Tiger Lily - May Dawson Page 0,19

now. This is where she belongs. With us.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She jerked to face me and almost fell off the stool, but she saved herself by grabbing the edge of the desk. I rushed to help her, but she waved me off. “I’m fine. You guys are so surprising…”

“You were focused,” I said. “What were you focused on?”

“Entering everything into Quickbooks that you guys thought you could shove into a folder.” She had a look of distaste as she turned over the top of a folder that hugged a messy sheath of papers.

I raised my hands in surrender. “That is definitely Blake’s handwriting.”

“You didn’t stop him.” Her voice had a teasing note.

“Blake’s usually pretty unstoppable,” I said, and then realized I didn’t want to be talking about my brother right now, much as I loved him. I cleared my throat. “Want to take a break? Grab some lunch?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “I packed a tuna sandwich.”

“Well, I didn’t pack my lunch,” I lied. “Save me from the vending machine. Walk into town with me.”

“And just leave the reception desk unmanned?” She raised her eyebrows.

I glanced around the empty lobby. No one had stayed to wait for their cars today.

She followed my gaze, then huffed. “Well, if you don’t really need a receptionist, what am I even doing here? You’re just being nice to me?”

She sounded furious about the possibility we were being nice.

“No,” I raised my hands in a placating gesture. “Nothing so evil as that. Look at what you’re doing now—obviously we need you.”

She gave me a skeptical look, but she gathered up the papers and set them on the shelf beneath the desk, and my heart rose.

The two of us wandered down the street through Silver Springs. I kept glancing at her, as she looked around her with wide, curious hazel eyes. I felt strangely nervous.

I wanted Lily to like me, and I wanted her to like Silver Springs. I wanted her to stay.

“This place is so adorable,” she mused, stopping abruptly, her gaze sweeping across the street, bouncing between Buttercup’s Bake Shop on one side and Jewels café on the other. She sighed, as if adorable were a problem right now. “Sometimes I think my grandfather might be right. But don’t tell him that.”

“Right about what?”

Her lips tugged to one side. “Never mind. He can’t be right—he’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

“What an interesting coincidence. He’s the second most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

A man rushing down the street on his cell phone didn’t even seem to see Lily, so I caught her around the waist and reeled her toward me.

She glanced up at me in surprise as he barreled through the air where she’d just been.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve got some herding tendencies.”

She raised an eyebrow. It took me a second to remember I should let my hand drop from her waist, even though my hand felt right there, as if her body and mine had been made to fit together.

But I let go and took a step back.

“What are you in the mood for?” I asked. “Fish and chips? Almost as good as tuna?”

Lily’s favorite meal growing up was a tuna sub with French fries.

She smiled slowly, as if she were pleased I remembered. “Maybe my tastes have matured since I was a kid.”

I shrugged, gazing down at her bright eyes, those mischievous lips above a stubborn chin.

“There’s nothing wrong with still liking what you always have,” I said, tilting my head to one side.

She bit her lower lip as she looked up at me. Tension—and desire—seemed to shimmer between us, and the people and cars passing by us faded into the background.

Then she said, “Sure, that sounds good,” and the spell was broken.

I led her to Charlie’s Irish Pub, and Charlie led us to a booth in the dining room.

The waitress came over and asked if she could get me anything. I glanced pointedly at Lily, but the waitress never really looked at her.

We made small talk during lunch. Toward the end, I leaned back in my seat, watching Lily mash her straw around in her iced tea.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how she had bristled when I invited her to lunch.

She glanced at me, her eyes sharp as if she could feel my thinking.

“You were so annoyed when you thought I was being nice to you,” I said.

She didn’t deny it, but she took a long sip of her tea, looking at me over the straw. She set the