Page 4 of 40 and (So Over) Fixing It
Willard blinked up at her again and gave a chirp. Took one, two, three steps toward her stairs. Another chirp as he tilted his head, almost as if asking her a question. Probably wondering when she was going to give in and agree that she was his mate, different species aside.
As if.
With a heavy sigh she glanced at her watch and realized she was now officially three minutes late to meet Lily for lunch at Casa Blanca. A frantic search told her there was no help in sight; her in-laws were probably inside eating their own lunch at the moment, completely unaware that the wayward head of their peacock brood had gone a-courtin’.
“Willard…” The bird’s name came out a whine. “I just wanna go to lunch.”
Giving up on getting him to move, she backed her way toward the front door and inside the house. As she watched through the cut-out panes of glass, Willard came up the stairs and began to strut back and forth across her long farmhouse porch.
Perfect.
Digging her keys out of her purse, she made her hasty way through the house toward the side door. Sneaking past a stupid bird wasn’t something she really wanted to admit to other people, but she didn’t have time to waste and Willard wasn’t responding to logic. Carefully pushing the door open to avoid that tell-tale squeak if the hinges were forced too fast, she eased her way onto the tiny landing beyond her side door and silently maneuvered it closed behind her. It was her first step onto the crunchy grass that alerted the crazy bird out front that she had gotten away. As she ran for her truck, keys clutched in her hand, Willard wobbled around the front side of the house, feathers still straight up in the air like Einstein’s hair, and beat feet after her. She barely made it into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut before he appeared at her side.
“Ha! So there!”
God, she was as crazy as the bird. She’d lived alone far too long, apparently, if she was having conversations with Willard—and crowing her victory over him through the truck door.
Still, she couldn’t keep herself from a little bounce in her seat as she backed out of the driveway and headed into town. Normally she’d be at JD’s job site atop Black Wolf’s Bluff today, but the crew from Nashville that was putting the steel frame in place had run into a delay due to their unusually wet autumn season, and nothing else could be done in the meantime, so for today at least, Erin was free. It didn’t happen often, but she’d take it when she could.
Her watch hit half past by the time she pulled her truck into the restaurant parking lot. She hurried inside, feeling like a mess with her hair all over the place and sweat under her usual coveralls. Which was what she got for rushing off to town without removing her coat. The heater in the truck worked great—usually too great. A coat wasn’t a necessity after the first three minutes of driving, but no, she’d been in a hurry.
And why did she care how she looked?
Fanning her heated cheeks, she jogged up to the usual table for her and Lily’s weekly lunches and plopped down in the bench seat opposite one of her best friends. “I’m so sorry, Lily. I got caught up—”
Lily took in her ragged state over a queso-covered chip. “You need something besides that job to occupy your time,” she mumbled around a bite.
“I wasn’t—”
“I mean”—Lily swallowed the chip, simultaneously reaching for her margarita—“I get loving your job. Lord knows there’s no other reason I’d put up with the crap that I do. But you let those guys take up way too much of your life.”
Erin groaned. As if she hadn’t heard this argument for years. “I am perfectly happy the way that I am.”
“You are perfect the way that you are,” Lily agreed. After a sip of her (what looked like) strawberry margarita, she dabbed at her lips before continuing. “That doesn’t mean things couldn’t be better. Work isn’t all there is to life.”
Erin sighed. “Work isn’t all of my life. After all, I have you—to annoy me—”
Lily snickered.
“And Scarlett and Claire, not to mention Claire’s goodies.” She counted off on her fingers. “Then there’s my in-laws, Maria and JD and now Linc, I guess, and Iris and Lou and—”
“Are you going to name everyone in town?”
Erin rolled her eyes. “Why not?”
“How about Clayton?”
Erin choked on the sip of water she’d taken from her water glass.
“You know,” Lily went on, “Clay—”
“I know, I know.” If her friends weren’t reminding her, someone else in town was. “He’s the most eligible bachelor around.”
And despite being desperately handsome, the man drew absolutely no spark from her whatsoever.
“But that doesn’t matter,” she went on to say, pausing when Adrian stopped at their table. Besides being their usual waiter when they lunched at Casa Blanca, Adrian was also their friend Maria’s son, and never failed to give them a hard time—as he proceeded to prove.
“So you finally showed up?”
