Loving Lily (12 page)

She did as he
asked, but she obviously wasn't happy about it.
 
He ducked his head out the door, but didn't
see anything.
 
"Okay, it's clear.
 
Come on. "

****

Lily followed
him out of the room, hoping he was right about it being clear.
 
She worried about the men in the room.
 
What if they hurt Betsy or one of the other
guests?

"What
about the men in the room?"

Matt glanced
back, frowning.
 
"I'll call the cops
from Alex's place, give them a report about noise or something
. "

Lily nodded.
 
"How long will they be unconscious?"

He lifted a
shoulder.
 
"Not long.
 
That's why we've got to move. "

"They'll
be gone, then, by the time the cops get here
. "

"Can't be
helped," Matt said shortly.

Lily figured he
was right.
 
She knew the police wouldn't
help her, but it still bothered her.
 
She
vowed to call Betsy tomorrow and let her know that she'd stayed with Matt for
the night.
 
If everyone thought the room
was empty, it would be a simple breaking and entering.
 
No one would connect that to the men who'd
tried to kill her.
 
She took a deep
breath, trying not to over-think it.
 
If
she did, she'd freak out and that wouldn't help.
 
She clutched her bags tighter, focusing on
putting one foot in front of the other.
 
Matt led her down the path, carefully angling
his body so she would be behind him the entire way.
 
When they made it to the front of the bed and
breakfast, he paused.

"One car.
 
Looks empty," he said.

She peered
around him.
 
"I don't recognize it
. "

"Me
neither
. "
He shrugged.
 
"We'll go to Alex's and figure out what
to do from there
. "

By the time
they got to the garage, Lily was shaking from the adrenaline crash.
 
She'd woken in the middle of the night to the
sound of Matt quietly taking down two intruders and still felt a bit
overwhelmed.
 
She hated to think of him
being injured because of her, but what would she have done without him?

I'd be dead
, she thought, standing beside him.
 
The door to the upstairs apartment was locked.
 
The back of her neck crawled.
 
Matt had taken her overnight bag to carry, but
even so, she felt exhausted.
 
Exposed.
 
She checked
behind them, but the street was still empty.
 
Her legs shook and she put a hand on his bare
waist as he got the door open.
 
He
doesn't even have a shirt on, so suck it up and deal
, she ordered herself
firmly.
 
You're alive and Matt's okay.
 
Her little pep-talk didn't work
particularly well.
 
She wiggled her
fingers into the waistband of his jeans and hung on.

"Just a
second," Matt said, flashing a smile at her over his shoulder.
 
The lights from the street glinted in his
eyes, making the hazel look grey.
 
Lily
smiled back.
 
Matt knocked on the wall
just inside the door.

"What are
you doing?"

"Alex and
I worked out a system a long time ago," he said, knocking twice more.

"Matt?"
A dim light in the stairwell flicked on.
 
"What the hell? It's three in the morning.
"

Matt walked in,
shutting and locking the door.
 
"Yeah, sorry.
 
It's a long fucking story. "

"Well,
shit.
 
It better be good.
 
I almost shot you. "

Lily looked up.
 
Alex stood at the top of the stairs,
cradling a shotgun.

"Put that
away before you shoot yourself in the foot," Matt said, heading up.

"You can
kiss my ass," Alex said, but he leaned the gun in the corner on the top of
the landing.
 
"What happened?"

Matt sighed as
they reached Alex.
 
"Let's take it
inside, okay?"

Alex nodded and
led the way, flicking on a small lamp just inside the door.
 
Lily looked around curiously.
 
The apartment had beautiful hardwood floors
and vaulted ceilings.
 
She would never
have suspected this place existed on top of the garage.
 
The open floor plan suited the space.
 
A kitchen area was to the right and a
comfortable looking living room directly in front of them.
 
Alex walked to the coffee table in front of
the sofa and sat down, running a hand through his hair tiredly.
 
"Well, have a seat
. "

"Aren't
you going to get your shotgun?" Lily asked.

Matt laughed.
 
"It's not loaded.
 
He keeps it there to drive me crazy. "

"If it was
loaded, I might hurt someone," Alex retorted.

Lily looked
from one brother to the other,
then
shrugged.
 
If Alex wanted to keep an unloaded shotgun at
the top of his stairs, that was his business.
 
She didn't have the energy to finagle an
explanation out of him right now, though from the looks the brothers were
giving each other, she knew there was a good story.
 
Instead, she sank into the soft cushions and
tipped her head back.
 
She was insanely
tired, but Alex deserved an explanation for why they'd come barging in.
 
Before she could say anything, though, Matt
spoke.

"Two men
broke into Lily's room at Betsy's
. "
Matt rubbed
his eyes.

"Fuck.
 
What happened to them?" Alex leaned in, a
worried look on his face.

"They're
unconscious.
 
I'm going to call the
sheriff and report a break-in
. "

"Let me do
it.
 
If you call it in, Harry's just
going to blow you off," Alex said.
 
He snagged his cell phone from a side table.
 
"What do you want me to say?"

"Just tell
him that you were taking a walk and you heard something," Matt said.
 
"The men will be long gone by the time he
gets there, but at least Betsy will be covered if Harry shows up to look around.
"

"Why would
the sheriff believe Alex and not you?" Lily asked.

"Alex
stays up late a lot, working on his cars, especially the really important ones.
 
He's been known to take walks in the
middle of the night.
 
It's a safe town
and he's a big guy, so no one thinks anything of it," Matt explained.

Lily frowned.
 
"Why would Harry blow you off?" she
asked more quietly as Alex murmured into his phone.

Matt grimaced.
 
"Harry went to school with us.
 
Same year.
 
He was a bit of a bully, though being sheriff
seems to have fixed most of that, thank God.
 
Unfortunately, when we were seniors, he took a
serious dislike to me.
 
Thought I was
making eyes at his girlfriend. "

Lily rolled her
eyes.
 
"Were you?"

"No, not
at all," Matt snorted.
 
"But
Harry just would not let it go.
 
One day,
he jumped me in the parking lot after school. "

Lily didn't
understand.
 
"The two of you
fought?"

Matt grinned.
 
"Only if your
definition of a fight included him falling down.
 
He was about five feet two at the time.
 
I wasn't. "

Lily winced.

"Yeah.
 
He punched me in the face.
 
I punched him back.
 
He went down really, really fast. "

"And he's
held a grudge this long?"

"It
happened right in front of his girlfriend," Matt said, then smiled
wickedly.
 
"They're still married
. "

Lily laughed,
feeling a little better.
 
His story
amused her.
 
"I see
. "

"Okay,
Harry's on his way over to Betsy's to check it out," Alex said, tossing
his phone on the coffee table with a clatter.
 
"So, want to tell me what really
happened?"

A half-hour
later, Lily slouched in the front seat of Alex's truck, barely able to keep her
eyes open.
 
Matt was driving them to his
place up on the mountain and she was exhausted.

"Are you
sure about this?" she asked, not for the first time.
 
"I don't want to get you all tangled up
in my disaster
. "

Matt sighed.
 
Loudly.
 
"Lily, go to sleep
. "

She frowned at
him.
 
"I don't want you to get hurt
. "

"I'm an
ex-SEAL.
 
I can handle it.
 
Trust me," he said.

"You shouldn't
have
to handle it
. "
Lily couldn't live
with herself if something happened to Matt, too, just like the rest of her
family.
 
Nervous energy competed with her
tiredness and she rubbed her arms.

"Look, if
I was in trouble and you could help, would you simply walk away?" he
finally asked.

Damn him.
 
He had a point.
 
She chewed on the inside of her cheek, not
answering.

"Well?"

"No,"
she said, reluctantly.

"Well,
neither can
I
.
 
Especially not now," he said, reaching
over and tucking a stray hair behind her ear.
 
Her heart skipped at the sweetness of the
gesture.

"I don't
know who's trying to kill me," she finally said, admitting her fear.
 
Her voice shook.
 
"And it's been happening for a long time
. "
She felt like she was admitting to some kind of weird
addiction.
 
She’d never said it aloud in
quite that way before.

"I
know," Matt said quietly.
 
"We'll figure it out
. "
He turned off the road onto a dirt track that snaked through the woods.
 
It was still dark, so Lily couldn't see much.

"I don't
understand why you're helping me," she murmured, twisting her hands
together.

Matt glanced at
her, but didn't reply.
 
A minute later he
pulled into a clearing and turned off the truck.
 
A two-story log cabin loomed over them, dark
and foreboding.
 
Lily stared at it, too
tired to get out of the seat.
 
Too tired to wrestle with her irrational fear.
 
Matt wouldn't hurt her, she
knew
it in
her bones, but she felt like her entire life was finally crashing down on her.
 
She'd been running for so long…

"Lily,
look at me," Matt said.
 
He touched
her cheek, tracing the tears she hadn’t realized she was shedding.
 
"I know what it feels like to hit the
wall.
 
I
know
. "

She frowned at
him.
 
"You said you have nightmares
. "

He nodded
slowly.
 
"I do.
 
Do you know what makes me feel better?"

She shook her
head.

"Helping you.
 
We've only just met, but already I feel like
I've known you forever.
 
When I make you
smile, when you let me comfort you, I feel like my life is important again.
" His
looked at her intently.
 
"Yeah, I used my writing as an outlet
before, but that's all it was: a pressure release.
 
Helping you is different.
 
It makes me feel whole again. "

She pursed her
lips.
 
"Sometimes I feel like my
entire life is broken.
 
It can be a
really nice day, and everything is good and calm and then I see someone pick up
a mug or call out to someone and my heart starts pounding. "