Loving Lilly

by J. M. Madden

  The blackouts were few and far between now, but every once in a while he found himself in a place he had no recollection of traveling to. Swimming through the mess of his life had apparently been enough to fog him out.

  “Shit,” he murmured, putting the Jeep into gear. He might as well check on her since he was here.

  His neck was aching too. He needed to get out and stretch.

  When he pulled into her affluent neighborhood he looked up the mountain. Yep, her lights were on. The guesthouse sat at the edge of a steep embankment.

  Nerves twisted his stomach and he almost turned back down the mountain. Something urged him up though and he always listened to his gut. He would check on her then go.

  The Carmichael property took up a nice chunk of space on the mountain. The main house was a sprawling cabin, appropriate for the area. But Lilly stayed in the more conservative guesthouse. It was also a cabin, but it was tucked into the mountainside of the property. Much smaller scale than the main house, yet still significantly bigger than his condo. He parked his jeep in the driveway and walked across the flagstone sidewalk.

  Diego used the eagle head knocker on the door. When Lilly peered through the window beside the door before opening it, he felt a little embarrassed. Maybe she was fine and just wanted privacy. She might yell at him and ask him why he had crossed this particular line, because he’d never been inside her house. Yes, he’d known the address and had dropped her off before, but he’d never been here for a personal reason. Glancing at his watch, he cursed. It was after two a.m.

  There was an interminable pause and he almost turned around to walk back to the car, but the door began to swing open. Lilly stood in the light from the hallway, looking unutterably frail in her pale white nightgown and fuzzy pink socks. She shivered and motioned for him to enter the house. “Hey, Diego. What’s up? Come on in, it’s cold. I don’t think Mother Nature has remembered that flowers are supposed to be blooming in May, and the weather warming up.”

  She shuddered and pushed the door shut behind him, wrapping her arms around herself. Guilt ate at him for bothering her until he saw her face.

  Before he could curb the impulse, Diego reached out and cupped her tear-stained cheeks, stroking his thumbs under her damp eyes. She’d been crying, recently too. Blinking up at him, her eyes filling with tears again, Lilly tried to shrug him off, but he didn’t let her.

  Diego dragged her into his arms, burying his face against her hair. Lilly stiffened for the briefest second, then melted into him. Small hands clutched at his jacket, then wrapped around his waist beneath it. Though she didn’t make a sound Diego felt the moisture from her fresh tears wetting his tux shirt. “I’m sorry you had to deal with him,” he told her gruffly. “If I could have been there sooner I would have.”

  She shook her head against his chest. “It wasn’t your fault at all. I should be used to men being like that by now.”

  Diego cringed at the broad observation but he couldn’t blame her. If what she said were true she had only seen men at their worst.

  And here he was grabbing her.

  Disgusted at his own actions, he pulled her hands away. He couldn’t help but kiss her knuckles before he released her, though. “I’m sorry I showed up unannounced. It was just to check on you, I promise.”

  Lilly crossed her arms again, tucking her hands under her armpits. Her pale eyes were clear, though. “I know, Diego. And I appreciate it. I was just having my own pity party if you’d like to join me.”

  She made a motion to the center of the house and started to walk away.

  “I should go,” he told her softly.

  But when she looked back at him with despondency in her expression, he paused.

  “I would appreciate it,” she whispered, “if you would join me for a while. I know I’m not your type of girl, but I’d appreciate a friend right now.”

  He was unable to tell her no. It had taken him a few long moments to realize who stood in the doorway of the rehab facility all those months ago, but when he did he suddenly felt a little less alone in the world. It had been an incredible gift she had given him that day, that hour of time. Whether she realized it or not she’d had an incredible impact on his life. Diego didn’t understand what she meant about not being his type of girl, but he could absolutely be a friend. He at least owed her that much. Locking the deadbolt on the door he followed her.

  * * *

  Lilly led him into the den, for the first time in a long time conscious of how little she was wearing. The white cotton gown actually covered a lot, but maybe it was because she was drawn to Diego she felt a little exposed. It seemed like he only tolerated her, though. Maybe she shouldn’t have invited him in.

  The hug at the door kind of confused her though. She must look pretty bad if even hard-faced Diego felt bad for her.

  “There’s beer in the fridge, or a Keurig coffee-maker on the counter. If you like harder stuff there’s a bar in the next room.” She motioned toward a doorway and he looked in that direction, but didn’t move.

  “I think I’ll do a coffee if you don’t mind.”

  She watched as his long, straight back disappeared through the kitchen door. Picking up the discarded blanket, she drew its furry warmth around her as she curled into the corner of the couch. She loved this room. It was so cozy with the stone fireplace and comfortable cocoa-colored furniture.

  When Diego returned he carried a steaming cup of coffee and settled into the padded chair to the right of her. “Your house is very nice.”

  She gave him a little smile. “Thank you. I love it here. This isn’t the property I grew up on but it’s close. I’ve always felt like Vail was my home. I’ll have to get my own house soon, though.”

  “Your parents probably appreciate you staying here, though, and actually keeping an eye on things.”

  She nodded, pressing the mute button to silence the late night TV. The room flashed as the lighting on the screen changed and the silence lengthened.

  “I apologize for showing up so late but I wanted to check on you. If your lights had been off I would have checked on you in the morning.”

  Lilly waved a hand. “I appreciate you stopping in. That was very nice of you.”

  Tears filled her eyes again and she swiped them away angrily. Diego reached over and handed her a tissue.

  “I’m not sure exactly why I’m crying. I haven’t been able to stop and it’s really frustrating me. I’m not normally a weepy woman, but I just can’t shut them off tonight.”

  She drew in a ragged breath, wiping her face.

  “I know you’re not a weepy woman,” Diego murmured, setting his coffee cup on the table, “but a lot happened tonight. And I wonder if what happened tonight dug up what happened before.”

  Her eyes flashed to his and she wondered how much he knew. Only what she had told him, surely. She nodded slowly. “Yes. You’re right, I’m sure. I’m tired of people taking advantage of me,” she admitted softly. “Men in particular.”

  He nodded his dark head, both hands clasped in front of him. “I would be too, if I were you. Ray is a family friend. That hurts more as well.”

  Lilly rubbed her forehead. “Shit. I have to call my dad tomorrow and tell him what happened. He is not going to be happy with what I’ve done.”

  “Is he actually going to be upset that you didn’t get drugged and possibly raped?”

  There it was. The R word. They’d avoided actually saying it all night but there was no avoiding it here with Diego. He was a lay-it-on-the-line kind of guy.

  “No,” she admitted softly. “But this will affect them socially.”

  “Fuck them, then,” Diego snapped.

  Lilly jerked at the harsh words, but she couldn’t help but grin, then a laugh broke from her. Diego said it like it should be said. Lilly worked and had grown up in a glamorous industry built to tell lies and manipulate people. It wasn’t very often she came across someone so down to earth.

  “Where are you from
, Diego?”

  Surprise lifted his dark brows, one bisected by the strap of the eye-patch. “Michigan. Detroit specifically. My mother is from Mexico, a city called Veracruz. She immigrated up years ago and I was born stateside.”

  That explained his coloring. His skin was tan, smooth, obviously Hispanic, and he had black hair as dark as her own. But his pale green, olive colored eye seemed out of the ordinary for his genealogy. Maybe his father had been white. She asked him.

  He gave her a considering look. “Yes, my father was white. He raped my mother when she was just sixteen. She was working for his family at the time as a domestic.”

  Lilly’s mouth dropped open with a gasp. “Oh, my gosh I am so sorry! I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  Diego made a motion as if the circumstances of his birth didn’t concern him. “It was a long time ago. My mother still harbors resentment. It will probably kill her one day.”

  Sadness weighed at her heart. “It must have been hard growing up without a father.”

  Those broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “We made do.”

  Lilly grasped for another subject. “Have you been to Mexico? To your mother’s home?”

  Diego nodded once. “Years ago. It was even rougher than where I grew up in Detroit. It was no wonder she left when she was young.”

  “You have no accent,” she noted.

  “I worked not to have an accent,” he admitted. “When you join the Marines it’s good for you to be as similar to the guy next to you as possible. I learned that quickly.”

  Lilly let her head rest on the high arm of the couch. “Tell me about the Marines.”

  Diego chuckled. “What would you like to know? How hard the work is, slogging through sand dunes and over mountains with a hundred pounds of gear on your back, only to have to turn right back around and go right back where you came from because some bureaucrat changed his mind? Or maybe you would like to know about the five star dining we had with meals out of plastic packages?”

  Lilly laughed, lifting her head. “A hundred pounds of gear? Jeez! No wonder you’re built the way you are.”

  She snapped her mouth shut, then waved a hand as if dismissing her words. “So what did you like about it then? You were in for a good while weren’t you?”

  Diego settled deeper into the chair, cradling his coffee cup on his lean stomach. “I was in the Marines for twelve years. Grif and I were in the same platoon for a while, before I got transferred to another company. Within two weeks of being transferred I was injured in combat and sent home.”

  Lilly frowned and shook her head. “A lot of changes all at once.”

  He nodded his dark head once. “It was. Just a few weeks after being injured I was stateside. And I didn’t reintegrate well. I was pretty pissed off at the world.”

  “I think anybody would be.”

  The corner of his mouth tipped up in a grim smile. “Well, it got me into some trouble. Got arrested once for drunk and disorderly. It wasn’t until I heard about Duncan hiring for LNF that I started to kick my life into some kind of order. Grif was injured a few months later and hired on too. We’ve worked for Duncan for a couple years now.”

  “He seems like a pretty phenomenal guy,” she sighed. “He’s got that calm, steady disposition that makes you just want to let him run the world, you know?”

  Diego laughed and nodded his head. “He was a phenomenal commander too. I hated being shipped out of his command. Everything ran right under him, you know? We had casualties and stuff like every other group, but he minimized a lot of the bullshit we had to deal with coming from the top.”

  “So what else did you like about the Marines?”

  He was quiet for a long time and she wondered if she had inadvertently stepped into sensitive territory.

  “Well,” he sighed, “I found the acceptance I had been looking for on the streets. I joined a gang when I was a kid, because it was kind of the expected thing to do, you know? The Marines gave me that camaraderie without being illegal. I made decent money I could send home to my mother. Yes, I was risking my life, but it was no different than living in the poorest part of Detroit.”

  Lilly rested her head on the arm of the couch again. “I bet your mother was proud of you.”

  His head tilted to look down into the coffee cup, the truth still cutting after so many years. “Mama was just glad I left.”

  “Why do you say that?” She sat up, curious about his response. The TV continued to flicker across the room and she wished there were more light so that she could see his face.

  When he glanced up at her, there was grudging acceptance in his face. “My mother met a man when I was a few years old. A hard-working Hispanic man who took care of her. They married and she got pregnant. The right way, that time she said. Her husband died after a few years, though. My younger brother was always her favorite. The baby. He got killed because of the gang he joined. Mama blamed me.”

  Lilly winced and leaned over enough to brush her hand over his knee. “I’m so sorry. That must have been hard. I can’t believe your mother blamed you for that though.”

  “She did,” he affirmed. “Over and over again.”

  Lilly relished every detail he told her about himself but his mother sounded like a real peach. “I don’t know if she and I would get along.”

  Diego gave her a searching look and Lilly realized that must have sounded pretty presumptuous. She shrugged, laying her head back on the arm of the couch. Tiredness dragged at her.

  Taking a heavy swallow of his coffee, Diego set the cup on the table. “I should probably go and let you sleep.”

  Lilly knew that was probably for the best but she didn’t want him to leave. “It’s awfully late. Can I offer you a bed?”

  He cocked his head at her words and Lilly realized what she had said. She bolted upright on the couch, mouth hanging open. “That’s not what I meant,” she gasped, closing her eyes in mortification. When she opened them again Diego was grinning at her. His eye was narrowed with laughter and Lilly loved the look of it on him. She could suffer some embarrassment if it would lighten his mood for a while.

  Who was she kidding? She’d give him her bed, too, with her on a silver platter. The thought of getting busy with the hunky investigator excited her more than she thought possible, considering the night she’d had. She shrugged and crossed her legs. “If you’d like to stay I would find you a warm place to curl up.”

  The laughter faded from his face, to be replaced with thoughtful consideration. Awareness danced through the air and she caught her breath.

  Diego stood and moved toward her. Lilly thought her heart was going to rocket out of her chest, but he merely moved close enough to drop a kiss to the top of her head like a little girl, then he turned away.

  Tears choked her throat again at the rebuff, but for some reason this hurt more than any of the previous slights. She stood up from the couch. “What is it about me that you don’t like?”

  Diego stopped and turned, frowning when he saw her face. He returned to stand before her, tilting her chin up with a finger. “I like you too much,” he murmured. “That’s why I’m not going to stay.”

  In total contradiction to his words, Diego pressed his lips to hers. Lilly knew he wanted it to be a quick, friendly kiss, but she leaned into it, opening her mouth a little. He seemed surprised but receptive. Angling his head, he kissed her back, nibbling at her lips.

  Lilly felt like she was in trouble, but the thrilling sensation of finally kissing him outweighed the fear. She was ready to run with it all the way. Or at least as far as he would let her. As she breathed him in a shudder wracked her body.

  Diego cupped her head in his strong hands, teasing the hair at the nape of her neck. Lilly reached up to do the same thing, curious if his hair was as thick as it seemed. Yep. Completely. Pressing kisses along his hard jaw she ran her hands down his shoulders, his strong arms, then across his chest. Diego’s head tilted back, eye shut, exposing the strong, corded c
olumn of his neck.

  Lilly pressed another kiss to his lips, reaching out with her tongue to tease them open. With a groan Diego tightened his hands on her, then ran them down to rest on her waist. He tightened his hands onto her hipbones and dragged her closer, letting her feel how much she affected him. As soon as she made contact, though, he pushed her away, staring down at her hard. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he growled.

  “Why not?” Lilly countered.

  Shaking his head, he backed away. He scraped a hand through his hair. “Because we’re connected already by friends and proximity. If we get involved and it goes bad, we’ll have to deal with it for a long time.”

  “But if we get together and it’s right,” she said slowly, “it could be amazing.”

  Diego flinched as if she’d slapped him and pulled away even further. “It wouldn’t work out that way. We’re too different.”

  Lilly took a step forward. “Those differences are what make relationships work. They are what keeps things interesting.”

  Diego shook his head. “Goodnight, Lilly.”

  With a swirl of clean, sexy scent he was gone.

  Lilly shook her head, staggered he’d disappeared so quickly. Maybe her being so needy tonight had been what had chased him away.

  She went to bed that night frazzled, unfulfilled and just generally grumpy.

  Chapter Three

  Two days later, earlier than everyone else, Diego headed into the office they were using in the Herrington Limited building. When Grif had been assigned here almost two years ago, the LNF contingent, meaning Grif and Brian Calvert, had been given this office space. Diego had been brought into the group when Grif and Kendall were trying to work out their relationship and Grif’s objectivity had been a little skewed. Once he’d married Kendall and she’d assumed the position of CEO, she had permanently leased the block of rooms to them for the outlandish price of one dollar per year. It gave them a great base to build the Vail branch of Lost and Found Investigative Service.