Craving Him (Sinful Nights Book 6)

by Elizabeth Lennox

  Marilee laughed. “Yeah, that’s the one. No idea why someone put those lions out there, but if I owned the house, I’d put Santa hats on them during the Christmas season, maybe costumes on them over Halloween. And silly Valentine’s outfits.”

  They all laughed and tossed out more holiday costume ideas, ways to make the lions look funny instead of pretentious.

  “What about you, Daisy? You never said what you would do.”

  She sighed. “I like Marilee’s idea, but on a smaller scale. I’d buy up the homes around town that have been abandoned and make them beautiful again. Maybe just give them away to people who needed them. I don’t know. I’ve always loved to decorate, so perhaps that would be my creative outlet.”

  “That’s a nice idea,” Ivy laughed, shaking her head. “I think I’m the only one who has a selfish dream.”

  “It isn’t selfish to want to travel,” Daisy assured her.

  “Yeah, but you guys are all ready to spend your money saving the world. I just want to see it and take pictures of it.”

  “There’s a lot of value to providing a glimpse into other ways of living,” Marilee pointed out. “I think it would be lovely to see the world through your camera.”

  Ivy turned to face Marilee. “If you had the money, why wouldn’t you travel?”

  Marilee sighed. “I guess I’m too much of a wimp to travel. I wouldn’t feel safe.”

  “Even with your lucky crystal?” Daisy teased. Everyone laughed and Marilee rolled her eyes.

  They finished off the box of wine, then laid back on the blanket. None were even slightly tipsy because, with four people and only one box of wine, there hadn’t been enough alcohol for more than a glass and a half for each person.

  “Oh! I almost forgot!” Ivy exclaimed. She grabbed Daisy’s keys and hurried to the car. As the three of them watched, she pulled something out of the trunk, a box.

  “What did you do?” Tony groaned.

  She sat down with the box and opened the top. “Happy Birthday, Tony,” she said, smiling as she lifted the small cake out of the box.

  They all sat up and looked at the cake warily. “You didn’t make it, did you?” Tony asked the question on everyone’s mind.

  Ivy looked offended. “And what if I did?” she asked.

  No one said a word and Ivy laughed. “Okay, so I can’t cook or bake. Sue me!”

  “So…you didn’t bake it?” Marilee asked gently, wanting to be sure.

  Ivy shook her head. “Nope. I got Jane to bake it,” referring to the daughter of the bakery owner in town. The mother daughter team was hanging on by a thread, making the business work by sending a lot of their baked goods to various small specialty stores and restaurants in Louisville. Jane was about their age and a fabulous baker! Her scones were so good, they literally melted in one’s mouth!

  There was an audible sound of relief with the news that Ivy hadn’t baked the cake. “Give me a slice!” Tony announced.

  Ivy produced four forks instead. “I forgot a knife, so we’ll just have to dig in together.”

  And that’s exactly what they did, moaning over the delicious cake that had a tender texture and a zesty lemon flavor that burst in their mouths. “Oh, this is good!” Tony declared. “I don’t know how she does it.”

  They all agreed that Jane was one of the best bakers, although they also knew that she wished she had a bit more freedom to bake specialty items. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a big demand for anything other than the basics in LowPoint, since most people couldn’t afford much.

  “We should get back,” Marilee sighed what each of them were thinking, but none wanted to acknowledge.

  Ivy sat up and started gathering the remnants of their celebration. “You’re right. We have an early start tomorrow. And we’re going to be hurting as it is.”

  Daisy helped, handing Ivy the garbage, stuffing everything into the now-empty cake box. “I hate waking up so early for the breakfast shift,” she groaned. “When do we have our day off?” she asked.

  “Two days,” Tony replied, and folded the blanket, carrying it along to the car.

  “Two days!” Marilee groaned. “I’m going to sleep forever,” she vowed.

  They trudged back to the car and, miracle of miracles, the engine turned over on the first try again. “Shocker!” Daisy muttered.

  She dropped everyone off and drove home in silence because the mountain inhibited radio waves from reaching her decrepit radio. But she hummed along to a song in her head as she parked at the end of the parking lot in the old apartment complex. As she walked up the four flights to her apartment, she wondered what it would be like to win the lottery. She’d heard that many lottery winners go bankrupt after spending all of their money. What a pity, she thought.

  Chapter 2

  “Are you okay?” Marilee asked as she and Ivy picked up orders from Tony’s window.

  “Barely,” she groaned, exhausted from lack of sleep since they’d been out late last night celebrating with Tony. “How about you?”

  She shook her head. “I fell asleep pretty hard last night, but I’ll still be excited when we have our day off.”

  “Hurry up!” Janice bellowed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you idiots this morning, but you’re all fired if you don’t fix it!”

  Ivy and Marilee hurried away, delivering meals to the truckers who were lingering after the breakfast rush.

  Daisy walked over to Tony, peering at him through the window. “You doing okay?”

  He looked at her as if the question was silly. “I usually only get about five hours of sleep a night.”

  She smiled, winking at him as she grabbed three platters of pancakes, delivering them to table four. “You guys need anything else?” she asked.

  “I’d love the winning lottery ticket,” Joe chuckled as he snatched the syrup from the next table.

  Daisy laughed. “Yeah, you and me both!” she agreed, thinking about the ticket they’d bought last night. It was in her purse, but she hadn’t even bothered to look at it. “Who won?” she asked.

  Billy shrugged as he doused his own pancakes in syrup. “No clue. But it was someone in Louisville,” he stabbed his pancakes with his fork.

  She stilled and looked up, catching Ivy’s look. “Someone in Louisville won?”

  Joe swallowed down half his pancake. “Yep. The winning ticket was sold at that dump of a grocery store,” he said, pointing his finger at Mike across the table. “You know that one over off the highway?”

  “You’re kidding!” Mike laughed. “I pass by there all the time.”

  “Yeah, well, since the ticket was sold there, that jerk who owns the place gets a million bucks. Just for selling the ticket! Can you imagine? Getting a million bucks just for doing your job.”

  All four men shook their heads. “I wish.”

  “Ouch! What the hell, Marilee!” a voice shouted.

  Daisy and Ivy looked over to where Marilee had spilled a whole tray of food. The three of them stood there staring at each other. No one moved.

  As one, they looked over at Tony. He must have realized that they were looking at him because he looked up, his eyes conveying his confusion at their looks. He shrugged, not sure what they wanted.

  Janice snapped them back to the present with her vicious braying. “What the hell, Marilee! Clean it up! And you’re paying for all that food!”

  Tommy stood up immediately, helping Marilee clean up the mess. “It wasn’t her fault, Janice,” Tommy said. “I surprised her. It was my fault.”

  Marilee bent down, tossing the broken plates onto her tray. “No, it was my fault,” she insisted, looking at Tommy to thank him for stepping in to help.

  “Don’t matter who messed up,” Janice snapped, kicking one of the plates just out of Marilee’s reach, “You’re still paying for all of it.”

  With that, Janice walked away. “I’ll leave an extra big tip,” Tommy whispered.

  Marilee smiled at him, but shook her head. “You will
not!” she whispered back. “You need every dime you have for diapers for that new baby of yours!”

  He blushed, but nodded as he helped stack the dishes. “Do you know how much those things cost?” he whispered.

  She laughed. “No clue, but you’d better get back to your table or Janice will do something mean to you too.”

  “Don’t care,” he scoffed, but he still stood up and sat back down. No one liked to be on Janice’s bad side. The woman was likely to spit in his food and her saliva was most likely poisonous.

  Marilee dumped the food and plates into the trash bin, Daisy coming up behind her. “What happened?”

  Marilee glanced behind her to ensure that Janice was far away. “Did you hear? There was one winning ticket!”

  Daisy put a hand on Marilee’s arm. “I heard. But I’m sure it wasn’t our ticket.”

  “What’s going on?” Tony asked, peering around the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining area.

  Marilee and Daisy looked at each other, then at Tony. “One ticket had all the winning numbers last night.”

  He smiled, but shrugged. “That’s great! So someone is a millionaire today!”

  Marilee leaned forward. “The winning ticket was sold at that grocery store we were at last night!” she hissed.

  Ivy came up behind them. “It wasn’t our ticket,” she insisted softly.

  Daisy bit her lower lip, trying to hide the excitement that was building inside of her. “Let’s not get too overwhelmed by the possibility,” she said. “Tony, can you catch the news and find out what the winning numbers were? We’ll check it out at lunch.”

  Marilee groaned. “That’s not for hours!”

  Ivy laughed as well. “Yeah, well, it just means we have a few more hours to dream that it was our ticket, right?”

  Tony winked. “Good way to look at it,” he agreed as he pushed away from the wall. “I’ll get you new orders on that one,” he added, tilting his head to the garbage can where Marilee had dumped the plates.

  “Thanks Tony,” she pulled the cheap crystal necklace out of her polyester uniform, rubbing the crystal with her thumb.

  “It wasn’t our ticket,” Daisy repeated, but she lifted her hand to touch the black cord where her own crystal hung.

  “You’re wearing it!” Marilee gasped.

  Daisy shrugged. “Yeah, well, Ivy and Tony are wearing theirs too. It isn’t that we believe in the magical qualities of the crystal. We believe in you, Marilee. You gave it to us, so the necklaces are special.”

  Marilee smiled and leaned over to hug her friends. “I know. But thanks.” With that, she whipped around and went back to her tables, picking up several more empty plates along the way.

  Ivy and Daisy watched Marilee. “There’s a spring to her step today,” Ivy observed.

  Daisy rubbed her forehead. “Yeah. She really thinks we’ve won that silly lottery.”

  Ivy cringed. “She’s going to be heartbroken when she discovers that we weren’t the winners.”

  Daisy pushed away from the counter where she’d been leaning. “Yeah, well, we really could have a bit more optimism.” Lifting her hands, she held off Ivy’s admonishment. “Not that I believe we won, but we have been pretty down on life lately.”

  Ivy chuckled. “You only pretend to have a tough exterior, Daisy. Deep down inside, you’re just a sweet marshmallow, aren’t you?” she teased, giving her friend a hug.

  “Yeah, says the kettle to the pot,” Daisy replied, pulling away only when Janice snapped at them to get back to work.

  For the next several hours, they took orders, delivered food, cleaned tables, and hurried about to ensure that everything was taken care of. When they all slid into the booth for lunch, which was only soup today, since they’d spent their extra cash last night, the four stared at each other for a long moment.

  Tony slid a piece of paper to the center of the table. No one said anything as Daisy pulled the lottery ticket out of her apron pocket. She’d snuck into the break room earlier and stuffed it into her pocket. She wouldn’t admit to anyone that she didn’t trust the ticket out of her sight now.

  Her hand covered the ticket and she looked at each of her friends. “We didn’t win,” she whispered prayerfully.

  Marilee nodded her head. “I know. But it was fun to dream, right? That alone was worth the price of the ticket.”

  Ivy laughed and placed her hand over Daisy’s. “It was worth it, no matter what. I haven’t had hope in a long time. But today, I dreamed and a little bit of hope filled my heart. And it showed. My tips were almost twice as much as normal today. So no matter what, we’re going to savor the excitement today.”

  Tony chuckled. “You ladies are weird. Just check the numbers.”

  They looked over at him, but no one said anything. They all were waiting.

  Slowly, she pulled her fingers away. All four of them leaned forward, looking carefully at the first number on Tony’s napkin, then at the ticket.

  It matched!

  Quickly, they went through all of the numbers. When they looked at each other again, all four of them had stunned shock in their eyes.

  “Impossible!” Daisy whispered.

  All four of them leaned closer, once again looking at each of the numbers. All of them matched!

  “No way!” Ivy breathed, even more quietly than Daisy’s denial.

  Marilee’s eyes were huge. “We don’t have that kind of luck.”

  Tony was silent. He grabbed the numbers and compared them side by side. When he looked up at the others, he shook his head. “Let me go back and check the winning numbers again later. Maybe I wrote them down wrong.” Janice yelled at someone and Daisy stuffed the ticket into her pocket. They all knew if Janice knew about the ticket, she would steal it.

  “Keep that safe and away from Janice,” Tony warned.

  Daisy agreed with him and nodded. “We’re off tomorrow, we need to…”

  “Get to work!” Janice snapped out to everyone.

  The four of them cleared the table, no one had eaten anything. No one could really think clearly. They were all sort of walking around in a daze.

  Went their shift ended, they walked out of the diner together. By unspoken agreement, they all piled into Daisy’s car and drove right back to the field they’d stopped at last night.

  As they stepped out of the car and walked into the field, each of them sort of paced around.

  “Okay, so no one has claimed the prize and word in the news is that there was only one winning ticket,” Tony explained. “I double checked the numbers. What I wrote down was correct.”

  They stood in a circle facing each other. “Does that mean we won?” Ivy asked what all of them were afraid to ask.

  Tony looked at them. “Yes. I think we won.”

  Silence.

  “How much was the jackpot in the end?” Daisy choked out the question on everyone’s mind.

  Tony took a breath and slowly let it out. “One point six billion,” he answered softy. He let that number sink in. No one said a word. The number was too high for any of them to really understand.

  “After taxes, we would bring home about two hundred million each, I think. Maybe a bit more, maybe less. I’m not sure what the total taxes are on lottery winnings.”

  Daisy paced. Marilee dropped to the ground. Ivy bit her lip as she stared off into the dark mountains. Tony just stood there.

  “Okay,” Daisy began, “here’s what we need to do. We need to hire a lawyer. Someone good who can represent us.”

  “And a financial advisor,” Tony interjected.

  “And an accountant,” Daisy added.

  Ivy and Marilee were still silent.

  “This is crazy!” Ivy finally croaked.

  “Are you sure?” Marilee asked.

  Tony shook his head. “No. I’m not sure about anything right now. I’m still…I don’t know.”

  Daisy put a hand to each side of her head. “Okay, so we’re all off tomorrow. We’ll he
ad into Louisville and contact a lawyer.”

  Ivy said what all of them were thinking. “Anyone know of a good lawyer?”

  They laughed. “If I knew of a good lawyer, do you think we’d be dealing with Janice?”

  They nodded. “Okay, so how do we find one?”

  “We look online. We find someone with good reviews and talk to that person,” Marilee announced.

  Since no one had a better answer, they all nodded.

  “Let’s go home and I’ll pick everyone up tomorrow morning. We’ll drive into Louisville and meet with whatever lawyer…”

  “I’ll find someone,” Ivy volunteered.

  “Right. We’ll talk to the person you find online. If we all don’t like this person, we’ll find someone else, agreed?”

  “Agreed,” everyone said at once.

  They piled back into Daisy’s car and she dropped them off at their homes.

  By the time she pulled up to her apartment, she already had text messages from each of them. “Come on over,” she typed in a group text. Fifteen minutes later, they were all at her door. They sat in her living room, watching television while trying to figure out if this was real.

  Chapter 3

  “Are you sure this guy is good?” Daisy asked, looking at the house. The business address for the lawyer they’d chosen didn’t look like a high powered attorney. It looked like some artist’s retreat. The split rail fence surrounding the front yard needed repairs, the horse out back looked like it hadn’t been exercised in about a decade, and the house needed a good layer of paint.

  “The reviews said this guy was a shark,” Ivy explained warily.

  Daisy shut off the engine and sighed, all of them continuing to stare at the house. “Okay, let’s go talk to him.”

  “I didn’t really make an appointment,” Ivy mumbled. When they all looked at her, she shrugged. “Well, I couldn’t reach him by phone.”

  Marilee straightened her shoulders. “Let’s just go inside and see if he’ll talk to us. If not, we go find someone else.”

  Tony rang the doorbell. A moment later, the door was opened by a tall man in a pair of low-slung jeans, a flannel shirt, and a huge cup of coffee. He hadn’t shaved yet. Probably not in a few days. But he was tall and good looking, with dark hair touched with silver at his temples.