Snow Angel (The Hope Falls Chronicles) Read online

  The position she was in now wasn’t half bad either. She stood before him in tight yoga pants and a sports bra. His brain almost couldn’t process what his eyes were seeing.

  Lily’s body was a work of art. The perfect combination of every fantasy woman he’d ever had. She had long, shapely legs. Luscious hips he could hold on to as he drove inside of her. Full, perfect breasts that made his hands itch to feel their weight. A toned, flat belly that he made him want to pepper kisses from her hip bone to her ribs.

  Shadow’s bark pulled him out of his lust-haze. He looked down and saw his four-legged friend sitting in front of him, wagging his tail rapidly. Eric reached down to pet his head. “Hey, boy, were you good for Lily?”

  “He was perfect. He snuggled up to me all night.”

  I bet he did.

  Shadow lay down on the hardwood floor and rolled over so Eric could pet his belly. Eric knew he had to get to work. He was running late because he’d overslept this morning. All night, all he’d been able to do was think about the way Lily’s lips felt beneath his. The softness of her hair as it ran between his fingers. The small sounds of pleasure she made that had driven him crazy with desire. He’d tossed and turned fort the entire night.

  “Do you have any plans tonight?” he asked, knowing that he wanted to figure out whatever was going on between them. Or at the very least just get to know her better. He was trying to take things slow, but he definitely wanted to keep them moving in the right direction.

  “Umm, actually I do. I was invited to go to a book club meeting,” she said. Then, smiling, she added, “And I’ve already read the book so I’m prepared.”

  “My sister Amy goes to 'book club meetings.' Just to give you a heads-up, I don’t think that the topics discussed have anything to do with the books.”

  Lily’s brow furrowed. “Really? What topics are discussed?”

  “From what I’ve heard, it’s mostly men or whatever crisis one of the participants happens to be having at the time.”

  “Well that sounds like fun too.” Lily shrugged happily.

  Even having the advantage of having two sisters, both of which were complete opposites, Eric didn’t think he would ever truly understand women if that’s what they considered “fun.”

  Knowing he didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to see Lily, he asked, “What about lunch? Do you have any plans?”

  “I got roped into teaching a seniors salsa class at noon today.” Her voice sounded frustrated but her eyes danced with amusement.

  “You got roped in?”

  “Yep, Mayor Walker called last night to ask me if I was interested, and before I could give him my answer, he thanked me, told me the time and place, and practically hung up on me.”

  “Yep, that sounds like Henry,” Eric smiled affectionately. When Eric’s dad Sean had moved to town over forty years ago, he and Henry had become fast friends. They had even both courted Eric’s mom Rosalie. Even though his dad ultimately won his mom’s heart, the two men had remained great friends

  “How about after class I take you out to lunch?” Eric asked.

  “Umm…” Lily didn’t answer right away. Her eyes darted down to the ground, and Eric was starting to feel like he had put her on the spot.

  Finally, after what felt like at least ten minutes but was probably not more than one, her eyes lifted and a small smile crossed her gorgeous face. “Okay. Lunch sounds nice.”

  Eric let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. It was just lunch but it also felt like the beginning of something much bigger to him. “Are you teaching at the Community Center?”

  She nodded.

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at one.”

  “’Kay.”

  “Come, Shadow,” Eric said as he made his way out of the small space. Shadow didn’t put up a fight this time and stepped in right beside Eric happily. He reached down to pet him. Eric had missed him last night. Since he came so willingly, maybe Shadow had missed Eric too. As soon as the front door was open, Shadow ran to his food bowl and chowed down.

  Or maybe he just missed his food.

  Well, seeing that Shadow spent the night cuddled up in Lily’s bed, it’s not like Eric could blame him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lily had taught dance to toddlers, teenagers, and adults. She had even worked with couples on the verge of divorce using dance in an attempt to salvage a failing marriage. Never in her wildest dreams would she have expected that her most difficult class by far would be teaching senior citizens.

  She’d already had to separate Mr. Bryson and Mrs. Crandall for arguing over which leg they should be starting on. The crazy thing was they were both right but somehow kept arguing.

  Then Mrs. Lemont asked for a new partner because Mr. Rickles kept letting his hand wander down to inappropriate places. He maintained he didn’t know what she was ‘babbling’ about, but Lily had seen him goose Mrs. Lemont with her own eyes.

  Mrs. Rivers and Mrs. Samson had gotten into a screaming match over who was going to partner up with Mayor Walker. They’d ended up flipping a coin, but it had still been quite an ordeal. And it was only fifteen minutes into class and two students already had to sit down and use their portable oxygen tanks.

  The whole class wasn’t disruptive. In fact, there were three couples who were listening, following her exact directions, and even smiling with silent support while she dealt with various outrageous incidents. She wanted to make sure to thank them after class. Oh, and get their names since she hadn’t had a chance to meet them because her time had been monopolized by her other more challenging students.

  Lily thought she might have things on track as she finished explaining and demonstrating the next step they would be working on. “Are there any questions?”

  Mr. Rickles raised his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you single?” Mr. Rickles wiggled his bushy eyebrows at her.

  She tried to suppress her smile. If Mr. Rickles knew how entertaining she thought his hijinks were, he would only turn up the heat on them and she didn’t want to deal with that. “Does anyone have any questions regarding dance?”

  He raised his had once again.

  “Yes, Mr. Rickles.”

  “Do you have a dance partner in life?” he asked, obviously quite proud of himself for being able to pull that one out of his hat.

  Again, she didn’t acknowledge how amused she was. Keeping a straight face, she ignored his play on words and continued. “Okay, so moving—”

  “You know my grandson Bill is single,” Mrs. Crandall chimed in. “You two would make a lovely couple.”

  “Well now, so is my Steve. And he is actually employed unlike”—Mrs. Samson tilted her head, motioning to Mrs. Crandall—“some people’s kin.”

  “Okay, everyone liste—”

  “Now, my Peter is who you should be with.” Mrs. Lemont wagged her wrinkled finger at Lily. “He is a good Christian boy with good Christian values.”

  Everyone started speaking at once, and Lily felt like her head was going to explode. They were all giving her the résumés of their respective grandchildren. One even offered a credit score.

  So maybe things weren’t as on track as she had hoped. Lily took a deep breath. She needed to get control of this room and she needed to do it now.

  “Listen,” Lily said, raising her voice, standing a little taller than she had been just a moment ago. “I am here to teach you all to salsa. That’s all. This isn’t The Dating Game. Anyone who is not interested in learning how to salsa, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  Complete silence fell over the room. Lily knew it was silly but she felt like she had actually accomplished something. There were thirteen pairs of eyes glued to her. She had every single one of these ornery seniors’ attention.

  “Okay. Now, as I was saying, gentlemen, take your lady’s right hand with your left. Ladies, place your left hand on your partner’s shoulder. Gentlemen, place your right hand on yo
ur partner’s lower back. Please look each other in the eyes.”

  All of the students did as Lily said, and she started the music. She sing-songed the directions. “Hold a beat. Now step forward with your left foot. Rock back with your right foot. Step back with your left foot. Hold a beat. Step back with your right foot. Rock forward with your left foot. Step forward with your right foot.”

  As Lily watched couples move mostly in time to the beat, she felt…proud. She had actually gotten this room of rascally seniors to listen to her. She hadn’t known she was even remotely capable of doing that.

  For some reason, Eric’s face popped into her head.

  Was it because she was meeting him for lunch? Nope. Was it because of the smokin’ hot lip-lock they’d shared? No. Was it because she desperately wanted to see him shirtless with about a day’s worth of stubble? Oddly enough, the answer was still no.

  When she dug deep, she realized that she wished he were here to see her accomplishment. What did that mean? Sure, she knew she was attracted to him. That was more than obvious. And she loved his dog. But why in the world would she want him to see her teaching a bunch of elderly people how to dance?

  The second the question popped into her mind, the answer followed. Because you want him to be proud of you. As soon as it did, she began questioning it.

  Did she?

  Why did it matter if a guy she’d met a couple of weeks ago thought highly of her?

  She didn’t have the answer to that, but she knew if she was being honest with herself that the reason didn’t matter. Lily absolutely wanted Eric to be proud of her.

  She wished Eric were here, witnessing her accomplishment. That little factoid in her consciousness scared the living daylights out of her.

  Lily heard a thud and then several screams. She rushed to the middle of the room where Mr. Rickles was lying flat on his back on the floor. She froze.

  Oh my God, he’s dead.

  “Call an ambulance!” she heard Mayor Walker instruct.

  Well, now she was certainly glad Eric was not here.

  “Move out of the way.” She tried to keep her voice calm and authoritative. With this crowd, she had to. “I know CPR.”

  Not that she’d ever thought she’d have to use it on anyone! Especially on someone in his nineties. She knelt down beside Mr. Rickles and felt for a pulse. It was faint but there. Then she gripped her hands together the way the instructor in her class had shown her to and placed them on his chest.

  Here goes nothing.

  ---~---

  Eric cracked his knuckles before returning his fingers to his keyboard. Rolling his head from side to side, he took in a deep breath through his nose and opened and shut his eyes several times before attempting to focus on his screen once again.

  He knew that this report was not going to write itself, but he just could not seem to get it done. Not only was his caffeine buzz wearing off, he also kept checking the clock every two minutes or so, waiting for it to reach twelve forty five so he could leave to go pick up Lily for their lunch date. He felt like a kid at Christmas waiting for his parents to wake up so he could open his presents.

  “Chief Maguire,” the female voice of his very young secretary buzzed over the telephone intercom.

  He pushed the talk button. “Yes Jill.”

  “A…umm…Judge Pattinson is holding for you on line six,” she said curtly before disconnecting the line.

  Eric knew he was getting old when at least two or three times a week the thought ‘What’s wrong with kids these days?’ ran through his head. He just didn’t understand how Jill expected to keep her job when she was on her personal phone for at least five hours out of her eight-hour shift. She was, if not rude, at least definitely not friendly to people on the phone, and she was never on time.

  He would have fired her already if Tamera, who was in charge of human resources, wasn’t out on disability. Which, come to think of it, the circumstances under which she’d been granted disability blew his mind as well.

  She’d come to work one Monday morning, and while she was pouring herself a cup of coffee, she had spilled some on her hand, causing second degree burns. She’d been out for three months and she was getting paid.

  Eric realized that maybe he was just old school, but he’d been raised of the mindset that if you spilled coffee on yourself, you didn’t collect workers’ comp for the injuries. Also, when you were being paid to work, you didn’t handle personal business like trolling social media sites. You were polite to people. And most importantly, you showed up for your job on time.

  He pushed the blinking light beside line seven, not line six like Jill had indicated, and tried to shove down his frustration. “Hello, Your Honor. How are you doing today?”

  Judge Pattinson preferred to be referred to as Your Honor. Eric figured since he’d served his time on the bench—nearly thirty years—he deserved the respect of that distinction.

  “I was doing much better before I received the background check on my new tenant,” he said in his trademark dry, authoritative tone. It was the very same one he had used when Eric was a kid when he and Jake had been playing around at the park and Jake had gotten distracted and not caught a popup. The baseball had gone right through the windshield of the Judge’s Mercedes, which had been parked across the street at the Municipal Building.

  Hearing it again caused Eric’s blood to run cold. For one, when the Judge spoke in that tone, it didn’t matter who you were. You always felt like you had done something horribly wrong. But also, the very thing that had caused the honorable Judge Pattinson to use such a tone was the very person Eric was pretty sure he was falling for. Hard.

  “What does the problem seem to be?” Eric asked, reminding himself that, as the Judge had gotten up in years, it took very little to get him worked up into a state.

  “She’s not who she says she is,” the Judge stated, raising his voice about ten decibels.

  Eric remained calm. No reaction was better than an overreaction. “Really. Who is she then?”

  “Look, son, don’t get smart with me.” Judge Pattinson’s tone caused Eric to regret any tiny bit of a patronizing tone that may have dripped through in his response. The man deserved respect, no matter what Eric’s feelings were on the subject he was broaching.

  “Sorry, Sir,” he immediately apologized.

  “Now, I need you to run a full background check on one Miss Liliana Sotelo. I’m going to have Gloria at the front desk send you her social, birth date, and signature paper for the background check over the computer mail.”

  “E-mail.” Eric didn’t mean any disrespect. He only corrected the Judge because if he was lucky enough to live as long as Judge Pattinson had, he would want someone to correct him.

  “E-mail,” Pattison echoed with frustration.

  “What are you looking for specifically?” Eric didn’t know if he should be focusing on employment history, personal contacts, or rental history. He did know one thing for sure though. He really didn’t like the idea of going behind Lily’s back. Even if it was his job.

  He could pass it along to some rookie if the department wasn’t already so understaffed. Also, the idea of someone else digging into Lily’s past bothered him even more than the thought of him doing it.

  “Well specifically I’d like to find out just who in the hell is living in my house,” Judge Pattinson huffed, sounding more and more upset by the minute.

  Eric took a deep breath, knowing that he needed to handle this with kid gloves. So he tried a different tactic. “What makes you think that you don’t already know who is living in your house?”

  “When Lauren came by and gave me the credit report she’d run with the application, I realized that it only went back two years. I asked her about it and she said that it was the standard. That bothered me, so I asked a friend of mine that owns a private eye firm to do a little digging on her. Where she grew up, if she had any kids, siblings. Verify her social. Basic stuff.”

  The J
udge stopped talking, and Eric was sure he must have had more to say so he just waited to hear him out. Judge Pattinson did not continue. That couldn’t be the end of his story.

  Okay.

  “And what did they find?” Eric prompted.

  “Well that’s the thing. They didn’t find anything. It’s like before she popped up in Sacramento two years ago, Liliana Sotelo didn’t exist. I don’t know what she’s up to, but I don’t like the idea of a seedy element in my house.”

  Eric really hoped this was all just a big mistake. But his gut was telling him that something was definitely not right. Still, there was no reason to alarm the Judge. Also, Lily was a lot of things. Gorgeous. Talented. Sweet. Sexy. But seedy she was not.

  “Listen, Lily is not at all seedy. I would be just as concerned as you if I believed that, since she’s my neighbor. I will look into this and get back to you.”

  “You do that,” the Judge said before disconnecting the call.

  Eric sat stock-still for a moment, trying to process that call. Then he noticed the time. It was twelve fifty. He needed to go pick up his date. Lily. Then after lunch he needed to run a thorough background check on his date. Lily.

  When he had said he didn’t want ‘simple,’ he sure as hell never thought things would be this complicated. Eric guessed the old saying was true—be careful what you wish for.

  Chapter Twelve

  Eric pulled up in front of the Community Center and saw Engine 42 parked in front of it. That was his brother Jake’s rig. What in the hell?

  He stepped out of his SUV and began walking towards the front entrance of the building where he now noticed several emergency vehicles including an ambulance. As he stepped around the fire engine, he was stopped up short by what he saw.

  Lily was talking with his brother and his parents. Both she and his mom were cracking up at something Jake had just said. His father looked less amused.

  “Howya, boyo!” his dad called out in an old Irish greeting when he saw Eric walking toward the group, opening his arms.