As he thought of all the things that had happened over the past couple of days—the snake in her room, the shots at the creek—his heart clenched with a kind of fear he had never known before.
He wondered if she’d been attacked and was now lying dead in the brush and that’s why she’d been unable to return their calls. He shoved this thought away, unwilling to even think such a horrible thing.
As the others all gathered on the porch, unsure what to do next, Matthew walked around the side of the stable where he had last seen Lilly go.
“Where are you, Lilly?” he muttered aloud as he slowly walked over the hard dirt. He knew better than to think she might have run away following their confrontation in the office. Lilly wouldn’t have left the ranch without saying goodbye to Clara. Besides, her things were still in her room upstairs.
Something bad had happened to her. He knew it in his heart, he felt it in his soul. He spied the hose she’d been using, no longer sputtering water, but lying cast aside on the ground. She’d stood right here, and then what?
He gazed around, wishing the moon was just a little bigger, just a little brighter, to aid in the search for Lilly. Where in the hell could she be?
A feeling of imminent danger filled him as he continued to peruse the landscape before him. Had somebody come out of the nearby brush and dragged her away?
He squinted down to the dirt beneath his feet, looking for prints that might indicate where she had gone. Instead what his gaze caught was the sparkle of something in the grass nearby.
He walked over and leaned down. A piece of jewelry. He picked it up and stared at the cross with the roses crawling up it. His heart pounded. Where had he seen it before? On one of the ranch hands…but who?
Think, Matthew, think, he commanded himself. He closed his eyes and thought of each of his workers. Sayville. That was it. It belonged to Ned Sayville. So what was it doing here?
Ned. He’d been the one who had raced inside and saved Lilly from the snake. Had he played the hero to throw suspicion off himself?
Gripping it tightly in his fist, he ran back around to where the others were standing on the porch. “I found something,” he said.
“What have you got?” Mark asked.
Matthew held out his hand, the gold piece shining in the porch light overhead. “It’s Ned Sayville’s.” He swept past them all and ran down the hall toward his office. In there he had all the job applications, and on Ned’s would be the man’s address.
He reached the office and pulled out the thick manila folder that held the applications from the past year. Frantically he thumbed through them, seeking the one that would give him the address he sought.
“What are you doing, Matthew?”
He glanced up to see Mark in the doorway. “I’m finding Ned’s address. I think he has Lilly.”
Mark frowned. “What makes you think that?”
Matthew shook his head impatiently. “I don’t have time to go into it.” He found the application and quickly read the address—425 Briarcliff Road. He knew the area.
He grabbed a set of car keys from the desk then grabbed the gun from the drawer. “I’m going after her,” he said.
“Are you sure Ned Sayville has her?” Mark asked. “He might have dropped that neck chain earlier today, or yesterday. There’s no reason to believe he has anything to do with Lilly’s disappearance.”
“There’s no reason to believe he doesn’t have something to do with Lilly’s disappearance.” He hesitated a brief moment. “No, I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I’ve got to get to Sayville’s place and check it out.” He shoved past Mark.
“Wait,” Mark replied. “You aren’t about to go into this all alone. Those days are over. Luke and I are coming with you.”
Matthew didn’t wait. He felt the press of precious moments ticking by, and with each moment that passed he felt the thrum of danger increasing inside him.
As he got into his truck, he was vaguely aware of his brothers hopping into Luke’s truck.
Matthew took off, not heeding speed limits, one single purpose in mind. Help Lilly. Save Lilly. The words reverberated around and around in his head. Help Lilly. Save Lilly.
Without her, Matthew might never have faced the killing guilt that had been inside of him for years. Without her, he might never have talked to his siblings about their past, might never have found the peace and begun the healing that had begun this evening.
Love for Lilly welled up inside him. Although he’d tried to tell himself what he felt for her had nothing to do with love, he now knew he’d been fooling himself.
He loved her, thought he’d probably fallen in love with her years ago, when she’d been a charming, funny, sexy teenager.
He’d thought himself incapable of loving, had believed that his experience with his father had killed any soft caring that might have once existed inside him. But Lilly had nourished a seed of love that had been hidden deep inside his heart.
She’d made him realize that he could love, and the idea that she might never know what she’d done for him, that he might never be able to thank her was impossible to fathom. The idea that something bad might have happened to her ripped his insides into tormented shreds.
He didn’t want to think about the possibility that he was wrong about Ned, that the neck chain had been dropped there yesterday, or the day before. If he was wrong about Lilly being with Ned Sayville, then all hope would be lost. He’d have no clue where else to look for her.
As they entered the town of Inferno, Matthew glanced in his rearview mirror. Luke’s truck was right behind him, and he knew no matter what happened, no matter what they discovered, he could count on his brothers.
The thought of Luke and Mark joining forces with him to help Lilly warmed him. But the warmth couldn’t compete with the chill of fear as he thought of Lilly.
He pulled to the curb two houses away from Ned Sayville’s small ranch house. If Lilly was there, he didn’t want to give the man any warning of their approach.
The others seemed to understand his intent and parked farther down the street. Matthew grabbed the gun from the seat next to him and got out of his car.
“Matthew…” Mark and Luke hurried to catch up with him.
“What’s the plan?” Mark asked.
“Plan?” Matthew stared at them blankly.
“Before we do anything, we need to check out the house,” Luke said. As if he sensed Matthew’s impatience, he placed a hand on Matthew’s arm. “We don’t want to do anything that might make him hurt Lilly if he hasn’t already.”
A bleak wind of despair blew through Matthew’s heart, but he nodded that he understood. “Looks like nobody is home,” Luke observed as the three men stood at the curb, staring at the house before them. “His pickup isn’t in the driveway.”
Matthew pointed to a small, detached, windowless garage. “He’s probably got it parked in there. I’m going to go around back and have a look.”
Moving quickly but silently, Matthew rounded the corner of the house to the back where a patio was overgrown with weeds. There were no lights on back there, either, but as he moved closer to the house, he saw the small, narrow windows that indicated a basement.
Moving closer, he realized the basement windows weren’t just dark because no lights were on, but something had been put in the windows to block any light from radiating out. Why would anyone put black paper or material over basement windows unless they were hiding something?
His heartbeat raced, and he knew with a certainty Lilly was in that basement. He just didn’t know if she was all right or not.
Still moving as silently as possible, he returned to the front of the house where Luke and Mark stood guard watching the house.
“I think she’s in there,” Matthew said. “I think she’s in the basement.”
“So what are we going to do?” Mark asked.
“I’m going inside,” Matthew said tersely as he tightened the grip on his gun. “And I don�
��t intend to politely knock.”
His two brothers nodded. “I reckon between the three of us we can get through that front door,” Luke said.
Together the three of them approached the front door as quietly as possible. Luke reached for the doorknob and gave it a twist. “It’s locked,” he said, and stepped away from the door.
“On three,” Matthew said. “One…two…three!” On the count, all three Delaney men hit the door with their shoulders. The force cracked the door frame and sprung the door open.
Matthew flew inside the house, vaguely aware of his brothers following close behind him.
Somebody turned on a light and Matthew looked for a door that would lead to the basement. He found it in the kitchen, threw open the door and half fell down the stairs in his haste.
When he reached the bottom step, the first thing he saw was Lilly tied to the bed. Myriad emotions roared through him. Relief and joy coupled with rage.
“Matthew, watch out. Behind you,” Lilly cried.
Matthew swung around to see Ned Sayville charging him like an enraged bull. The man tackled Matthew, driving his head into the pit of his stomach and knocking him backward to the floor. The gun Matthew had been carrying flew from his hand and rattled across the floor, disappearing beneath a dresser.
“She’s mine,” Ned cried as he smashed his fist into Matthew’s chin. “You can’t have her. She belongs to me.” Again his fist connected with Matthew’s face, this time glancing off his cheek.
The rage that Matthew had always fought to contain exploded out of him like a wild animal finally set free. As he saw Ned’s next blow coming, he twisted his head to evade the impact.
With the strength of his rage flooding through him, he rolled, pulling Ned from on top of him to the floor next to him.
As the two men grappled, each one seeking the position of power on top, Matthew was vaguely aware of his brothers rushing to Lilly’s side.
Ned fought with the strength of a madman, but Matthew fought with an equal, unrestrained force. The idea that this man might have harmed Lilly, might have laid his hands on her gave Matthew the edge of anger he needed for power.
With a roar he managed to gain the upper hand, and with Ned flat on his back on the floor, Matthew smashed his fist into Ned’s face. Again and again he hit him, and someplace deep inside he knew he wasn’t just hitting Ned Sayville, but he was also symbolically hitting back at his father, venting the lifetime of rage and hurt that he’d kept inside for so long.
For a brief moment he saw nothing but a curtain of red as he fell deeper and deeper into the festering anger. Then the curtain faded away and he saw the wounds that his fists had produced, knew if he continued, he’d kill the man.
He rolled off Ned and grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him up from his prone position. “Luke, Mark, get this piece of dirt out of here,” he said gruffly.
The two brothers each grabbed Ned’s arms and half carried him like a limp rag doll up the stairs. Matthew rushed to Lilly, who stood next to the bed where she had been held captive.
“Are you all right?” he asked, wanting nothing more than to hold her in his arms, grab her against his chest and feel her heart beating reassuringly against his own.
But he didn’t do that. He couldn’t do it. He could love Lilly with all his heart. He could want her with every fiber of his being.
However, with the memory of that killing rage still burning in his head, with the vision of the red curtain of fury still burning in his eyes, he knew no matter how deeply he cared about Lilly, he would never have a life with her. He loved her too much for that.
Chapter 14
It was after one in the morning when Lilly and Matthew finally left the sheriff’s office. Lilly had spent the past two hours telling the sheriff everything that had transpired from the time she’d stood at the side of the stable until they had broken in to save her.
It had been agonizing, reliving the fear that had filled her in that time she’d spent tied to the bed. But what was more agonizing was that she wanted desperately to be held by Matthew, only he wasn’t offering his arms to her.
Now she sat next to him in his pickup traveling back to the ranch. Her jaw hurt, her arms burned with the muscle strain of being tied to the bed frame, but it was the ache in her heart that consumed her.
“I’m sorry about the stable,” she said to break the uncomfortable silence that was thick in the air between them.
“Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault.” He shrugged and turned through the gates onto the Delaney property. “Besides, we can rebuild a stable.”
He pulled up in front of the house, and Aunt Clara flew out the front door, tears streaming down her plump cheeks. “Oh, my sweet Lilly,” she exclaimed, and pulled Lilly into her arms. “You poor dear. I’ve been so frantic.”
For the first time since the horrid experience with Ned had begun, Lilly wept. She wept with residual fear, then with grateful relief. And she wept because the arms that held her, while loving ones, were not the ones she wanted most to hold her.
“I’ll just leave you two alone,” Matthew said as he started for the front door.
“Wait,” Lilly said. “You can go ahead and lock up. I think I’ll stay with Aunt Clara tonight.” She knew she wouldn’t be able to stand sleeping under the same roof as Matthew and not being in his bed, in his arms.
“Fine, then I’ll see you in the morning.” He walked up the front steps and disappeared into the house without a backward glance.
Again tears stung Lilly’s eyes, and a sob caught in her throat. Aunt Clara placed an arm around her shoulder. “Come on, dear. You’re safe now. Let’s get to my cottage and get you to bed.”
Lilly allowed the old woman to lead her to the cottage, where Clara gave her a nightgown to wear, then made up the sofa with sheets and a pillow.
When Lilly was settled on the sofa, Clara sat down in the rocker nearby. “Are you all right, sweetheart? Will you be able to sleep after the terrible trauma you suffered?”
Lilly forced a reassuring smile to her lips. “Sure, I’m fine. Just tired.” Although she had a feeling sleep would remain an elusive oblivion that she’d love to fall into.
She lay there a moment not speaking, instead coming to a decision. “Aunt Clara, I think I’m going to leave in the morning and head back to Dallas,” she said.
“Can you do that? I mean, won’t the sheriff need you to be here so that man can be charged and put away?”
Lilly pulled the sheet up closer around her neck. “According to what Sheriff Broder told me, before Ned can be tried for my kidnapping, it’s possible he’ll be extradited back to Texas to stand trial for the murder of two women.”
“Murder?” Aunt Clara’s voice squeaked in alarm. Although Lilly had called Aunt Clara from the sheriff’s office to let her know she was all right, she hadn’t told the older woman any details.
Quickly Lilly told her aunt what Ned had told her, about the two women apparently now buried in an old oil field. “I was only able to give Sheriff Broder their first names, but he thinks that will be enough for the Texas authorities to begin an investigation.”
“We were so lucky,” Clara said. “We were so lucky that Matthew found that necklace on the ground and wasn’t about to let anyone stop him from going to Ned’s place.”
Lilly nodded.
“But the Halloween party is tomorrow night,” Aunt Clara continued. “Wouldn’t you like to stay for that.”
Lilly shook her head. “I’m not much in the mood for a party. Besides, I need to get back home. I have a lot of things waiting for me there.”
Clara was silent for a long moment. “Darling girl, you might be fooling yourself, but you aren’t fooling me. I know good and well why you’re going home. Because you’re in love with Matthew.”
Lilly started to sputter a protest, but Aunt Clara shushed her.
“A body would have to be blind not to see how you two feel about each other.” Aunt Clara�
��s chair squeaked as she rocked back and forth. “What I don’t understand is why if you love him, you’re running away?”
A lump filled Lilly’s throat, a lump of tears that begged to be released. Instead of letting them go, she swallowed hard against them. “You’re right,” she said, finally managing to talk around the lump. “I love Matthew, but he doesn’t love me.”
“I don’t know what would make you think such a thing. I’ve never seen a man so besotted with a woman like he is with you.”
Her aunt was obviously seeing things that weren’t there, Lilly thought with a wave of sorrow. “Matthew has no room in his life for anyone, and it’s past time for me to get back to my life.” She said the words with a note of finality.
Aunt Clara got out of the rocking chair and leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Whatever you decide to do, you know I’m behind you 100 percent. Now try to get some sleep. Everything always looks brighter in the light of the morning.”
Lilly murmured a good-night, knowing in her heart that nothing would look brighter in the morning. Until she could forget the love for Matthew that burned in her heart, until she could forget the taste of his sweet kisses, the magic of their lovemaking, she would know nothing but bleak emptiness, dark loneliness.
She’d thought that sleep would be difficult to find, but within minutes of Aunt Clara turning off the lights, Lilly slept.
She awakened just after dawn, the desire to leave Inferno and the ranch behind more intense than it had been the night before.
Aunt Clara was in relatively good health, the culprit responsible for the disasters at the ranch was behind bars, and there was no reason for her to remain here any longer.
She showered, then dressed in the same clothes she’d worn the night before. By the time she got out of the shower, Aunt Clara was up, and the scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the small confines of the kitchen.
She had a cup of coffee with her aunt, then the two women shared a heartfelt and loving goodbye. “You call me the minute you get into Dallas so I’ll know you arrived safely,” Aunt Clara said, hugging her fiercely.
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