April Showers Read online

  “I’m honored but, Joe, the only reason I’m here trying to think outside the box is because of Lily.” Honored as well as embarrassed. Joe saw him as something that he knew he really wasn’t. He’d been as short-tempered and ornery as Joe’s father.

  Lily might feel sympathy, but she didn’t coddle anyone. She did what needed to be done...and did it with a smile.

  He felt silly, but he also felt inspired to be more...more like Lily and more like Joe.

  * * *

  LILY STOOD OUTSIDE her apartment’s open door and listened to Joe and Sebastian, the tray with cookies and iced tea almost forgotten. Their assessments of her made her feel like a fraud.

  Sure, she tried to look at the bright side, but sometimes she couldn’t find one and she just faked it. When she’d first gone to Joe’s house, his father had been one of her most difficult patients. He’d been depressed about his wife leaving and in constant pain from his back. He’d forgone strong pain medications because he didn’t feel he could take care of the kids if he was knocked out—and he was right. But he’d been so miserable and had lashed out at her almost every visit. She’d forced a smile and got on with her job, but...it had been hard.

  That day Joe had heard his dad laugh out loud wasn’t really because of anything she’d said. He’d reached a turning point in his recovery and felt better. She’d told him some goofy story—she couldn’t even remember which one—and he’d cracked up.

  Joe and Sebastian both seemed to think that her smiling and staying positive made her someone they should emulate, but she knew better.

  The fact that she’d thought the word emulate made her smile.

  Fraud or not, Sebastian and Joe seemed to set a lot of store in her good mood. So rather than admitting to the eavesdropping or her occasional lapse of sunny disposition, she checked on the girls. Allie and Mica were playing on the glider. “Be careful on that, girls. It’s seen better days.”

  She pasted a smile on her face as she went into the apartment. “Wow, you guys are making progress.”

  “We brought in the last of the drywall. Your place is almost done,” Joe said. “I know how to score and break the drywall now. Sebastian said he’d teach me how to tape the seams and mud them and the screws.”

  “Sounds like you’ve learned a lot.”

  Joe looked at Sebastian with admiration. He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve learned a lot.”

  “Well, you guys enjoy the snack. If you don’t mind, the girls and I are heading over to MarVee’s. I have a couple things I need to buy.”

  “You don’t have to babysit them,” Joe said. “That’s my job.”

  “I’ve always enjoyed your sisters, Joe.” She saw him puff up a bit as she used his name. “You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “Okay, then. We’re only working a little longer.”

  “Great. I’ll bring them back as soon as we’re finished.”

  Sebastian shot her a look—another one of his piercing looks. She felt her cheeks warm as she realized that not only did he know she’d eavesdropped, but he also knew she’d heard the nice things they’d both said about her.

  He gave the very slightest nod, which she knew meant he was telling her that he stood behind all the things they’d both said about her. So she smiled at Joe, then at Sebastian, as if she were agreeing with Joe’s assessment of Sebastian.

  The entire exchange took a mere second, and Lily would have liked to blow it off as a figment of her imagination, but as she reached the doorway and turned back, Sebastian was not only giving her a piercing look, he was smiling, and she knew that they’d pretty much had a conversation without saying a word.

  The idea of that sort of understanding made her uncomfortable. She brushed it aside and called the girls. “Do you guys want go to MarVee’s with me?”

  “I love Miss Mar and Miss Vee,” Allie said. Her little sister nodded in agreement. “Sometimes they give us candy. Dad and Joey say, ‘Tell the ladies thank-you, girls.’ And we do. Well, I do. Mica’s shy. She’s not shy at home. Daddy says her mouth waddles like a duck’s behind.”

  Both girls giggled at the word behind. Lily couldn’t help but giggle, as well. As they went along Park Street, Valley Ridge’s main avenue, she listened to the girls prattle and knew that her current sunny disposition had nothing fake about it. It was impossible not to be enchanted listening to life from their perspective.

  She waved at Mattie through Park Perks’ window as they passed and then crossed the street to MarVee’s Quarters.

  “Miss Mar and Miss Vee,” the girls cried as they spotted the two older ladies behind the counter.

  Within moments, the girls were behind the counter with the women. “You go do your shopping, Lily,” Marilee said. “We need some assistance from these special helpers. Oh, and Sophie’s back there somewhere.”

  “Thanks, ladies. Girls, you behave.”

  “Yes, Miss Lily,” Allie answered, and Mica nodded.

  The “back there somewhere” was a very apt description of the store. There were no orderly rows here. And although the ladies had divided the shop into sections—kitchen, bath and the like—there was still the sense of organized chaos in the randomly stocked shelves.

  She scanned the aisles and followed a haphazard path to the back of the store. She found Lily in a section that was supposedly Miscellaneous.

  “Sophie,” Lily called, and her friend popped up from behind a table that contained stacks of material, ribbon and silk flowers. She had a big dust smudge on one cheek and the general appearance of a person who’d been out on safari and found her quarry.

  “Yay,” she squealed, holding a large roll of lace aloft.

  “Indiana Jones, I assume that’s the Holy Grail?” Lily teased.

  Sophie clutched the lace to her chest, her expression ecstatic. “It is. I wanted this for the chairs at the wedding. I found this awesome idea on Pinterest. They did it in really bright colors, but I’m doing the chairs at my wedding in shades of white.”

  “Shades of white?”

  “Oh, there are so many kinds of white. White-white. Ivory-white. Cream-white. I want to use all of them. We’re borrowing folding chairs from everyone we know, and of course, none of them will match, but I thought the white ribbons and lace streaming off the back would bring it all together.”

  Lily wasn’t sure what Pinterest was, but she nodded enthusiastically about the concept. “Shades of white, bringing it all together. It’ll be beautiful, Soph.”

  “No idea what Pinterest is, right?” Sophie asked, as if reading her mind.

  Lily shook her head. “None. But I do like the idea of the streamers on the chairs. It will look so romantic.”

  Sophie added the hard-won bolt of ribbon to a giant box at her feet. “You know, you could enter the twenty-first century. I mean, you don’t even have a Facebook account.”

  “I know. I’m an anachronism.” She’d never tell Sophie, but the truth was, she’d never started any online social media because she didn’t want old friends to find her. She didn’t want her past spilling into her present. She’d buried her childhood, and as far as she was concerned, it could stay buried. “I see all my friends on a regular basis. I don’t need Facebook.”

  Sophie frowned and gave up the idea of making a social-media convert out of Lily. “So what are you doing here today?”

  “I wanted to see if there were any sheets or blankets. It seems that since Sebastian’s renovating so much of the apartment that it might be time to do some updating of my own.” When she’d first come to Valley Ridge, she’d spent more time at Bridget Langley’s than at her apartment. And after that, she spent more time at Hank’s and at the diner. But as she watched the place get rehabbed, she wanted to make it hers. To put some kind of stamp on it.

  “I’m buying new furniture, too,” she said. The couch was totaled. It had drowned to death. But the rest was okay. There were a few new water marks on the end table and coffee table. She’d lived with worse.

  But su
ddenly she didn’t want to do serviceable. She wanted nice. “Yep, a new living-room set at the very least.”

  “Do we get an invitation when you’re done redecorating?”

  Lily felt a surge of anxiety at the thought of having guests. She forced herself to ignore the sour feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll make dinner one night. We’ll probably have to eat outside at a picnic table. I don’t think I could fit everyone in the apartment. But you’ll get an official tour.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Now, let me leave my stuff at the counter, and I’ll help you shop.”

  Twenty minutes later, new sheets, curtains and a bedspread had been purchased, and Lily started home with the girls, who not only had enjoyed cups of milky tea with Marilee and Vivienne but had brought home three Gobstoppers. “We got Joey one, ’cause he’s working.”

  “That’s very considerate of you both,” Lily said.

  Mica tugged on Allie’s sleeve, then whispered something to her. After which Allie said, “Oh, no, we didn’t get you or that guy one.”

  Lily knew “that guy” was Sebastian. “I think once you’re over twenty you’re too old for Gobstoppers. It’s a rule.”

  “Oh.” Both girls nodded as if that made perfect sense to them. As if more than twenty was so ancient that neither she nor Sebastian would be able to handle an entire Gobstopper.

  They saw Joe waiting in the front yard as they came down the block.

  “Joey, we got you a present,” Allie yelled, and Mica raced ahead of her older sister.

  Sebastian came up behind Joe, spotted her and hurried to help with her bags. “Thanks.”

  “Did you buy out the store?” He hefted the bags for effect.

  “No. Sheets and bedspreads are bulky.” Lily felt a surge of excitement. Her apartment was going to be more than a location to eat and sleep. It was going to be her home. The idea appealed to her.

  “Redecorating?” he asked.

  “Since it’s being remodeled, I thought I’d continue the theme.”

  “Lily, I saw your apartment before. You’d have had to model in the first place in order to remodel. Heck, Colton’s barn looked opulent by comparison.”

  “I was only here short-term at first,” she defended, even though she knew Sebastian was right. “That’s why I rented a semi-furnished place.”

  “When Hank advertised semi-furnished, he meant there was a bed and a couch.”

  “That’s all I needed. I’m thinking of a trip to Erie or Buffalo to buy some new furniture.”

  He set the bags down on the kitchen table and let out a long, low whistle. “Wow, this is serious. Would you like company on your furniture-shopping trip?”

  “Are you offering?” she asked.

  “Indeed I am.”

  Lily looked at the tall, handsome man, who was smiling, and had two opposite reactions. One was she’d like nothing better than to take him up on his offer, and the other was it was a good thing he’d be leaving soon, since the strength of her first reaction scared her.

  The first reaction won. “Yes.”

  “If you play your cards right, I might even treat you to dinner. Like a real date.” He did a Groucho Marx sort of eyebrow wiggle.

  Lily clasped her hands together on her chest. “Be still my heart.”

  Sebastian looked past her and found Joe loitering on the porch. “I’m taking the rug rats home, Sebastian. Miss Lily. I saw Hank and he’s heading over to the diner and we thought we’d walk with him.” He pointed to where Hank stood on the sidewalk, talking to the girls.

  “Thanks for helping, Joe.”

  He took off after his sisters and Hank.

  “You told Joe about Hank?” Lily asked.

  “Yes. I think folks should be aware of it. Looking out for him is a good thing.”

  “I’ve told the staff at the diner,” she admitted.

  “I talked to Dylan, too. As a cop, he’s a good one to keep an eye on Hank. The word will spread on its own now.”

  “I read an article in a nursing journal about tools, tricks and tech for Alzheimer’s patients. Hank’s dementia is moderate right now, but it wouldn’t hurt to set things up for later.”

  Sebastian listened as Lily talked about what they could do to make the house and the diner safer for Hank. “...maybe some sensor for overflowing sinks and tubs? And an intercom between here and the big house?”

  Sebastian caught her in his arms. “There’s a lot to do, but as of this minute, the house is empty. Hank’s at the diner, my assistant and his sisters are on their way home. That means it’s me and you...alone in this quiet house. What do you think we should do with that alone time?”

  Lily laughed. “Look at paint swatches?”

  “I’m thinking we could come up with a better idea.” He took her hand and nudged her toward the door.

  “Better than paint swatches? I don’t know, Sebastian. Better than paint swatches is a lot to ask for. It would have to be something big and special to rival paint swatches.” He shut the apartment door and they walked around the corner.

  “Oh, I think I can manage that. If my arm were stronger, I’d pick you up and carry you into the house and into my room. But I’m afraid I’d drop you. So I’m going to improvise. This wonderful woman I’ve met has been pounding the fact that there’s more than one way to do something into my thick head, so...” He leaned over, scooped Lily over his right shoulder and hooked his arms behind her knees. “It’s not nearly the most romantic method to carry a woman, but hey, I make do.”

  “And you didn’t break anything or get frustrated,” she called.

  “I think I’m making progress.”

  “I think so, too,” she said.

  Sebastian carried her toward the main house and then directly up the stairs. “And you’re right, I’ve found that there are some things I can still manage with no problems, even with a bum hand.” He’d reached the hall, strode into his room and deposited her on the bed.

  * * *

  AFTERWARD, SEBASTIAN held her close in his left arm. Yes, he’d found something his arm could still do. Something that he could still do. He leaned back, and his eyes felt heavy. Just as he was about to let them close and enjoy the peaceful feeling of holding Lily, she bound out of bed, collected her clothes, and leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Thank you. That was lovely.”

  “You don’t have to leave. Hank won’t be home for hours and I’m not scheduled to be at the diner. We have—”

  She smiled. “I do have to leave. We’re friends with benefits until you’re gone. And now that our benefit is over, I’m going to shower and then go to the diner for a while.”

  She was gone before he could protest further. And as she shut his bedroom door, the true implication of her words sank in. She thought he was still leaving after the wedding.

  She hadn’t realized he was staying. After Hank’s diagnosis, Sebastian hadn’t come out and said he was staying because he hadn’t thought it was necessary to. His grandfather would only get worse from here on in.

  He’d read all he could about Alzheimer’s and he knew that there was no measurable rate of decline. Hank could stay where he was for a long time or for a week. He could decline in slow increments or tumble down the rabbit hole.

  How could Lily think he would leave his grandfather?

  He’d been paying attention and gleaning small things about her. Lily Paul didn’t do long-term relationships. She was convinced she’d never marry. She was the most open, giving woman he’d ever met.

  She’d had a very bad childhood.

  He could tell her. He should say, Lily, I’m not going anywhere. Hell, he should be pissed that she thought he’d walk away.

  He’d bide his time and let her figure out that he was staying. He’d ease her into the idea. And maybe, while he was easing, he’d also ease her into the idea that whatever they had was more than friendship with benefits.

  He wasn’t ready to label what they had, but he knew it went
deeper than that.

  He’d poured his heart out to her. He’d told her things he hadn’t even told the shrink the hospital had made him talk to.

  Why? Because he trusted her.

  Maybe someday she’d trust him enough to really talk to him.

  An image of Lily smiling and telling him not to fall in love with her flashed through his mind.

  And suddenly he knew that he was in danger of doing just that.

  Was it already too late?

  That image of Lily repeated itself again and again in his mind.

  Sebastian considered a trip to the diner, but he rejected it. Rather, he went and sat on the glider and waited. He understood why Lily gravitated to it. The swinging motion was very comforting.

  He watched as the sun sank behind the neighboring houses and the sky grew darker. Nighttime insects started to make their evening noises, and something black flew overhead. A bat. He found himself thinking they were lucky they had bats because they helped control insect populations. The idea made him grin because it was very Lily-esque. Looking at the bright side.

  He started tallying how much money he had available. He’d talk to Hank about buying a share of the business. As things got more difficult, he’d be able to step in and keep things afloat. He wasn’t sure how Lily would feel about him not only staying but working side by side with her at the diner.

  He spotted her walking on the sidewalk with Hank. Their arms were interlinked and she laughed at something he said.

  “Good night?” he called out.

  They both turned toward the glider. “Great night,” Hank replied. “But it was almost too much for an old man. I’m off to bed.” He kissed Lily’s cheek and smacked Sebastian on the shoulder as he strolled past him.

  “Are you going in, or can you sit for a few minutes?” Sebastian asked.

  Lily claimed the seat opposite him.

  “So how was your day?” he asked. “I know about our—what’s the word? Tryst? But otherwise?”

  “I visited a new mom. The baby had jaundice, but now he’s a bit colicky. I don’t think she’s caught more than a couple hours of sleep most nights. So when she dozed off, I couldn’t leave.”