He may have spent his life so far being angry, but she had spent hers being afraid. She’d been afraid to allow any man to get too close, afraid to open up her vulnerable heart. The abandonment by her parents had caused her to wrap her heart in protective layers.
Aunt Clara had wiggled beneath those layers and almost instantly Lilly had trusted that the woman wouldn’t leave her, wouldn’t cast her aside.
But Lilly had allowed nobody else close enough to hurt her, she hadn’t allowed anyone close enough to abandon her. Matthew was right, in her own way she had been as damaged as he.
But what hurt the most, what ached so deep inside her was the knowledge that for him she would have been willing to take a chance.
Had he loved her, had he asked her to stay, she would have taken the risk. She sat up and swiped at her tears, her heart more heavy than it had ever been.
She had to face the fact that he didn’t love her, that for him what they had shared had been good sex and perhaps some fun, but nothing more profound, nothing more heart shattering than that.
She had to face the fact that even though she wanted to believe that Matthew Delaney was her soul mate, the man she’d waited a lifetime to find, apparently she was wrong.
Matthew Delaney was a lone wolf and he intended to live a solitary life, and in that solitary life there was no room for her.
Chapter 12
She loved him.
Matthew sank down in the chair behind the desk, stunned by her unexpected revelation. Despite the fact that he’d been mean and cold to her, had tried desperately to keep her at arm’s length, she loved him.
The knowledge ached in his heart with a pain that nearly stole his breath away. Surely she was mistaken about her feelings for him. Surely she knew better than to fall in love with him.
“Oh, Lilly,” he breathed softly, and buried his face in his hands.
Somehow things with her had careened out of control. He should never have slept with her, should never have sought out her company. But his desire for her had been greater than his common sense. His desire for her had been greater than anything else he’d ever felt in his entire life.
In the brief time she had been here, she’d brought laughter back into his life. He’d felt a strange peace whenever they’d spent time together. But he knew it was a false peace that could explode at any moment.
She’d said he’d been punishing her, but what she didn’t understand, what he couldn’t tell her, was that what he’d really been doing was protecting her.
He knew that getting too close to him was dangerous, and so when she’d ventured too close he’d tried to shove her away with coldness and temper. But she’d refused to be shoved away.
He raised his head as he heard the sound of his family arriving, but he didn’t move from his position behind the desk. She’d also said that she thought he’d been punishing his family for years. The very idea was ridiculous. He loved his brothers and his sister.
He’d spent most of his life trying to protect them from their father. He’d been the perfect son, trying to make everything right in an attempt to keep the old man happy and off all their backs.
Liar, a small voice whispered in the back of his head. He frowned, wondering where that had come from. Why would he even think that he was somehow lying to himself?
He rarely consciously pulled up memories from those years so long ago, but now he leaned back and let his mind drift back over the past…over those horrible years that had been his youth.
From the earliest time he could remember until the day of Lilly’s last visit when he’d turned eighteen, the days had been filled with terror and uncertainty. The last day of Lilly’s last visit had also been the last time his father had attempted to hit him.
Adam had reared back his fist and Matthew had grabbed hold of it. “If you hit me, be prepared, I intend to hit you back,” he’d told the stunned old man.
That had been the end of Matthew’s physical abuse, however the mental abuse had continued until the day Adam had died.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, lost in the disturbing images from the past, when a knock on the office door pulled him from his thoughts.
“Come in,” he called.
Luke stuck his head in the door. “Hey, brother. We’re all here and just waiting for you.”
Matthew nodded. “I’ll be right out.”
As Luke disappeared from the doorway, Matthew tried to dispel the memories that still cascaded through his mind. He stood and swallowed against the bad taste those memories left in his mouth.
With Lilly’s confession of love still ringing in his ears, in his heart, and the retrospection into his youth filling his head, he felt more vulnerable than he ever had in his entire life.
Ill at ease with the strangeness of his emotions, he entered the family room where his siblings and their spouses awaited him.
I have a feeling that for some reason you’ve been punishing your family for years. Lilly’s words went around and around in his head, making him half dizzy as he tried to shut them out…shut them up.
“Ah, there he is, the head of the household himself,” Johnna said, the usual edge in her voice as she spoke to him.
The image of her as a baby, crying so desolately on the day of their mother’s funeral exploded in his brain. She had never known the woman who had given her birth, and for most of her childhood Matthew had yelled at her, trying to keep her in line, keep her safe from their father’s rage.
He had been a tough big brother…a tough big brother to them all. He’d browbeaten them into silence when there had been temper tantrums or tears. He’d ordered them to pick up their rooms, do their chores, do whatever it took to keep peace in the household.
And now, facing them, he was struck by his intense love for them all. There had been no time, no luxury of shared laughter, of whispered secrets among the Delaney siblings. It had all been about survival.
He braced an arm and leaned against the fireplace, aware of his siblings’ gazes on him. As always they were waiting for him to tell them the reason for the family meeting. They looked at him to lead the way.
Shoving desperately against the memories and the well of emotion that threatened to rise up and usurp him, he opened his mouth to speak. “I tried to keep you safe,” he said to Johnna, horrifying himself, as that had not been what he’d intended to say at all.
She frowned in obvious confusion. “Excuse me? Did I miss something here?”
Emotion swelled inside Matthew…emotion that he’d always kept tamped down, shoved away. But now he couldn’t tamp it down. It was too huge, all consuming and he sought the anger that had always kept him safe, but it refused to appear to rescue him.
“When we were young…” he finally said. He looked at his brothers, then back to Johnna. “I tried to keep all of you safe.”
Johnna’s husband, Jerrod, stood and looked at Abby and April. “Why don’t we step outside and give them a few moments alone. I think maybe this is a discussion for them to have without us.”
As they all left the room, Matthew went over to the bar and poured himself a drink, surprised to discover his hands trembling slightly.
He needed to get control of himself. He had never felt as out of control as he did at the moment. He took a deep swallow of scotch, felt the burn of the alcohol as it hit the pit of his stomach.
“You never talk about it,” Johnna said softly. “You never talk about father and our childhood. You’ve always acted like nothing bad ever happened to any of us.”
“Maybe that’s because he was father’s favorite,” Luke replied. Matthew looked at him in surprise. “Oh, yeah,” Luke continued, “the old man was always telling me that I was a loser and why couldn’t I be more like you. Matthew does things right, why in the hell can’t you, he’d say over and over again.”
“And he told me I was a big nothing, and it was too bad I couldn’t be more like Luke,” Mark added. They all looked at each other in surprise.
Matthew knew what she said was true. Adam Delaney had manipulated his children to be wary of one another, to never trust or depend on each other. But despite his best efforts, Adam Delaney had not been able to keep his children from loving one another.
Again Matthew was filled with love for his brothers and sister, a love tainted by another emotion—the heavy, killing burden of guilt.
There were things he needed to tell them, things that needed to be said, but they were thoughts and feelings that he’d kept inside for so long, he wasn’t sure he could say them out loud.
He set his drink down on the bar and felt a suffocating pressure in his chest. Again he sought the anger that had always been his friend, his barrier from any other emotion, and again it remained hidden and refused to come to his aid.
He was aware of their gazes on him, looking at him expectantly. He drew a deep breath and swept a hand through his hair.
“I was the oldest,” he began. “I should have done something more to help us.” Suddenly the anger returned, rich and bold as it flooded through his veins. “Dammit, I should have done something more.” He slammed his fist down on the bar.
Johnna stood and walked over to him and placed a hand over his fist. Her hand was cool, and he wasn’t sure if the trembling he felt was from her hand or his own. “And what would you have done?” she asked gently. “What could you have done?”
Matthew tightened his fist, his short nails biting into his palm as his anger grew to mammoth proportions. “I could have killed him.”
“No, you couldn’t have,” Mark objected, and came to stand next to Matthew and Johnna. He faced Matthew eye-to-eye, but there was compassion…there was love in his eyes. “You don’t have the capacity to kill in you. None of us does. Despite what father told us, despite the role model he provided for us, we’re good people.”
Something inside Matthew…something deep and hidden and ugly sprang to the surface and cracked open. To his horror tears blurred his vision as he stared first at Mark, then Johnna and finally Luke.
“But I’m not good,” he said. He shoved past Mark and Johnna and went to stand at the opposite side of the room, needing to distance himself from them as a sudden realization filled his head and the resulting guilt ripped through his guts.
“I’m not good,” he repeated, his voice half-hoarse with emotion. He swiped at his tears, embarrassed by them and stared at his siblings bleakly. “Until this moment I always believed that I tried to be the good son, the perfect son to protect all of you. But that’s a lie I told myself. The truth is I was the good son, the perfect son to protect myself.” The deep dark secret that had poisoned his soul spilled out of him.
He drew a deep breath and fought against the tears that burned at his eyes…tears of pain…tears of shame. “When father was beating one of you, I felt bad…but I also felt relieved, relieved that he wasn’t beating me.”
To his horror, a deep, wrenching sob tore through him. “God, how you must all hate me.”
“Hate you?” Luke walked over to him and stood before Matthew. “Hate you for what? For being human? For feeling the same things we felt? Sorry, brother, I hate to disappoint you, but there’s not an ounce of hatred in my heart for you.”
“Matthew, did you really think you were the only one of us who felt relief whenever father was beating one of the others?” Johnna, too, moved closer to him, her gray eyes soft and filled with love.
“I can remember lying in my bed and listening to father beating Mark and I wanted it to go on forever because I knew when the sound of those smacks stopped, it meant father might come to find me next.” She flashed a quick smile at Mark. “Forgive me,” she said.
Mark nodded. “It’s like we were at war,” he said. “Even though we were just kids, we were all in intensive self-survival modes.” He raked a hand through his hair, his gaze lingering on Matthew. “For God’s sake, Matthew, forgive yourself for being human. The only monster in this house was the man who was our father.”
Matthew looked deep into Mark’s eyes and saw no censure there, no resentment or negativity. He saw only the shine of brotherly love, and for the first time in his life, he reached out and pulled Mark to his chest for the hug they both had needed for a lifetime.
As he hugged Mark, Matthew saw the tears that streamed down Johnna’s cheeks. Johnna, who had always seemed so strong, so capable, wept like a little girl. He released Mark and gestured for his baby sister to come into his arms.
“I needed you to love me, Matthew,” she cried into his chest as he held her tight. “But you were always so cold…so distant. I thought you hated me.”
“I never hated you,” Matthew exclaimed. “I’ve always loved you, Johnna. I’ve always loved all of you. But I’ve been so afraid that you blamed me for everything that happened when we were growing up.”
Then they were all hugging and crying, healing old wounds that had festered for far too long. Matthew was overwhelmed by joy.
The guilt he’d never known he’d harbored, the guilt that had been so black, so desolate in his heart was swept away by the love he felt for his siblings and the love that radiated back to him from them.
Matthew felt as if he’d been washed clean, and for the next few minutes they all talked about the past. They spoke of their worst memories and their best and began the process of exorcising the power of their father from their lives.
For the first time Matthew shared his memories of their mother with the siblings who had been too young to remember her.
“We should have had this talk a long time ago,” Luke said.
“The good thing is we finally did,” Johnna replied. “And it’s a good beginning. Maybe we are a family after all,” she said, swiping at the tears that had tracked down her cheeks. “Maybe, just maybe, in spite of father’s attempts to the contrary, we’re really going to become the loving family we all desperately want.”
Matthew nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. He went back to the bar and picked up his drink once again and took a sip. Thank you, Lilly, he thought. Thank you for picking and prodding and forcing me to look inside myself. Thank you for making me see how important my family really is to me.
“So what’s up with this meeting tonight? Is this why you called one?” Mark asked.
Matthew laughed. “Not hardly. I didn’t have a clue that all this was going to tumble out of us tonight.” He finished his drink and set the glass in the sink. “To be honest, I called the meeting so I could tell you all that I’d reached a decision. I had decided that when the ranch becomes officially ours, I was going to sell my share to whomever wanted to buy it.”
“And is that still what you want?” Luke asked, his gaze intent on Matthew. “Because, I’ll tell you right now I would like for this ranch to continue being a family ranch, and we aren’t a family without you, Matthew.”
Again emotion swelled up inside Matthew, but before he could reply to Luke, the door to the family room flew open and Lilly ran inside.
“The stables are on fire!” she yelled.
There was a moment of stunned inactivity, then they all sprang into action, rushing for the door and out of the family room.
As they raced out of the house, Jerrod came out of the kitchen. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Fire!” Matthew exclaimed. “The stables are on fire.”
As Matthew hit the front porch and saw the flames already licking at the night sky, fear coursed through him. In this arid climate, there was nothing worse than a fire raging out of control.
The sounds of the terrified horses trapped inside the burning building filled the air. “Mark, Luke, see if you can get inside and get the horses out,” Mat
thew instructed. “April, call the fire department. Jerrod, help me with the hoses.”
They all sprang into action. As Luke and Mark disappeared into the burning stable, Matthew grabbed one of the water hoses that were always ready for just this kind of emergency. He knew better than to depend on a breakneck appearance by the Inferno Fire Department, which consisted of one fire engine manned by a volunteer team.
He grabbed one of the large hoses as Jerrod grabbed another and together the two men raced toward the fire with water gushing through the hoses.
Closer to the stable, the air was acrid with smoke and ash, and Matthew felt a stab of relief as horses shot out of the stable, running away with wild eyes and frantic whinnies.
The horses could be rounded up later, he thought. Another wild burst of relief fluttered through him as he saw both Luke and Mark run out of the flaming inferno.
He was vaguely aware of Lilly holding a third water hose and disappearing around the side of the stable out of his sight. He wanted to call her back, wanted to tell her to stay at the house where it was safe, but he also knew they needed the extra water dousing flames.
And there were flames. Bright, huge towers of flames and showers of deadly sparks lit the night sky and turned it black with soot and smoke.
Luke raced to Matthew’s side, his face blackened with soot. “I’m going to get another hose and wet down the rest of the outbuildings,” he said.
Matthew nodded. As he battled the conflagration, he wondered how it had started—if it was an accident, an act of God or another attack on the Delaney ranch.
It took them nearly an hour to get the flames put out. Exhausted and black-faced with soot, the men stood before the stable assessing the damage.
The women joined them, grim-faced as they looked at the building. “I called the fire department, but there was another fire in town,” April said, breaking the silence. “That’s why the fire department hasn’t arrived yet. The dispatcher told me Sheriff Broder was at that scene and would be out here later.”
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