Loving Lily (9 page)

"Damn,"
she muttered to herself, inexplicably disappointed that Matt was gone.
 
"I didn't even get a goodnight kiss
. "

She stretched
again,
then
lay back against the pillows, chewing on
her lip.
 
"He did exactly what he
said he'd do, Lily.
 
So you have no
reason to mope about.
" She
rolled over,
remembering how sweet he'd been.
 
She'd
never had anyone massage her hands, let alone anything else.

And he
didn't push for more, despite the massive erection he had
, she thought, wondering if he knew that she'd noticed.
 
At first she'd been embarrassed, but when he
made no move to call her attention to it, she realized that he was trying not
to scare her off.

If only he
knew,
she thought.
 
The idea that a man as nice and handsome as he
was could be attracted to her was incredibly flattering.
 
And amazing, don't forget amazing
, she
told herself.
 
She hadn't been on a date
since before she got married, and she'd weighed a lot less then.

She rolled back
over, letting the covers fall to her waist.
 
Sometime during the night she'd wriggled out
of her robe, and the low-cut tank top she wore had her shivering a little in
the cool air of the air conditioning.
 
She thought about his hands on hers, massaging
her tension away.
 
She remembered the way
his arms looked as he worked his fingers over her palm.
 
He had a truly impressive set of muscles, and
she'd just about swooned over them when he got up close and personal like that.
 
She thought about the kiss they'd shared.
 
Then she shook her head and put all
those thoughts aside.

"Mooning
over an unattainable man isn't going to get you anywhere," she said aloud,
throwing back the covers.
 
It was time to
get up and head out.

By late
afternoon, Lily was exhausted.
 
She'd
visited Alex in his shop to check on the progress of her car.
 
He said it would be ready in another day.
 
She'd extracted her computer from the back and
brought it back to her room.
 
After hours
spent going over all the notes she had on her family's deaths, she was no
closer to figuring out what was going on than before.

"You said
you weren't going to obsess over this anymore," she told herself.
 
But that was before your car was sabotaged
,
she mused, tapping a pencil on the table.
 
She'd finally brought the laptop outside and
she was sitting in the same spot where Matt had kissed her last night.
 
Her thoughts kept straying to him, even as she
tried to convince herself that he wasn't going to show up again.
 
Ugh, stop it.
 
She focused on the data she'd pulled
up,
trying to find a common denominator for the deaths, but
all she kept coming up with was that they were family.
 
Which makes no sense.
 
Why would anyone want to kill us?

"Hello,
Lily," Matt said, startling her.

She jumped,
almost knocking over her glass of water.
 
"Matt! I didn't expect to see you
here," she said, grabbing the cup before it went over.
 
Not that I mind him showing up again, not
at all
, she thought, looking him over.
 
Today he wore old jeans and a t-shirt.
 
Red.
 
It hugged his chest like a second skin.
 
She couldn't help it, she stared at his muscles.
She was genuinely shocked he'd bother to stop by.
 
He had been the perfect gentleman last night,
but she truly hadn't expected him to come back.
 
Hell, he even knows how old I am!

He smiled,
totally oblivious to what she was thinking.
 
Lily almost swooned as his hazel eyes shaded
toward green in the afternoon sunlight.
 
"I thought I'd see how you were doing
. "

"I'm fine.
 
Going over police
reports.
" What
was it about him that had
her acting like such a ninny? She felt like a girl with a crush.
 
She managed to shrug, hoping he couldn't tell
how much he unsettled her.

He sat down
next to her.
 
"Did you find
anything? I assume you mean the reports on your family?"

"Yes
. "
She rubbed her eyes, mood suddenly plummeting.
 
Even gorgeous Matt couldn't make her cheerful
when faced with this, this… cluster fuck of data that told her exactly nothing.
 
"I found nada.
 
Zip.
 
Fuck all.
" She
was too tired to watch her language right now.

"Let me
take you to dinner," he said quietly.

"I thought
you didn't want to face the ravenous hordes of people in town?" she asked,
remembering what he'd said last night.

He rubbed the
back of his neck.
 
"Well, I might
have fibbed just a teeny tiny bit
. "

She snorted.
 
"Oh?"

"Well, you
see, I really just wanted to eat dinner with you.
 
Alone.
"

When she didn't
respond—
because I'm in total shock and can't string actual words together
right now
—he rushed into an explanation.

"I'm not a
stalker! I swear.
 
I just wanted to have
dinner with you without all the bother of who would overhear us and whatnot.
" He
put on a hangdog expression.

She bit her lip
to keep from smiling.
 
"Who even
uses the word 'hangdog' nowadays?"

His expression
went from worried to humor.
 
"Who
even uses the word 'nowadays,' nowadays?" he teased.

She huffed.
 
"Dinner, huh?"

"Yup.
 
How about Italian?"

And that was
how the next week and a half went.
 
Lily
combed through police reports, her mother's diary, her husband's email, and
found absolutely nothing.
 
She called up
medical examiners, the friends of her parents, even her brother's old
girlfriend.
 
None of them knew a damn
thing.
 
Every day, just as she was about
to tear out her hair in frustration, Matt would show up and drag her out.
 
He took her to the shops on the main street in
town, introducing her to the locals.
 
She
met his sister Stephanie and his adorable nieces.
 
Sometimes he'd take her to Alex's garage where
they'd hang out with the mechanics for a bit.
 
He took her hiking in the nearby woods.
 
He teased her out of her bad mood again and
again.
 
And usually, by the time darkness
fell, Lily was so freaked out by the normalcy of it
all,
they inevitably ended up in her room, talking.

"I don't
understand why I feel so paranoid," she complained late Friday night.
 
"I mean, everyone is nice.
 
The town is beautiful.
 
Even your mother was sweet to me.
 
And here I am, having a freaking anxiety
attack.
 
Again.
" Lily
sat on her bed, hands fisted in the covers.
 
Matt sat next to her, barefoot.
 
The jeans he wore today were ripped at the
knee.
 
He looked sexy and relaxed and so
handsome Lily kept surreptitiously pinching herself.
 
She couldn't believe he wanted to spend time
with her.
 
It was strange how quickly
she'd grown accustomed to his presence in her life.

"It's
okay," he said again, poking her in the thigh.
 
“Relax
. ”

"It's not
okay! I'm just being ridiculous.
" Lily
let
herself slump down, kicking a bare foot against the comforter.
 
They'd piled the pillows up against the
headboard so she couldn't bang her skull against anything hard.
 
Matt smoothed a leg over hers, but she didn't
let herself react.
 
He didn't mean
anything by it.
 
Lily was long past
stressing over having Matt so close to her.
 
Since that first kiss nearly a week ago, he'd
done nothing more than massage her hands, soothing her into sleep again and
again.
No kisses.
 
Nothing even remotely sexual
, she thought,
disgusted.

"Has it
ever occurred to you that you're finally facing what happened to you over the
past few years?" Matt asked, after a long pause.

Lily shoved her
fist against her forehead, pressing hard.
 
"No.
 
I don't know.
 
What the hell are you talking about?"

He gently
pulled her arm down and pried her fingers open.
 
"I mean, this is the first time you've
had a chance to take a break from work, had time to just sit and think.
 
The shit is bound to float to the surface.
" He
stroked her fingers.

By now she was
so used to him touching her like that, she calmed down despite herself.
 
"How do you know what I'm feeling?"

He didn't
answer.

Lily sat there,
letting him trace designs on her palm because she didn't really want to press
him.
 
He made her feel better.
 
The last thing she wanted to do was chase him
away.

"You're
favorite color is blue," he said, suddenly, after the silence had gone on
so long she thought he'd forgotten her question.

"What?"
Lily didn't understand his point.

He shrugged.
 
"I just—" He broke off, obviously
struggling to explain.
 
"I
know
you.
 
And I know how it feels. "

She frowned,
thinking.
 
"What are you talking
about?"

"I saw a
lot of awful stuff in the military.
 
It
changes a person. "

She curled her
fingers around his, imagining what he must have gone through.
 
He had a point.
 
She chewed on her cheek.
 
"What's yours?" she asked.

"What's my
what?" he asked.

"Your favorite color.
 
What is it?" She knew she was being
absurd, but she didn't care.

"Blue.
 
Can't you tell? I'm wearing a blue shirt.
" His
voice held a thread of amusement and for a moment
she contemplated kicking him, but she decided to let it go this time.
 
Instead, she smiled, and so did he.
 
Abruptly, she realized something important.

"You know
everything about me—how my family died, what I miss about them, why I've been
traveling around, trying to figure out what to do next.
 
But I don't know anything about you. "

He shrugged.
 
"You know everything important
. "

"Like
what? That you're a writer?
Ex-military?"
She
scoffed.
 
"That doesn't tell me
anything
. "

He took a deep
breath.
 
"I don't like crowds of
people because it reminds me of the markets in the Middle East.
 
It reminds me of bombs going off. "

Her breath
caught.
 
Jesus
.
 
His hand gripped
hers, hard.
 
She was shocked by the
intensity in his voice.

"I have
nightmares.
 
Every time I write a book, I
put in one of the ghosts that haunt me, so they have a voice.
 
So that people know that those you lose, even
strangers, are important in your life. "

She squeezed
his palm to let him know she was listening.

"I quit
the SEALs when I found out the president was sending us into a war.
 
I'd seen some of the intelligence.
 
I knew the shit about WMDs was bogus and I
couldn't stand the thought of being part of that.
" He
stared fixedly at the wall.
 
"I hate
the fact that I abandoned my men.
 
I hate
that so many people I know died. "

"God,
Matt," Lily whispered.
 
"I had
no idea
. "