by Maddie James
“Then why would you say it’s impossible, because that night we didn’t use protection. Hell, I thought you were on the pill. Didn’t you tell me that months ago?”
“I know. I did. It’s...” She slumped against the bed. “Brad, I didn’t want to tell you. I never thought I could get pregnant. For years I never got pregnant with Cliff. I always thought there was something wrong with me and since I couldn’t get pregnant and couldn’t give you the family you wanted that…”
Brad put up his hand. “Suzie, shut up and kiss me.”
“What?”
“Come here.” He pulled her closer and then took her lips in an all-consuming kiss. Within seconds, he was up on the gurney, spooning with her, holding her close and kissing her face.
“We’re pregnant,” he whispered. “It’s real. You and me. Just like old times. Kind of.”
“Yes, it appears so,” she added softly. “And this baby needs a home with both parents who don’t fight and are, well…married.”
He nodded.
“Yes, Brad. The answer is yes. I’ll marry you.”
Chapter Forty
Thursday
Lilly hummed to herself as she unpacked and shelved the latest shipment. The multiple colors of the crib sets complemented the soft pastels she had painted on the walls. Finally her last shipment had arrived and she was ready for her grand opening slated in three days. Come Monday morning she was officially in business.
New Beginnings had already generated a lot of interest from expectant mothers, new mothers, grandmothers, and friends of mothers. It seemed nearly every woman in Legend had stopped in at one time or another to express their excitement over the new shop.
And to gossip.
Apparently, Jim Hood was a common subject of discussion in Legend. And she, three wonderful weeks into their relationship, was now clearly additional fodder for the gossip mill. At least the women didn’t gossip behind her back. They actually included her to her face. It was more fun than she would have ever imagined.
“Is this where you want these?”
Lilly glanced up from the quilted Peter Rabbit comforter she was folding to see what Macy needed. The young woman had recently broken off her engagement, according to the gossip mill, because she caught her fiancé in the act with an older woman. One of the Dragon cheerleader’s mothers to be exact. One Candy Clark, the same woman who sent her evils stares anytime they crossed paths.
According to the mill, which was in full force on this issue, as they all seemed to despise the woman, Macy had walked in on a kinky situation involving chains and whips and her fiancé wearing her make-up and underwear. It was no wonder the poor girl was traumatized.
Macy held up a figurine that complemented the Peter Rabbit decorations. “Yes. Thank you. If you would, put all those out and we’ll see how they do there.”
Macy nodded and went back to work. She was a quiet girl before her breakup, but now she wore silent despair like a cloak. Lilly sighed. “Macy? Do you want to ride with me to the State game tomorrow night? I’m taking Jim’s SUV. There’s plenty of room.”
“No thank you, Ms. Lilly. I don’t go anymore.”
Lilly expected the answer and was determined to change Macy’s mind. She started to open her mouth but closed it again as the tiny cow bell she’d strung up on the door rang and Suzie walked into the shop. She hadn’t seen or talked to Suzie since being hung-over that day at the B&B a week earlier.
Suzie had made herself scarce when Lilly packed up and moved out of the B&B and into her new rental home. And Suzie hadn’t been in town, that Lilly knew of, since. Curious as to the purpose of the unexpected visit, Lilly laid the comforter down on the half-emptied box and walked to the front of the store. Pushing aside the instant hurt, she lifted her head and planted a pleasant smile on her lips. She was a professional now, and would act accordingly.
“Welcome to New Beginnings. I’m afraid we aren’t open yet.”
Suzie licked her lips, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “I’m sorry. Look, I was an idiot. It was so stupid to think you were a prostitute that killed some man named Big Daddy. I should have known all along it was the alcohol. I can’t take any more of this. We were friends. Jim is completely pissed at me. He hardly speaks to me at all anymore. And everything is off balance. I actually had a cake fall. Do you know how many years it’s been since I had a pastry come out wrong? So I am here to apologize.”
Lilly forced herself to take a breath as black dots danced before her eyes. She sent a quick glance to Macy but the girl seemed lost in her own world of misery and wasn’t paying attention. She approached Suzie. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying I’m sorry, Lilly. Besides, I need baby clothes.”
Lilly stared at Suzie. “What?”
Suzie shrugged. “You can’t seriously think I would go to Pigeon Forge for baby clothes when you are opening your new shop in Legend, do you?”
Clapping a hand over her mouth, Lilly exclaimed, “You’re pregnant!”
“I am.” She nodded to that. “And I’m using it as an excuse to come in here and apologize, Lilly. Dammit, you are my friend and I’m sorry I said those things to Jim.”
Lilly shook her head. “I understand, I think.”
Suzie exhaled loudly. “You were drunk. I’m not surprised you don’t remember because you knocked back a lot of liquor for someone who claimed to never drink.”
Lilly didn’t bother to correct her. She glanced at Macy again. This time the girl was paying rapt attention. She licked her lips. “Macy, this would be a good time for you to take your lunch break.”
Macy stared at her for a moment then shrugged. “Okay, Ms. Lilly.”
She went to the back of the store and retrieved her purse before leaving. Lilly locked the door and turned to Suzie. “What exactly did I say to you?”
Suzie studied her for a moment. “I don’t remember word for word, but it was something about a man named Big Daddy, your father, someone died, and a Madame. I thought...well I thought you were a hooker that killed your pimp.”
Lilly wanted to laugh, as if what Suzie was saying was foolish, but all she could do was slide to the floor, her legs gone, her stomach ill. She looked up then lowered her gaze as Suzie joined her on the floor.
“Lilly, I know it isn’t any of my business, but was I right?”
She shook her head. “No. I was never a hooker, but I knew some. The people who raised me were not good people. Big Daddy...you can never say that name again. Please, it’s dangerous.”
Suzie reached out and grasped Lilly’s cold hands. “Can you tell me what happened? Is there anything I can do?”
The need to tell, the desire to unburden herself was so strong she could barely breathe. But if she did she was placing her whole existence in Suzie’s care. For once in her life she wanted to take that chance. “What I am about to tell you can go no further. If you tell anyone, and I mean anyone, I will have to disappear.”
“You’re scaring me. It almost sounds like you are in the federal witness protection program.”
She stared silently at Suzie.
“Oh, my, gosh! Are you serious? Lilly, what… I mean can you tell me? Should I go? What do you want me to do?”
Her lower lip trembled. “I want to tell you, but I could endanger us both if I do.”
Suzie sat straight up. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. But if I can help you in some way…”
Shaking, Lilly got to her feet and pulled Suzie up. She wandered around the store touching all the pretty things babies needed, or their parents wanted. She glanced back at Suzie who was watching her. “The day I turned eighteen I ran across a news article in the study of the man I believed to be my father.”
“Big Daddy?” She whispered the words.
Lilly shivered, nodded. “I kinda knew my life was different. I saw other people from the window of our hired car when I was little. I saw children playing in the streets, people walking down them
, and was allowed to walk down them myself with escorts on the rare occasion.”
“Escorts?”
Lilly snorted. “Body guards.”
“Why?”
“Big Daddy and Madame, who I thought to be my mother, told me people would want to hurt me because we were so rich. I didn’t really care when I was younger, but as I went through puberty and then my early teens I resented having wealth since I was basically a prisoner in a gilded cage.”
“The marble Grecian style home with the gold faucets?”
Lilly closed her eyes and groaned. “I’ll never drink again!”
Suzie laughed. “Yeah, I’m thinking that would be smart. Loose lips sink ships and all that.”
“Yeah. Well,” Lilly continued, “the day I turned eighteen I’d had enough. I confronted Big Daddy and Madame. I told them that I wanted a regular life and that I didn’t want to be watched over all the time. That I wanted to date like a regular girl.”
“And?”
“He locked me in his study.” Lilly picked up a silver rattle and laid it back down. “I think he did it on purpose so I would find what I found. He didn’t make it all that hard.”
“What are you talking about? What did you find?”
Lilly swallowed. She hadn’t purposely revisited that day in the last ten years. Her eyes welled up as she spoke. “There on his desk was an old newspaper article about a couple who had been brutally murdered eighteen years earlier. The man was missing several body parts, the woman had been sliced open and a baby removed from her womb. Neither one had a head or fingers.” She placed her hand on her own stomach. “I was that baby.”
“Oh, my, Lilly, no!” Suzie crossed the room and pulled Lilly into a hug.
She nodded and stepped back. “Please, don’t touch me right now. I need to finish. I need to say it all.”
Suzie backed away. “Say whatever you need to. It will never leave this room.”
“Thank you.” Lilly cleared her throat. “When I read the article I knew. I knew it was about my real parents. No one knew who they were. There was no way to trace them without teeth for dental records, or fingers for prints. They didn’t come up in any of the police files for DNA. There was nothing. To this day I don’t know who my real parents were. What their names were. What they would have named me.”
“I feel sick.”
Lilly nodded. “I know. Even now, after all this time, it still makes me want to puke.”
“What happened?”
She shrugged. “Pretty much what you would expect. Big Daddy decided I was no longer his daughter so he beat me, took away all the luxuries I had been raised with and put me in the apartments of the prostitutes he owned. I’ve never used Daddy when thinking about him since. Now I just think of him as BD. I try not to think of him at all.”
“Prostitutes? You were just a kid! Did he make you…”
“No, I never did it. The sex, I mean. I refused. He beat me every day for three weeks because I would fight and none of his customers were willing to rape me. Of course I was looking pretty bad by then. My face was swollen black and blue, purple and green. New bruises over old. I couldn’t even see out of my right eye because it was swollen closed. I guess I was lucky he made me so unattractive up to that point anyway.”
“How? How did you get out of there?”
“Desperation. He decided to show me what he was going to do to me if I didn’t ‘stop fighting the inevitable,’ as he called it. He had a customer willing to pay 20-Large. That’s twenty thousand dollars, for me. That man didn’t care what I looked like as long as I was a virgin. He liked tearing them apart. Being their first and last, even to the point of killing them, and he had the money to get what he wanted. I overheard the other girls talking about it and was terrified. I’m pretty sure now I was supposed to know what was in store for me. My fear would have fed BD’s pleasure. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch.”
She nearly smiled at the horror on Suzie’s face. Not from pleasure, but from relief that someone now eased her own burden by listening to the profound horror she’d survived. “When I refused again, BD had a man executed right in front of me. I don’t even know if he was being punished for something he’d done or if BD just had him picked up off the street to teach me a lesson. They peeled the skin off that poor man’s body a strip at a time… It took hours. He screamed and screamed until he passed out from the pain. They’d wake him and start it all over again. I screamed and screamed, too, until I couldn’t make another sound. BD loved it, laughed as I puked, thought it was all hilarious. Finally the man passed out and couldn’t be revived. BD had one of his men shoot that poor man in the head. Blood and brain tissue splattered on me.”
She touched her cheek where a chunk of brain had landed. “I still sometimes feel the need to wash it away all these years later.”
“Oh my.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
Suzie studied her. “No. If you survived it I can deal with hearing about it. Go on.”
She nodded. “I was so afraid. I knew that my time had run out. The man who was willing to pay that much money for the mess I was wasn’t going to take my ‘No’ for an answer. There was no way out. BD’s men patrolled the apartment building like solders. Even if I could have gotten to a phone I knew most of the police department had eaten dinner or partied with BD over the years. Going to them, if I managed to escaped, wasn’t an option.
“That meant I would be completely on my own assuming I actually got out. In the end it wasn’t all that hard.” She walked over to the small red handled device on the wall. “I pulled the fire alarm. Pretty much like this one here. Since the apartment building was seven stories high, and people came out running from all directions, I was able to get lost in all the confusion.
“It was almost too easy. That scared me because nothing had been easy for weeks. I thought I was being set up but I just kept running until I couldn’t run anymore. When I turned around no one was following me. It took me a week of living on the streets to seek help. I went to a phone booth and called the FBI and told them I had information they would want if they would protect me.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” Lilly exhaled. There was certainly more to the story but all that was trivial compared to what she had revealed. “So here I am in Legend, Tennessee. Starting over.”
Suzie pulled her into her arms again. This time she didn’t let go. “I’m so sorry, Lil. Oh my gosh, honey, I am so sorry.”
****
Jim studied the broken latch on his gate then turned to the Sheriff. “Looks like someone is intent on breaking into my property.”
Marcus McClain nodded. “Yep. Second time in a few days. You suddenly making enemies, Hood?”
“Larkstone? They’re pretty pissed we’re going to State tomorrow and not them.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Don’t know. They’ll just deny any involvement like they always do. Swearing they had nothing to do with that crap on the field. Entire team’s willing to take a lie detector test according to their coach. I believe he believes none of his players had anything to do with it.”
He shot Marcus a frown. “Bull.”
“What I figure, too.” He squatted and aimed his flashlight on the lock panel. “Just don’t touch anything. Got Stevie coming over with the finger print case.”
Jim surveyed Lake Road. “Could have been anyone.” He glanced back through the gates at the house. “Anybody that knows me knows I don’t keep anything of value here. Except the electronics and those would be too heavy to move without being noticed.”
“Could be a prank. Maybe one of our own.”
Jim turned his focus on the sheriff. “Would hate to think so.”
“Yep. Me, too.” Marcus stood as another police car pulled up lights flashing and sirens blaring. “Damn, Prickett, turn that damned thing off.” Stevie Prickett, the newest member of Legend’s police force ran back to the car and cut both lights and sirens. “Sorry, Sheriff.”
&nb
sp; Marcus grunted and took the finger print box from his hands. Jim watched, his mind whirling with possibilities. There was Sissy’s mother, Candy. She had thrown dart-eyes at him any time they came face to face for the past two weeks. He didn’t know why unless it was because he was dating Lilly. But he’d made it clear long before Lilly came to Legend that he just wasn’t interested.
Then there was Suzie. She’d been mad as fire at him for virtually the same amount of time. Suzie was too classy to vandalize. She’d rip his head off with words, but she would never destroy property belonging to someone else. Not even him. That just left Larkstone. As far as he knew he didn’t have any real enemies off the playing field.
“We’re done here, Coach. You can call your insurance company and have them handle the rest.”
Jim nodded and watched as the Sheriff and his deputy returned to their cars. They left, one after the other to return to town. He turned back, walked through the gates then pulled them closed. He started to return to the house but heard a vehicle approaching. Intending to wave since he knew virtually every resident of Legend, he stopped with his hand in mid-motion as a dark green sedan passed by, its windows too darkened to see inside. A strange tingle tickled the back of his neck and he swatted it, hoping he hadn’t been bitten.
With a shrug he pulled out his cell phone to call the insurance company. He needed to hurry if he was going to get to stop by Lilly’s house for a quick kiss, before meeting his team for their last practice. Tomorrow was the big game, the last hurdle before the national championship. The urgency to succeed hadn’t been diminished at all, though now it took second place in his heart. He’d be late if he had to as Lilly was now top priority. It was something his coaching staff ribbed him about constantly, but that was okay as it was all in the name of fun.
The community was looking forward to having fun, too, and had geared up. Banners and streamers were all over town. A parade was already scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Food booths, rides for toddlers, local bands, and general partying were planned whether the Dragons came home with a state championship, or not.