all right?”

This is what he got for forgetting that Lily was crazy. “You are the most annoying woman….”

“Thank you,” she said. “Shake?”

“Give it here.”

She slid it across the table with a victorious grin, and he avoided meeting her eyes as he dipped his spoon into the frosty glass and pulled up a sizable portion of pink ice cream. The minute he put it in his mouth, flavor exploded. Icy cold chills raced along his spine and shot back up to his brain. The taste, the smell, the feel of the ice cream melting on his tongue, unlocked memories he hadn’t dusted off in years. Summer nights. Picnics.

Sweet times with Violet.

And just the thought of his late wife’s name was enough to remind him that he shouldn’t be sitting in the diner sharing a milkshake with Lily Cunningham. This wasn’t high school. It wasn’t a date.

He’d had his share of love, and now that part of his life was over.