Chapter Eight
Lilly
“Just what the hell do they want us to do?”
The pair stood side by side, facing the trio of barns on the property. The middle one was huge, absolutely dwarfing the flanking ones. It was one of the biggest barns she’d ever seen. Lilly was partially curious as to what they were going to find inside, but also a little nervous. Not just about that, but about the job they’d been handed as well.
“To figure out what needs doing, so that when the controller gets here they’re able to get up to speed better.” Torran spoke like he knew what the hell that all meant.
“Right. But isn’t this controller dude supposed to be the one that figures out what the farm needs to get up and running? Like, they know this stuff. We don’t. Right?”
“Right. Mostly.” Torran started walking forward and she matched him, needing almost two full steps for one of his.
“Mostly? What, are you some sort of farm guru now?” she joked.
“I mean, there was a Farmer’s Almanac on the table. I read it.”
“You did?”
“Mostly.”
“How much is mostly?” she asked, calling him out.
“The covers and the table of contents.”
Lilly laughed. “You’re unbelievable!”
It felt good to laugh. Really good. She’d done a lot of it over the past few days, as they settled in to life on the mega-ranch. The ranch and the accompanying building that housed the farmhands were now cleaned up and repaired to the best of their abilities given the supplies they had on hand. Torran had given Palin a list of things he needed to do some of the larger repairs, but now it was time to start tackling the other buildings.
Torran. She smiled to herself, happy with the way things had gone. The first day had been awkward after having the talk. Neither had been entirely sure how they were supposed to go about interacting with one another. It hadn’t taken long for that barrier to fall, however, and she’d come to enjoy his presence.
Both of them had slipped up a few times, being more flirtatious than intended, but when the other had refused to go with it, things had just sort of died out. The irritating part was just how easy it was to switch from friendly banter to flirting with him. It was like she wanted to go that direction, and only her promise to herself was preventing her from opening the floodgates again.
Feeling a dull throbbing reminder from between her legs about just how wonderful it could be if she did go down that route again, Lilly bit her lip and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.
In exchange for giving her a place to live and food for as long as she needed, Sandy had asked her to help out around the ranch. It hadn’t been run to anywhere near its full potential for a long time, and it showed. Parts of the farm had been used, but after a survey of the grounds, she and Torran had come to the conclusion that only the outer perimeter of the property had been farmed.
It was as if the previous owner had simply done it to create a barrier of privacy between him and his neighbors. She couldn’t figure that one out, and Torran hadn’t seemed to understand either, though he didn’t appear to be curious about it like she was.
“You ready for this?” he asked as they came to a halt in front of the big sliding doors.
“You act like we’re going to open the doors and see something crazy on the inside.” She stood back as he unlatched the doors and prepared to open them. “You’re probably going to need both hands on one door, you know.”
Torran smiled, flexing his arms and pulling them both open at once. Lilly caught herself staring at the way the muscles bulged and moved, remembering the way he’d used those same arms to hold her aloft, needing only one arm to keep her in the air. One arm that hadn’t so much as wavered while he brought her to a thundering climax with ease. She swallowed, feeling her body remind her that it was unusually aroused.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t unusual that she was turned on spending nearly every waking moment next to a literal sex god who had fucked her better than anyone in her entire life. But it was irritating and had resulted in an instant bump to her sex drive.
“You go on ahead,” she muttered when nothing jumped out at them. “I’m just going to hang out here for a moment.”
Torran frowned but she just waved him ahead, not even bothering to fight her eyes as they trailed down his powerful-looking back and fixed on his tightly curved posterior. Now there was an ass she wanted to grab.
Stop it. He’s off-limits by your own word.
Which meant she could just as soon undo that word. And his belt.
“Pull yourself together,” she hissed, turning her back to the yawning opening of the barn and heading back toward the house itself. Right then was no time to be creeping around in a dark barn with Torran. She was too likely to make a move, her hormones and their need for a good fuck overpowering her restraint.
She was halfway to the ranch when the sound reached her ears, growing louder with a swiftness that alarmed her. Scared, she stopped and turned to go back to the barn. Her little legs moved as quickly as she was capable of without giving away that she was trying to run, hoping that she could reach the safety of the barn in time.
Lilly had perhaps another twenty feet to go when the motorcycle veered off the driveway and came across the mostly level ground toward her. She had a momentary bit of satisfaction at seeing Damien bounce up and down uncomfortably before his huge hog of a bike came to a halt next to her.
The engine died, and he stared at her the entire time. She stared back at the face she recognized, though she didn’t know the man it belonged to anymore.
“What are you doing here, Damien?” she asked, noting the gun clearly holstered at his side. Was he going to shoot her?
Her ex-fiancé climbed off the bike, keeping his helmet on. His hands made no move toward the gun. “I came for you,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Lilly’s jaw dropped. “What? Are you joking?”
Damien shook his head, the extra flesh on his cheeks and jaw bouncing. His eyes were hidden behind his biker goggles, but she didn’t need to see them to know that they would be gray and flinty at her tone, filling with a promise of violence if she didn’t cooperate.
“Get on the bike,” he said nastily. “We’re leaving.”
“No. I’m not yours anymore. Go away and leave me alone.”
He snarled, leaning forward. The action just served to pull the black T-shirt he was wearing under the denim jacket tight across his expanding belly.
“You’re coming with me.”
“Get lost. How did you find me, anyway? Nobody knew I was here except for friends you don’t know.”
Damien laughed. “I’ve known where you were all this time.”
She felt a chill run down her spine. “You followed me?”
“Something like that.” His eyes glanced at her pocket.
Lilly’s hand dropped until she felt the outline of her phone, visible in the jeans she was wearing.
“That’s right.”
“You tracked my phone.” She wanted to spit at him. “You’re despicable.”
“I pay your phone bill. I own the phone. It was nothing to find it.”
Without thinking Lilly pulled the phone from her pocket and tried to snap it in half. When that didn’t work she put it on the ground and shattered it with her heel. Then she turned it over and did it some more to the other side.
“Are you through?” Damien took a step toward her.
“Leave me alone. Was the ring on the counter not a sign enough for you? I’m done with you. We’re over. Now go away.”
“Get the fuck on the motorcycle. You’re mine. Just like that child you’re carrying you say is mine.”
“It is yours, you psycho.”
“Bullshit. You went and fucked somebody else and they knocked you up. Don’t lie to me, you little whore. I’m not paying child support to you for that. So get on the damn bike before I make you.”
The threat chilled her blood, and Lilly took a step backward.
“Get on the bike, Lilly.”
She didn’t respond, backing away
The sun was suddenly blocked out as a massive shape moved up on her left.
“Is there a problem here?” Torran growled, stepping in front of her, his arms spread slightly to the side, legs flexed but ready. Everything about his pose screamed protection, from his tone to his stance.
Lilly tried to pull him back. “Torran, it’s okay. You don’t need to do this. Damien was just leaving.”
“I’m leaving when you get on the bike with me,” Damien snapped, not backing down from the larger man.
“She doesn’t seem to want to go with you, bub. So I’d say that means she’s staying.”
Torran’s voice was perfectly pitched to piss Damien off some more. Lilly gasped. What was he trying to do, start a fight? Didn’t he realize Damien had a gun! She peeked around Torran. Damien was livid, his hand on his gun, his face growing red.
“Get out of my way, or you’re going to regret coming out here, meathead.”
Her protector just laughed. “What are you going to do, pull that gun on me?”
“Great idea,” Damien chuckled darkly. “Thank you for the threat.” His hand moved, pulling the pistol from its holster with practiced ease. He was fast, well trained in how to use the weapon.
As quick as he was though, Torran was faster. Much faster. Lilly gaped, mouth wide as he produced a green piece of rope from somewhere. His hands did something fancy and faster than she could see and he pulled tight on the rope. To her astonishment it cut right through the weapon.
“What the hell did you just do?” Damien roared as he dropped the now-useless weapon.
Torran stepped forward, keeping himself directly between her and her ex. Lilly watched as he poked the biker in the chest and told him to get the hell off the property. Damien hauled back a fist and went to strike Torran.
“Please, no! Don’t fight!” she cried out. The last thing she needed war Torran getting hurt on her behalf.
But like with the gun, the fight was over before Damien even had a chance to finish throwing a punch. Her eyes tried to keep up with Torran, who was a blur as he stepped out of the way of the punch, delivered two swift jabs to Damien’s kidneys, and then danced back as the big biker fell to one knee, groaning in pain.
“Do you want to go for round two?” he taunted.
Lilly stood still, rooted to the spot by indecision. Did she let Torran continue with the lesson he was quite obviously teaching her ex, or did she intervene and stop it before it got worse? She wasn’t worried about Torran permanently injuring Damien. It was more that if he continued to humiliate him, Damien would call up his gang and come looking for revenge the only way he knew how: with violence.
“That’s enough,” she said, pulling on Torran’s arm, feeling the power in his body, coiled and ready to be unleashed in a heartbeat. “I think he’s learned his lesson.”
Torran let himself be moved away, and the pair of them stood near each other as Damien got to his feet, a grimace etched into his features.
“He can’t keep you and your bastard child safe forever,” Damien spat. Without saying another word he hopped on his bike and rode it back across the field, the mixture of mud and grass stiff from the winter cold. The two-wheeled noise machine bounced rigorously until it reached the driveway.
It took her until after her ex was long gone to realize that Torran hadn’t reacted at all to Damien’s last threat or his departure. She looked up to find him staring at her, his face frozen in shock, barely moving.
“Torran? Are you okay?”
His jaw worked, but no sound came out.
“What’s wrong?” He was starting to worry her. She’d never seen him like this, so unresponsive and unable to adapt to a situation. What was it?
“Baby?”
Lilly swayed backward, unable to comprehend the emotion contained within that single word. Stunned disbelief. Denial. Fear. Anger. Betrayal? Confusion. She heard all of those and more. It was easier to identify what was missing.
Joy.
Happiness.
She detected none of that. There was nothing supportive in his body language or the way he spoke.
“I’m pregnant with his child, yes,” she confirmed, feeling sick to her stomach. “We were engaged before he started to go crazy. That man there is not the man I started dating.”
“Yet you carry his child. A hu—” Torran cut himself off. “I’m sorry. I…I can’t.”
Then he turned and fled into the barn, leaving her alone, the second man in her life to flee when she told him she was pregnant. Was this her curse then? To drive men from her life because she was creating life?
Alone she walked back up to the ranch, making plans in her head. It was obvious. She couldn’t stay there any longer.
It was time she moved on.