A couple weeks went by as Lily and Wil prepared for their move to Endings. Everyone, except Lily’s parents, were told they’d be moving to Florida. She explained that Wil’s father was making a business deal and it was super secret, so they couldn’t tell anyone where they’d be going.
Dafne’s shower for Lily and Wil was a hit. Both families enjoyed meeting one another and playing silly shower games. Dafne had enlightened most of the Griffin family that they would be moving very soon and asked them for gift cards or cash instead of large shower gifts. She received a few handmade items and her father dug out the cradle he made for Lily and her siblings and cleaned it up. He re-stained it and presented them with it at the shower. It was certainly the most sentimental gift there.
Two days later, they packed both Wil’s pickup and Raleigh’s SUV full of their things for the move to Endings. Dafne assured Lily if anything had been forgotten, she’d bring it on her next trip. They’d be visiting a lot with the new franchise they were building and, of course, the baby coming later in the year.
Wil and Lily headed out first and Raleigh and Dafne followed behind them. They agreed Lily would be in charge of stops, since she was the one with a tiny human sitting on her bladder, and they’d take their time. Upon arrival to Endings, they first met up with Bess and Herbert for a casserole dinner, as promised. It was already dark by the time they got there and they had opted to stay in one of the pre-furnished rental cabins for the night. They left the unpacking to do for the next morning.
Raleigh and Wil went out with Herbert on his nightly walk around the grounds, while the ladies stayed back with Bess.
“There are several long-term rental properties available,” Herbert told Raleigh, “I told the office to hold the best four that I looked at until you got here so you could decide which one you wanted for the kids.”
“I really appreciate your help with all this, Herb,” Raleigh said. “I think we’ll probably go ahead and take one unfurnished for Wil and Lily and a furnished one so Dafne and I have a place to stay at least until after the baby arrives.”
He wanted to add in how cheap the cabins were, but didn’t want to make Herbert feel bad. Things at Happy Endings Resort were the same as they were every other visit over the years, even the rental prices hadn’t changed.
“I think Mom has visions of interior decorating in her head,” Wil chimed in.
“She most certainly does!” Raleigh said as they all chuckled.
Wil told his dad and Herb about the names of the rental boats and they all had a good laugh as they walked by the dock. They made their way around the resort and Raleigh and Wil reacquainted themselves with their old stomping grounds. Herbert pointed out the new indoor pool facility and that they had recently updated the activity center.
They made their way back to pick up the girls to go settle in their own cabins for the night. Wil stopped his dad for just a moment to say thank you.
“I think we’re gonna be just fine here, Pop,” Wil said reaching over to give his dad a hug.
“I know you will,” Raleigh said embracing his son.
The next morning, they stopped by the office to check out the other rentals and quickly decided on an unfurnished cabin for Wil and Lily and a furnished cabin for Dafne and Raleigh that they planned to keep for the rest of the year.
After emptying the two vehicles into Wil’s new cabin, they all climbed in Raleigh’s SUV and headed for the coast. Dafne and Lily dropped off the boys at the construction site and headed onto the city to do some shopping.
Dafne and Lily were planning to “set up house” as Raleigh had said during their casserole dinner the night before. Bess insisted on cooking again, but Raleigh was able to convince everyone to go to his Pop’s new diner instead. They enjoyed each other’s company and especially the fresh pie that the entire table devoured at the end of their meal. And Lily once again ordered the Griffin Gas Station sundae.
Wil and Raleigh went back out to the job site early the next morning and came back to Endings after lunch. Dafne had arranged for a few pieces of furniture to be delivered to the cabin prior to leaving Spring City and those were set to arrive. Dafne and Lily picked out a few larger pieces on their shopping trip, but those wouldn’t be delivered until the next week.
“Now honey, I want you to save all those gift cards you got at your shower until I’m not here. When you find you need something for the house or the baby that we missed, you won’t have to worry about the money, you can just go get it,” Dafne had told her.
Setting up her first home was exciting for Lily, but she also was really tired. Dafne insisted she not overdo and did all the heavy lifting and climbing on stools herself.
“The boys will be back in a little bit,” Dafne said, “And the delivery truck should be here about the same time. So I’m hoping they can get the furniture delivered, and the boys can put together whatever comes in pieces, while me and you put our feet up on your new couch!”
“That sounds wonderful!” Lily said reaching over and giving her mom-in-law a high five.
The delivery was made on time and only took about an hour to get parked and unloaded. They brought in a bed frame, mattress, a few end tables for the bedroom and living room, a couch and loveseat and a small table and for the dining room area.
Once the delivery driver had left, Dafne put Raleigh and Wil to work, calling in some pizzas to be delivered. It only took a few hours to put everything together and by mid-evening, the sun was still up and Dafne had made their bed and even threw a tablecloth on the dining room table.
“Starting to feel like home yet?” she asked Lily and Wil.
“It definitely is,” Lily said giving her a big hug.
“Well, there will be a few more things next week and Lily knows what’s coming in case I’m not here for some reason,” she said.
“And if it’s alright with you guys,” Raleigh interrupted, “I have a surprise for my daughter-in-law!”
“A surprise?” Lily said, a bit shocked at Raleigh’s thoughtfulness.
“Yep, a surprise! Come on,” he said gesturing her to the door of the cabin. “You don’t mind a short walk, do you?”
“Not at all,” Lily said staying right beside an excited Raleigh as he walked her around the cabin. Dafne and Wil followed along, already knowing the surprise he had in store for her. Raleigh asked Wil’s permission before buying such a gift, though Wil would hardly tell his Pop no.
They walked out onto a different dock than they had before to rent the pontoon. This dock definitely had nicer boats and no rental shack. All the boats here appeared to be privately owned.
“Are we going for a ride or something?” Lily asked Raleigh curious to what in the world he was doing bringing her out on the dock.
“Something like that, just a little farther,” he said continuing to guide her down the dock to the end. She noticed that many of the slips were filled with boats already, only a few were empty. They got to the very end of the dock and stopped. Lily enjoyed the nice view of the water, without anything obstructing the large lake.
“Well, we’re here!” Raleigh said to a still confused Lily. Dafne and Wil standing beside them smiling from ear to ear. Wil knew full well she had no idea what they were doing.
“Yay, we’re here,” Lily said waiting for someone to tell her what was going on.
“Honey,” Wil said and took her arm to guide her sights to the left slip. “Look at the name of this boat.”
“Tiger Lily” was written along the side of the vessel.
“Aww, someone has a boat named Tiger Lily!” Lily said, “And it’s spelled like my name!”
“It would have been here yesterday, but I wanted the name painted on before you saw it,” Raleigh said to her.
“That’s really cool you guys named your boat after me!” Lily said to Raleigh and Dafne.
“Sweetheart,” Raleigh said chuckling, walking over and whispering in her ear, “She’s yours.”
“Huh? Are you crazy?” Lily said making them all laugh.
“I’ve been called worse,” Raleigh said to her and chuckled, “I knew you guys were going to be here for a while and that you seemed really interested in the boat ride you and Wil took on your honeymoon. So I got her for you. I’ll teach you both everything there is to know about this little boat and you can take her out anytime you want. She’s yours.” Raleigh reached the boat keys out to her and Lily looked at him unsure whether to cry or take the keys.
“Uh oh, I don’t know how to interpret your pregnancy hormones, tell me you like it?” Raleigh said scrunching his eyebrows.
“I. Love. It.” Lily put her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight, “Thank you so much!”
“Well, we have just a little time before the sun is going to set if you want to cruise around in this fierce girl?” Raleigh spoke to the crowd. Not a single protest was made and they went out onto the lake in Lily’s surprise.
A week or so went by and Lily really got to know her cabin cruiser. In fact, she was probably a better captain than Wil. They installed a tracker app on her phone to find her location and Lily made sure to never go out on the lake without someone knowing where she was.
Dafne, Raleigh and Wil had all went out to the construction site one morning and left Lily to sleep in and relax. Their cabin had a nice garden tub and she took full advantage of it. She even planned to get some relaxing bath salts like Dafne had in her master bathroom for the cabin.
Lily spent the morning sleeping in and being lazy, just as she had planned. She got up and was full of energy, deciding she would make a nice picnic dinner they could all enjoy while taking a little boat ride on the lake. She took Wil’s truck to the grocery store in town and purchased what she needed for dinner. Lily got back to the cabin and prepared individual bento boxes for each of them and made a big bowl of fruit salad for dessert.
She decided to go on down to the boat and do a little cleaning before they returned for dinner. Lily added a few supplies to her knapsack and headed down to the cruiser. She planned on getting a little sun while she was at the dock and wore one of her maternity dresses over her swim suit.
It was a nice day and Lily enjoyed the slow stroll to the dock. She arrived at her slip, undid the cover on the boat and climbed aboard. She went straight to work and wiped down the surfaces with cleaning wipes and emptied all the trash into a black garbage bag to take back up to the cabin. She was wiping down the helm when she heard a familiar voice in the distance.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”
The hairs stood up on Lily’s neck and she turned a pale white, despite the sunshine causing her cheeks to be rosier than normal.
“You’re not welcome here, Ricky,” Lily said trying to stand her ground and project a stern voice, “Wil is on his way down here right now and you don’t want to be anywhere near this resort when he gets here.”
“I gotta know, Lil,” he stumbled across the boat, obviously drunk already despite it only being the middle part of the day. “Is that baby in your belly mine?”
Ricky sat down on the bench seat, getting his filthy self all over the white leather interior, and Lily stood like a statue at the steering wheel.
“The baby in my belly is mine, it’s not yours, Ricky,” she said very calmly though trying to fight off the nausea brought by his presence and stench. She kept her hand on the steering wheel, even though they were still sitting in the slip at the dock, but slowly reached down into her dress pocket for her phone. She had never been more pleased to have pockets on a dress until now.
“No, you know what I mean…” his words were slurry and she knew if she could get off the boat and onto the dock, she could probably outrun him.
“I know what you mean, Ricky, but the baby isn’t yours,” she said still fidgeting and trying her best to hide her torso so she could bring up a text message on her pink Razor flip phone. “The baby is Wil’s. I’ve checked the due date and figured out I was already pregnant when you raped me.”
Just saying the word out loud made her feel like she was finally moving on from the horrible experience. She knew she was and Wil’s family was helping make her stronger. Keeping her phone at her side, she pulled up the messaging app and found Wil at the top of the list.
“Oh honey, it’s not rape when you practically begged me to fuck you,” Ricky said and started to get up and walk towards her. Very quickly she typed “Keeneland” and hit send, sliding the phone back in her pocket before he got close enough to see she had it.
“Please just leave me alone,” Lily said less stern this time and more scared.
“Well now that I’m here, I think we should hang out a little bit, maybe take this expensive boat out on the lake away from people who might want to bother us.”
“That’s not a good idea Ricky, you’re obviously drunk and I’m not the best driver yet,” she lied knowing she could easily handle the boat by herself. Trying to change the subject she asked, “How did you know I was here anyway?”
The phone in her pocket buzzed telling her she had a received a text, but she was too afraid to get her phone out.
“Oh no you don’t, little miss,” he said to her, “You don’t lie to me, I’ve watched you drive this boat, just fine on your own.”
“You’ve been watching me?” Her pocket buzzed again and she wished it would stop.
“I followed you out here all the way from Spring City, I’m surprised you all didn’t catch on with all the stops you made on the way here,” he said walking over to the helm. “Where are the keys to this vessel?”
“I didn’t bring them, I was only coming here to do a little cleaning,” she said hoping he didn’t see right through her lies again. She had no intentions on moving the boat, but she did bring the keys.
“Man, your daddy would sure be disappointed in all that lying you’re doing,” he said as he went over to the knapsack she had sitting on the seat. He dug around and thankfully didn’t find what he was looking for, which made him even madder. He hadn’t noticed the pockets on her dress yet or he’d have thought to check for keys actually on Lily and then he’d also find her phone.
“Alright, alright,” she said and he turned toward her again, “I did lie, I did bring the keys.”
“Well, where are they? You’re trying my patience!” Ricky had turned into a mean drunk and Lily knew she didn’t have much time left before he was going to hurt her.
“I sat them on the bench seat when I got onboard, you probably sat on them and got them stuck in the cushion,” she said pointing behind him.
He turned around and started digging around for the keys that were not there to be found. Lily reached over to the compartment right beside her, thankful Raleigh had shown her every inch of the boat. She pulled out a small orange container, opened it, and quickly loaded a flare into the gun.
She held it up to Ricky’s backside and told him to get off the boat.
“Oh honey, that little thing ain’t gonna kill me!” he said and casually leaning against the back of the boat.
“Nope, it probably won’t kill you, but if you’ve been watching me, you know that I know how to use it and it’s sure gonna hurt,” she tried to keep her hands steady as she held the plastic weapon in front of her.
“You can’t shoot me, you don’t have it in you,” he said, his voice grew louder and Lily hoped someone might hear him, “Just like when I fucked you, you didn’t put up a fight at all, you just laid there and now that I’ve come back for more, I’m not going quietly.”
“I don’t know what you want from me!” Lily said screaming at him, hoping to garner some attention from a boat nearby. Ricky charged at her and Lily fired the flare gun. Taken off guard so quickly her aim sent the flare over his shoulder and up into the sky.
He grabbed ahold of her and covered her mouth with his dirty hands. Lily tried biting him and writhing out of his arms but his grip was too tight.
“You want to know what I want little missy? I want your new husband’s money!” he said keeping a tight hold on her. He stood at the side of the boat and started to walk her over toward the steering wheel hoping the keys would be close by. She wasn’t going to let this end the same way this time. Lily knew his intentions and he could seriously harm her and the baby if he continued being so forceful. She made herself dead weight so he could barely pull her across the boat.
Scooping her up under her arms after realizing she was going to be such a pain in the ass, he decided dragging her by the hair would be a better alternative. Oh no he didn’t.
Lily suddenly had an out of body experience, feeling as though she was watching this scene unfold before her eyes. Not the hair.
In movies and TV shows, it always seems like the perp goes for the hair and Lily’s ponytail provided the handlebar Ricky needed to reign her to the ground, in doing so, he felt some metal scratch his leg through Lily’s dress.
The keys.
“You little bitch, you lied again,” he reached down and pulled the keys from her dress pocket, still commandeering her head of hair in his hand.
Every struggle Lily made, he pulled tighter. Lily ignored the pain and kept guard of her stomach, not knowing what his next move might be. Come on, Wil.
Lily knew if Ricky managed to get the boat out into the water, the chances of her survival went way down. He was drunk enough that he could kill them both, but she had a feeling his plan was to turn this into a ransom plea.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said stepping on Lily’s fingers as she tried to reach for anything loose on the side of the boat that she might use to hit him and break free.
“Ouuchhh!” she cried out as his booted foot smashed her small hand. Her other hand tried to free his tight grip on her hair, but he just pulled tighter. Lily’s sobs and cries were for nothing. There wasn’t enough time for Wil to get to her before he launched the boat into the open lake.
In the midst of the struggles and Ricky’s already drunken self, he dropped the keys that he pulled from her pocket and they slid to the side of the boat by the dock. If I can just slip out of his grip, I can run. I can run faster than he can. I can save myself.
Continuing to drag Lily’s limp body around the boat, he reached down and picked up the keys, standing with his back blocking the threshold of the boat.
“That baby in your belly is mine and it’s going to take a lot of green to keep me quiet,” Ricky said when suddenly out of nowhere a metal shovel whapped him across the temple. He fell to the ground and blood started pouring out of his ear. Lily fell from his grip and quickly crawled away from him looking up to see Herbert and Teddy, the store manager, standing on the dock.
“Looks to me like it only took a little silver across the head to keep him quiet,” Teddy said to Herbert. “I don’t think he’ll be needing any green in his condition.”
“Uncle Herbert! How on earth did you find me?”
“Wil called the house, honey,” Herbert reached a hand to help her off the boat and into his arms. “I just happened to be down at the dock store talking to Teddy when Wil called Bess and said you were in trouble. She knew where I was and called Teddy. We headed up to the cabin, but I heard a holler down this way and thought we should check Tiger Lily first. Then we saw your flare.”
“Thank you Teddy,” Lily told him as he stood there with his shovel like a blue ribbon winner.
“Anytime you need anything, Mrs. Lily, you just let me know,” he said and winked at her, “This is the most excitement I’ve had all summer!”
Wil arrived the same time the police got there and Raleigh and Dafne were only moments behind them. Finding a shook up Lily in Herbert’s arms, everyone was relieved.
After all the business was taken care of with the police and EMTs gave Lily the okay to go on back to the cabin, the family devoured the picnic supper Lily had prepared earlier that day. They planned on saving a boat ride for another time.
“You are so brave, my darling girl,” Wil said to her reaching his hand out to hers across the table. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”
“I am a little jittery and my hand is going to bruise, but I’m fine,” she told him taking his hand in hers. “Actually, a little relieved that I won’t have to worry about him anymore and he can’t hurt anyone else now either.”
Her smile was of pure relief. She looked down and rubbed her stomach, obviously thankful the day’s events were over and Ricky was out of the picture.
“This may not be the best time to ask this question, but I’m gonna anyway,” Raleigh said interrupting their meal, “The reason we moved you out here was for your safety and after tonight the threat has seemed to, well, be escorted away in a police car. So … .”
“I think your father is trying to see if you want to stay here or go back home to Spring City?” Dafne said.
Wil and Lily looked over at each other and around their newly furnished cabin.
“I don’t think this was the last resort after all,” Lily said squeezing Wil’s hand.
“I like it here too,” Wil said, “And I don’t think you and Mom need anything else to decorate…” They all laughed.
“That’s good, cause I need my new manager ready for business!” Raleigh said patting his son on the back.
“And Bess would just kill me if I took you back home!” Dafne giggled. “Besides, I know you’ll be fed here! Casseroles once a week at least!”
The laughter lightened the mood and they all slept soundly that night for the first time in a very long time.
The next morning Dafne and Lily dropped the boys off at the construction site before heading into the city. They went to meet her new doctor and get checked out after the events from the day before. A new ultrasound confirmed once again a baby boy was growing in Lily’s belly and both she and the baby were doing just fine.
Raleigh had certainly done his homework on a little place called Edisto Island, South Carolina. The folks were nice and the tourists even nicer. They had a good population and not a single fueling station there with the courtesies of Griffin Gas. The land he had purchased had an easy traffic pattern and plenty of space for people to drive in and out. It was so close to the beach too; he made sure the plans for the building included some space for a small restaurant area. He knew they may not be able to add that into the first round of construction, but it was something he knew he could expand to later once he saw some numbers come in.
“This place is great, Pop,” Wil said to him as they stood there with their yellow hard hats on watching the structure of the building come up. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Well, I’ve watched eight of these franchise buildings be built with this particular layout, minus the add on over here,” he said pointing to the blueprints Wil was holding, “And this construction company has been the company I’ve used for all eight because they are very tight and like to get a job done before deadline.”
“And when’s the deadline?”
“Two weeks.” Raleigh said pulling his pocket watch out and reaching it out toward Wil.
“You mean to tell me this place will be up and running in two weeks?” Wil asked, shocked at the quick turnaround. He turned and saw his father holding out his most cherished possession: the pocket watch his mother gave him on their wedding day.
“Well, no, it will be built in two weeks,” Raleigh pumped the brakes, “But we’ll still have to wait for the tanks to receive their initial fill, the inside store to be stocked, the bays to be constructed and parts to come in… so I’d say we’ll have a grand opening in a month or so provided no setbacks.” Raleigh paused for a second while Wil gripped tightly onto his father’s timepiece.
“A man needs a good watch,” Raleigh said as they strolled along the site.
“I’m just amazed,” Wil said to his father holding back a tear, “You gotta teach me the business, Pop.”
“All in good time, my son, that’s been the plan all along.”