LITMIR.BIZ

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a nice girl.”

      “Finally. Something we can agree on.”

      He leaned back in his seat and watched her as she dug into her burger again. Something about her bothered him, and he really couldn’t put his finger on what it was. But as she ignored him and ate her dinner, he remembered how she’d leaped to Mari’s defense. How she’d read Vickie the riot act and forced the waitress to admit that Mari just wasn’t the kind of woman her enemies were making her out to be.

      A surge of gratitude rushed through him, swamping the mistrust that still echoed inside him. Lily had defended his child and Ron had responded by skewering her. What did that say about him?

      Hell, if his mother were here, she’d give him that fish-eyed glare she used to use on him when he was a kid.

      “Look,” he said, giving in to the urge to make amends, “I want you to know how much I appreciate you standing up for Mari the way you did.”

      Blond eyebrows lifted. “How hard was that?”

      “What?”

      “To be nice to me.”

      He frowned and reached for his own burger. Less decorated than hers, it was still tasty and sitting there getting cold. “Wasn’t hard.”

      “Then one would think you’d be able to pull it off more often, wouldn’t one?”

      “One might.”

      Her lips twitched. “A hardheaded man.”

      “That’s been said before.”

      “I’m not surprised.”

      He took a bite of his burger then chewed and swallowed before speaking again. “I’m not sure about you, Lily Cunningham.”

      She smiled and winked at him. “Good.”

      “Good?”

      “If you were sure of me, I’d be predictable. Boring.”

      “Stuffy?” He prodded, reminding her of the word she’d used to describe him.

      Apparently she remembered very well what she’d called him, because she looked at him now and grinned. Her brown eyes sparkled and good humor fairly shimmered in the air around her. “Oh, very few people can pull stuffy off with any degree of success.”

      “And I’m one of them?”

      “Yes,” she said slowly, thoughtfully as she reached for her shake again. “But I see a glimmer of hope shining around you, Ron Bingham.”

      “Is that so?” She kept twirling the straw through the ice cream, drawing his gaze to her red polished nails and the sapphire ring on her right hand.

      “Oh yes.” She sucked at her straw, and Ron told himself not to notice the pucker of her full lips. For all the good it did him. “With a little bit of effort,” she said, “you could be destuffied.”

      “Not even a word.”

      “It is if I say it is.”

      He smiled in spite of his efforts not to. “The de-stuffifying process sounds painful.”

      “It won’t hurt a bit.”

      Ron wasn’t too sure of that. He had a feeling that spending too much time with Lily could potentially be very painful. She made him think too much. Feel too much. Dream too much.

      And for a man who’d been emotionally asleep for ten long years, waking up was not only painful…it was dangerous.

      Over the weekend, Lily had had every intention of washing her car and then planting new flowers in the pots outside her front door. Well, the car was still dirty, but there were a few empty nursery pots scattered at her feet.

      She sighed, tipped her head back and stretched the kinks out of her back while staring up at the cloud-covered sky. Looked as though a storm might be coming in and she found herself hoping it would happen. Not only did she enjoy the fabulous light show of electrical storms, but rain might take the edge off the humidity.

      Smiling to herself, she bent down, blew her hair back out of her face and grabbed the sides of the huge, terra-cotta pot and gave it a pull.

      It didn’t budge.

      “Oh for heaven’s sake.” She stood up, frowned at the damn thing, then bent over to give it another yank. Still nothing. Although she was pretty sure she’d felt something in her back yell “uncle.”

      “Maybe I should have put the pot on the steps first.” She shook her head, disgusted at her own lack of foresight. “Brilliant, Lily. Really brilliant.”

      Purple, red and white petunias billowed over the edges of the pot and tumbled along the sides in wild profusion. They looked cheerful—and for the moment—healthy. Of course, they wouldn’t look that way for long.

      Lily had a black thumb.

      Every plant she’d ever bought had died a horrible death. She either underwatered or overwatered—didn’t seem to matter. She swore that when she walked through the local nursery choosing plants, you could almost hear the flowers shrieking, Not me, don’t take me!

      She loved having flowers in her yard. Loved coming home to their color and scent. She simply had no talent for it. But that had never stopped her from trying.

      “Until now,” she muttered, kicking the side of the heavy pot. Her white tennis shoe didn’t protect her toe, which only served her right, she thought as she hopped indelicately and bit down on her lip to keep from cursing.

      It was a terrible habit, and she’d tried to put a lid on her foul language, especially since she’d moved into this neighborhood that was absolutely crawling with children. On that thought, she forgot about the stubborn pot and turned around to look out at the tree-shaded street. The Johnson twins, age seven, were popping caps with a hammer on their curb. Lily shook her head. Any moment now, one or both of them would be crying and sucking on a smashed finger. The Danville girl, at nine, was concentrating on a fierce game of hop-scotch—who knew kids still played that?—with her best friend. A couple of doors down, thirteen-year-old Kevin Hanks was busily mowing lawns for spending money.

      Lily glanced at her own grass. Time to hire Kevin again before the neighbors started complaining. Honestly, moving to a house had been such a change from her loft apartment that sometimes she was just overwhelmed by it all. But bottom line—it was worth it. She loved having her own home. A place she could decorate or not. A place where she could practice her scandalously bad gardening skills. A place where she could sit on the front porch and listen to the sounds of children’s laughter.

      A tiny ache pierced her heart, and she lifted one hand to her chest as if she could somehow smooth it away. Lily sighed a little as old dreams drifted through her mind and then dissolved again. She’d always wanted a family. Children of her own. But when she’d found out that wouldn’t be happening, she’d tried to make peace with it.

      At first she’d thought of adoption. Then when her husband had left her, she’d let go of that thought as well. It hadn’t been common at that time for single women to adopt, and after the disaster of her marriage, getting married again wasn’t even a consideration. So Lily’d forgotten about her old dreams and had tried to build new ones.

      Generally speaking, she’d done a hell of a job. Top of her game in the PR business, she’d had everything that most people worked their whole lives for. And she’d tossed it aside without a second thought the moment she’d had a chance to come here.

      “It was a good choice,” she said, speaking aloud to make sure her subconscious heard her. “No matter what, it was a good thing, moving here.”

      With that she turned around to face her enemy again. The overflowing pot of petunias that would, most likely, remain on the sidewalk for all eternity…or until the latest flowers died and she could empty the dirt and start over. “There’s just no way I’m

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