"Go," Micah said instantly. "You can pay for the ad later, Lucy. Take my car." He reached into his pocket for his keys. "And let Lucy drive," he called after them. "I think Gert needs for you to get there in one piece."

Chapter Four.

Boone seemed to pay a lot more attention to the road if he wasn't actually driving on it. "The light was red," he commented, after she'd turned off Main Street.

"It's legal to turn right on red if no one's coming," she a.s.sured him. And I used a turn signal and actually checked before I turned.

"Go slow here. St. John always has a bunch of kids running around at the church. Most of them are his."

"I know." I go to that church, I shake hands with Eli St. John every Sunday, the women's group meets at the tearoom, and I take my turn in the nursery. I'm the one that's here, not you. Resentment nipped and flamed, and she had to bite down on her lower lip.

"Aren't you going to slow down before you turn? Mr. Morgan's crossing the street."

Mr. Morgan, walking his sheltie, was nowhere near the intersection in question. Only the tight lines of concern on Boone's face saved him. Lucy was not a proponent of violence, but she thought exceptions could be made. "Why don't you try to calm down?" she suggested. "Gert doesn't need anyone being hysterical."

It was the wrong thing to say.

"I told you Gert's everything to Kelly and me." His words were so terse they sounded as though they'd been snapped off like fresh green beans in nervous fingers. "That's not entirely accurate. Gert became our mother, but after Uncle Mike died, Sims was our father, too." He glared at her, then turned his eyes back toward the street. "The nosy old goat."

Gert, Crockett and Kelly were all standing on the porch when they got home, so Lucy stopped Micah's SUV at the curb. Boone was out of the vehicle before she had the key in the off position, loping up the brick path to the porch and taking the steps two at a time.

Gert raised her voice, so Lucy could hear as she approached. "He's going to be all right. I won't even consider the alternative." She had her hands on her hips, her purse hanging from one arm. When tears slipped down her cheek, she swiped them away with an impatient palm. "Martha Kline was bringing that big old Lincoln she drives in for maintenance when the brakes gave out completely. Sims was walking across the lot and the car b.u.mped him. He hit his head on the pump island when he fell." Her voice wobbled dangerously, and Boone put an arm around her. "d.a.m.n fool should have retired years ago. Maybe now he will." She tucked her purse under her arm and moved purposefully away from Boone. "They've taken him to the hospital in Cincinnati. I'm going there now."

"Not by yourself, you're not." Boone's face was white under his tan, his eyes dark again. The ring of keys he confiscated from his aunt rattled in his shaking hand.

Lucy wondered why he was trembling, but Crockett seemed to understand.

"I'll take her," he said easily, stepping forward.

Boone hesitated, then nodded, handing the keys to Crockett. "I'll go down and take care of the station. You'll call?"

"As soon as we know anything." Crockett took Gert's arm and started down the steps.

"I'm coming too." Kelly's chin jutted.

"Then step on it," Crockett said shortly, "and don't have any tantrums. No one has time for that now."

Lucy drove Boone to the service station before returning Micah's car to its parking spot. Having delivered the keys to their owner, she stood for a moment on the sidewalk outside the newspaper office, almost stepping foot-to-foot in indecision.

She didn't know what to do. The work was caught up at the tearoom as was the housekeeping in the private quarters. Even the laundry was done-the sheets dried on lines that stretched between T-posts in the backyard. Jack had mowed the lawn and helped her weed the garden. Free time was a commodity she hadn't had much of since arriving in Taft, and now that she had it, she didn't want it. She needed busyness to keep Sims's kind face from superimposing itself on her mind along with the memory of Boone's tortured expression when he'd taken Gert's keys.

He hadn't wanted to go to the hospital. Everyone else had known why-Lucy'd seen understanding in their features as Crockett took the responsibility of transporting Gert.

She wished she understood, too.

You're an outsider. You've been one all your life, so why is it all of a sudden a big deal?

Because she didn't want to be outside anymore. She wanted to be in Kelly's place as the comforter, holding Gert's hand against the fear that masked the older woman's face. Or she wanted to be Crockett, the rescuer, driving everyone where they needed to go. Even Jack had run to clean the windshield of Gert's car because she always parked it under the sycamore tree and the birds used its windows for a bathroom.

Lucy thought about Boone down at the service station and wondered what role he played. If this were a movie, he'd be the hero who managed to be both tortured and funny. But in real life, Boone was as alone as she was. He pumped gas and checked oil in the place of the man who'd been a father to him, probably praying and cursing in equal amounts.

Well.

Lucy could d.a.m.n well pump gas too. She'd always done it for herself before coming to Taft, where there were only two stations and full service was a given. She could clean windshields too, as long as she had a step stool. Boone didn't have to be alone. Checking oil could be a problem-she wouldn't know a dipstick from a kitchen skewer-but she could learn.

And maybe, just maybe, Lucy didn't have to be on the outside. At least for right now.

She'd learned not to count on more than that.

"Everyone's just buying a few dollars' worth. They're really stopping to find out how Sims is doing," Boone said when she approached, staring with consternation at the cars lined up at the pumps.

"I can help."

"Go for it." He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and handed her some fives, tens, and ones, then brought a handful of coins out of another pocket. "There's your bank. Give me a holler if someone wants their oil checked."

She grimaced the first time she splattered gasoline on her shoes, grinned when a carload of teenagers asked for seventy-seven cents' worth and paid in pennies, and laughed when Eli St. John offered to trade a couple of children for a tank of regular.

"That's not very Christian of you," she chided the minister, pumping his gas while he used the squeegee on the windows of his van.

"Sure it is. I'll give you some of the good ones. They're housebroken and everything." Eli's features sobered. "I'm on my way to the hospital. Have you heard anything yet?"

She shook her head. "Crockett said he'd call."

Eli nodded in Boone's direction. "He doing all right?"

"I think so." But she didn't know, not really. Boone laughed and joked with the customers, but his eyes were dark and impenetrable.

"Call if either of you needs me." Eli raised a hand to wave at Boone. "Have cell phone, will travel." He patted Lucy's shoulder before getting into the car.

"Thanks. Is the church supper all set up?"

"Some of the ladies are taking care of it. I'll try to get back before it's over."

She watched Eli's aging minivan drive away, marveling anew at the closeness of the little community where she found herself.

Jack rode his bicycle onto the lot. "Is Mr. Sims okay?"

"We don't know yet, but I hate to think what Gert will do to him if he's not." Lucy smiled and ruffled his already messy hair with a tentative hand.

He didn't pull away, which showed her the extent of his concern. So did his words. "I'd like to help."

"You'll be able to," she promised, "and now you'd better move your bike. We're developing a line." She waved at the two cars waiting for service. "See you later, Jack."

During a lull, Boone approached her. "Full service still closes at five on Sat.u.r.days, right?"

She nodded. "But I don't know how to set the pumps up so credit card users can still get gas. Do you?"

"Yeah, I found the instructions. Can you take care of this out here while I start shutting down the inside?" He squinted at the clock inside the station. "It's twenty after. I don't think anyone will say we closed too early."

The phone rang a few minutes later, its outside bell jangling. Lucy paused in sweeping the concrete-paved lot. Boone picked it up on the first ring. As he talked, he caught her gaze through the plate gla.s.s window and raised one hand in a familiar gesture, the thumb and index finger forming a circle. Okay.

Relief flowed through her, making her feel limp. She nearly dropped the broom. Thank You, G.o.d.

When he'd hung up, he leaned out the door. "Come on. We're going to have to hustle if we want to make that dinner not smelling like unleaded gas."

"Oh," she said, "I forgot."

"She forgot a date with me," he told the skies, lifting a hand in supplication. "I've lost my touch."

"Put this away." She shoved the broom at him. "It's not a date, you ninny. We're just going to the same place at the same time. Like now, when we're going home. What did Crockett say? Was he the one who called?"

He sobered. "Yeah. He says Sims has some broken bones and will be down for a while, but he'll be okay. Probably in a semi-permanent state of p.i.s.sed-off, but that doesn't have to do with his injuries."

She watched as he locked the door and then fell into step beside him. "The inactivity will drive him crazy."

The comment made her think of her father, whose body hadn't failed him even as his mind had. In one of the lucid moments before Alzheimer's had gone into its later stages, he'd mentioned that. "It's too bad I can't give this body to someone who still has the mind to use it. It seems like such a waste."

A chill rippled down her spine with the memory.

"Where are you, Lucy John?" Boone's voice reached her, gentle and quiet. "You've gone away." He propped an arm around her, held in place by hooking a hand on her shoulder. It was a comforting thing. A warming thing that eradicated the chill.

And more. It made her aware of the strength of the man who walked at her side, of the depth of his caring. It made her think about being in his arms with nothing but moonlit darkness between them.

"Just remembering my father," she said, thinking she should move away from his touch.

"He's dead?" He steered her around a sycamore root that had created a small mountain range in the sidewalk. "What about your mother?"

"She died when I was five. An aneurysm. She came into the kitchen saying, 'Oh, Johnny, I have such a headache,' and just that quickly she was gone. I don't think he ever fully recovered from the shock of it."

A shudder ran through the arm around her. Even the side of his body quaked. The agony in his face was startling in its intensity.

"That's what...Maggie, my wife..." He stopped, regaining his composure. "We were dancing around the room when she said that, what your mother said about the headache, and then she left me. She never spoke again."

"Oh," she said. "Oh, Boone, I'm so sorry." Words failed her then.

She slipped her arm around his waist as they turned onto Twilight Park Avenue.

"But she didn't die." He went on as though Lucy hadn't spoken. It was her turn to steer him. His eyes were open, but he wasn't watching where he was going-rather, he was staring somewhere inside himself, somewhere deep and painful. His cheeks were pale, his mobile features carved and still. "I called 911 and they took her to the hospital. They kept her alive with machines for seven days. I knew she was gone, her parents knew she was gone, but we couldn't let her heart stop beating. There was nothing more that could be done, no hope she would recover, and I had to let her go. I had to." His voice was strained, sounding as though he were forcing the words out one by painful one.

Perhaps he was.

"Of course you did, but that didn't make it any easier, did it?"

He shuddered again as they stepped onto the porch of Tea on Twilight. She laced her fingers through his. She couldn't protect him from the pain, but maybe she could absorb some of it.

"No, and I've never forgiven myself for it. Neither has Crockett."

Lucy startled into motionlessness "What do you mean?"

"I know there's a part of him that thinks if Maggie had married him, she'd still be alive and well-" he pushed the door open and nudged her inside before removing his arm from around her, "-and there's a part of me that agrees with him."

"Never?" Boone stared at Lucy in disbelief. "It's impossible to have lived over thirty years in the United States and never have been to a church supper."

"No, it's not," she said calmly, fluffing at the hair that framed her face in soft curls. "We didn't go to church as I was growing up, and even when I started going, I didn't get involved. It seemed like there was never enough time." She examined the sundress she wore, seeming to take offense to the sight of her suntanned knees and sandaled feet. "You're sure this is okay for it?"

He latched onto her arm and pulled her out the door. "If that dress was any more okay, Eli would be raffling you off to make money for the church. You know the man has no conscience."

She laughed, shrugging off his arm and running down the steps ahead of him. "He wouldn't get very much out of me. I'm generic, not a name brand."

"You have a skewed sense of self-worth," he commented, catching up and moving to the street side.

The smile she flashed at him was bright but brittle. "Life is skewed, Boone."

"So it is." He knew that, but he wished she didn't. She wore an air of naivete he didn't want to see diminished. It gave him an uncommon wish to protect, much like he felt with Kelly. But different. Way different. He reached for her hand as they approached the corner, liking the feel of her small fingers laced in his.

"But it's good," she added cheerfully, raising her free hand to wave to Micah Walker and his wife, Landy. "Not always, but sometimes. You need to hold onto the good things to get you through the bad."

Ah, there it was, the innocence that gleamed from her. Even if he wasn't sure he believed it entirely, he enjoyed it. Boone laughed aloud, feeling delivered.

The dinner was as all church dinners were-noisy and delicious. Boone and Lucy answered questions concerning Sims's condition so often, they took to offering the information before the query was made. Finally, using a ladle as a microphone, Eli announced to all and sundry that Sims would be fine, though all prayers would be appreciated.

Lucy was so delighted when her pie was the first one to be all gone that Boone delivered an impromptu lecture on humility that had their entire table laughing.

It was dark when they headed home, the air heavy with humidity and thick with awareness. They walked slowly, their hands together and their heads dipping close so that they could speak in low tones. The atmosphere felt so electric, Boone wondered if a storm was coming. The cloudless, moonless sky told him the electricity was personal and physical, conducted by leaf-green eyes and hands with nails bitten to the quick.

Lucy may not have considered the evening a date, but Boone had. His first since Maggie's death. Well, not exactly. It wasn't the first time he'd taken a woman out, bought her dinner, and taken her home. No, it was much more than that.

It was the first time he'd wanted to.

"Hot chocolate?" she asked when they walked into the silent house.

"Sure." He followed her to the kitchen, going to check the messages on the old-fashioned answering machine. There were no calls from Cincinnati, so he ignored the others and sat on a counter stool to wait.

He watched her move around the kitchen, her movements quick and sure as she poured the milk and measured the chocolate. Her hips had a subtle curve and sway under the bright sundress that held his attention. He wouldn't need whipped cream with this chocolate-she was delicious topping enough on her own.

But who was she?