Forever...Again. Maureen Child
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simply confounded him. She had no plan. She had no work ethic. She had no…she had no business wearing bright red suits with short skirts and high heels that totally distracted a perfectly sane man.
When Mari first hired Lily as the new PR director for the clinic, Ron had expected to dislike the woman on sight. He’d assumed she’d roar into this tiny corner of Kentucky and proclaim it backwoodsy. Instead, she was dropping seamlessly into life here and, damn it, doing a good job with the clinic as well. Which only served to heighten his confusion.
“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she asked, and he hated that he noticed the deep timbre of her voice.
Telling himself to stop acting like a dumbstruck teenager, Ron got a grip on his roving thoughts and spoke up. “I’m here to pick up the list of people you’re inviting to the fund-raiser.”
One blond eyebrow lifted into a delicate arch over her steady brown eyes. “You’re a messenger now?”
He scowled at her. “Simply doing a favor.”
Lily smiled then, and he tried not to notice the wattage in that simple act. But when the woman turned on the juice, her whole face lit up and her eyes seemed to sparkle.
“I know,” she said. “Just teasing. Actually, I spoke to your mother this morning. I already sent a copy of the list to her.”
Ron frowned and wondered why in the hell his mother hadn’t bothered to tell him that this trip to the clinic was unnecessary. If he’d known, he could have stayed away and saved both himself and Lily the bother of yet another round in their game of one-upmanship.
She swung her legs off the edge of the desk in a graceful sweep that caught his attention despite his better judgment. But hell, he was male, wasn’t he? Only natural that he should notice a pair of shapely legs. And as she slid her feet into the high heels that did absolutely amazing things for her calves, he told himself there was nothing unusual about looking. It was touching that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow himself.
Not that he wanted to touch.
He groaned inwardly and focused his gaze on her big brown eyes instead. He wasn’t entirely sure which view was safer.
She stood up and her bold red suit seemed to cling to every curve. And, God help him, she had plenty of curves. She wasn’t very tall, no more than five-six or -seven, but every inch of her was solidly packed.
“I can give you another copy if you like…”
“Not necessary,” he said, already backing toward the door. Coward his brain whispered.
Damn right, he countered silently.
“If you’re worried about the clinic, you needn’t be,” she said.
Instantly Ron’s attention shifted to where it should, hopefully, remain. On business.
“You’ll forgive me if I go ahead and worry anyway.”
“Of course you will.”
The sigh behind her words had him asking, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She eased one hip onto the corner of her desk, perching gingerly against the antique furniture. “I only meant that people like you will worry whether there’s cause or not.”
“People like me?”
She lifted her left hand into a brief wave, and that bracelet of hers chimed musically. “You know, stuffy, stalwart types.”
Stalwart he could live with. Stuffy seemed a little…insulting.
“And you figure you know my ‘type’ quite well, do you?”
“Not hard to guess.”
Leave now, he thought. Leave before you get drawn into yet another contest of wills with a woman who had absolutely no “back-up gear” in her. Naturally though, he couldn’t do that.
“I’m fascinated,” he said dryly.
She smiled briefly. “Oh, I can see that.”
“Please, explain my ‘type.”’
She paused, watching him, and even the air between them hummed with expectation. Then she started talking.
“Okay…” She pushed off the desk and walked across her ridiculously expensive and out-of-place rug to stop just inches in front of him. “I grew up around people as sturdy as you, you know. So I speak from experience.”
“Can’t wait.”
One corner of her mouth twitched, and his gaze fastened on the curve of her lip, damn it.
“You always do what’s expected of you.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Just boring.”
“And boring is a crime?”
“Just tedious.”
“Oh,” he said, giving her a slow nod, “do go on.”
“All right.” She walked a slow circle around him, and Ron could have sworn he felt her gaze sweep him up and down as if he were an interesting slide show in a biology class. “You make decisions based on what’s best for ‘the family.’ Never any side trip into interesting…just a long, slow trip on the main highway. Go where you’re supposed to be and get there in the prescribed manner.”
He shifted position uncomfortably. She managed to make him sound like an automaton.
“And you prefer the side roads?”
“Of course.” She shrugged.
“Don’t you get lost?”
“See new territory, discover new things.”
“And you don’t believe in maps, then, either?”
“Maps.” She shook her head. “They’re for outlining the road, and what fun is that? You might as well stay at home and draw red lines on an atlas. If you’re not open to discovery, why go at all?”
“Are we still talking about stodgy, stalwart lives or have we moved on to summer road trips?”
“I said ‘stuffy’ not ‘stodgy’,” she corrected. “And isn’t life the same thing as a good road trip?”
“How do you figure?” Somehow he’d lost control of this conversation. That happened all too often around Lily Cunningham. She seemed to have her own sort of logic that defied description.
She stopped in front of him again and tipped her head back so that she was looking directly into his eyes. The soft scent of jasmine lifted from her hair, and before he could remind himself not to notice…he had.
“Everyone starts out on the same road. Some of us stay on the highway—some of us take the back roads.” She smiled again. “Just like life. Some of us never look away from the goal long enough to be sure there isn’t some other goal that would be just as good if not better. You miss a lot when you never get off the highway.”
“Maybe,” Ron said. “But you don’t run into many dead ends that way, either.”
Chapter Two
Ridiculous, but hours later Lily was still thinking about her conversation with Ron Bingham. There was simply something about the man. That could be good…or bad. But either way, he was spending far too much time in her thoughts.
Deliberately turning her mind away from him, Lily swung her leather bag over her shoulder and left her office for the day. Heading down the hall, she walked in step to the music drifting through the speakers. Passing through the waiting room, she smiled at a little boy holding up his scribbled drawing of what might have been a pony—if ponies were allowed six legs. Tired mothers and pregnant women still crowded the waiting room and Lily knew Mari wouldn’t leave the building