Page 9 of Guilty as Sin
She wasn’t herself. She was in her skin, but she was Lily. Lily, who had more than sex appeal, more than a way of hesitating for that half-second before she spoke, that way of smiling at a man and making him feel ten feet tall. Lily, who always had a kind word.
Who got taken advantage of much too easily.
Well, that was why Paige was here. She smiled at the security screener, showing her dimples Lily-style, got a smile and a spark back, and went on through security, looking at the scene with a Lily-brain, through Lily-eyes.
A mother lugging a car seat, diaper bag, and purse onto the conveyer belt while still somehow holding her pigtailed daughter on her hip, proving that mothers really did have superpowers. A fifty-something guy in full Western regalia removing a metric ton of accessories into his own bins, proving that some men could give Lily a run for her money in that department. Cowboy hat, canvas jacket, tooled boots, a belt with an enormous silver buckle, a bolo tie with a chunk of turquoise on it that had to be weighing him down, and all of it a little too clean, a little too new.
Paige wasn’t going to think about whether he could actually recognize the business end of a cow, or about everyplace he could still carry concealed. She wasn’t a screener, and right now, she wasn’t a cop. She grabbed her stuff out of the bin, put her own Western-style blue boots back on, anddidn’trush off.
She was going to walk. She was going to look around, and not for threats. She was going todothis. She stopped at a coffee kiosk, bought an iced mocha like a woman who’d been drinking herbal tea for days, took a sip of chocolate-flavored caffeine—food of the gods—ignored the persistent ache in her leg that whispered so seductively, “Sit down. Take a pill,” and looked in windows at clothes Lily would buy, except that she wouldn’t. They probably weren’t good enough. Not cutting-edge enough, or not old-fashioned enough, or whatever the criteria were now. The rules always confused Paige.
Never mind. She had her reckless back, and Lily had her little bit of wild. They were leaving caution behind, because they were free from their lives and living their sister’s.
Her phone—Lily’s phone—dinged in her slouchy purse, which was much too large to find a phone in. By the time she’d dug the phone out, it had gone to voicemail.
“I forgot to say,” Lily said. “Don’t worry about the bees.”
Who said that and then didn’t pick up when you called back? Paige hated bees. Lilyknewshe hated bees.
Wait. That was probably exactly why she’d told Paige not to worry. She was saying that the bees around Sinful weren’t Africanized, Paige’s worst and most stupid nightmare. Which Paige already knew.Montana was too far north. You could say that she kept up with bee travel patterns.
Let it go.You didn’t get stronger by dwelling on your fears. She put aside all thoughts of a swarm of killer bees chasing their victims down and stinging them in the eyeballs and got onto the plane, a little commuter thing on its way to Denver.
Lily had a window seat. New identity or not, Paige wasn’t sitting in that seat. It took away your options, gave you no room to react. She stood in the aisle and checked out the young business type who was tapping at his phone and frowning as if he were telling his broker, “Sell!” And ignoring her.
A hand on her hip, a shove of her newly-loose, newly-blonde hair back over her shoulder, her best slow, sweet Lily-smile, and she was saying, “Hi. I’m sorry to bother you, but would you mind terribly switching seats with me?” She was a little bit proud of the “terribly.”
His expression would have done justice to a cartoon character. She wanted to tell him that men got themselves manipulated that way, but since she actually wanted to manipulate him, she didn’t. His frown vanished, and he stood up, moved into the window seat, and said, “Please. Join me.”
“Where are you off to?” he asked her when she’d stowed her bag and was buckling up. “Ending up in Denver?”
“No. Kalispell.” Normally, she’d have lied, but she was practicing being Lily. Being open. Which could feel more like “being a target.”
“Oh, really?” He was smiling like he thought he was charming. He looked more like an alligator. “Is that home? You look pretty sophisticated for a Montana girl.”
“But I am,” Paige said—yes, sweetly. “Actually, I’m from Sinful.” She opened her eyes wide and gave a little smile. More Lily-work. In six hours, she’d have tobesweet, sexy, and vulnerable. She needed the practice.
“Really.”He put his right hand casually over his left. Covering his wedding ring. Which he was taking off, and trying to be sneaky about it.Whoops.Time to turn down the Lily-wattage. “Sinful, Montana? Is that a place?”
“It is.”
“Marketing gimmick, or…?” The safety briefing had started, but he clearly didn’t care where the oxygen masks were.
“Well, partly marketing. It was an R & R spot for the silver miners, and I’m sure the name helped. In the beginning, though, it was two brothers who came west together on a wagon train and had a falling out. One of them took most of the party and started a town called Angels Rest, and the other one crossed a mountain and started a different one. Angels Rest isn’t there anymore. Sinful is. Make of that what you will.”
“Cain and Abel,” her seatmate suggested.
“Could be. The Angels Rest brother went to swim with the fishes, a sad accident, and the Sinful brother got rich. But then, I don’t think anybody ever went broke underestimating the refinement of miners.”
She got more charm-beams. “Baths, saloons, gambling, and lovely ladies? Those were the days, I guess.”
“Maybe not so much if you were a ‘lovely lady.’”
If he noticed the dryness of her tone, it didn’t faze him. “Oh, I don’t know. Lady of the night with a heart of gold? Marries the sheriff?”
“I think that’s a movie invention.” She was failing on her Lily, but in her experience, prostitution wasn’t a woman’s first career choice.
The plane was taxiing, the engines revving, making conversation impossible. When the plane was in the air, though, her new buddy, who apparently wasn’t easily discouraged, said, “So what do you do there in Sinful? No, let me guess. Nurse. Wait. Kindergarten teacher. Or you own a candy store. Tell me it’s something as sweet as you look.”
