Behold the Stars (16 page)

When it was over, he dropped his head to her shoulder and sobbed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him, Lilli held Isaac as he wept. He was still hard inside her. Bare inside her. She’d let him come inside her. Intentionally. Because he wanted to make her pregnant—when they fucked in a hospital linen closet, while, down the hall, Show and Holly said goodbye to their dead daughter. Her head wanted to spin, but she held that tight, too. She was in battle mode, dealing with what was before her, letting her higher mind do the higher thinking without taking her attention away from the immediate.

They were going to need to talk about the idea of a baby again—soon—when they could talk calmly. It wasn’t a decision they could make like this. She’d let him because he’d needed her to let him. But they needed to talk it through calmly before they committed to a decision of such magnitude.

Isaac was quieting. He took a deep breath and lifted his head from her shoulder. His face was wet with tears and sweat, and Lilli uncoiled an arm from his neck and brushed her hand over his cheek, wiping his grief away. “You okay, love?”

He laughed quietly. “No. But I’m with you, so I will be. I love you so much, Lilli. So much.”

“And I love you.” Pressing her lips to his scarred cheek, she murmured, “We should get back out there. Show’s gonna need you.”

He nodded, then lifted her and pulled out. She dropped her legs, and they put their clothes back to rights. When they were ready, Isaac pulled her into his arms and held her for another few seconds. Then he opened the door, and they went back out into the hall.

No sign of Show yet. Dan, Len, and Badger were sitting quietly in a corner of the waiting room, which was still empty but for them. Len made eye contact with Lilli as she and Isaac came into the room. He nodded, and in that gesture she read understanding. She took Isaac’s hand, and they sat next to his brothers. They sat vigil for Show and his family.

Show, Holly, Rose, and Iris came through the double doors about half an hour later. Show look ravaged. He opened the door, and Iris and Rose went through, looking sad and something like confused. Holly came through, her face a stony mask, but then Show put his hand on her back as she passed him, and she flinched as if he’d hit her. He pulled his hand away. Even from across the hall and across the waiting room, Lilli could see how pain tore at him.

The broken family walked into the waiting area, and Lilli and the Horde stood. Holly froze in the middle of the room, staring at Isaac, and something on her face seemed to slip. Show was standing right behind her, his height and breadth dwarfing her. It always did—he was a full foot taller than his old lady, and though she wasn’t thin, his mass was considerably greater—but she seemed much smaller in this moment, her body bruised and brutalized, her heart broken.

Then, with her two youngest, now her only, daughters at her side, Holly turned around, pulled back one shaky arm, and slapped Show across the face so hard the force turned her whole body. Then she did it again. And again. Show closed his eyes and stood for it, his head turning with the impact and then coming back to center to take it again.

The girls looked shocked and terrified, and Lilli started to go to them, thinking to pull them away, but just as she moved, Isaac’s hand was on her arm and he went forward instead. But when he got there and took hold of Rose and Iris’s hands, Holly wheeled on him. Her stoicism entirely shattered now, she was in a frenzy of rage.

She screamed at Isaac and yanked hard on Rose and Iris’s other hands. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY GIRLS. GET YOUR FILTHY, MURDERING HANDS OFF MY CHILDREN!” The girls began to wail. She pulled them to the far side of the waiting room and sat them down. Then she turned back to Show, who had not moved. Isaac was standing next to him now; Holly stepped between them, her back to Isaac, and looked up at Show. He tipped his head down to let her look him in the eye. When she spoke, her voice was low and steady.

“You keep away from us. You keep away. I’m taking them and going as far away as I can. You keep away.”

Still Show didn’t move. Holly turned back to Rose and Iris and took their hands, pulling them up from their seats and heading toward the elevators, and still Show stood, rigid, in the middle of the waiting room.

Lilli went after Holly and put her hand on her shoulder as she was pressing the elevator button. Holly flinched and looked back. “Get out, Lilli. Get out now. There’s nothing but death and ruin here.”

Ignoring that statement for more immediate and practical concerns, Lilli asked, “How are you getting back, Holly? You need a ride back to town. Badger’s got the van.”

Holly laughed. “I’m not going anywhere with any of them. I’ll call somebody.” The elevator opened, and Holly dragged her weeping daughters in with her and pressed the button. When the door closed, Lilli turned and went back to Isaac and Show. Show still had not moved. Isaac now had his arm over Show’s shoulders. Len, Dan, and Badger were standing nearby, looking somber and uncomfortable.

Isaac shook his friend a little. “Come on, man. Let’s sit down.” Letting Isaac lead him, Show finally moved. They sat together. Show stared at the floor between his feet.

Len turned to Badger. “Go get coffee for everybody or somethin’, man. Get lost.” Badge nodded and turned to do as he was bid.

Knowing that she, too, was an intruder in this moment, Lilli put her hand on Isaac’s shoulder. He looked up and gave her a ghost of a smile. “I’m going to help him with the coffee.” She bent down and kissed his cheek, then followed Badger.

~oOo~

The night was edging into dawn when they made a somber caravan back to Signal Bend: Isaac and Show riding side by side, Lilli riding bitch with her man; Len and Dan riding behind; Badger picking up the rear in the Horde van. They all pulled into the clubhouse lot. Show dismounted and strode immediately into the clubhouse without comment or pause; Isaac and Lilli, and the others, followed him. The rest the Horde were there, most of them at the bar; all stood when Showdown came in. When he continued through the clubhouse, headed straight toward the dorm, Isaac called out, “Show. Hold up, man.”

Show stopped. He didn’t turn around. He stood in the middle of the clubhouse as he’d stood in the middle of the hospital waiting room. Unmoving. Immovable. Isaac walked around him and faced him. Lilli went the bar, giving them space, and watched. She and Isaac had barely talked all night, had said almost nothing at all to each other since they’d come out of the linen closet.

As tall and massive as Show was, Isaac was bigger. He laid his hand over his friend’s slumped shoulder. “Don’t go off by yourself, brother. Not tonight. I don’t want you alone.”

Show lifted his head. Lilli was behind him, but she knew he was looking Isaac in the eyes, and she could almost feel his expression of livid grief. “Too late.” The words were softly spoken, but clear. Show sidestepped Isaac and continued on to the dorm. Isaac turned and watched him go.

Then Lilli went to him and circled her arms around his waist. He looked down at her, his green eyes dark and bleak. Pressing his lips to her forehead, he held there for a long moment, then said, “Let’s go home, Sport.” She laid her head on his chest and nodded.

His arm around her shoulder, he walked them first to Len, who was standing at the bar. “I’m taking her home. Keep on eye on him. Call me.”

Len nodded. To the whole room, Isaac said, “Get some rest, people. The Keep at noon.” Then he turned and led Lilli back out into the new dawn.

~oOo~

They were inside the house before Lilli realized that Isaac hadn’t been in it since the morning before. He hadn’t seen the aftermath of the intended attack on her. Now, she wondered if there was still a body in the shed, some fresh horror for them to have to contend with.

Isaac clearly hadn’t forgotten. He stood in the front hall as if he were scenting the story. Focused on Show’s tragedy, they had not yet spoken at any kind of length about what had happened in their home, but he knew that she’d been attacked and had killed the man. She figured he’d gotten the story from Badger, anyway. She and Badger had cleaned all traces of that violence from the house, but she had not yet set the ransacked bedroom to rights.

She put her hand on his back. “Isaac?”

He turned and took her hand, pulling her forward. “Tell me, Lilli. Tell me it all.”

Just then, they heard a tiny mewl, and Pip, alone and lonely, came into the living room from the kitchen. Crying the whole way, he came up and climbed onto Lilli’s boot, latching his claws into her jeans to begin his trek up her leg. Slipping her hand from Isaac’s grip, she bent down and gathered the tiny orphan in her arms. “Hey, guy. It’s okay.” He settled under her chin and commenced purring loudly.

Sad as he was, Isaac grinned. “He sure loves you.”

Lilli shrugged. She figured she wasn’t much more than a familiar port in a night of scary storms for the little guy, but she felt better holding him.

“Come on, Sport. Let’s talk.” His hand on her elbow, he guided her into the living room and they sat together on the couch. With Pip purring on her shoulder, Lilli told him the story of her day. As she spoke, she found her eyes drifting again and again to the spot where the body had lain. She didn’t know why, exactly. She wasn’t sorry she’d killed him. She felt the death; she took responsibility for it, as her father had taught her. But she knew she’d made the right call, done the right thing. It wasn’t the first time she’d killed a man, either. Several tours in Afghanistan meant that she had taken enemy lives. And yet this death unsettled her.

Isaac sat with his hand on her knee and listened. By the time she was finished, he was gripping her so hard his hand and her leg were shaking. It hurt, but she didn’t mind the pain.

“I don’t know if the body’s still in the shed. The cats are buried under the big elm by the barn. Oh—I should go out and bring the horses in—they’ve been in the pasture all day!” She was suddenly worried and guilty. She wasn’t used to thinking about animals to take care of. She had no idea how bad it was not to have brought the horses in, and it was early daylight now. Dammit.

He took her hand, bringing it to his lips. “They’re in the barn, Sport. Bart and Vic took care of the asshole in the shed, and they brought the horses in and got them set up for the night. That’s handled.”

Lilli blew out a sigh of relief. “There was just too fucking much today.”

“I’m so sorry, Lilli. God, I don’t know where to put this filth I feel. I let you down. Show. Holly—God, Daisy. Erik. The whole thing was a goddamn trap, and I fell right into it and took everybody down.” He laid his head on the back of the couch. “We aren’t enough. I’m not enough. We can’t win this.”

Lilli sat and watched him as he stared at the ceiling, still gripping her knee in the vise of his big hand. She said nothing; he needed to work through his doubt on his own.

And after a few minutes, he did. He sat up and stared into her eyes, the varied greens of his irises flashing fire. “I don’t fucking care. What he did? He doesn’t get away with that shit. I don’t know how, and I don’t care. I will end that motherfucker, or I will die trying. Maybe I’ll have to do it myself. I won’t force anyone to stand with me. But I am taking Lawrence Ellis down.”

“You won’t have to do it alone, love. I’m with you.” She put her hand over his.

But he shook his head. Finally releasing his grip on her knee, he turned his hand and wrapped it gently around hers. “No, Sport. Not if you’re pregnant. Absolutely not.”

Well, they needed to talk about that, too. “Then maybe I shouldn’t be.”

Isaac reacted immediately and harshly. He dropped her hand and wrapped his fists around her upper arms. Pip stirred and jumped out of Lilli’s hold. “Don’t take it back, Lilli. Jesus Christ, don’t take it back.”

He was much calmer than he had been in the hospital, but he was not calm. The day and night—the week, the past few months, all the time they’d known each other—had been too fraught with death and danger for him to be calm. But she’d let him come inside her, and unless she wanted to make the decision herself, they needed to discuss it, calmly, soon. Now. So she pulled free from his hold and took his hands in hers. She spoke evenly. “Isaac. I’m not taking it back. But it’s not a decision we should have made in that moment. We need to talk about it sanely, not desperately. Tell me why it’s so important to you that I get pregnant now, with everything going on.”

He stared down at their hands, and for a very long time, he said nothing. Lilli had expected a long spiel. She knew he’d been thinking about this, and wanting it, before today. When he looked up, his eye were calm. Sad, but calm.

“I love you, Lilli. Like I didn’t know I could love. Fuck, I feel spun by it. When you were in the hospital and I didn’t know if you were gonna wake up, I saw the life I wanted. I sat there at the side of your bed, waiting for you to wake up, and I saw it all. I saw the man I wanted to be, the life I wanted to have. All of it was you. I saw you pregnant. I saw you holding our baby, me holding our baby. I saw a family. Seeing all that, it gave me hope. It made me know you would be okay. Because what I saw was so clear, it had to be real.

“I’m not an idiot, Sport. I know this seems like a crazy-ass time to be talking about making a baby. I know. But to me, it’s not. It’s the right time
because
it’s so bad out there. I don’t want to live my life with you like I’m afraid I’m gonna lose it all. I want to live for a future with you. A future where all this shit is behind us. It’s hope, Lilli. It’s hope. And damn, you’re gonna be an amazing mother.”

Lilli was moved by his words. She was persuaded, even. She understood. Except for the last thing he’d said, which struck at the core of her own fear. “We don’t know that, Isaac. I’ve never even thought about being a mother. I’ve hardly been around any mothers. My own mother was insane. Literally. And I’m not a nurturer. I’m a fucking soldier, Isaac. I wouldn’t have any idea what I’d be doing, and I don’t want to fuck anybody up.”