Page 82 of Honky Tonk Cowboy

Willow’s brows furrowed. “You are good at this.”

“I kind of am, aren’t I?”

“Not ‘kind of’.” She looked around the room, nodding. “This is amazing. This is gonna floor him.”

“I hope so. I did financial cartwheels to make room for it in the budget.”

“You did great. Not that I’d know if you didn’t, but it sure looks good to me.”

“I hope so.” They went back out and headed upstairs. “I’ve been second-guessing it ever since they started work,” Lily said.

“Why? What could possibly be the downside?”

They emerged into the kitchen. Lily snapped off the stairway light and closed the basement door. “It might come off like…like I’m trying to keep him here. Like, ‘what’s your excuse now?’ you know?”

Willow listened, nodded, and picked up her beer from where she’d left it on the counter. After a long pull, she said, “I don’t think he’ll see it that way. I think he’ll see it for what it is. A gift from someone who cares. I kinda want you to have your upstairs bathroom, too, though. That’s what you gave up for it, isn’t it?”

Lily didn’t confirm or deny. But that was exactly what she’d done.

They went outside and Lily locked up behind them just as a box truck pulled onto the strip of pavement they’d left alongside the building. By the end of tomorrow, it would extend around back to the bigger parking lot. The flagstone patio was taking shape in the front.

“What’s this now?” Lily asked.

The guy did not get out of his truck. Just backed in and sat there, so she went over and tapped his door. It opened, and the driver held up one finger as he tapped his phone. “One second, ma’am, I have to notify the sender before I deliver the package. It’s in my notes.”

“Ooookay.” She frowned at Willow, but then her phone rang.

“Ethan?”

“Is it there? Delivery guy just texted he was in the driveway.”

“Well, yes, I guess it’s here then. What is it?”

“The sign. I got the sign.”

“You got the?—”

“I’d’ve consulted you but I wanted it to be a surprise. And then I thought you might hate it, and I’ve been second-guessing myself ever since I put in the order.”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Willow said, rolling her eyes.

The driver opened the back, lowered a ramp, and rolled out a dolly holding a well-wrapped rectangle as tall he was. “Where you want it?”

“Inside, for now,” Lily said.

He rolled it right up to the big double doors. Lily handed her phone to Willow so she could unlock it. The driver rolled the package inside. She signed for it, then turned. “Will?”

Willow had walked a few steps away with her phone, but she came back and helped her tear off the brown paper.

The sign was a large, old fashioned-looking metal one, with two perfect lilies painted on it. They stood back-to-back, one white with a thin red stripe, and the other red, with a thin white stripe.

“Lily Ellen?” Ethan said from the phone.

Willow handed it to her and she brought it to her ear, as it was no longer on speaker. Willow must’ve been speaking to him when she’d walked away. “I’m here.”

“Look close,” he said.

She did, noticing in the contrasting-colored swirls of the petals, there were initials. LM in red, on the white rose. Her mother’s initials. Her own initials, LE were in white on the red lily.