After a second, he said, “It’d be easier to move the bed if you weren’t on it.”
“Oh!” She jumped up as if someone had set off a firecracker under her. She didn’t stop moving until there was a good three feet between them. God, how stupid had she looked sitting there staring at him?
Clay moved the bed out and plugged in the transformer. Lily watched the muscles of his back and shoulders move under the taut fabric of his shirt. When she realized what she was doing, she quickly shifted her gaze to the dresser across the room.
Once he moved the bed back into place, he sat down and picked up the cordless receiver. Then he punched in some numbers. “I already charged it. Now I’m on speed dial. All you have to do is press one.” He pressed the number and Lily heard the tones in the receiver he held between them. “It wouldn’t hurt to carry this with you, so you have it wherever you are in the house.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
His gaze held hers. “No, I’m not. When you’re in the shower, I want this thing on the floor beside it.”
There was something in his tone that told her not to argue. Suddenly she felt like a child, too foolish to know when she was in danger. “All right.”
“Come over here and I’ll show you a couple of other features.”
She moved slowly toward the bed, stopping just in front of him.
“Here’s how you set the ring.” He pushed a button on the base and then another on the handset. “The volume of the receiver can be changed here.” He pressed a series of buttons. “And if you want speakerphone, just press this.”
Lily wasn’t paying any attention to the numbers or the buttons. She was transfixed by the simple movement of his fingers, the cadence of his voice, the way his hair fell over his forehead as he looked down at the phone in his hand.
It suddenly occurred to her he was waiting for her to say something.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Speed dial,” he repeated. “Want any other numbers programmed in?”
“Um, I guess not.” Was it him? Was it her out-of-balance hormones? Was it the fact that she now knew they’d been robbed of the chance at love by a stupid twist of fate? Or was it that they were behind closed bedroom doors together for the first time? Lily didn’t know. All she knew was that she could hardly concentrate on putting together a full sentence since they came in here.
Clay put the phone in its cradle and reached out for her hand. “Would you please stop looking at me like I’m going to hurt you?”
Lily drew a deep breath. Oh, if he only knew the power he held to inflict hurt. She couldn’t deny it, she loved him. She’d never stopped loving him. But they were as far apart now as they had been when she was in Chicago married to Peter and he was sneaking around dangerous territory overseas.
Having denied her feelings for so long, now that he sat here, grasping her hand in his, she could feel herself sliding helplessly into a quagmire of emotion. All she wanted to do was, for a brief moment, be his. To pretend nothing existed outside this room, they had no past and the future was a blank slate waiting to be filled with loving memories.
If she hadn’t felt the tear roll down her cheek, she wouldn’t have known she was crying.
He kept her hand in his as he stood. He stopped the tear with a finger and his gaze held her as captive as if he’d wrapped her in ropes and chains. She watched with a riot in her soul as he took that tear and put it in his mouth.
“I remember how you taste,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “It’s like I’ve held the memory of you on my tongue.”
Then he traced his lips along the trail of her tear and Lily’s heart cried out for those memories, too. They came crashing back in a tidal wave, the feel of his skin on hers, the smell of his hair after it had been warmed by the sun, his work-worn hands on her breast, the heat that exploded under his touch.
God, how she wanted to feel that heat again.
His breath tickled her ear as he kissed it and she stood lead-limbed and trembling. She tilted her head to the side as his lips kissed their way down the side of her neck. He kept her hand in his, lacing his fingers through hers.
Lily was frustrated by the space he maintained between their bodies. The only contact was his lips on her neck and a single held hand. She wanted to press herself against him, be absorbed completely by his body, surrender her entire being to him.
He whispered against her skin, “I won’t hurt you again.” Then he stepped back and dropped her hand.
It took a moment for it to register in her sensually clouded mind that he was heading toward the door. She fully expected him to lock it and return to her. Instead, he opened it and started out of the room.
“You’re leaving?” Her voice was little more than a squeak.
He hesitated, but didn’t turn back around. Bowing his head slightly, he said, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to hurt you.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “We need to take our time.”
“Isn’t this a little like closing the barn door after the cow is out in the storm?” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice. Here she stood, possibly pregnant with his child, and he wanted to take things slowly.
Letting the door drift back closed, he returned to her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. His kiss matched the pent-up passion she was feeling. She let herself be carried away on the sensations he aroused, on the possibility….
He let her go and looked in her eyes. “I don’t want to ruin this. It’s too fragile, too precious.”
Then he turned around and left her trembling with unfulfilled desire.
After a restless night, Lily got up with the sun. She didn’t know if her tossing and turning was due to being nervous over taking the pregnancy test this morning, or her jumbled emotions stirred by Clay’s visit. He’d said he didn’t want to ruin what they had—but Lily still didn’t know exactly what that was. They’d made love weeks ago and the walls had risen higher between them. Now he was acting like a super-hero responsible for her safety. After kissing her with enough passion to make her knees weak, he said he wanted to go slowly.
She pushed her hair away from her face and went down the hall and into the bathroom, home pregnancy test in hand. She locked the door and set the box on the sink ledge. For a minute or two, she just stared at it, as if this were a showdown and if she blinked first she was the loser.
Finally, she picked up the box and tore it open. After rereading the instructions, she got down to business. Just before she peed on the stick, she froze. This was it. Once this step was done, she couldn’t pretend. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.
“Please, God, let it be negative.” It seemed ludicrous after spending years on end with just the opposite plea on her lips. Her prayers had been ignored then; but in the long run, God had been right. He couldn’t possibly abandon her now.
The ten minutes it took for the results to appear felt like days stacked on end. She’d planned on taking a shower while she waited. She knew better than to stare at the test stick; a watched pregnancy test was much like the proverbial pot of water put on to boil. But she set the tester on the edge of the sink, started pacing the tile floor and found she couldn’t stop. As she made another orbit around the room biting on her thumbnail, she looked the white stick surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, as if it were a coiled snake she didn’t want to startle into striking.
Her watch rested on the back of the toilet. She stared at it from two feet away. She could see the minute hand had moved to the four. It was time.
Closing her eyes, she reiterated a prayer that was much too late to do any good, and reached for the test stick. Once it was in hand, she looked to the ceiling first, swallowed and looked at the test in her hand.
The strength went out of her knees and she sat hard on the toilet seat. Negative. It was negative.
Chapter 17
After indulging in a good stress-relieving cry,
Lily fed Riley breakfast. Then she drove him to work. When they pulled into the marina, the office door was closed. Normally, the door remained open during operating hours. There was a hand-printed sign taped to the glass: MARINA CLOSED TODAY, BUD. Underneath that was a business-sized envelope with Riley’s name printed on it in huge block letters.
Riley got out and untaped the envelope from the glass. He pulled out a small piece of paper and read it, then turned around and came back to the car. “Guess I have the day off.”
“Why didn’t he call?” She was already irritable, and Clay’s inconsiderate behavior chafed Lily all the more. “We didn’t need to drive all the wa—”
“Mom! Relax. The note said he left in the middle of the night and didn’t want to wake us.”
“The middle of the night? Where did he go?”
Riley shrugged. “Didn’t say.”
“Hmmm.” What could have called him away in the middle of the night? What kind of wee-hours emergency could pop up for a single loner like Clay? Especially one that called him away from the speed dial he’d made such a big deal about just hours ago.
“Did he say when he’d be back?”
“Tomorrow. I’m supposed to come to work at the regular time.”
Her frustration rippled again. Call me, not the sheriff. Really? Good thing she hadn’t actually needed to.
Lily pulled out of the parking lot and turned toward town.
Perhaps this day would be a chance for her and Riley to have some relaxed time together. Maybe she could figure out what was going on inside his adolescent head. “I’m hungry,” she said. “How about we go to the Dew Drop and have some pancakes?”
Riley looked at her with surprise in his eyes. “You never eat pancakes.”
“Well, I feel like pancakes this morning. And don’t give me ‘I already ate,’ ’cause I know you can put away three breakfasts before noon and still eat a huge lunch.”
Lifting a shoulder and tilting his head, he said, “Okay. Pancakes.”
Lily drove into town with her mood as unsettled as a field full of grasshoppers. The relief she’d initially felt at the test results had given way to an odd mix of feelings. Of course, a pregnancy would have really screwed things up for everyone, particularly for Riley. But, her mind countered, perhaps in the long run it might have been for the better; he could have had a sibling to stand by him after she was gone. No matter what anybody said these days, blood was indeed thicker than water. Lily couldn’t imagine not having her brother and sister. Even though they lived scattered all over the globe, there was a certain sense of security just knowing they were there.
Also, as she looked at her ex-husband’s life, Peter might have fared better if he’d had a sibling or two to dilute the concentration of parental involvement. Neither Samantha nor Bill could see the fact that their efforts to insulate their only child from pain and disappointment had crippled him. The fact that they controlled most every facet of Peter’s life had prevented him from learning to stand on his own. Although motivated by the best of intentions, they had only fostered weakness in their son.
But there were other emotions at work, things deep inside her, things no one else could know. And, as she looked inward, Lily discovered a few startling facts about herself. As she picked apart the fibers of her emotions, she had to admit there was a more selfish reason for this morning’s peculiar discontent. Forcing herself to examine it more closely, she found Clay at the center of it. A baby would certainly have brought things to a head between them. All of the secrets would have come crashing out of the closet. And, she realized as she pulled into a parking space in front of the Dew Drop, she was tired of keeping her shoulder against that door to prevent those secrets from spilling out.
There was no way to open that door and not have people get hurt. She guessed that was the epicenter of this emotional earthquake. If she wanted to build some sort of future with Clay, Peter would have to be hurt. If she protected Peter, she had to give up the possibility of an honest relationship with Clay. And, of course, that just swung back around to the question of what was in Riley’s best interest.
These were the same demons she’d been wrestling since she saw Clay that first day at the marina. On top of everything else, the guilt associated with her lie of omission was muddling her judgment. It was difficult, not being truthful with Clay, especially over something that could be so life-altering, regardless of the pain he’d caused her in the past.
Inside her head, the battle lines had been drawn, the armies had massed their artillery, diplomacy had been blown out of the water. The only way for this conflict to end was all-out war. And, as in any war, there would be casualties. She just had to make sure her son wasn’t one of them.
Already her head throbbed from the mental combat—and the first shot had yet to be fired. She got out of the car and headed into the Dew Drop, hoping a shot of caffeine would help.
Mildred was ringing up a customer at the register when they walked in. “Just take a seat anywhere. Cassie’s out sick and I’m shorthanded this morning. Be with you as soon as I can.”
“Thanks, Mildred,” Lily said as she followed Riley toward a booth halfway to the rear of the restaurant. As she did, all of the patrons at the counter either smiled or nodded in greeting. Even those she didn’t know.
It stunned her to realize she’d once again become a part of this place. Or maybe she’d never been truly separated from it. Perhaps she was the one who’d set up barriers. Throughout junior high and high school she’d shied away from making eye contact with those she passed on the street or encountered in the market. It stemmed from those first weeks after her mother had left. Every time she caught someone looking at her, she could hear the thoughts going on in their minds, the accusation and condemnation, the guilt by association. It set up an avalanche of shame that Lily just now had begun to realize might have been manufactured in her own mind.
Riley stopped without warning, and Lily ran right into the back of him. He didn’t start moving again with her nudge.
“What’s wrong?” she asked the back of his head.
“Hi, Riley,” a girl’s voice came from the other side of him.
Riley’s shoulders tensed. He quickly said, “Hi,” and spun around to sit in the booth, putting his back to the girl in the next booth—which, when he moved out of the way and Lily could see, turned out to be Mickey Fulton.
Lily smiled at Mickey and said hello, then looked at Riley, whose face was beet-red. She was just thinking how cute this whole scene was when she realized who was sitting across from Mickey, with his back to her. Tad.
Slowly he turned in his seat, resting one elbow on the back of the booth. He smiled at Lily, but there was something off about that smile. It felt—predatory.
“Hello, Lily Boudreau,” he said. “Nice to see you back in town.”
She imagined her face matched Riley’s. Her heart sped up and her mouth went dry. And that really pissed her off. She was a grown woman. High school was fifteen years ago. She put on what she hoped appeared to be a confident smile and said, “Hello, Tad.”
Well, maybe that adolescent shame hadn’t all been self-inflicted.
Then she added, tilting her head slightly, “Didn’t I see you the other night at the Crossing House?”
An unsettled look crossed his face, then he nodded. “You did. You looked so busy, I didn’t want to bother you.”
“How thoughtful.” This just felt all too familiar, Tad deciding just when and where he would acknowledge Lily. She wanted to tell him to go take a flying fuck at the moon, but that was entirely out of the question with the children present.
It occurred to her, as she looked at Mickey’s questioning eyes, that she had only been about a year older than the girl when Tad began to blur the social lines that divided them.
Clay had saved her from herself the first time Tad started playing his games. But, as was the norm, he, and Peter, had gone home to Chicago for the school year. He wasn’t around to stop
her from her own foolishness.
Lily had spent the years immediately after her mother ran off perfecting the art of being invisible. She didn’t cause trouble. She minded her own business. She didn’t dress in attention-grabbing fashion. She didn’t even make much noise. The less attention she drew, the less likely people were to remember her mother’s desertion, and the better things would be for her little sister, Molly. Then, starting the first day of her freshman year in high school, Tad, who was a senior, began to “see” her.
Lily noticed him watching her during lunch in the cafeteria. At first she looked immediately behind her, assuming he was eyeing one of the cool girls. Then, as she carried her tray to the dishwashing room, his gaze followed—he was definitely looking at her. Although he didn’t look particularly mad, Lily wondered if he was still miffed about the game of slips. Why else would he be staring at her?
As she walked home from school that day, he pulled his car to the curb and called to her. She ignored him, thinking he was up to no good—which, as it turned out, was right. Instead of going on, he paced her as she walked, asking her things like why she was mad at him, and did she want to go to the Arctic Express for a Coke. He followed her all the way to the Crossing House.
Later that night, he called. She gave him the cold shoulder. It had to be some kind of practical joke—guys like Tad Fulton only went after girls like Amy Whitson and Karen Kimball. Lily didn’t even dwell on the same planet.
Although he never followed her home again, he called every night, always when she and Molly were home alone. Luke had a job after football practice at Kingston’s Market and didn’t usually get home until eight. Tad never called after eight. Of course, Lily didn’t see the pattern of concealment at the time.
He was persistent—and charming. Finally she agreed to meet him at the park on her way home from school. Tad didn’t have a job; he said his folks said basketball was his job, his ticket to college. As basketball practice was still weeks away, he had time on his hands.
The Road Home Page 25