Knight Takes Queen (34 page)

I
t occurred to Lily, as she stood on her cabin deck gazing out on Burntside Lake, that she should have known she’d made a mistake the time she’d brought Brock here. He’d looked out at the sparkling water and majestic pines, the perfect blue sky dotted with perfect fluffy white clouds, swatted the mosquito on his arm, and said, irritably, ‘I hope that doesn’t stain linen. As if there’d be a decent dry cleaner in this godforsaken wilderness anyway.’ He’d gone inside muttering and hadn’t come out again until it was time to leave two days later.

One damned mosquito.

She should have gone with her gut feeling then. It would have saved her a helluva lot of trouble. Not to mention a divorce. But, hey, she was here now and he wasn’t and that was good. More than good. Now if she could only figure out how to turn on the water, she could wash her hands after hours on the road from Chicago and life would be great.

The phone rang, the world intruded on her mini therapy session, and she walked back inside.

‘Welcome home, Juju.’

Lily leaned against the kitchen counter and smiled at the greeting from long ago. ‘How did you know I was here? I just walked in the door.’

‘Myrtle Carlson saw you pull into your driveway and called her sister Olga who called my aunt Bernie who called me. When are you coming over?’

‘After I figure out how to turn on the water.’

‘Hurry, because Serena’s on her way now. Call Bianchich’s. They’ll send someone over.’

‘Serena’s home too?’

‘Reluctantly. You know how she hates this town. But her mom broke her hip and needed someone to run the store for a few months. We’ll fill you in when you get here. Dumped the Brock, I hear. About time.’

‘What happened to “I’m sorry your marriage didn’t work out. You must be distraught.”?’

‘I met the Brock, hon. I repeat, about time.’

Lily sighed. ‘How did everyone know but me?’

‘You’re way too sweet, Juju. That’s always been your problem. You
believe what people say. But hey, Serena and I will show you the true path. She’s in purdah here till fall and I’m at the lake all summer as usual. Now call Bianchich’s about your water. If you’re lucky our local hero will make the house call himself. Darling Billy still works in the hardware store every off season.’

‘I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him. He’s years younger.’

‘He’s also, I think the term is, good enough to eat. And if you came to your cabin more often, you’d know it.’

Lily laughed. ‘Your libido is cranked up notches higher than mine. And I’m only just divorced. Don’t talk to me about men right now.’

‘You know what they say about falling off that horse …’

‘Give me a break. Unlike you, I’ve actually gone more than a week without sex.’

‘Bite your tongue. I’m on day six. Now, call the hardware store. We’ll see you in an hour.’

The phone went dead. Ceci had never been good about waiting for anything – which accounted for her very active sex life.

*

Lily didn’t hear the truck pull up; she was unpacking in the bedroom. And if there had been a knock on the door, she’d missed that too. What she didn’t miss were the very broad shoulders on the tall man with spiky black hair who was filling the doorway into her utility room when she went in search of more hangers.

She actually squealed when she saw him, which was embarrassing enough in itself, but when he turned around, he had such a look of amazement she realized he wasn’t used to frightening people. And a second after that, she also realized Ceci was right. If this was darling Billy, he
did
look good enough to eat.

‘Sorry. I didn’t know anyone was at home. The work order just said the water was out.’ Lily Kallio’s tanned legs went clear to the ceiling as they always had … well, almost; they stopped at – Billy jerked his glance away. ‘This shouldn’t take long,’ he muttered, turning away, overcome by a schoolboy nervousness. Jesus, he felt as if he were fourteen all over again – he used to watch her sitting on the lifeguard tower at Shagawa Beach, tanned and beautiful in her pure white suit with the tiny Red Cross symbol about three inches from her crotch, wondering if she’d give him mouth to mouth if he pretended to drown, wondering if anyone would notice if he jacked off behind the dressing rooms. He never did either, although she was his nighttime fantasy for
all of ninth grade until she graduated from high school and left town.

My God, the man was enormous. So much bigger than Brock, Lily thought, as though it mattered. And much more handsome, some perverse inner voice insisted on pointing out. Capable of home repairs too. Have you thought of that? And his very large hands …

It took her a moment to come to her senses, to stop
looking
, and a second more to tamp down the curious heated flutter warming her senses, and a second after that to say in a cool, polite voice, ‘Thanks for coming,’ and escape into her bedroom.

The word
come
struck Billy with a particular intensity. His body’s involuntary reflex brought him to a momentary standstill and thirteen years flashed by in a time-warp moment. Swearing softly, he shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind of boyish fantasies. And then he said, ‘Fuck and double fuck,’ in an explosive breath and surveyed the array of copper pipes, looking for the turn-off valve.

Lily didn’t come out of the bedroom until she heard the kitchen door slam and the sound of the truck driving away, even though she told herself she was acting like a child, even though she told herself it was perfectly all right if some guy turned her on like a damned spigot with one glance at his handsome face and perfect body.

Watching from the kitchen window as the Ace Hardware truck disappeared down the sandy drive, Lily was still shocked at her physical reaction to the man. She wasn’t impulsive by nature – she’d earned her Ph.D. in five years because she wasn’t; she was focused and deliberate. Her TV spots on the six and ten o’clock news had risen to first place in the Chicago TV ratings because she was absolutely single-minded in her goals. Even her decision to divorce had required a spreadsheet analysis … although in all honesty she was really fast on the computer; she couldn’t kid herself any due deliberation had come into that decision once she’d seen Brock’s e-mail correspondence with his lover. But with the exception of her rather precipitous divorce, she was really the least likely person to get carried away.

But darling Billy’s muscles were practically bulging through his T-shirt, weren’t they, and his sheer
size
sent a little shiver up her spine, not to mention his very, very large hands that made her speculate quite unintentionally on the old saw about the correlation between … ohmygod.

Maybe it
had
been too long since she’d had sex.

* * *