Loving Lily (16 page)

Lily bit her
lip, hard, so she wouldn't just start bawling.
 
"Oh my God," she breathed, reaching
out a finger to touch it.
 
"Are you
serious?"

He nodded.
 
"Completely.
 
Please be my wife?"

Her fingers
shook as she clasped her hand around the ring.
 
It was warm.
 
"Oh my God," she said again.
 
Alex gently took the coffee mug from her other
hand.
 
She barely noticed.
 
"You're crazy
. "

He smiled at
her.
 
"Yeah.
 
Is that okay?"

She nodded
again, making a fist around the ring.
 
"You're never getting this back, you know
. "

"You still
didn't answer me," he whispered.

She licked her
lips.
 
"Yes.
 
A thousand times, yes. "

Matt took a
deep breath and pried open her hand.
 
"Let me
. "
She almost didn't want to let go, but he coaxed it from her,
then
gently slid the ring over her finger.
 
"Perfect
. "
He kissed her knuckle.

Lily looked
down.
 
She agreed.
 
"Matt, I love you
. "
Her voice shook.
 
She felt faint.

"I love
you too," Matt said, standing up.

She flung
herself into his arms.
 
A minute or an
hour later—
who can tell?
—she finally
let go.
 
Alex was grinning at them.

"Well.
 
I wasn't sure he'd actually do it," he
said, shifting in his chair at the table.
 
"When Matt asked me to get the ring, I
though he was joking
. "

"You
brought it?" Lily looked down at her finger.
 
The ring sparkled at her.
 
She closed her fist around it.

"I had it
in my safe with our grandmother's wedding band.
 
She gave Matt her engagement ring and me the
wedding band.
 
She was an awesome lady. "

Lily smiled
tearfully.
 
"That's so sweet
. "

"Yeah, it
is," Alex said.
 
“I still miss her
. ”
He turned to Matt and frowned a moment later.
 
"I hate to break up the happy couple, but
I wanted to let you know that there's a bad storm coming in this afternoon,
Matt. "

Matt hugged
Lily tighter.
 
"You think there will
be flooding?"

Alex lifted a
shoulder.
 
"There's no way to know
for sure until it gets here, but you know how the river gets when we have bad
thunderstorms.
 
It depends on how much
rain we get. "

"How about
we come down to your place later?" Matt offered.
 
"That way I'll be close to town if we're
needed
. "

"Sounds
good," Alex said.

"What
happens when it rains?" Lily asked.

"The river
that runs through town has a tendency to flash-flood.
 
We'll have to close the road if that happens.
 
It runs over the bridge sometimes and if
anyone tries to drive through it—" Alex broke off, shaking his head.
 
"Let's just say that Matt has had to do
more than one water rescue in the past ten years
. "

"Can we
stay at your place tonight?" Matt asked.
 
"If the storm moves in late, I don't want
to be driving up and down the mountain
. "

"Yeah, of
course
. "
Alex stood up.
 
"I gotta go.
 
I closed the shop for a bit and I want to get
back to work before it rains. "

Lily looked out
the window at the sun shining down onto the deck.
 
"It so beautiful outside right now
. "

Matt nodded.
 
"Storms move in fast
. "

She understood.
 
She ran her thumb along the warm metal
of her ring.
 
She knew how quickly a
storm could change someone's entire life.

Chapter Seven

Early that
evening, Lily sat at the table in Alex's kitchen, sipping tea while she tried
to convince herself everything would be all right.
 
Matt's brother was right about the storm
,
she thought, staring out the window at the rain lashing the glass.
 
Every few seconds the
lightning made her jump even though she was expecting it, and she tried very
hard not to think about how very alone she felt.
 
They'd lost power about an hour ago, and then
Matt and Alex got the call from the sheriff that the water in the river was
rising
.
 
They'd headed
out to close the road.
 
Lily shivered.
 
She hoped they'd be careful.

I just found
him; I don't want to lose him.
 
She closed her hand over the ring he'd given
her just a few hours ago.
 
She'd lost the
rest of her family so easily and she didn't want to lose Matt, too.
 
She imagined him slipping over the side of the
bridge, face wet and frantic, and then she firmly clamped down on her thoughts.
 
Stop being ridiculous
, she told
herself.
 
Matt was a SEAL.
 
He's done training exercises in worse weather
than this.
 
In worse
places.

She flinched
again when another peal of thunder shook the building.
 
Clearly her attempts to calm down weren't
working.

"Okay,
time to do something constructive," she said out loud.
 
She drained her cup and put it in the sink.
 
Just as she was about to open the refrigerator
to make some sandwiches, she heard a thump from near the door.
 
Was Matt done already? She wasn't expecting
him back for a while—he'd told her the local fire department had to set up
portable generators at the two traffic lights in town and that it usually took
at least an hour.
 
He'd only left thirty
minutes ago.
 
The doorknob rattled and
relief washed through her.
 
He must have
finished earlier than he'd expected!

Lily headed
toward the apartment’s entrance.
 
I'll
just help him with his gear and then we can eat
, she thought, smiling.
 
When the door burst inward, splintering around
the knob, she frowned.
 
Why didn't he
just use his key?
she
thought, confused for a
split second, and then the reality of the situation rushed in on her.
 
Three men surged into the apartment.
 
One grabbed her before she could run, twisting
her arms together and wrenching them behind her.
 
She gasped, struggling, but then one of the
men waved a gun in her face and she froze.

"Don't,"
he warned, eyeing her harshly.

Fuck
, she thought, heart banging on her ribs.
 
She drew a shaky breath.
 
None of the men wore masks.
 
That was bad, wasn't it?

"Finally,
we meet," one of them said, capturing her attention. He was blond, maybe
in his early fifties.
 
She eyed his
scraggly goatee with distaste.
 
The dim
light from the windows was just enough to give her an idea of the shape of his
face.
 
His blue eyes were flat and cold.
 
They looked her over as though she were a
particularly loathsome piece of trash.
 
The other two men were larger.
 
One held her so tight she was sure he'd break
her wrists with no regret if she struggled.
 
She couldn’t see his face.
 
The other one had black hair and black eyes.
 
He lingered near the door, scanning his
surroundings tensely.

"Who are
you?" she asked, forcing herself to speak calmly.
 
She'd be damned if she'd show how frightened
she was.

"Why, I'm
your long-lost cousin, Laura," the blond man said.

Lily stopped
breathing.
 
No one alive knew that name
anymore.
 
She'd legally changed it to
Lily after her husband died, when she'd finally accepted that someone was
killing off her family, one by one.
 
She'd hoped it would keep her safe, but
apparently not.

The man shoved
his gun into the waist-band of his jeans, like a bad guy from some B-movie.
 
He shifted it slightly, playing grimy fingers
along the handle, trying to intimidate her.
 
It was working.

"I don't
have a cousin," she said, stalling for time.
 
If she could keep him talking, eventually Matt
and Alex would come back, right? She glanced at the wrecked door, hoping to see
one of the men on the landing.

The blond
laughed.
 
"If you think your
boyfriends are coming back anytime soon, you can forget it.
 
Last I saw
them,
they
were heading toward a house fire at the other end of town.
"
He
snorted.
 
"Lucky we had
all that extra gas, eh? It really helps fuel the flames when it’s pouring
outside. "

The dark-haired
man near the door grunted.
 
"We need
to move
. "

"Who are
you?" Lily asked again, ignoring the burning in her arms.

"Oh, sorry.
 
I never did tell you my name, did I, little
rich girl?" He smirked as lightning flashed over the sharp angles of his
face.
 
"I'm Roy Brownstone.
 
Your grandpa's youngest
cousin.
 
The one he threw out of
the family thirty years ago. "

Lily stumbled,
not for the first time, as the men dragged her up the alley that ran parallel
to Main Street.
 
She twisted her hands,
trying to loosen the plastic zip-ties they'd used on her wrists, but it was no
use.
 
She knew she'd broken the skin
already and the plastic hadn't stretched at all.
 
Her wounds stung in the rain, not that it
mattered.
 
She was much more worried
about what the men intended to do with her than with a few small cuts on her
wrists.
 
She stumbled again, gasping as
the man yanked her upright by her elbow.
 
Her joints were killing her, but she made no
sound.
 
She'd tried to scream when they
first pulled her from the apartment.
 
The
man holding her had hit her across the face so hard she'd seen stars for over a
minute.
 
Her jaw still hurt.

"We're
almost there," the quiet, dark one said.

She looked down
the alley, but there was no one outside in this weather, especially not around
the backs of the houses and shops.
 
Just
ahead of them, the swollen river rushed past, light brown and ominous.
 
A flash of green churned for a moment in a
whirlpool near the shore.
 
With a stab of
horror Lily realized it was a huge tree branch, caught in the current.
Oh my God, that river is extremely dangerous
right now.
 
I’m screwed.
 
She began to panic, jerking her hands
frantically before giving up again when her wrists burned with pain.
 
It did no good.
 
The men didn’t even notice her freaking out.

"We need
to get closer," Roy said, grabbing her by the front of her shirt and
forcing her to walk faster.

Lily couldn't
tear her eyes away from the water.
 
The
storm had let up a little, but lightning and thunder still rolled over the town.
 
An eerie blue light filtered down from
the west where the clouds were starting to thin, while the darker ones hung
over the street ominously.

"We'll
throw her in near the bridge," Roy said, dragging her along.
 
"That way it'll look like an accident
. "

Lily's
exhausted fight-or-flight reflex flared back to life with those words and she
began struggling again, trying to run away this time.
 
Roy punched her in the stomach and she doubled
over, fighting to breathe.
 
God,
please help me.
 
I don't want to die
,
she prayed, eyes darting around, looking for a way out.
 
What is
Matt going to do when he finds out?
she
wondered,
despairing, as Roy hauled her forward again.
 
They'd had so little time together.