It was easy to isolate herself, to not think beyond the moment. With only the moonlight pushing its way in through the uncovered windows, illuminating the dark, Lily felt herself safe from tomorrow, safe from yesterday.
The room tilted dangerously as she unleashed all the feelings that so dangerously threatened her own self-preservation. She didn’t care about the heartache that waited for her, hiding behind the last day of the week, behind Saturday. Didn’t care about the loneliness that would contrast so sharply with this feeling of joy that came from being here with him like this. She only wanted the feeling.
Her hands raced along his body, unbuttoning, tugging, tearing as he kissed her over and over again. Lily was desperate to absorb every nuance of the sensation until she felt drunk from it. Until she felt intoxicated with the power that coursed through her veins as the sounds of Max’s sharp intake of breath wove its way into her consciousness.
She was stirring him.
Just as he was stirring her.
They barely made it three feet into the cabin, sinking onto the eight-by-ten rug that covered the scarred wooden floor, their bodies clinging to one another. Pledged to one another.
Max couldn’t get enough of her.
Each kiss blossomed into the next one, increasing his hunger rather than appeasing it.
He kissed her everywhere, thrilling to the way she twisted and turned beneath his lips, the way she bucked when he found a particularly sensitive spot.
And all the while, his own excitement, his own anticipation, continued to grow until it became a superhuman feat to hold it back.
He wasn’t Superman, he’d never pretended to be. Just a man, a mortal man who wanted this woman more than he wanted anything else in his life.
Bracing himself above her, Max slid in, taking what he needed to survive, giving of himself to continue.
The sensations that had been teasing her, dancing to and fro at an ever-increasing tempo all rushed up at Lily as the final moment seized her.
Wrapping her legs around him, she cried out Max’s name as she arched herself far off the floor.
And then she sank physically and emotionally back to the tiny space of earth she had occupied just a moment before eternity had ripped open its doors to her.
She doubted if she had ever been this content. This tired. This happy.
He wanted her this way forever. In his life. In his bed.
He knew it was impossible.
But still, he wanted her to know. Wanted to tell her what was in his heart here in this small cabin in the wilderness.
Rousing himself, Max raised up on his elbows. He framed Lily’s face with his hands and looked down into her eyes. She had beautiful eyes, he thought. He could go on looking into them forever.
Could he see forever in them, his forever?
He didn’t know.
“Lily—”
Her name lingered in the air as he searched for words that refused to present themselves. His mind refused to cooperate, going completely blank.
He felt like a tongue-tied idiot, not that he’d ever had a way with words. But he’d never been transformed into a mute before, either.
“What?” she coaxed, secretly wondering if she wanted to hear what he had to say.
No matter what it was.
Because whatever it was, whether to reinforce the thought that this was nothing more than a pleasant time for the two of them, or to state that it was so much more, carried consequences with it. Consequences she wasn’t sure just how to face, or what to do with.
He began again, saying her name, getting no further. Afraid, she raised her head and just barely brushed her lips against his. It was all the encouragement he needed to abandon the statement that was forming so awkwardly on his lips.
And then, just as he took her into his arms again, he could hear banging just a few feet away. Someone was pounding on his door.
Vanessa? Damn, he hoped not.
“If it’s Vanessa—” he warned angrily under his breath, reaching for his pants.
He’d done all he could to keep her away from him, to make her understand why there could never be anything between them beyond the friendship of a sheriff for one of the people of his town.
“Sheriff, you in there? I saw your Jeep parked out here. Open up, I gotta talk to you!” Each word was punctuated with more banging. It was getting louder, more insistent.
Recognizing the voice, Max sprang to his feet. Taking her hand in his, he helped her up, then gathered her clothes.
“Go into the other room,” he ordered, pushing her things into her arms.
The last thing he wanted was for Lily to be the subject of cruel speculation. He quickly pulled on his pants, then looked over his shoulder to make sure that Lily was out of the room and safely hidden. Only when he saw the bedroom door close did he unlock the front door to admit Vanessa’s father.
He saw instantly that the tall, rangy man was unsteady on his feet. It was a familiar condition.
“She’s gone,” Ulrich announced to the world at large. He waved a crumpled sheet of paper in front of Max. “She’s run off. Here!” Vanessa’s father thrust the paper into his hands.
The cloud of alcoholic vapor that accompanied the statement was pungent and overwhelming. Momentarily holding his breath, Max turned on the light. He quickly scanned the note. Written in pencil, the words were hardly visible. But he read enough.
“We had an argument,” the man whimpered, collapsing onto the sofa, vacillating between despair and anger.
“Stay here, Mr. Ulrich.” Turning from him, Max saw his shirt and picked it up. “I’ll call someone to come and take you home. I’ll go look for her.” Max shrugged into his shirt, rebuttoning it. “And when I find her, we’ll sort this all out.”
But when he turned around, Max saw that Vanessa’s father had passed out on the sofa. The way the man did most nights, he’d heard.
Max shook his head at the pathetic sight. “Just as well.” He had a feeling that the man would only hinder him.
Max heard the door to his bedroom. He turned to see Lily coming out. She was dressed again.
Lily nodded toward the slumped figure on the sofa. “I heard.”
Then there was no need to waste time explaining. Sitting on the arm of the sofa, Max pulled on one boot, then the other. “Call your brother, have him take you and Sleeping Beauty here home.”
“I’ll call Jimmy,” she agreed, “but he’ll only be taking Vanessa’s father home. I’m going with you.”
“Lily—”
She knew he was going to try to talk her out of it, but she could help. She wouldn’t have offered if she couldn’t.
“If she’s run off, Vanessa’s a distraught young woman. I’ve been there,” she confided. And maybe someday she’d tell him the details, but not now. “Maybe I can talk some sense into her.”
To argue would be to waste time and every moment was precious. It was too dark to follow a trail, just a hunch.
Max relented. “All right. Let’s go.”
Taking out her cell phone, she hurried to keep up with Max as they went outside. Two minutes later, Jimmy had been called and dispatched to Max’s cabin to transport Vanessa’s father.
Lily buckled up in the passenger seat. “You have any idea where she could have gone?”
“Some.”
Putting the key into the ignition, Max took Vanessa’s note out of his breast pocket and passed it to Lily.
Lily angled for light from the overhead map light and scanned the note. It was short and painful. Vanessa had written that she knew no one loved her and that she was going to kill herself to put everyone out of her misery.
Max waited until Lily put the note down in her lap. She looked, he felt, as if the despair in the note had gotten to her.
“Before my father left, my family lived in a little cabin just north of here. Vanessa knew about it. She once said that she thought it would be a nice place for a couple to make a start.”
There was no need to read between the lines. The message was ten feet tall. “She meant you and her.”
He nodded grimly. “Yes.”
Max fervently hoped he was right. Because if he wasn’t, he hadn’t a clue where to look for Vanessa before dawn lit the sky and he could try tracking her.
The old cabin, which had once been instrumental in saving April and Jimmy when they had gotten caught in a freak June snowstorm while returning from the Inuit village, was far from the town proper. It felt even farther to him in the dead of night.
But the trip had been worth it. His hunch had panned out.
They found Vanessa’s second-hand Jeep lying on its side in front of the decaying cabin. By the looks of it, it had been deliberately flipped over by someone with a death wish. But there was no sign of blood, no sign of Vanessa.
“Looks like you’re right,” Lily said to him as Max brought his vehicle to a stop beside Vanessa’s. He pulled up the hand brake and unbuckled.
“Hope I’m not right about the rest of it,” he murmured, looking around as he got out.
What he was afraid of was that Vanessa had chosen this place to commit her final act of defiance. To teach him a lesson.
Suicide was an ugly word, an abomination against God and man and such a waste, he thought.
The door was locked when he tried it. Max frowned. It was never locked. His family hadn’t even locked it when they lived here.
Something was wrong, he could feel it in his gut. Fisting his hand, he pounded on the door just as her father had on his door less than an hour ago.
“Vanessa, open up.”
He listened against the door, but there was no sound of movement from within the cabin. Max tried the doorknob again, but the lock didn’t give. Taking his service revolver out, he raised his free hand to push Lily away.
“Stay back,” he ordered just before he shot at the lock. The wood all around it splintered. Satisfied, Max tried the doorknob again. This time, it gave.
Rushing inside, they found Vanessa lying on the floor in front of the fireplace. Blood was dripping from each wrist. She’d slashed them.
The moment Lily saw the girl lying so still, so pale, she began ripping off the edge of her blouse.
Max looked at her sharply as he checked Vanessa’s neck for signs of a pulse. He found a very faint one. “What the hell are you doing?”
“We have to bandage her wrists, stop the bleeding.” She was turning her designer silk blouse into tatters. Lily looked around the room. “Is there any running water in here?”
“In the kitchen.” The pipes leading to the sink in the bathroom had burst a long time ago.
“Go run it,” she told him. “Make the water as cold as you possibly can.” If this was winter, she would have sent him out front to gather snow, but this was the best they could do. “I need to dunk her wrists into cold water first, to slow down the bleeding. Then I can bandage her wrists.”
Bending over the unconscious girl, Lily eased first one eye open, then the other, using her thumb and forefinger against each lid.
“Vanessa, can you hear me? Vanessa, it’s Max, Max is here.” She saw no point in drawing attention to herself. After all, the girl saw her as unfair competition. “Open your eyes and look at him, honey,” she coaxed.
“I don’t—”
Max stopped midprotest. Looking down at Vanessa’s eyelids, he detected the faintest of flutters.
“You’re not going to be able to get her there yourself. I’ll take her, you run the water.”
Scooping the girl into his arms, Max carried Vanessa into the kitchen while Lily hurried after him. Reaching the kitchen, she darted in front of him and turned the water on full-blast to cold.
“Hold her up,” she instructed.
Working as quickly as she could, Lily bathed the slash wound on each wrist. As the blood was washed away, Lily sighed. He heard relief in the sound and raised a brow in silent query.
“It’s a pretty botched job, really,” she told him, pleased that the girl hadn’t been adept at this. If Vanessa had been, she probably would have been dead by now. “She’s going to be all right.” Lily leaned her head in closer to the girl. “Hear that, Juliet? You’re not dead. You get to live and look for a Romeo of your own.”
Max carried Vanessa back to the living room where he set her down on the sofa and watched as Lily bandaged both the girl’s wrists. Her movements, he marveled, were swift, competent.
“Where did you—”
She laughed, finishing off her handiwork. Just in time, too, she thought. If she had to rip any more silk from her blouse, she would have had to return home wearing only her bra.
“You can’t live with two people studying medicine without learning something. I used to quiz Jimmy, and Alison used to use me as her dummy whenever she needed to practice her bandaging techniques.” There was pure satisfaction in her smile as she looked at Vanessa’s pink-wrapped wrists. “Guess it paid off.”
Taking out her cell phone, she glanced to see if the signal was registering. It wasn’t. With a sigh, she flipped it closed again. “Looks like we can’t call ahead from here and warn Jimmy that we’ll be needing his services again.”
He scooped the girl up into his arms. “Maybe we can pick it up on our way into town.” Max nodded toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“You know, you’re pretty remarkable,” Max told her much later.
The sun was beginning to debate coming up. They had brought Vanessa to the clinic, finally managing to call Jimmy from the road. He met them there and had taken over, after telling Lily that she had probably saved Vanessa’s life.
Max’s praise warmed her the way no sun could have. “Nothing your average superwoman couldn’t do.” The smile on her lips grew tight as she thought of the unconscious girl they had left in Jimmy’s care. She remembered what it had been like to be filled with despair. Her parents’ deaths had left her that way. But she had had Kevin to help her over the rough patches. And even Jimmy and Alison had each tried their best to get her to come around.
What would it be like, without anyone? “That poor girl—”
He knew where she was going with this. “Vanessa needs to get out of Hades, make a fresh start.”
An idea occurred to her. Lily looked at him. “If she wants to come to Seattle, I could help her find a place there. She could even work at the restaurant until she found something more to her liking.” She was pretty sure the girl wouldn’t want to remain in her debt for too long. She knew pride when she saw it.
Max looked at her in surprise. “You’d do that for her?”
Lily saw no reason for his surprise. “Sure. Why not?”
“Like I said,” Max repeated as he brought Lily up to her sister’s door, just before he kissed her goodnight, “remarkable.” And what made it even more so was that she didn’t realize it.
But he didn’t say what was preying on his mind, what had been underscored by her cavalier mention of her restaurant in Seattle. She was willing to take the girl with her when she went back.
She was going back.
More than that, she was leaving him.
But what did he expect? For her to remain here? It would make more sense, the idea of the restaurant notwithstanding, if he tried to make a life for himself in Lily’s world. After all, they had policemen in Seattle. He could always find a career in law enforcement.
But for that to happen, he would have to leave everyone and everything he knew, leave behind a hole until the town found someone to take his place. And he would be doing it all because of Lily.
Hell, Max thought, dragging his hand through his hair as he walked back to his Jeep. He was taking a hell of a lot for granted.
He hadn’t even told her how he felt.
For that matter, she might not even feel the way he did. Might not think the earth moved every time they came together. He had been her first, what gave him the right to assume he would be her last?
He had a week left. A week
in which not to think about it.
A week before he had to think about it.
With renewed determination, Max pushed the thought out of his mind and drove home.
Chapter Fifteen
He’d never known a week to fly by so fast.
Looking back, it all seemed like a blur now. Seven days and nights flowing up into one another, forming an endless stream. He’d spent most of his time away from work with Lily, telling himself that all this was fleeting, without strings. Just a very pleasant time with an exciting, stirring woman.
Telling himself lies.
He’d never been much good at lying, even to himself. Maybe especially to himself.
They faced life together in those seven days. Vanessa had been treated and released. He’d seen Lily talking to her, giving her a check to help pay the girl’s flight to Seattle when she was ready, promising her a job when she was. Vanessa said she’d be ready in less than two weeks. Lily had said she’d be waiting.
Now that the day had arrived for Lily’s departure, he was no closer to a solution than he had been seven days ago. No closer to knowing how she really felt about him.
Oh, he knew that they were good in bed together. Didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that part out. She was attracted to him and he to her. But magnets and metal attracted, they didn’t necessary build a future together or have feelings for each other.
And he didn’t know how she felt about him, not really. A man couldn’t come out and ask those kinds of things and saying those kinds of things was completely beyond his scope. It was as if he came down with lockjaw every time he even thought about saying something to Lily that remotely had to do with his feelings for her, or asking her to think about staying.
He glanced at the clock on the back wall above the bulletin board with its handful of Wanted posters and public notices.
She was leaving in ten minutes.
Leaving Hades, leaving Alaska.
Leaving him.
He continued to sit where he was, wishing he could focus on something other than the dark loneliness that was beginning to take huge holes out of his gut.
Lily and the Lawman Page 17