“Griff-the sirens this morning-there was a fire in the library.”
“I heard.”
“The fire was in the back room. You know, the research and records room? Like where they keep old newspaper records.”
“I heard.”
“It keeps zinging in my mind. That those would have included newspaper records from the time my dad and mom died. Those records.”
He shot her a quick look. “You’re saying that’s the reason for the fire?”
“Oh, no. I’m not saying anything. I don’t understand a single thing that’s happened since I got here. It just seems there’s a growing association to me and these fires.” She sighed. “The sheriff wants me to leave town.”
And that was another thing that made no sense to Griff. If Conner thought Lily was guilty of these arson events, he should be insisting she stay and be investigated. If he thought she was innocent, there wasn’t a reason on the planet why Conner should be pushing her out.
“Griff.” Her voice changed tone. The damsel in distress had recovered. She was studying him, staring at him as if she had some kind of laser access into his brain. “You’re gripping that steering wheel hard enough to break it off.”
“Not really. I was just thinking.”
She didn’t buy that. “You know,” she said gently, “there’s nothing wrong with letting out a little anger. Some people have a bigger temper than others. It’s not a bad thing. It’s only bad if the person does something inappropriate with their temper.”
He shot her a serious glower. “I do not have a temper.”
“You’ve got a huge one,” she informed him. “But you don’t use it against people. Or to hurt people. So I think you should just consider accepting it. Some things are always going to push your buttons-like when you don’t have the power to control a problem. There’s no easy answer for stuff like that, I realize, but you don’t have to pretend you don’t feel ticked off.”
He didn’t respond, but he was thinking plenty. Sleep with a woman and what did you get? Mouth. Nonstop. And fear. Damn it, he’d nearly had a heart attack when he heard the fire truck siren in the wee hours of the morning. If she’d stayed in bed with him where she belonged, none of it would have mattered. But she hadn’t. She hadn’t been where he could see her, touch her. Make sure she was safe.
If that wasn’t rational thinking, he didn’t remotely care.
“Griff? Um…where are you driving?”
“Debbie’s Diner. First off, you need breakfast.”
“I couldn’t eat a single thing-”
“And second, you need to be into a nice, public place, where people can see you. Instead of people talking about you, you can get in there and talk about them. To them. Out in the open.”
“I couldn’t eat anything. And I couldn’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because…come on, Griff. Instead of making friends, I seem to have done nothing but make enemies here. It’s not as if I’m still in middle school, worried about being popular. But sheesh, it’s gotten unnerving, feeling so unwanted in town, so judged, when no one even knows me.”
“Exactly. I don’t know who started all this fire-setter talk, but it’s obvious how to stop it. Spend a few seconds with anybody, and they’ll realize you’re beautiful and warm and smart and good to the bone.”
“Huh?”
“Just work with me on this, sugar.”
The diner’s parking lot was crowded-no surprise, when town news and gossip was running this juicy. But that was the point, Griff thought grimly. It was time to get active. Sitting on the sidelines and watching problems from a distance was the complete worst.
“I can’t,” she repeated for the fourth time, as he herded her toward the door.
He knew it was hard for her to walk in. And the moment she was spotted in the doorway, talk stopped faster than a switch turned off. The sick look of hurt on her face made him feel a little tense all over again. But sometimes there was only one way to get out a splinter, and that was to just go in there and get the needle part over with.
For a woman who wasn’t hungry, she ate two bowls of Griff’s Secret-and that was before she even looked at the menu for breakfast food. Debbie was no fool. She greeted them in her typical loud, brassy voice, seated them in plain view, and took care of them herself.
As he’d expected, that was the last time they had two seconds alone. The tall, gray-haired Margo ambled over with a mug in her hand. Being his insurance agent, it would have been odd if she hadn’t stopped to say hello, so it was easy to get a conversation going about the fires with her. And so it went. Manuel Brock often had breakfast at the diner; he paused at their table en route to paying his bill. Jason’s father-who Griff never had any use for-thought he was a big shot, and put in that he knew who the arsonist was “but he wasn’t telling”. Louella’s second cousin was having breakfast with a lady friend, both wearing rhinestones and sequins on their Vegas-trip sweatshirts. It went on and on…
All of them looked at Lily, even if they aimed conversation at Griff. Some of the older ones mentioned that they’d known her mom or her dad. Some brought up the “old days”, when the mill was the major source of employment in town. Someone’s sister’s mother’s cousin’s current girlfriend saw her at the library yesterday, saw old man Renbarcker, too. In the way of Southern conversations, cousins four or five times removed were still considered kin, even if they’d been divorced nine thousand times and there was no blood relationship whatsoever. Griff never could keep track of all that, but this morning that wasn’t the point.
The point was getting Lily in public. It wasn’t so easy to talk about someone, once you’d met them. And if they couldn’t see Lily was the most innocent, decent human being they’d ever met, Griff figured they had to be too dumb to waste time on, anyway.
Over the next two hours, his lover-the one who was too nauseous to eat-finished off two dishes of ice cream, a farmer’s omelet with all the extras, three cups of coffee and a brownie. Debbie was trying to hand her a lunch menu when Griff stood up.
“All right, all right,” she said, once they were outside and aiming for his car. “I admit it. You were right. That was a good thing to do.”
“Of course I was right.” He glanced down the street toward his store, and felt a new stab in the gut, looking at the burned-out mess. It was fixable. Material things didn’t matter. Still, it hurt. Normally, there’d be a swarm of kids hanging out there by now-kids who often had no place to go.
As they walked to the car, he hooked an arm around Lily’s neck, inhaled the scent and touch of her. In the diner, he hadn’t wanted to overdo contact. He wanted to show the town that they had a connection, that he was on her side. But to overly let the gossips believe they were lovers wasn’t necessarily the best thing for Lily. He liked having a bad-boy reputation, but didn’t want her tainted by it. Now, though, that long stretch of not touching caught up with him.
“After all that food, you want to come home to my place and catch a nap?”
She looked up at him. “It’s not napping on your mind.”
“It is too.”
“You lie.”
“That’s relevant how?”
“It’s not. You can lie to me all you want, Griff. I like it. I especially like it when you’re trying to get away with something. But for a few hours…I’m guessing you have stuff you need to do in the middle of the day. And I want to hit the newspaper office, to see if I can track down records of what was going on the year of the fire.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Does that sound like a thrilling way to spend an afternoon? Pouring over old newsprint? No. You have serious things to do. You’ve got a clean-up plan to put together, you’ve got your other work, you’ve still got ice cream equipment that needs some kind of resolution, you-”