“Okay.” She lurched to her feet. “You stay here. Sit, drink some water, rehydrate, use your cell. I’ll take care of the boys. Between the three of us, we’ll run interference for you. You get done what you need to get done.”
He frowned.
She cocked her head. “What?”
“You pulled this last night and it was reasonably cute, but enough’s enough. You’re manipulating me. Handling me.”
She rolled her eyes. “As if I could. Relax, Griff. I’m not the manipulator type.”
She charged off, leaving him in the cool shade with the water, staring after her. She was right, of course. He’d never met anyone less of a manipulator type than Lily.
But something fishy was definitely going on. He could feel it. His stomach had de-clenched. The tic had disappeared. He’d lost the freaked-out feeling.
That woman was downright dangerous.
But then he took another cool slug of water and hunkered down with his cell phone.
Dangerous.
Lily.
Pairing those two words created an oxymoron if ever there was one. He liked her. Possibly he way more than liked her. He was downright fascinated by how powerfully and unexpectedly he was attracted to her-got a real click when they were talking. Got more than a click when they were touching.
But she wasn’t dangerous.
She was in danger.
And he damned well better keep that priority on the front line.
By four that afternoon, Lily was blister-hot, savagely hungry, and having a terrific time. The boys, Jason and Steve, had worked with her like parts of a well-honed team. Initially, she’d sent them off with money to buy ice, cups, water. She’d scared up a card table from the business next door and set the whole thing up to work as a barrier between Griff and the bystanders. Those still curious could congregate, but they couldn’t get to him-at least not without interference, and the boys were pit-bull-protective that way.
She had a feeling no one had trusted Jason with personal cash in…forever, because he counted back every penny of change, braced as if expecting her to accuse him of lifting a cut. When she praised both boys for helping to protect Griff, they both grew five inches-at least-and walked around with the posture of soldiers.
It was enough to give a teacher heart palpitations. Man, it felt good to see a beaten-down kid try on some self-esteem.
Okay, so maybe the afternoon wasn’t all peaches and cream. The sheriff insisted on taking both boys aside, grilling them on where they’d been at every hour of the night before, and whether they could prove it. Herman Conner had pointed a finger at her and said, “Honey, you and I are going to have a little talk later,” which put a mosquito in her stomach.
That wasn’t the only icky part of the afternoon. Griff’s fire had lowered her popularity points, and it wasn’t as if she had been batting a thousand before last night. Still, being out and about was a way to talk with people. Listen. Ask questions. She discovered others who’d known her mom and dad-and others who’d worked at the mill before it closed.
A hefty truck pulled in the back alley and started loading out what was, she assumed, Griff’s fancy equipment. A few guys hung with him for a while, scuffling the dirt, hands on hips, jawing plans and problems. By the time the truck rumbled off and Griff aimed for her, she was being confronted by three redheads.
She’d already met Mary Belle-the buxom redhead who ran Belle Hair-at the grocery store. But this afternoon she had her two daughters with her, not that that relationship needed explaining. The teenagers looked just like their mama-lots and lots of eye makeup. Major breasts, displayed in sweetheart tees. Heaven knew what hair color they’d all been born with, but new-age red was obviously adopted as their family color of choice.
“Lily, sugar, I wish you’d let me do something about that hair,” Mary Belle told Lily.
“I’m dying to get it cut. I just honestly haven’t had time,” Lily said, which was 95 percent true. The only holdback was a sincere worry what Mary Belle might do with a pair of scissors.
“I could give you some real style, honey. Jazz you up some. You need a little more…” Mary Belle made a motion with her hands “…style, if you want to appeal to a man like Griff.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s all right, Lily. I hear everything in the salon. No point in trying to keep gossip from me. And bless his heart, I tried to catch him myself-when I was between husbands, anyhow. Never did work, even though I know he wanted to try.” Mary Belle cocked her head. “Anyhow-y’all give me a call in the morning, I’ll get you in, and that’s a promise. I’ll do you myself. Trained in Savannah, you know…well, hello, handsome.”
Griff came up behind them, greeted Mary Belle’s coy flash of eyelashes and inviting smile with his usual Southern boy charm. But Lily had long figured out he could flirt in his sleep; it didn’t mean anything beyond an unshakeable kindness to women. Behind the courtesy, though, she could see the tired circles under his eyes, the smudges of dirt that tracked his clothes, dusted his shoes. He was one wiped-out cookie.
Still, he looked better than earlier, when she’d worried he was absolutely at the end of his rope-even though he’d denied it to the death. She wouldn’t make that mistake again, suggesting he had human qualities, like anger and frustration. Those sharp edges were definitely gone. Now he just looked as if he could crash the instant he sat down-if given the chance.
Lily had been thinking about that all day. Whether she was going to give him that chance to rest.
Or whether she was going to do something she’d never done in her life. Take a petrifying risk. Hurl good sense to the winds. And make love with a man for no reason beyond that she terribly, totally, irrevocably…
Wanted to.
Chapter 7
“So you finally get to escape from here?” she asked him.
“Finally is the operative word.” Griff couldn’t believe she’d stuck it out through the whole afternoon.
“Hey! Quit looking at me! I’m wilted. More than wilted. Hair went flat, clothes went wrinkled, the whole body went droopy.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She looked beautiful. The more he was around her, the more he was becoming addicted to the fresh cheeks and huge, dark eyes, and all that thick, silky hair. She wasn’t just beautiful. She was damned close to impossibly appealing. “Wait a minute. You weren’t listening to Mary Belle, were you? Promise me now, you’ll never let that woman get near you with a pair of scissors.”
She chuckled. “I’m desperate for a major trim, but I’m an easy cut. Otherwise, that woman’s sense of style would be more than a little…daunting.”
He laughed-for the first time all day. And realized that his neck and shoulders were unknotting for the first time all day, too. He steered her under the overhang, for the shade, aiming for his EOS. “Thanks for hanging out this afternoon. Couldn’t have been fun. I owe you.”
“Yup, you do. I expect diamonds and rubies and stuff. But for right now, I have a more immediate plan.”
“What?”
“You drop me off at the B and B. I’m going to shower and crash. You go straight home, turn off all phones, and crash yourself.”
He waited. “That’s the whole plan?”
“Well, maybe you should also lock your door so nobody can bug you.”
“Hmm. I have a different plan.”
“What?”
They reached his car. He clipped open her door. “I drive you to your B and B. You get a change of clothes-like a swimsuit, a towel. We go back to my place. We can either shower first, or skip the shower and head straight for the hot tub-but I have in mind putting ice cubes in it. Have something ice-cold to drink. Followed by something ice-cold to eat.”