Chapter 5 #2
Her eyes lit up and she proceeded to color aggressively, making a jumble of red slashes beneath the three smaller chicken-like blobs. The end result looked more like a murder scene than a bird nest, but he kept that opinion to himself.
Instead, he asked, “Are they well-behaved baby hawks?”
“Yes.”
“They must be smart, then. They’ve figured out how much easier it is to work a little bit at behaving so they don’t have to work very hard at getting out of trouble.”
Lily looked up at him sharply. A thoughtful expression came over her face so identical to the one Grace made he had to bite back a smile.
She drew for a stretch. He watched the front. A Saturday-afternoon quiet settled over the street outside. He loosened the brace and his knee thanked him by going from a six down to a four.
“Mr. Reno?”
“Yes?”
“Why does my mommy live by herself?”
The lawyer in him had a precise answer for the question being asked and a precise answer for the question underneath. But the cowboy in him understood the nuance of discussing difficult topics with a child.
He said carefully, “Well, your daddy went to live in Heaven.”
“He died in the fire.”
Okay, then. Grace had been bluntly honest with her daughter. Good to know.
“My friend Malcolm has a daddy and a step daddy.”
This time, it was his lawyer side that spotted the nuance in that comment. Not all parents and stepparents got along well. “Sounds like a full house.”
“They’re both nice.”
“That’s good.”
“Mommy says my daddy was a good one and he loved me very much even though I wasn’t borned yet.”
“I’m sure he did.”
Lily switched from a red crayon to a blue one and drew wings on her hawk family. “Mr. Reno, do you have a wife?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Haven’t met the right woman yet.”
“Mommy says daddies and mommies happen when two people love each other.”
“That’s a fair description.”
“Have you ever loved anybody?”
“Not like that.”
“Why not?”
“That’s a long answer.”
“How long?”
“About thirty-three years long.”
She considered that and declared, “You’re really old.”
“Thanks,” he answered dryly.
She switched to a green crayon. “My mommy loved one person. My daddy.”
“She’s lucky.”
“That’s what she said.”
A man in a jacket and thinning brown hair came in, and Reno stood up abruptly. But then he saw the man had no mustache, and looked closer to sixty than forty. Reno relaxed.
“The man said, “I’m here for two trays of cinnamon rolls for the Stevens place. Pickup at eleven.”
“It’s almost two o’clock, Sir.”
“So I’m late.”
“Let me go in the back and see if I can find them.”
Bless Grace. The large flat boxes were clearly marked with the name Stevens, a note that they’d already been paid for, and were even securely taped shut. He picked up the two boxes and carried them out front.
The guy took the boxes with a word of thanks, turned, and left.
Lily declared, “He’s not very nice.”
“Not everybody is.”
“They should be.”
“I don’t think the world got the memo on that, Kid.”
He spent the remaining time until the shop closed helping a few last minute customers while Lily told him about preschool and a boy named Malcolm, and the difference between donkeys and ponies.
He explained the difference between a hawk and an eagle, and she told him her mommy had three plants on their kitchen windowsill named Susie, Penny, and Lord Baxter.
At two o’clock, he locked the front door, turned the open sign to closed, and lowered the front window blinds.
He relocated Lily to a work table in the kitchen, where she told him she’d been making Lord Baxter walk around the table at breakfast that morning, but her mother had asked her to stop because Lord Baxter was a basil and basils didn’t have feet.
Grace came back at three-fifteen and Lily ran over to her and all but knocked Grace over hugging her. “Mommy!”
“Hello, Baby.”
Grace looked like her adrenaline had gone home and left her behind. She had cake icing on her cuff and came in barefoot, holding her shoes in one hand and empty cake boards in the other.
“Successful?” Reno asked.
“The bride cried when she saw the flowers and cake, the mother of the bride cried, and the maid of honor cried. That’s success in my book.”
“Did you cry?”
“I do not cry over wedding cakes.”
“Glad we cleared that up.”
“Anything weird happen today?” she asked under her breath.
“A van drove super slow past the front of the shop then sped up once it passed. No markings. Navy. Tinted side windows, Montana plates.”
“That’s the same as one the fake utility guy was driving.”
“I never heard anyone say Thursday’s van was blue. I just assumed it was white. Don’t know why I did that, now that I think about it.”
She closed her eyes, not in dismay so much as being too tired to deal with this right now.
“Grace.“
“I know. Wheeler.”
He added regretfully, “Today.”
She didn’t open her eyes for a beat. When she did, she murmured, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here and being alert.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And for entertaining my four-year-old all afternoon.”
“She entertained me.”
“Do I want to know?”
“We talked about naughty child-eating hawks. You’ll need to let Grandma know I blew her ploy to keep Lily in line and we discussed walking basil. In some detail. To be honest, it was delightful.”
Grace smiled warmly and looked at him a beat too long. He looked back at her a beat too long. The quiet in the shop abruptly thickened into something that wasn’t quiet at all.
“You look ready to drop,” he said quietly. “Go home. Take a long soak in a hot bath and order pizza for supper. I’m going to go home and take a nap, and I’ll be back here by dark.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know. But you’ll sleep better tonight if you know I’m here keeping an eye on things, right?”
“Well, yes,” she admitted.
“There you have it. I’ll be back before dark.”
She reached out and rested her hand lightly on his forearm, saying earnestly, “I can’t thank you enough.”
His entire body reacted to her light touch, tightening and hyper focusing on those few square inches of flesh where her fingertips were warm and soft against his skin. All ability to speak deserted him and he merely nodded in response.
Her hand fell away, and after clearing his throat, he regained his voice. “You’ll call Wheeler?”
“I’ll call him as soon as I get home.”
He turned to leave and had the door half open when she said his name again.
He turned to see her holding out her hand. He took the shop’s business card she gave him and turned it over. Her cell number was written on the back.
“Call me anytime, day or night, if you need to talk with me,” she said low.
He pulled out his phone and sent her cell phone number a quick text so she would have his personal contact information, too.
“Same for me. Call day or night. I’ll always pick up for you.”
They might overtly be talking about calling if something happened at the bakery, but the double entendre in their words was so thick it was impossible to miss. They’d both just invited each other to call any time they wanted to talk about anything.
He limped down the block to his truck and sat in the cab with the card in his palm longer than the situation strictly required, memorizing her phone number and looking at her handwriting on a card that smelled faintly of fresh bread.