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Lily glared at him. “Not today, Satan.”
“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” Ashton looked as if he might burst out laughing. “Calling me Satan?”
“You’re tempting me to say something I might regret,” Lily retorted. “Weren’t you listening to the sermon?”
“Of course. I was most attentive.”
“But you’re not practicing what the preacher said.”
Ashton looked wounded. “Here I am, just standing here minding my own business and she calls me Satan,” he said, looking around. “It hurts my heart.”
It was Lily’s turn to suppress a grin despite her irritation. “If you really cared about your heart you wouldn’t detain me and tempt me to say unkind things.”
He heaved a sigh. “All right, then. I’ll let you go. Have a good day, Lily.” He smiled at her, his blue eyes regarding her appreciatively as he gave a little wave.
She ignored him and kept walking, wishing that he didn’t look quite so handsome in his best dark blue pants and white shirt. It would be much easier to stay mad at him. She huffed out a great breath of frustration. Her heart still skipped a beat when he smiled at her like that, and she had no idea what to do about it.
“You’ll have to feed Henry tonight,” Bec said a few days later as she tossed some clothing into a bag. “I’m going over to Sophie’s for the night. We’re going to watch movies and eat junk food and commiserate over the love lives we don’t have. I’m staying over.”
“Great. Whose pig is he, anyway?” Lily grumbled.
Bec wagged a finger in her face. “Uh-uh. We’re into this escapade in equal shares, remember? That means equal responsibility, too.”
“No one said I signed up for this. All I had to do was provide a safe haven for Henry, as I recall.”
“Well, I guess you could ignore him,” Bec said airily. “But he might raise a ruckus that will have every neighbor for miles around on your doorstep. Or he might eat his way through the fence.”
Lily looked at her in horror. “He wouldn’t!”
“He might if you don’t feed him. He likes his food, remember. If he doesn’t get it, he might go looking for it elsewhere.”
“All right, I’ll make sure I do it,” Lily said hastily. “The last thing I want is trouble with the neighbors.”
“Thanks,” Bec said cheerfully. “He really is a darling. He thinks anyone who feeds him is wonderful.”
“Until the day they don’t and then he’ll probably eat them,” Lily said sourly.
“Just feed him on time and all will be well,” Bec said. “Have a great evening, Lil. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The evening passed uneventfully. Lily fed Henry before sundown and went to bed early with a book. She awoke early the next morning and lay in bed for a while before she remembered that Bec wasn’t home and she would have to feed Henry. It was past the time he usually got his breakfast, and she was suddenly worried that he might be causing trouble. She jumped out of bed, got dressed, and hurried out to the rear porch, where she saw Henry peering up at her hopefully. Relief surged through her heart. He hadn’t eaten his way out of the yard and the neighbors weren’t banging on her door demanding to know why she was harboring a stolen pig.
“You scared me, Henry,” she told him as she trotted downstairs with the sack of food in her hand. “Quite apart from the mess you’re making of my yard, you’re a worry in case the neighbors find out you’re here.”
She emptied the food into the trough and Henry was soon munching with his usual lack of elegance. A noise on Gloria’s side of the fence made Lily turn her head. Something scraped along the wooden panels and made the entire fence shudder. Just as it dawned on Lily’s horrified mind that she was hearing the metallic sounds of a ladder against the fence, Gloria’s head popped over the top. Her mouth formed a huge O of shock as she spotted Henry eating his breakfast on the other side of the yard.
“I knew there was a pig!” she exclaimed triumphantly, pointing over the fence.
But before Lily could respond, the ladder started to slide sideways against the fence. Gloria’s expression went from triumphant to horrified as she disappeared behind the fence with a scream.
THUD!
Lily rushed toward the fence. “Gloria,” she said urgently. “Are you okay?”
An agonized groan was the only sound from the other side. Lily bolted through the side gate and into Gloria’s backyard. She found her neighbor lying beside the fence, her leg crumpled beneath her at an awkward angle and the edge of the ladder across her cheek.
“Gloria!” Lily knelt beside the hapless woman.
More groans.
