by Holly Jacobs
“I think the proximity to Lake Erie is one of Valley Ridge’s greatest assets,” Lily assured him. She shot Sebastian a look.
Yes, he’d noticed his grandfather speaking about his grandmother in the present tense, as if she were still here. “Before she passed, Grandma spent a great deal of her life worrying about me.”
There was a clear see-what-I-mean look in Lily’s eyes. Sebastian gave the merest shake of his head. He wasn’t buying there was a problem because of such a small matter.
Lily sighed, shifting her attention to Hank. “There was a message from Jerilu’s about a bill for produce. I can’t find it. Do you have any clue?”
“I’ve been putting them all in your file.”
She nodded. “I’ll call on Monday and get the total. You two enjoy your dinner.”
“Lil, honey, come join us,” Hank called. “I want my two favorite people to get to know each other.”
“Maybe next time, Hank. I wanted to finish up here before visiting Mrs. Burns.”
“You work too hard, Lily,” Hank scolded.
“Well, somebody’s got to work around here,” she said, his grandfather joining in partway.
That had always been his grandfather’s saying. It was their special joke. Somebody’s got to work around here. He and Hank tossed the line back and forth. Hank would come in and see that Sebastian had done the dishes and thank him, and Sebastian would respond, Well, somebody’s got to work around here.
He’d come home and find that Hank had finally done some laundry and when he commented, Hank would respond, Well, somebody’s got to work around here.
That saying was theirs. It had always belonged to him and Hank. A private thing between them. A phrase that was guaranteed to provoke a smile.
Lily obviously had heard it more than once and adopted it.
Sebastian felt... Hell, he couldn’t be jealous, could he?
Jealous of a woman who’d helped his grandfather when he hadn’t been here? A woman who’d been around enough to know some of Hank’s sayings and quirks? A woman who’d known who he was because she’d seen Hank’s pictures and listened to his stories?
Sebastian had come to town feeling nothing...a solid block of nothing.
But then he’d met Lily and felt a wild swing of emotions. Anger, suspicion...and now jealousy.
He wished he could go back to feeling nothing, but as she bustled away, he suspected that Lily wasn’t the sort of woman to inspire calm grayness.
And he didn’t think he liked that.
* * *
LILY MANAGED TO AVOID Sebastian for two whole days. Sunday, she hibernated in her apartment with a good book that was due back to Maeve at the library next week. She knew that Sebastian was around to look after Hank, and she didn’t have to work. She should have enjoyed the day.
Yet, instead of relaxing, she found herself staring at the common wall she shared with the main house and wondering what Sebastian and Hank were doing.
It was a relief to leave the house on Monday. She’d been running her start-up home-health-care business through Dr. Neil Marshall’s practice. Not only did he refer patients to her, he was her physician backup. When his office wound up unexpectedly understaffed, she’d agreed to work there on Mondays.
A lot of her patients were short-term. Intravenous therapies and wound care made up the bulk of her visits. But there was always something different. Miss Helen was her one long-term patient. She lived about ten miles outside of Valley Ridge, and Lily visited her every Friday to fill her MedMinder and do a checkup on a stubborn sore on her leg.
Being at Neil’s office every Monday meant another steady source of income, and his putting her on the practice’s insurance was huge. But her house calls added to the medical practice one day a week and evenings at the diner meant she hardly had time to catch her breath. Tuesday, she had three house calls to make, and in the evening she went into the diner, hoping that Sebastian had found something to keep him busy.
But her luck had run out. When she walked into the diner, juggling her bag, a box and a shopping bag, there he was...sitting at the counter. She’d talked about making him like her, but she couldn’t seem to muster any enthusiasm for the mission, so she gave him a curt nod and hurried toward the kitchen door.
“Hey, Lily,” someone called. She turned and saw Colton, then a moment later, Sophie following him into the diner.
“Hang on a second and let me set this stuff down.” She reached the small office behind the kitchen and deposited everything on the desk. Hank was busy plating a burger for Red, one of their cooks. “Hi, Hank, Red,” she called.
Hank looked surprised to see her. “Lily, is it that time already?”
“Close enough,” she replied. “I’m running out front for a few minutes to talk to Sophie, then I’ll go through the invoices.”
“It’ll keep until you’re done,” he told her as she strode into the dining room and found her friends sitting at a booth.
With Sebastian.
With no way to avoid him any longer, she decided to try to ignore him. “How are you guys doing?”
Colton answered, “Just talking with Seb—”
“Sebastian,” Sebastian corrected.
“Sebastian,” Colton agreed. “About the stag. Told him I’m not sure what I want.”
“You don’t need me for that, and I have work to do in the office—” Lily tried.
“Can you spare a minute?” Sophie asked. “I know you’ve been busy, what with also being at Dr. Marshall’s office.”
“How did you know?” Lily asked as she sat on the bench next to Sebastian, who thankfully slid over toward the window, putting as much distance as possible between them.
Her friend smiled. “This is Valley Ridge. Everybody knows everything about everyone. The news spreads faster here than it does on Facebook or Twitter.”
“Oh.” Lily knew that. The sense of community, of having people know who you were, was part of what had attracted her to Valley Ridge. The fact that they frequently knew more than you liked wasn’t nearly as much of an attraction.
“Marilee was in for a checkup and saw you there, remember?” Sophie asked.
Marilee and Vivienne owned MarVee’s Quarters, the old five-and-dime on Park Street.
“If Valley Ridge’s information network had a hub, it would be Marilee and Vivienne’s,” Sophie confirmed.
Lily grinned. “You’re right.”
“With all the jobs you do, you could be a farmer,” the normally quiet Colton said.
“Pardon?” Lily asked.
“I never do the same job two days in a row. There’s always something different that needs my attention. Fields to till. Crops to plant or harvest. Vines to sucker. No day is ever exactly like the last.”
“That is a very good point,” Lily agreed. “I’m only working for Dr. Marshall on Mondays. Trish wanted to cut back on her hours, so it was a good fit for both of us.” Trish Millrose had a baby a year ago and had wanted to spend more time with her.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a jack-of-all-trades,” Colton assured her.
“‘You chould be a farmer’ is Colton’s idea of the biggest compliment he can give,” Sophie teased.
“I took it as such.” Lily had grown to adore Sophie’s fiancé. She’d read the phrase salt of the earth over the years and realized it described Colton perfectly. “But much as I’d like to stay and hang out, this jack-of-all-trades has a stack of invoices calling her name. Unless you needed me for something.”
Colton said, “I stopped to see if Seb here—”
“Se—” was as far as Sebastian got.
Colton caught himself and said, “If Sebastian here would like to ride into Erie with me tomorrow. I’ve got some things to take care of, and I could use the company.”
“I’ll let you gentlemen figure out the details. Sophie, maybe we can have lunch one day this week?”
“I’ll call you,” Sophie promised. “And I wanted to tell you again
, the shower was beautiful.”
It sounded wrong to say so, but Lily thought the shower had been beautiful, too. “I’m so glad you liked it.” She rose. “Can I get you all anything before I leave?”
“I can manage that,” Sebastian said.
Lily nodded at him as she walked away. Normally, she’d have stayed with Colton and Sophie. Maybe even ordered dinner. It was always nice to have someone to share a meal with.
But not with Seb—no, pardon her, Sebastian—sitting next to her. They hadn’t touched, but that didn’t mean Lily wasn’t aware of him sitting next to her. There was a constant awareness radiating off him. And when he shifted in his seat and his elbow came perilously close to brushing against her, she’d sensed it without seeing it and had moved out of the way.
Everything about Sebastian seemed to trigger a response in her. Mainly a negative one.
“Hey, Lily, how were your patients today?” Hank asked from the doorway to the office.
“I only had a few house calls, so it was easy. Do you need any help with anything?”
“No. Maize has gone home, but Megan, that high-school girl we hired, is coming in soon.” Megan wasn’t a new hire, and normally, Lily would have pointed it out in hopes of reorienting Hank. But right now, she was too exhausted to fight the battle that Sebastian claimed didn’t exist.
“Call me if you need me.” Hank shut the door to the office, and Lily slumped into the nearby desk chair.
What on earth was it about monosyllabic Sebastian Bennington that upset her equilibrium so much? She didn’t know, nor did she like it.
She should have said something to Hank. Dementia wasn’t her area of expertise, but she’d talked to a friend from Buffalo. A doctor who specialized in geriatric care. He’d said as long as Hank didn’t get upset, giving him cues to keep him focused didn’t hurt. When things got worse and the reminders upset him, it would be time to stop.
But it wasn’t time yet.
Feeling reenergized, she took one long breath. She couldn’t believe it was already the end of April. This year was going by fast.
Maybe it had to do with her being busy, or maybe it was a sign that she was getting older. She read a lot of Regency novels, and she knew by those standards being in her late twenties would have qualified her as an old maid. A spinster. The word always left her with the impression of a dried-up husk of an old woman.
She’d bought a new calendar, flipped it to April and hung it up on the bulletin board where Hank had always posted everyone’s work schedule. She’d taken over the scheduling for the most part, too.
The work schedule was a week-by-week list, but the new calendar showed the entire month in very large blocks with an oversize font that called attention to them. As if to say, Here, this is the date.
She picked up the marker and x-ed out the first twenty-five days of the month.
At the hospital, they’d kept calendars beneath the clocks in all the patient rooms because it was easy to get disoriented when you were sick or on medication. She thought having the calendar in the diner might help Hank more than simply a list would.
And on that note, she’d made another purchase. She opened the large cardboard box she’d brought and took out a big wall clock that was framed in shiny red plastic. She thought it would look perfect in the dining room, given that the seats were upholstered in red vinyl. She put batteries into the clock and set the time and date. She opened the bottom-left drawer of the desk, where Hank stored a few basic tools. Hammer and fastener in hand, she grabbed the step stool out of the storage closet and went out into the front. Sebastian was at the counter, which meant Colton and Sophie must have left. The rush was over, and only two tables were occupied.
She juggled the ladder and hammer in her hands and walked to the far wall. The space above the window would be the perfect spot for the clock. Hank could see it from the counter as he served or visited his customers.
She put the clock down on an empty table and tilted the tall step stool over the booth as if it were a ladder.
“What are you doing?” came a male voice that she easily identified.
Lily checked behind her and, as she’d suspected, found Sebastian. And even if she wasn’t surprised it was Sebastian, she wasn’t sure why he was glowering at her. No, she wasn’t sure why, but that part didn’t surprise her, either. He seemed to spend a lot of time giving her less than cordial looks.
“What am I doing?” she repeated, then in a slow voice she answered, making sure she punctuated each word. “I. Am. Setting. Up. A. Ladder.”
He took a deep breath, which she suspected was to help calm himself, then asked, “To be accurate, you’re setting up a step stool, but incorrectly.” He took the stool and opened it so the two halves formed an A against the wall. “My question is, why?”
Lily tried to be happy and easygoing. But something about Sebastian drove away all that hard work. She should feel bad about that, but she didn’t. Sebastian Bennington grated on her.
“I am setting up the ladder—step stool—because that’s a necessary first step if I want to climb it.” It might be childish, but she knew the response would annoy him right back.
She saw from his expression that it had.
This time, Sebastian didn’t bother to take a cleansing breath. Instead, he made a small growling noise in the back of his throat, then asked, “Again, why?”
“Because I want to pound this nail through the hook—” she reached into her pocket and produced them “—into the wall.” She gestured to the wall the ladder was set up next to.
He frowned. “Is there a stud there?”
The fun of teasing him evaporated. He’d stumped her. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“I’m going to take a guess that you were planning on hanging that clock—” he pointed with his good hand “—from the nail and hook that you’re so proudly displaying. And I’m also going to guess that you weren’t planning on seeing if there was a stud there, and so you wouldn’t know if there wasn’t, which leads me to believe you hadn’t thought about what would happen if you drove a nail into drywall with no anchor.”
“Uh.” Darn. No fun at all.
“The weight of the clock could pull the nail out, which means the fastener would come out, and the clock would fall. And it would land on?” he prompted.
She knew what he was saying. The oversize clock could easily land on a patron. “Fine. I’ll get an anchor.” She wasn’t sure exactly what an anchor was, but she could call Mattie. Mattie had worked at dozens of jobs. If anyone knew what an anchor was in this case, it was her friend Mathilda Keith.
Mattie was the first to explain that for many years she hadn’t stayed in one place for long ever since graduating high school, but she’d thrown her footloose lifestyle aside to come back to Valley Ridge and care for her childhood friend Bridget when she’d become ill.
And it was through Bridget that Lily, Mattie and Sophie had also become friends.
When Bridget passed away, Mattie had remained in Valley Ridge to raise Bridget’s children. And Lily had stayed because she’d grown to love the town and the people in it.
“First see if there’s a stud.”
She didn’t have a clue how to check for that.
He sighed. “I’ll do it.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“But you’re going to get it.” His expression said he was no longer annoyed—he was feeling as if he’d won this. Whatever this was.
“Fine.” Lily knew that was a less than gracious response and she was being childish, but there was something about Sebastian Bennington that evoked a strong response from her. That first time she’d met him at the lake, her initial response had been attraction. Now...
Sebastian extended his good hand, and she handed over the hammer and nail. He carefully placed them on the top of the ladder and climbed up with his injured hand still in his pocket.
Lily had noticed that he kept the hand hidden away. She’d recognized the s
urgical scars that covered his hand and moved up past his wrist, presumably up his arm. They had that red, raised look that said they were fairly recent. If he asked her professional opinion, she’d tell him that the scars would fade over time. Her cursory glance said they were made by someone who knew what they were doing. But he didn’t ask, and she couldn’t think of any way to toss that into a conversation.
She looked up at Sebastian as he thumped around the wall with the hammer. Even from where she was, she could hear the difference between the solid and the hollow thumps.
“The stud?” she asked.
“Yes.” He held still. “Will that work for the clock?”
She took a step back, studied the spot and nodded. “Yeah, it looks fairly centered.”
He faced the wall and finally pulled his injured hand from its hideaway in his jacket pocket. He studied the hammer and nail a moment. Lily could have kicked herself. There was no way he was going to be able to hold the nail in his damaged left hand while he hammered with the right one.
Lily knew he’d rebuff her offer if she said she’d get up there and do it, so she climbed on a chair next to the ladder. “Why don’t you let me position the nail? That way I can get the clock where I want it.”
“Fine.” The word was almost a grunt.
He set down the hammer, passed her the nail, then picked the hammer up again. She held the nail as high as she could reach and hoped it was high enough. She also prayed that he didn’t smash her fingers as he tried to pound the nail in.
A couple sharp thwacks with the hammer, and her fingers were still intact.
Sebastian said, “You can let go now.”
She did and he finished pounding the nail into the wall. He finished with the hammer and she handed him the clock. He gripped the edge with his good hand and supported it with his damaged left hand more than holding it. It was an awkward way to hold the thing, but Sebastian managed to get the clock on the nail and climb down the step stool.