Chapter Sixteen
Lilly
“You okay there, big guy?” she asked, sliding in to the vehicle.
It hurt to sit, but she suspected that wasn’t just from the horseback ride anymore. Torran’s fingers had done wonders to her sore muscles, as had the warm shower and his soft touches in it, but between those had been some rather vigorous sexual activity. Something that, aside from her brief interlude with him in the woods a week earlier, she hadn’t had much of lately.
“You seem a little nervous. It wasn’t my comment about Sandy, was it?”
Torran climbed into his seat and paused before glancing at her. “Do you think she’ll like me?”
“Wow, that really got to you, didn’t it?” She hadn’t expected him to take it seriously. How could Sandy not like him? He was friends with Palin, and he seemed like a good guy.
“Nonsense. I’m just curious. I want to make a good impression, whether I’m worried or not.”
“You’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s me you need to keep making a good impression for.”
Torran smiled, and Lilly found herself caught up in him once more. How and when things had turned from her goal of “just friends” to this budding…whatever it was. Romance? Relationship? She really wasn’t sure how to term what they were. It was more than friends with benefits, but it wasn’t serious. Not yet at least. She definitely wasn’t ready for that.
Even now she worried that she was just jumping at the first relationship opportunity to come her way. That was part of why she was excited for the get-together. It would give Sandy a chance to observe from an outside perspective and let her know if there really was something between them, or if she was just desperate for someone better to replace Damien with.
“Who all is coming to this thing?” she asked as he fired up the car.
Torran didn’t reply right away, frowning at the dash.
“If you look at it long enough it’s still not going to turn invisible,” she remarked, noticing that he seemed to be trying to look past it.
He shook his head, indicating he wished silence.
Oooook. Lilly sat back and twiddled her thumbs, glancing out the window.
“I think there’s something funky going on with the engine,” he said at last. “It’s made that weird noise several times now. I’ll have to give Palin shit for giving us a piece of crap.” He smiled and shifted into gear.
“I don’t hear anything. I think you’re imagining it,” she muttered. “But back to my original question.”
“Right. Uh, well the two of us, of course. Palin and Sandy. Then Cheryl, and I guess if he got the message in time Rowe as well.”
“Cheryl’s that short bossy lady I saw the one day?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I guess she’s been staying with them to get up to speed on what Torran wants before she comes over here and does her assessment and stuff.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, this is all really beyond me. I’m just glad she’s here and I just have to do what she says now.”
“I’m glad to hear that last line. It’s going to make things a lot easier.”
Torran kept his eyes on the road, but she could see him sag in defeat, realizing what he’d said. “Don’t get used to it,” he muttered.
“Too late. Now, take me to the party, driver!”
“Driver? Driver? I don’t even have a name now?”
“But of course not. That’s ridiculous.” She put on her best fake aristocrat voice. “Now, no more talking. I prefer to ride in silence.”
“Bullshit. You like to ride listening to your own voice.”
Lilly gasped in mock insult. “Why, I never! How dare you talk to me this way?”
“I’ll talk to you even worse if you keep it up,” he growled. “And I’ll follow through with treating you that way too.”
“Oh my. I do believe the driver is trying to seduce me,” she said to no one. “Whatever shall I do?”
“Give in or shut up. Please. For my sanity.”
She laughed and rested her hand on the crook of his elbow as he drove, enjoying the gentle contact between them. “Are we there yet?”
“Please. No. Don’t start that. Go back to the atrocious accent, I beg of you.”
“First he says he doesn’t mind following orders. Now he begs. Interesting,” she mused thoughtfully, pretending to stroke an imaginary beard. “Very interesting.”
“What the hell’s gotten into you?”
“Besides you, you mean?”
“Keep it up and it won’t even be that,” he threatened.
“I’ll be good,” she said, acting properly chastised and enjoying the byplay.
“If you aren’t, I’ll have to punish you.”
“Okay, mister. Keep your eyes on the road and your pants on. It’s time we go be prim and proper. Perfunctory. Polite.”
Torran groaned and flicked the radio on. “Who knew that a short drive could be so painful,” he complained as they came up on the turn to Sandy’s place.
The tree-lined driveway was barely marked from the road, only visible if you were looking fifty or so feet back from the road. But Torran knew where.
“I’m hungry.”
Even before she was finished speaking she knew something was wrong as the car started to turn. They were moving way too fast still. “Torran?” she asked, her voice inflecting upward in alarm as the tires started to squeal.
“The brakes are out!” he shouted just before they hit the edge of the road and went over.
The truck hit the gully that lined the roadway on either side and flipped violently onto its side. Torran was suddenly there. Not in his seat, but perched in the cab. Moving faster than she thought possible, he somehow ripped the entire roof from the vehicle as it continued to roll. Then he snatched her up, the seatbelt gone at some point she hadn’t noticed, and the next time the truck was right-side up he jumped free.
They landed upright and watched the rest of the accident play out in real time.
“We’ll be okay,” he shouted as the truck slammed into one of the great trees lining the roadway, warping the frame around the stout oak. “We’ll be fine.”
She was too shaken up to answer him. From the accident, and from what she’d just witnessed. What had she just witnessed? “We should be dead,” she whispered. “Right now. Both of us, we should be dead.”
“We’re not,” Torran said calmly. “That’s all that matters.”
“How? How are we not?” her voice sounded near hysterical. “How did you do that?”
“Lilly, you need to relax.” He made a face, as if he’d bitten into something really sour. “You need to think about the baby.”
The baby. Oh no, the baby! In her astonishment at what she thought she’d seen Lilly had forgotten all about the little one she was carrying within her.
Lilly swayed on her feet. Torran was there, helping her down to the ground. After he was certain she was safe he ran over to the car to inspect it and retrieve her purse. Then he came back and sat beside and behind her, giving her one knee to lean back against as she moaned and gently rubbed her stomach. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, wondering if she was trying to convince the life growing inside of her, or herself.
Torran stayed with her, whispering comforting nothings into her ear as behind them the car settled in place.
Eventually the sounds of a vehicle coming up the long laneway reached her ears through the fog that had settled over her mind. “What happened?” she asked weakly. “Why did we crash?”
Behind her Torran went still.
“Torran? What is it? What aren’t you telling me?” She sat up, turning in place so she could look at him right in his eyes. Her gaze pushed past the emerald armor he’d put into place, and beyond that she saw the righteous fury burning deep within him. A fury that surpassed anything she’d seen from the mostly even-tempered Torran. “Torran, tell me.”
Something cracked in him, and he looked away. “Someone cut our brake line.” His voice was icy calm.
She gasped.
“They tried to kill us.”
“No. He wouldn’t.” She said he because they both knew there was only one person who would do something like that. “Would he?”
Torran’s lips compressed into a thin line.
Lilly was afraid to ask what he was going to do about it. She didn’t want to. Torran was fiercely protective of her, and Damien had just crossed a line.
The SUV coming up the lane swerved off the road and came to a halt. Both Palin and Sandy jumped out and ran over to them. Sandy came and nearly tackled her, while the two men moved off to talk on their own.
“Are you okay?” Sandy asked, tears streaming down her face. “Lilly are you okay? Speak to me? Please. Talk to me.”
“I’m fine,” she said quietly. “I’m completely fine, Sandy.”
“How?”
Her eyes were locked on Torran. “Because of him.”