leaned into him as if her spine suddenly turned liquid.
Getting his hands on her felt better than anything he could remember-better than air or water. Even better than sex. She clutched him tight enough to bruise. He let her. The rain had stopped, leaving a fresh-washed morning and Georgia sunshine so bright it stung the eyes.
Lily finally took a long breath and looked up at him. “I have to admit, being taken to a police station isn’t the most fun way I’ve ever started a morning.”
She clearly wanted him to smile. Unfortunately, he had to let her go when they reached his EOS, but he hustled her inside before anyone could conceivably get near her. Once he climbed in, he reached over to kiss her, just one hard, fast kiss, and then started the engine. His heart was pumping in thick, noisy thuds. His right hand made a white-knuckle fist on the steering wheel.
He wasn’t angry, of course. He was just…a little tense. For a long time-maybe forever-he was going to have the picture in his head from when he’d walked into the police station and saw her. She was just sitting there, her face whiter than paper, Conner looming over her. Her dark eyes had looked rattled and lost and…
No, he wasn’t mad.
But he was definitely tense.
Lily leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, curling up as much as she could curl with the seat belt trapping her. Her palm pressed tight against her abdomen. “I can’t swear, but I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for a life of crime. There’s still a chance, of course. But I don’t think effective criminals would likely get this sick to their stomachs in a police station.”
“You’re not hurling in this car, sugar.”
She chuckled. A watery chuckle, but still a chuckle. “You can always throw me out. I won’t mind. All I want to do is curl up in a ball on the wet grass and talk myself into a nice, calm coma for a while.”
He said casually, “How come Louella had to call me? Why didn’t you call yourself?”
She opened one eye, studied his face. “It wasn’t even five in the morning, Griff.”
“So?” His voice was so smooth and calm, you could have spread it on toast. He was sure.
“So the sheriff just suddenly showed up in the middle of the storm. I had no idea why, or what was going to happen. And when he said something about putting cuffs on me…to be honest, I just completely froze up. I don’t think there was a clear thought in my head.”
There was in Griff’s. The penalty for murdering the sheriff just might have been worth it if Conner had dared put cuffs on those fragile wrists.
“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.
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
“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
