Tribute Read Online Free PDF Page B

across the road, and Cilla’s going to be alone at the farm. She might want some company now and again.”
    Head that one off at the pass, Cilla thought. “Actually, I’m going to be spending my days on the rehab, and my evenings plotting out the phases of the job. I’ll be too busy for much company for a while. In fact, I should get back to it. I’ve got a full day scheduled tomorrow.”
    “Oh, but can’t you stay for dinner?” Patty protested. “Let’s get a nice home-cooked meal into you before you go. I’ve got lasagna all made up and ready to pop into the oven. It won’t take long.”
    “That sounds great.” Cilla realized it did just that. “I’d love to stay for dinner.”
    “You sit right here, have another glass of tea with your father.”
    Cilla watched while Patty popped up, then bustled across the patio and into the house. “Should I go help her?”
    “She likes to fuss with meals. It relaxes her, the way gardening does me. She’ll like it better if you sit out here and let her.”
    “I make her nervous.”
    “A little. It’ll pass. I can tell you she’d have been disappointed if you’d said no to dinner. Lasagna’s Patty’s specialty. She makes the sauce from my tomato harvest every summer and cans it.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    His lips quirked at her quick and absolute surprise. “It’s a different world, sweetie.”
    “I’ll say.”
    In this world, Cilla discovered, people ate homemade lasagna and apple cobbler, and treated a meal as food rather than a performance. And a guest or family—she thought she fell somewhere in the middle—was given a plate of each covered in tinfoil to take home for leftovers. If the guest/family was driving, she was offered a single glass of wine with dinner, then plied with coffee afterward.
    Cilla glanced at her watch, smiled. And could be walking in her own door by eight.
    After stowing the two plates in her trusty cooler, Cilla planted her hands on her hips and looked around. The bare bulbs cast harsh light and hard shadows, spotlighted cracked plaster and scarred floorboards. Poor old girl, she thought. You’re in desperate need of a face-lift.
    She picked up her flashlight, switched it on before turning off the overhead bulbs and, using it to guide her way, started toward the steps.
    A glance out the front window showed her the lights sparkling from homes scattered across the hills and fields. Other people had finished their home-cooked meals, she supposed, and were settled down to watch TV or finish up a little paperwork. Maybe kids were being tucked into bed, or being told to settle down and finish their homework.
    She doubted any of them sat reading changes in the script for tomorrow’s shoot, or yawned through another running of her lines. Foolish to envy them, Cilla thought, for having what she never had.
    Standing there, she picked out the lights in Ford’s house.
    Was he crafting the Seeker’s next adventure? Maybe chowing down on frozen pizza, what she imagined the bachelor’s version of a home-cooked meal might be? And what was a comic book writer—pardon me, graphic novelist—doing living in a beautifully restored old Victorian in rural Virginia?
    A single graphic novelist, she remembered with a smirk, with an unquestionably sexy Southern drawl and a lazy gait that edged up toward a swagger. And an odd little dog.
    Whatever the reasons were, it was nice to see the lights shining across the road. Close but not too close. Oddly comforted by them, she turned away to continue upstairs, where she intended to slide into her sleeping bag and work on her plans.
     
     
    HER CELL PHONE woke her out of a dead sleep, had her eyes flashing open, then slamming shut again against the glare of the light she’d neglected to turn off before dropping off. Cursing, Cilla pried one eye partially open as she slid a hand over the floor for the phone.
    What the hell time was it?
    Heart pounding, she read the time on the phone—3:28 A.M.—and her