She was silent for a moment. “She was happy when she came home the other night. I think it was good for her to go out with her friends. But I know they asked her again this weekend and she said no. I overheard her on the phone. She said you told her she couldn’t go.”

“I never said that, but I did tell her she could throw me under the bus if she didn’t want to do something.” It made him worry that maybe that night hadn’t gone as well as he’d thought it had. “I’ll talk to her.”

This was their only point of tension. The weeks since Lila had moved in had been some of the happiest he could remember, but he could tell it was starting to bother Noelle when Lila pushed her about the future. He’d saved a couple of dinners by turning the conversation away from where Noelle would go to college, what Noelle wanted to do with her life.

It was worse when Lila started talking about all the new therapies and research being done.

He knew she was only trying to help, but it was his responsibility to make sure Noelle was comfortable. It was his job to let Noelle know that she was enough.

“Okay. I’ll drive her out to the therapist’s today,” Lila said. “I don’t have anything after two, when I get to recheck Zep’s finger. Luckily it was something I could handle. It was just the tip. Don’t. You have no idea how many jokes he made about that.”

He was sure that dealing with Zep Guidry as a care provider was almost as bad as dealing with him as a law enforcement officer. “I can imagine.”

“What are you doing today?”

He was not looking forward to his day. “I get to attend a planning meeting. The town fair is next week. I have to make sure there’s some form of security. We’ve got a couple of volunteers. I get to teach a class on our crowd control protocols.”

“We have crowd control protocols? We have crowds?”

He was looking forward to taking his honey to her first big town party. “Oh, you haven’t seen what can happen at one of these things. Especially at some of the food stands. They brought in fried butter last year and nearly started a stampede.”

Lila groaned. “I am going to make pamphlets warning of the dangers of both fried foods and butter. And fair food. Are we sure the vendors all have health department clearance?”

“I thought you were trying to make people like you.”

She shrugged. “They’ll like me when I save their arteries.”

“They won’t,” he insisted. “They don’t even know what their arteries do. Besides, your sister would be leading the revolution if you got fried food banned.”