When Lily called to him from the kitchen, he didn’t register it at first. He was fixated on Jack. The ghost. His rival.
Lily called to him again, and he turned to find her watching him with curious eyes.
“I guess I’ve finally met Jack,” he said evenly.
Her eyebrows shot to her forehead. “Oh?”
“And now I understand,” he said simply.
I understand you worshipped him. That you still worship him.
He also understood she was a beautiful, vibrant woman stuck in the past. A woman who deserved a living man to take care of her, to worship her.
And looking at her made him want to be that man.
It would be an uphill battle, and it would take determination. Persistence. Patience. Traits that were ingrained in him. Did he want to go to battle to win a place in Lily’s heart? Even if it meant sharing space with Jack?
Hell yeah.
Chapter 15
Stuck in the Discovery Channel
Lily was pulling into Gage’s driveway when Ivy’s number lit her phone screen.
“Hey, Ive. I’m at Gage’s. What’s up?” She parked and turned off the engine.
“Isn’t he still out of town?”
“Well, he got back last week, but he left again, so I’m checking on his cat.”
Ivy chuckled. “Oh, I love it. The more weeks go by, the cozier you two get.”
The tease prodded at Lily’s nerves. “It’s not like that.”
“Of course not. You just keep convincing yourself, Little Sis.”
Lily tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear, slung her purse over her shoulder, and climbed out of her Highlander. “Is there a purpose for your call besides giving me crap?”
“A little sensitive, aren’t we?” Another sisterly chuckle rocketed Lily’s irritation. “Actually, I was calling to see if you wanted to meet up for lunch after my shift ends? That’s in two hours.”
Lily crossed the driveway and paused at Gage’s front door, eyeing the keypad built into the lock. “That should work if we keep it short.”
They settled on a meeting place and Lily punched in Gage’s code and let herself in, warily studying the alarm system he claimed he didn’t use, in case it decided to spring to life and bring on a squad of police cars to haul her butt to jail.
Hobbes sauntered toward her. Lily dropped into a crouch to scratch the cat’s ears. “Hi, Hobbes. I bet you miss your dad. I think I miss him too, but don’t tell him I said so. He might try to act cuter than he already is.”
Gage and she texted multiple times a day, and while she had fun doing it, it wasn’t the same as seeing his face light up or feeling his rich, deep baritone roll into her every nook and cranny whenever he spoke.
After refilling Hobbes’s bowls and cleaning her litter box, Lily stood in the family room and pulled in the gorgeous view outside the windows. From there, she drifted into his office and looked over the piles of mail she’d been answering. Before long, she was sticking her head into other rooms to be sure nothing was out of order.
Poised at the foot of his wooden-tread, metal-railed staircase, she debated heading upstairs to check the rooms on the second level. Hobbes bounded up the steps, making up Lily’s mind for her. She followed the cat, who wandered into Gage’s master bedroom, a space Lily had only seen briefly once before.
Understated and oh so masculine, the scene twined a seductive, invisible lasso around her and tugged her inside. She scanned clean, angular lines splashed with blacks, whites, and warm grays as she breathed in a musk-and-cedar man smell permeating the room. Soothing yet strong. Like him.
Hobbes leapt onto the bed.
“Oh, I see how it is. And just how do you rate?” Lily plopped on the edge of the mattress and stretched her hand toward Hobbes. “I’m betting you sneak off in the middle of the night and he doesn’t get bent out of shape.”
What the hell am I saying?
Lily straightened, ready to leave the room when Hobbes started hacking. She recognized the sound immediately. “Oh no, Hobbes! Don’t throw up on the bed!”
Little good the command did. As Hobbes continued retching, Lily scrambled for something, anything to catch the hairball that was about to erupt. First she yanked open the nightstand drawer—so hard, stuff came flying out of it. Whoops! No tissues.
Hobbes’s yaks grew more urgent. Lily wrenched open a cabinet door below the drawer and rummaged around for a box of tissues. Her hand landed on different shapes, none resembling a tissue box, and as she withdrew, she inadvertently hauled out more stuff that hit the floor with a dull thud.
She vaulted upright and sprinted to the bathroom. Not a single tissue. Toilet paper! She snatched a wad and ran back to the bedroom, just as Hobbes coughed up her treasure. The cat then sprang off the bed and scurried from the scene of the crime.
“That’s it! Run away, you … you cat!”
Lily gathered the offending hairball in the toilet paper, disposed of it, and returned to the bedroom to survey the mess she’d created. Cards of various sizes and shapes were scattered over the rug like an explosion of giant confetti. With a sigh, she knelt and began gathering them into a pile before she realized what she was looking at. As she gave them a closer look, her stomach twisted into knots.
A number were regular business cards—many with thumbnail-sized headshots of women—while others were postcards from bars, restaurants, sports venues. Even music stores. Others were girlie note cards. Greeting cards.
Though they came in all shapes and sizes, they all appeared to be
