Chapter Four
Lilly
She wiped a finger on the table, watching as it came away with a layer of dust. Like everything else in the place, it was filthy, not having been cleaned in who knew how long. If she was going to be living here for the next little while, until she could get back on her feet, Lilly had a lot of work ahead of her. It wasn’t bad considering she didn’t have to pay any rent.
The great room of the massive ranch where Sandy had set her and Torran up was a beautiful thing, or would be once it was repaired. Big beams of wood crisscrossed the ceiling and formed pillars in every corner where structural support was needed. The walls were slightly recessed, giving the wooden pillars a larger-than-life aspect to them. They were all heartwood made from some very old trees as far as she could tell.
“This place really used to be something, didn’t it?” she remarked softly, feeling like she had to speak in hushed tones to honor the antique beauty of it. “I still can’t believe someone would let it go to waste.”
Torran, who had barely left her side other than to let her sleep, shrugged. “From what I understand the previous owner was not big on upkeep.”
She shook her head. “No kidding. Though I didn’t take Sandy to be the type to want more land. So why did she buy it? Hell, how did she buy it?”
“Palin did.” The powerful jaw tightened slightly as he spoke of the other man who had rescued her, the skin pulling at the stubble as he did.
“Yikes, he must be loaded!”
“We come from wealthy backgrounds, yes.”
Lilly’s face bunched up. “We? You’re rich too?”
Torran shrugged and looked away, giving her a good side profile of his chiseled features, including the slightly crooked nose. It was the only imperfect feature on his face, and it was necessary, because otherwise he would be completely lacking in anything humanizing, as weird as it sounded to say about him. Lilly didn’t like people that were too perfect. They just looked weird. Everyone needed a flaw. His was the very mild bend to his nose. In fact, it was almost cute…
No. No no. She was not going there. Moving on.
“You certainly don’t act like it. You don’t even have a car.”
“Don’t need one,” he countered, moving into the room and pulling a piece of plastic off a worn sofa, before carefully easing himself into it. The wood creaked under his weight but held, and he relaxed. “But we weren’t talking about me.”
“No, but I wanted to find out more about the man who rescued me.”
Torran smiled. “It appears neither of us is going anywhere anytime soon. We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”
There was no stopping the shiver of delighted interest that ran down her spine at the way he said that. Lilly could have tried but it would have been pointless. A part of her couldn’t deny that it would be nice to have someone like him around. At least until she felt safe enough to go places without him. Right now though, as odd as it was, she felt comfortable with him around. Safe.
“I guess you’re right. Still, I’d never imagined myself as a country gal before. I suppose I need to bust out the flannel and a straw hat next?”
“If that’s what you wish to wear.”
She chuckled. “I mean, the clothing I packed isn’t exactly farm practical.”
Torran casually ran his eyes over her outfit, consisting of straw-colored wedges, skinny jeans, and an olive-green blouse that billowed out wide, loose, and airy, but also showed off copious amounts of shoulder and chest thanks to its cutouts. Thankfully it didn’t dip too low, keeping most of her cleavage hidden, but it was still far too fanciful for living on a farm.
“Perhaps not,” he agreed. “Though you look good in it.”
“Thanks.” She tried not to blush at the easy compliment. “But if I’m going to be living here, I want some comfortable clothes. Not to mention I only managed to snag a few warm clothes.” Lilly looked away, ashamed. “Damien would have noticed if I took all the sweaters. That’s all he wanted me to wear.”
Wood cracked suddenly. It took her a panicked second of searching for the source of the noise to realize it had come from Torran. His hand slowly unclenched, revealing the mangled remains of the arm of the couch.
“Are you okay?” she asked nervously. “Did you cut yourself?”
“No. I’m fine,” he said, voice tight. “I just wish we had known earlier. I dislike that you had to spend so much time being treated like that.”
Dislike seemed a bit light of a word, given his furniture-wrecking twitch. Lilly carefully didn’t mention why she was forced to wear sweaters all the time, and why she hadn’t objected. Some things were easier to keep hidden than to explain.
“How long are you staying here?” she asked, switching the topic.
“Unknown. Until Palin gets sick of me perhaps? Certainly until you are on your feet and safe.”
She laughed. “I think I’m safe out here. I didn’t even know about this place until we arrived at Sandy’s last night. This morning.” She shrugged. “Whenever the hell it was we got here. It’s all sort of a blur. I don’t even know how I’m awake right now.”
Torran glanced at his wrist. She noticed the gorgeous wristwatch there for the first time. Sleek, but not overstated either, it screamed money in that he didn’t feel the need to be ostentatious about it. Maybe he was wealthy.
“It’s two in the afternoon. You slept for a solid seven hours. That makes sense to me. You’re just going to be up late tonight if you don’t make an attempt to go to bed early.”
“Oh, I’ll be asleep early, don’t you worry about that. I need all the sleep I can get.”
Enough sleep for two.
She stopped her hand, preventing it from subconsciously moving to her stomach. It’s not like there was a belly yet. Well, not a baby-infused one. She had enough all on her own. Lilly had just barely crossed the three-month mark of being pregnant. She didn’t need to be rubbing her stomach every time she thought about the fact she was carrying a child inside her. That wasn’t her style anyway.
“Have you thought about what you will do?” Torran asked after a minute, getting up and heading out of the great room, motioning for her to follow.
Curious, she trailed along behind him as he pushed open the front door and held it for her, emerging onto the covered front porch that wrapped around both sides of the huge ranch building.
“A little,” she confessed. “I figure I’m going to stay here. Palin and Sandy have been generous enough to offer to look after me. So I have a roof over my head and food on the table.” She rested her hands on the whitewashed railing, staring out over the front of the property. Despite it being early November, it was actually rather warm outside, and with the sun beating down she wasn’t cold with what she was wearing. “I haven’t worked in a long time,” she admitted, though she held back the reason why.
Damien had always wanted a housewife, and as soon as things got serious between them he’d insisted she quit her job and stay at home. At first she’d been thrilled at the idea. She would take up hobbies, volunteer, do things she enjoyed. And all she had to do in exchange for that freedom was keep the house clean and prepare meals? It had seemed like a bargain.
She should have realized it would be far too good to be true. Just like everything surrounding Damien, her privileges had quickly been curtailed. No going out in the evenings. She had to be home to dote on him. Then he’d not wanted her participating in anything that had other men in it. So there went her adult softball league. Etcetera. Etcetera. If it weren’t for books, she would have gone crazy.
Looking back on it, it terrified her how easily she’d been convinced into doing just what he wanted. It hadn’t been a big deal to sacrifice those things, she’d told herself. After all, he worked long hard hours to provide for them. The least she could do was be there for him. For companionship. To cook. To provide sexual release.
Tears started to flow as she looked back on how it had all devolved, on how he’d come to control her completely, all without her putting up a fight. She’d justified it, because she’d somehow convinced herself that he was a good man, that he was the perfect man for her.
“Lilly? What’s wrong?”
Torran was instantly next to her, though whether out of politeness or some second instinct he refrained from touching her. She could feel his wariness as he glanced between her and out across the barren landscape in front of them, the fields devoid of anything but bits of snow that was melting under the sun’s onslaught, turning the earth into mud.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice threatening to break. “I’m fine.” She sniffed and rubbed at the tears, pushing them away. “Just thinking back on everything that’s happened. I’m an idiot.”
“No you aren’t.”
She smiled. Torran had no idea what had happened between her and Damien. He was just being nice. Though she wasn’t ready to tell him why he was wrong, neither was she going to slap him down. He meant well, and she appreciated that.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I don’t believe anyone is an idiot.”
Lilly couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face. “Not for that, Torran. For coming to get me. For saving me from D—from him.” She didn’t want to say his name. Not with Torran around.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said softly. “Never thank me for doing the right thing. You were in trouble, and you had no real way out yourself.”
“Not true,” she said bitterly. “I could have left any of a dozen times. Called a cab from the house phone. Whatever. It wouldn’t have been that hard. I was just a coward.”
“You are not a coward,” he growled, speaking just as softly, but infusing his voice with iron and steel. “You are one of the strongest women I know. What you did is no easy thing, regardless of how many ways you might have gotten out. It’s not the physical act of leaving that’s hard. It’s the mental. The emotional.”
He stopped talking. Lilly hadn’t told him anything about what was going on between her and Damien, but it appeared he had a pretty good idea anyway.
“I guess. Still, you risked your life for it, and you don’t even know me.”
“Sure I do. You’re Lilly…something, and you’re here, and you’re a good person.”
She laughed. “Jordan.”
“What?”
“Lilly. Lilly Jordan. My last name is Jordan.”
“Ah, right. Well, my point still stands.” He smiled at her briefly before returning his gaze to the land in front of them. Even without the crops, it was still a nice view, well warmed in the afternoon sun.
“You literally were shot at while rescuing me,” she told him. “And you carried me the entire way! I don’t even know how you did that.”
“Adrenaline. That and you don’t actually weigh very much.”
Lilly stepped back from the railing, looking at a body rife with curves. Or rolls. Or swells. Waves in the ocean. Dunes of sand. Whatever the hell anyone called it, she was big and thick in all the right—and sometimes if it was really hot out the wrong—places. “Right,” she snorted. “I don’t mind people saying they think I’m pretty, but don’t patronize me by saying I’m light.”
Torran winked at her. “Don’t forget, weight is all relative. Hold a twenty-pound weight. It’s probably not an issue for you, right? But ask a child to do the same, and you get a different answer.”
She eyed him. “How long are you asking me to hold it? And do I have to lift it over and over again? ‘Cause it gets pretty heavy pretty quickly if that’s what you’re saying. I’m not big on working out.”
The big man threw his head back and laughed riotously. At first she stared in shock, but when he didn’t stop the laughter became contagious and Lilly found herself laughing alongside him. It didn’t stop, and soon tears were streaming down her face. All at once she was crying hysterically, unable to deal with the changes in her world in the past twenty-four hours, let alone the rest of her life that had crumbled around her.
“What am I going to do now?” she sobbed.
Arms circled around her and held her tight. Without meaning to she buried her face in his chest, staining the white shirt with what little makeup she was still wearing. Torran didn’t seem to care. He just held her, providing what little comfort he could. It was embarrassing to ugly-cry in front of him, but Torran made no comments.
All he did was use his shirt to softly pat her cheeks dry when her shoulders stopped heaving. She sniffed some more, hating how nasty it sounded, wishing he didn’t see her like that.
“There,” he pronounced, wiping the last of the wet tracks from her face.
“Thank you,” she whispered, still resting on his chest. “Again. I owe you.”
Torran sighed. “You owe me nothing. As I said. Getting you was the right thing to do. Even if you’re a h—” He abruptly stopped.
Lilly lifted her head. “Even if I’m a what?” She hadn’t recognized what he was about to say.
“A stranger,” Torran said with a cough. “Not knowing you makes no difference. Besides, Palin asked nicely.” There was a twinkle in his eye and a twitch to his lip that indicated some sort of inside joke, but she didn’t press him.
Pulling back from him, she composed herself as best she could. “So you’re staying here for a while too then?”
Torran didn’t bat an eye at the complete change of subject. “Yes. For work, I guess.”
“Work? Oh, you’re a farmhand then?”
His jaw dropped open a little. “No, no I’m not.”
She nodded sagely. “Ah, one of the hired help then.”
Torran sputtered. “The what?”
Lilly couldn’t hold her poker face any longer, the giggles coming forth. Teasing him was fun.
“I’m not here to work the farm,” he said, catching on with a shake of his head. “It’s complicated. Let’s not talk about that anymore.”
Lilly was fine with that. She had things she didn’t wish to talk about either. Not yet at least.
Maybe never.