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I swallowed the guilt that built up in my throat. I was just going to make sure she was safe, it had nothing to do with wanting to see her. Nope, not at all.
5
Winnie
“Thanks so much for meeting me here, Lily,” I hugged my friend.
It was Saturday morning and one of my two days off. Mom and Dad watched Daisy during the week for Gray, so I handled everything diner related Monday through Friday and they took care of the weekends. I usually spent my days off catching up on laundry and reality TV but I decided I needed a treat for working so much lately. A treat in the form of a day of shopping with my friend and eating food someone else delivered to me.
Lily moved to town about a year ago and had started her home baking business. Her orders blew up in the last few months because she was incredibly talented and made the most delicious desserts I’d ever tasted. We served some of her pies and cakes at the diner and they were a huge hit with our customers.
If she wasn’t a baker, I would have thought she was a schoolteacher with how patient and sweet she was. Lily was a little taller than me with wavy brown hair and kind eyes that were framed by thick glasses. I met her one day in the diner and we immediately clicked, I could honestly say she had become one of my closest friends.
“I’m just glad to get out of the house for the day. Lunch is on me, it’s the least I can do for taking over your kitchen this week.”
“Someone should use it, lord knows I don’t. I think your baking is the most action my oven has seen since I moved in.” We both laughed.
“Well, I’m grateful either way. I also really enjoyed getting to spend time with your niece, Daisy is just the cutest thing and she is such a sweetheart.”
I looked at my friend doubtfully. Daisywascute and I loved the absolute crap out of that little girl but her decorating skills left a lot to be desired. The rainbow unicorn cupcakes Lily had been making for a birthday party had looked more like poop emojis with lopsided horns. I don’t even know how Daisy got the color brown from two different shades of pink. When my brother had picked her up, she had shown him the cupcakes declaring that she wanted to be a baker when she grew up just like Ms. Lily.
“Have you heard anything else about the psychos that are robbing restaurants?” Lily asked. I had filled her in on the crimes while we recreated the cupcakes late into the night.
“No,” I shivered at the mention. “We have a top-of-the-line security system at the diner thanks to my brother and his team. Lots of cameras and codes that are so long it took me weeks to memorize them. My parents said that they came by the other day to check everything and review our closing procedures. No one closes alone now and we make sure to lock all the doors and turn on the system after the last customer leaves.”
“That’s good news. I wanted to come to Little Falls because it was small and safe, it’s scary to think of something that terrible happening here.”
“Little Falls is definitely safe,” I reassured her quickly. She wasn’t very open about her past before she moved to Little Falls and I didn’t want to push her and risk our friendship, but Lily seemed to be a very cautious person. The kind of cautious that came from something awful happening in your past to be that way.
“I’m not that worried. This has just been a really busy week at the diner, I desperately needed a girls’ day,” I changed the subject.
“I know how you feel. It’s really getting difficult handling all my orders in my little kitchen, especially when I only have one oven and it stops working.”
“Have you thought anymore about moving the business out of your house?” I thanked the waiter as he filled our water glasses.
“Yes and no,” she answered. “Obviously, owning my own bakery is a dream of mine and I would love to be able to hire some help. But I’m nervous about taking that next step that I haven’t even looked for possible store fronts.”
“You know, my brother actually owns the building where his office is and I remember him saying that he was looking for a tenant for the space next door. Maybe we could go over there later today and you could take a look, see if it would work for you. If you like it, we could even stop in and talk to Gray about leasing information,” I said, getting excited about this idea.
“Your brother?” she squeaked out and cleared her throat. “Um, I guess there wouldn’t be any harm in just looking.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Absolutely, no pressure at all,” I winked at her. Ways to blackmail Gray into making my friend’s dream become a reality were already running through my mind.
* * *
Walking into Falls Security,I noticed the front desk was still empty. Gray can be demanding and his last receptionist quit after calling him a “bossy jerk face.” Roe had recorded the encounter and texted it to me secretly. Whenever I was having a bad day, I would play it and laugh at the look of shock on my brother’s face.
“Hey, it’s little James,” Roe announced, walking out of the back hall. Speak of the devil. “Did our anal, authoritarian leader force you to spend your weekend in mandatory training, too?”
“I heard that,” my brother growled, shouldering his way past him. “The training wouldn’t be necessary if you wouldn’t have told one of our highest paying clients that his wife was ‘banging the tennis instructor’ but he shouldn’t care because it was obvious that he was doing more than driving the nanny home every night.”
“You hired me for my amazing fingers and my big, beautiful brain. It isn’t my fault you told me to update the client and he didn’t like what I had to say,” he shrugged. Roe was the tech guy for Falls Security. What all that entailed I wasn’t quite sure but I definitely got the impression it wasn’t always on the legal side. Lily giggled next to me, drawing Gray’s attention and I remembered why we had come there in the first place.
“Gray, you remember my friend, Lily. She’s looking for a storefront for her baking business and I told her you had that vacant space next door and would be more than happy to talk to her about it,” I stated, not giving him an option. Sometimes backing Gray into a corner was the best course of action to take when I didn’t want him to shut me down.
Gray’s eyes focused on Lily in what I called the “badass stare.” All of the Falls Security guys did it, Sam included. They must have learned it in the Marines as a way to intimidate and unnerve people. It involved staring at their target unblinkingly, arms usually crossed over their chests displaying their impressive muscles, until the other person cracked. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t work on me or Daisy, but Lily began to fidget next to me, picking at the hem of her pale blue sundress. This was perfect, my brother was going to freak out my friend and she wouldn’t ever want to hang out with me again.
“Hey, loser,” I waved my hand in front of his face to break his concentration. “You’re being rude,” that seemed to shake Gray out of it. After he mumbled an apology, he began asking Lily questions about what she needed.
