10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
B ack to work.
The following morning, Tony felt a little worse for wear. He kept thinking about his dinner with the Adams family. It had been like old times—except for the absence of Lily’s father. The thought weighed heavy on his mind.
He knew if he didn’t go to city hall, he’d end up pacing around his apartment.
His mind would continue to replay the events in the elevator.
He kept telling himself the accident could have been worse.
The elevator could have plunged to the bottom of the shaft instead of tilting to the side and getting wedged in the shaft.
He clearly remembered getting to his feet to put on the harness.
The shifting of his weight in the car must have been too much for the fraying cable.
It snapped, and the next thing he knew he had been thrown to the ground.
All of his weight landed on his left hand.
And then because that wasn’t enough, he had been tossed like some sort of rag doll into the wall—head first.
Dr. Jack Turner had treated him at the hospital.
Jack thought he was being funny when he said Tony must be hard-headed, because there weren’t any signs of a concussion.
However, he did have to get a few stitches.
They were paired with a cast for his broken wrist. Again, the doctor said he’d gotten lucky because his wrist wouldn’t necessitate surgery.
Today, Tony wasn’t feeling that lucky, because he was aching in places he didn’t even know existed. But he wasn’t going to let that stop him from going to the office. He had too much work to do. If he stayed home, it would just make his backlog of things to do even worse.
His thoughts shifted to Lily. He’d enjoyed having dinner with her the prior evening, even if her whole family had been there. He recalled how their elbows kept touching throughout dinner and how she’d glance his way when she thought he wouldn’t notice.
And then he’d had a thought. Maybe their experience in the elevator had changed things between them. Maybe she’d see him differently now. Or maybe he was just fooling himself.
He sighed. Either way, he couldn’t stay at home and pace around. He needed to head to work.
But a broken wrist meant everything had taken him longer. So much longer. From wrapping his cast so he didn’t get it wet in the shower to trying to dress himself with only one working arm. Lucky for him, he had some pre-tied bowties.
And so he’d headed for city hall. It took him a great bit of time to get from his parking spot to his office on the second floor. Practically everyone he passed had to stop him and say how sorry they were about the accident. They asked how he was doing and wished him a speedy recovery.
He was grateful for their kind words. However, when they asked what it was like to be stuck inside the elevator, he grew uncomfortable. He gave a glib answer and moved on.
As he stood near the bottom of the steps, he glanced over at the elevator. The doors were covered with yellow warning tape. There were orange cones around the perimeter. It was quite the sight. He hoped they would be able to repair the historic elevator.
He’d look into their insurance and see if it would help pay for the repairs. Something told him they wouldn’t, but it didn’t hurt to inquire. And then he’d call...
He paused. Who did one call to fix an old, probably on the verge of being antique, elevator? He would put his assistant on it. Theo was good at tracking things down. Hopefully, he’d be just as good at figuring out the elevator situation.
When Tony finally made it up the flight of stairs and down the hallway to his office, he put his plan in motion. Lucky for him, it was his non-dominant arm in a cast. He was able to read and approve the various documents that came across his desk.
When it came to his computer, there was a lot of hunt and peck–style typing, but he eventually got it done. In fact, he was so busy he missed lunch.
Knock-knock.
Tony looked up to find Theo standing by the door. “Lily Adams is on the phone. She wants to know if she can get into Aster Bell’s office. She said something about having to pick up something.”
“Oh, yes. Tell her that’s fine. And then call Joseph. Ask him to unlock the office.”
Theo nodded and then backed out of the office.
Tony smiled. Then, realizing he was smiling at the thought of seeing Lily again, he stopped. It wasn’t like she stopped by to see him or anything.
It didn’t matter, he told himself as he logged out of his computer.
Still, Aster had asked both himself and Lily to work on the arts festival.
He headed for the stairs to the third floor.
He walked down the hallway to Aster’s office.
He only had to wait a couple of minutes before Joseph showed up with the key.
“That was something that happened with the elevator, huh?” Joseph said.
“Yes, it was.” And he really didn’t want to talk more about it. “I can lock up when I leave.”
“What are we going to do with the elevator? Block it off with some drywall?”
What? Why would we do that? “No. It’s part of the history of this building. We’ll have it repaired.”
Joseph rocked back on his heels. “I don’t know. Seems like a lot of money to spend.”
Tony hated to admit it, but Joseph was probably right. And the island’s budget was already straining under the constantly rising prices of everything. And the town council was very hesitant to raise taxes.
But he would worry about all of that later. Right now, he had a laptop to find for Lily. The arts festival had to go on one way or the other.
Eventually, Joseph was called away for a water leak. Tony let himself into the office and headed straight for Aster’s desk. He searched the top. There was no laptop.
He had just finished looking in the last desk drawer when he heard: “Tony, what are you doing here?”
He immediately recognized that sweet feminine voice. He looked up to see Lily standing there with a frown on her beautiful face. “Good afternoon to you too.”
She stepped farther into the office. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” Her gaze moved from the cast on his arm to the stitches just above his brow. “Shouldn’t you be at home resting?”
A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, but he refused to smile. He didn’t want her to think that he approved. “You’re starting to sound like my mother.”
“Maybe that’s because she’s sensible.”
Ouch. “And you’re saying that I’m not?”
“Well, you’re working two days after an accident. I’ll let you do the math.” There was a challenge twinkling in her warm brown eyes.
He didn’t have the energy to verbally spar with her. The truth was that he hadn’t slept well the night before. “And how are you?”
She waved off his question as her gaze moved to the desktop. “I don’t understand. Aster said it would be here.”
He paused as though there was something he wanted to say but then changed his mind. He looked down and pushed a drawer closed.
“It has to be here.” She stepped closer to the desk.
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Did you check the rest of the office?”
“No. I checked all of the drawers, but I didn’t have time to check elsewhere.”
“Well, let’s look around some more.” Lily moved to the bookcase. “It must be here somewhere.”
He sighed and nodded.
Every now and then, he would glance in Lily’s direction. Ever since the accident, he’d wanted to talk to her about what had happened between them, but between the family dinner and now searching for the computer, it never seemed like the right time.
She didn’t know how to act around him.
Lily wanted to go to him, throw her arms around him, and hug him tight. She was so grateful that he was safe—that both of them had gotten out with relatively minor injuries. And then she wanted to make him go home and rest.
But just like the day before at dinner, she didn’t feel right about doing any of those things. He seemed so distant now. The man took life too seriously. He even had a bowtie back on. How he’d tied it with one hand was beyond her.
They searched the office—twice. There was no laptop there. However, they did uncover a notebook with some notations about the arts festival, but it was far from a complete plan.
At this point, Lily didn’t know what vendors were going to attend the festival. She didn’t know how many were food vendors and how many would be artisans.
She took the notebook and sat down at the desk. She flipped through the notebook page by page, hoping she’d missed something.
She hadn’t.
“It’s not here,” Tony said.
“I figured that out. And this notebook, it’s not a lot of help.”
He reached for his phone. “I’ll call Aster—”
“No!” When he sent her a confused look, she said, “You can’t cause her any stress. Her and the baby’s lives were on the line.”
He leaned back against the wall. “So, what are we going to do?”
“Well, if the laptop isn’t here, maybe she left it at home. There aren’t too many places it could be. Right?”
Tony nodded. “Right.”
With the notebook in hand, she reached for her phone and texted Sam.
Lily: Are you going to be home today?
Sam: I’m home right now. What’s up?
Lily: I’ll explain when I get there.
Sam: I’ll see you soon.
When she glanced up, Tony asked, “What was that about?”
“I’m going to stop by the Bell farm. Sam is there now.”
“Couldn’t you just ask him on the phone?”
She shrugged. “I could. But I’m guessing he hasn’t seen the laptop or noticed it so I might have to jar his memory. I just thought it would be easier to do it in person. Besides, I was going to have to go pick it up anyhow.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
She got to her feet. “You’re going too?”
“Sure.”
She shook her head. “You need to go home and rest?”
“No. I have things to do.”
“Good. Go do them.” She walked right past him and out the door.
She headed down the steps and out the front door into the sunshine.
It was a beautiful August day. She was finally able to take a deep breath.
There was something about being around Tony that made her nervous.
She couldn’t take a full breath around him.
And when he looked directly at her, her thoughts became scrambled.
She set off back to the craft shop to pick up her golf cart to drive out to the Bell farm. However, she had only made it a block when she got waylaid by a crowd of onlookers. But she had no idea what they were looking at. Some people were holding up their phones to film something.
She asked a random stranger, “What’s going on?”
“There’s a goat in the road.”
There was only one goat that liked to visit town. Dasher.
She never would have thought a goat would like being around all of these people, but that little pygmy goat didn’t mind having his photo taken. In fact, she was starting to think that Dasher loved the attention. Why else would he keep running away from the Bell farm?
She excused herself as she worked her way through the crowd. When she finally laid eyes on the black and white goat, he had dumped a garbage can and appeared to be having a late lunch.
She ignored the cameras and the crowd as she slowly approached the goat. Dasher was known to locals as Bluestar’s infamous escape artist. It didn’t matter what they did to pen him in; he eventually slipped free from the Bell farm. He inevitably made his way into town.
Lily never had to catch him before, but the Bell family already had their hands full with Aster being in the hospital. If she could get Dasher home without calling Sam, all the better.
“Hey, Dasher,” she said in a gentle, soothing voice.
A hush fell over the crowd as she drew closer to the little goat. Dasher was eating popcorn. Apparently it must be one of his favorites because he lifted his head and looked at her before going back to his feast.
While Dasher ate, she inched closer to him.
Every now and again, he’d raise his head.
She would stop moving. He’d eye her up as though warning her not to try and steal his abundance of discarded fries and bits of sandwiches and who knew what else.
Well, he certainly had nothing to worry about on that account. Eew!
Instead, her goal was to reach for his red collar with the little gold bell. If she could just get ahold of it, then she’d have him.
“It’s okay, Dasher,” she said in a calm, steady voice. “You know me. I visit you at the farm every now and then.”
He didn’t seem bothered by her nearing him. But then again, she wasn’t close enough to touch him.
“You just keep eating. That’s a good boy.”
Step by step, she drew closer...