you, my brothers learned to duck at an early age.”
“How many?”
“How many what?” She put the other tomato on top of the potato salad and then slapped the bun back into place at the bottom of the burger.
He shook his head. The burger was so high now, he didn’t know how she’d ever be able to get a bite. “Brothers.”
“Three.”
“Uh-huh. Do you always do that?”
“What?” She held the big burger in both hands, took a huge bite, then set the burger down and, laughing, picked up her napkin and held it in front of her face while she struggled to chew.
“Pile all that stuff on your hamburger. You probably can’t even taste the meat anymore.”
She chewed, held up one hand and when she’d swallowed, she said, “Of course you can. And why bother having the fixings for a burger if you don’t use them? It’s terrific. You should try it.”
“Potato salad on a hamburger?” Ron winced. “No thanks.”
“You’ll eat it with a hamburger though?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I eat ’em separately.”
“Here’s a secret, Ron,” she said, grinning now at his perplexed expression. “All the food you eat ends up together, anyway. There are no separate compartments in your stomach—you know, one for tomatoes, one for meat, one for potato salad.”
“You’re a real comedian, aren’t you?”
“I don’t hear you laughing.”
“I’m laughing on the inside.”
“And crying on the outside?” she asked. “Not very attractive.”
“Do you see tears?” He held up both hands as if he were surrendering to a man with a gun. “Never mind. Don’t bother. Don’t say anything more. Your mind’s on one of the weird tracks again, isn’t it?”
She grinned. “Tom, Dan and Howard.”
“Huh?”
“My brothers,” she said, taking another, smaller bite. “You asked about them before.”
Hell, Ron could hardly remember what they’d been talking about. How could anyone keep up with the way this woman’s mind worked? “You just jump onto whatever conversational track feels right at the time, don’t you?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Right. Where are they now?”
She shrugged, but he thought he caught a glimpse of something less casual sparkling in her eyes. “In Boston.”
“That where you’re from?”
“Nope.” She picked up two French fries and swirled them through a pool of ketchup before popping them into her mouth. “I’m from Binghamton.”
He smiled. Damn it, he didn’t want to like her, but it was hard not to. “Before here, then.”
“Originally Boston, then Los Angeles, then New York, then…here.”
This is exactly what bothered him, Ron thought. She’d been everywhere, lived everywhere. Why in the hell would she come to a spot-in-the-road town like Binghamton? And why would she want to stay? She’d grown up in a world of privilege and now he was supposed to believe that she was going to be happy slurping down milkshakes and building burgers at South Junction?
No way.
She wouldn’t last.
And then what would Mari do?
All of his daughter’s friends were backing away from her. She’d lost a lot of her big financial backers for the research lab already. And with talk spreading, chances were good she’d be losing more. His own mother had been on the phone only that morning, arguing with a banker from Lexington. But it seemed gossip traveled pretty damn well.
The word was out.
Something was going on at the clinic and Mari Bingham wasn’t to be trusted.
A fresh wave of anger crested inside him, and Ron was half surprised the top of his head didn’t just blow off. Hearing his daughter talked about and whispered over as if she were a criminal was enough to make his blood boil. But there was only so much a father could do.
Mari’s world was crumbling around her, and for some reason she was convinced that Lily Cunningham was going to help her turn the tide. Well, Ron wasn’t. Even the best PR people couldn’t fight all the insidious whispers and the fears and suspicions of the very people they were trying to hose for money.
Besides, a woman society born and raised couldn’t be without society for very long. One of these days, Lily’d be off, leaving Mari high and dry, and he’d have to find a way to cushion the blow for his daughter.
“Why come here?” he asked tightly, getting back to the original conversation.
“I was invited.”
“Must be more to it than that.”
Lily set her burger down and reached for her shake. After taking a sip, she lifted her left hand to push her hair behind her ear. That bracelet of hers chimed musically.
“I wanted a change,” she said. “I wanted to live somewhere that wasn’t made of concrete.”
That much he could understand. Ron could no more leave the mountains permanently than he could sprout wings and fly. He had to be where the sky was huge, the trees were green and a man could walk miles in the forest without running into another soul.
But Lily Cunningham just didn’t seem the kind of woman to appreciate the simpler things in life.
“You look like you don’t believe me,” she said, and tipped her head again, studying him through big brown eyes that looked to him like warm, milk chocolate.
“Not sure I do.”
“Fortunately for me, Mari does.”
“Mari’s a nice girl.”
“Finally. Something we can agree on.”
He leaned back in his seat and watched her as she dug into her burger again. Something about her bothered him, and he really couldn’t put his finger on what it was. But as she ignored him and ate her dinner, he remembered how she’d leaped to Mari’s defense. How she’d read Vickie the riot act and forced the waitress to admit that Mari just wasn’t the kind of woman her enemies were making her out to be.
A surge of gratitude rushed through him, swamping the mistrust that still echoed inside him. Lily had defended his child and Ron
