The Divine Creek Ranch Collection Volume 4

by Heather Rainier

“Maybe so, but I just don’t want you to see me.” The disgust in her voice was very real and brought pain to his heart. It angered him that what she saw in the mirror was still exactly what JT wanted her to see.

  Evil bastard.

  He squeezed her delicate body in his arms and kissed above what felt like her ear. “Oh, Lily. Why do you see yourself in such a negative light?”

  “Because I have eyes. I know what I see every time I look in a mirror.” He could hear the tinge of sorrow that clouded the disgust in her tone. “I’m sick of it.”

  “How bad could it have been, honey?”

  “I have pictures. I can show you, when I go find the lab test results. You’ll see.” The last word was whispered.

  She put her arm around his shoulder and let him lift her. She felt more fragile, and while he loved holding her, his heart ached at how breakable she now felt in his arms. He carefully lowered her, keeping her secure until she settled into the tub and let go of him. He stood and waited with his eyes closed as she splashed.

  “You can open your eyes.” When he looked down at her, she was blushing. She’d arranged the suds so none of her beautiful attributes, besides her lovely face and shoulders, were visible. Keeping eye contact, she gratefully said, “Thank you, Clay.”

  “You’re welcome.” He squatted down to her and swiped his finger through a mound of bubbles and dotted her nose with it. “Soak that knee for a while. I’m going to get you a bottle of water. Please tell me that you at least ate lunch.”

  She nodded sincerely. “I’m not that obsessed, Clay. And thank you for the water. I’m dying of thirst.” As he left the room she called out, “All those foil-wrapped packages are for Del. Our supper is sitting on the stove if you’re hungry.”

  Thinking of Del brought to mind the brief, magical moment in the living room the previous week on Christmas Day, right before Del had left. Lily had climbed into Clay’s lap to relax.

  Through half-lidded eyes he’d watched Del observe Lily as she’d settled into Clay’s arms, and the moment had been unspeakably hot. He’d fantasized later on how that night might’ve played out if his brother had stayed and the tattoo hadn’t been a worry.

  He’d noticed Del shifted to compensate for a growing erection as Clay had held Lily. His own cock had stiffened at the feel of her cuddly, warm body nestling against him, and he’d been able to see the lust gleaming in Del’s eyes. His thoughts must’ve bothered him because seconds later he’d made his excuses and left. Still, Clay thought he might change his mind about the viability of a ménage once he met the guys.

  After Del had left, they’d had their dessert and then cuddled back in the chair and had a movie marathon. Lily had napped in his arms for part of the afternoon, and Clay hadn’t minded a bit, even though his erection never went down completely. It had become a common sensation when he was around Lily, as though he were a randy teenager, aroused at the least little stimulus.

  Compared to his relatively sterile and boring existence prior to Lily crashing back into his life, he appreciated the difference, even if it did leave him with few options for relief besides jacking off in a warm shower.

  During the movie marathon, Lily let him pick the movie and had seemed to take particular note when they watched Wanted with Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. He’d hidden his smile when she’d asked in an offhand manner what Clay thought of a woman with tattoos, since the heroine in the movie sported quite a bit of body art.

  His response? “Totally sexy, though I’m more of a Marilyn Monroe kind of guy.”

  Lily had giggled and responded, “Oh yeah?”

  Clay had laughed quietly. “Don’t sound so surprised. You knew that about me. I want a woman with soft, round curves.” He’d grasped her thigh gently. “One who’s nice to snuggle up with.” He’d lightly squeeze her upper body. It was purely involuntary when he’d flexed his hips, pressing his erection against her hip for a second. “So a Marilyn Monroe–type with a little body art wouldn’t get kicked out of my bed.”

  She’d gazed up into his eyes. “You know it could never work, right?” There was a playful twinkle in her eyes when she said it, so he scoffed.

  “I beg to differ. I know exactly how it would work.”

  “Nuh-uh. You’re what? Six foot five? And I’m five foot seven. You’d have to bend like a pretzel just to kiss me. Nope.”

  She’d giggled as Clay had wrapped her up in a tight ball in his arms and replied, “I can do any shape pretzel you want, baby, just say the word. Besides, we’re more like puzzle pieces. We fit, Lily, no matter how you look at it.”

  He’d kissed the tip of her nose, praying for control while showing her that he wouldn’t demand what she couldn’t give yet. While there, he’d also lightly smooched her lips and then let her go back to watching the movie.

  If all he’d wanted was sex, he could’ve cajoled her into his bed a week ago. More was at stake and he wasn’t going to blow it for short-term relief, especially not when Del was now potentially in the picture.

  When he returned to the bathroom, he carried two bottles of water and two plates of food.

  “Well, this is a first. I’ve never eaten supper in the bathtub before.”

  “Same goes here. I’ve never eaten while sitting on the toilet before, either.”

  Lily laughed so hard her fork fell in the tub. “Oops!”

  Clay made a move to help. “Want me to get it?” He was sure his lascivious grin guaranteed he’d have to feel around very thoroughly while he searched for it.

  “Very funny!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Later, after supper had been eaten and dishes were put away, Lily limped to her room wrapped in a towel. After dressing in her red flannel pajamas, which had indeed gotten very loose and floppy, she searched the box she’d left on the closet shelf. While looking for the envelope that held her medical information and other important paperwork, she found the box containing her old pictures. She hadn’t seen most of them in years, so pulled them out to share with Clay.

  Clay was kneeling by the fireplace adding wood to the crackling blaze within. He stood when she entered the room, brushing his hands off on his jeans as he turned to her. She handed him the lab results, and he sat in the big, comfy recliner and turned on the floor lamp beside it, gesturing for her to join him. Something about the gesture compelled her as he gazed at her with some unreadable emotion in his eyes.

  In the last week, the level of intimacy they shared had changed. He never put pressure on her with sexual advances, which should’ve been a relief but wasn’t. But that didn’t mean that he was content with her across the room on the couch.

  He made no bones about the fact that he preferred to be close to her and seemed to particularly enjoy having her in his lap in that recliner. The thing was almost big enough for two people side by side, but she invariably wound up in his lap comfortably lounging. It was a relief that she’d lost some weight so she didn’t worry quite as much about hurting him.

  She carefully joined him and settled as he looked closely at the photocopy she’d handed him. The doctor had ordered a wide range of tests, so many, in fact, that by the time the nurse had finished drawing blood, Lily had been ready to pass out. JT had thrown a royal temper tantrum when he’d found out how much the lab work had cost because they didn’t have health insurance. Thankfully, he’d forgotten about it by the time the results had come back. She’d carefully tucked the paperwork away and was grateful when he’d never asked about the test results.

  “Going by the range of normal results listed for each test, all of your levels are within normal ranges, Lily.”

  Lily nodded. “The doctor told me that but said I should be more careful and to look in the mirror if I needed proof that I had to make changes.” He’d always been polite to her, but Lily remembered how his insensitive words had soured her respect for the man.

  Sounding shocked, Clay asked, “He said that to you?”

  Lily nodded. “He was a gruff man. JT�
��s mother said he was ‘plainspoken.’”

  “Let me guess. He was the King family doctor?” At Lily’s nod he folded the paper and handed it back to her. “That explains a lot, I guess. Numbers don’t lie, honey. And with as much weight as you’ve lost, they are probably all different now anyway.”

  “I can’t afford to find out right now.”

  With the subject seemingly closed, Clay tapped the box in her lap. “What do you have there?”

  “The pictures Dad saved for me.”

  Clay grinned like he was looking forward to something. “Can I see?”

  Looking at the visual memories from her childhood might be uncomfortable, but Lily hoped that maybe Clay would be able to understand why she felt the way she did about losing weight, why it was so important to her to finally get that part of her life behind her so she could move on. She lifted the lid on the box.

  “Oh, man,” Clay said then groaned.

  Lily giggled as she lifted the picture on top. It was from kindergarten at Halloween in 1979. Mrs. Hobson had organized a Halloween parade in front of the school Lily, Clay, and Del had attended. In the picture, Lily was situated in her little witch costume, flanked by Del, dressed as a cowboy, and Clay, looking adorable in a ruffled, pastel floral print clown costume.

  “I was scarred for life, you know.”

  Lily chortled with glee. “You were so cute in your widdle clown costume.” The ensemble included a pair of floppy shoes, peaked hat with fluffy ball on top, and full clown makeup. Lily turned to him and kissed his cheek. “I remember you handling that humiliation with a lot of dignity. I think you knew it would’ve hurt your mom’s feelings if you’d rejected the costume after she’d spent so many hours sewing it. Ugh, look at me, all tubby.”

  Clay took the picture from her and pointed at her legs, which were really all that could be made out of her with the costume and mask covering her. Clay pointed at one of the other girls. “There isn’t really that much difference, Lily. See?”

  Lily scoffed. “Whatever. She was a little chunky, too, as I recall.” Lily remembered the way her mother had complained, trying to find a costume in the store that would fit her.

  They leafed through the pictures and found some from a weekend trip to the Texas Gulf Coast she’d gone on with the Cook family the summer after sixth grade was finished. Mrs. Cook had been kind enough to give her several pictures from that trip, including this one. She remembered looking at it years and years ago and being so embarrassed. She’d been wearing short-shorts in the picture, which revealed just how fat her legs were. She’d taken the pictures home, given them to her mom for safekeeping, and never looked at them again.

  “I remember this,” Clay murmured. “Mom and Dad let us stay up and watch MTV all night. That was a lot of fun.” Clay’s words barely registered as she frowned at the picture. “You okay, honey?”

  She nodded as she laid the picture aside from the others. They soon reached the pictures that were taken after her family had moved away when she was in seventh grade, and Clay was particularly curious about these.

  There was a picture of her in a long dress from a middle school choir concert when she was an eighth grader. That had been a hard year, making the adjustment to a new town. She’d felt like a whale in the lime-green dress with the scratchy blouse underneath. In the softness of her rounded cheeks was a hint of the woman she now saw in the mirror every day.

  “You looked so unhappy.”

  Lily frowned and replied, “Mom made me wear that dress. I hated it because it didn’t fit right. The neck was tight on that blouse and I felt like I was being strangled. Mom complained because it came from the Misses’ department and was more expensive.”

  She gazed at the dress and remembered how she’d felt but couldn’t reconcile it with what she saw in the picture. She felt Clay’s eyes on her, but when she glanced up at him, he had a tender smile on his face. She laid the picture aside and continued on.

  She flipped the next picture over to check the date. “This was taken my freshman year in high school.” It was a formally posed portrait, and the memory that stood out the most about it was her mom asking the photographer if he could position the wicker chair in front of her a little to hide her heavy thighs.

  The photographer had been kind to her and winked when he positioned the chair and arranged her hands on the back of it and asked her to smile like a supermodel. Uncertainty had shown in her teenaged eyes, but she’d smiled for him anyway, showing too much teeth.

  “You look as though you’d grown several inches taller by the time this was taken.”

  The outfit she’d been wearing in the picture was a scratchy two-piece polyester outfit she recalled shopping for with her mom in the clearance racks at the local department store. Lily remembered her mom griping that she couldn’t find anything in her size. She’d felt so ashamed that there weren’t any clothes in the store that fit her.

  Lily had a realization, remembering that time as an adult now. Her mom complained because of the lack of selection on the clearance racks. They’d never ventured to any other department, and her mother had eventually decided on an ill-fitting outfit with a skirt that was so short Lily had never felt comfortable wearing it. Her self-consciousness showed in her eyes in the head-to-toe portrait.

  Clay took the portrait from her and traced his finger over the long expanse of her legs. “Wow.” A lump burned in her throat at the admiration in his tone.

  She sifted through the pictures, finding one from a football game, shot with friends in the spectator stands. Her mom had been about to take the picture but had mouthed to her to angle sideways so she would look thinner, dressed as she was in her sweatshirt, blue jeans, and high-top sneakers. She bit her lip and winced when she nearly drew blood.

  She also found a snapshot taken of her at the beach the weekend after she graduated from high school. Clad in a one-piece bathing suit, she’d waved self-consciously at her dad as he’d taken the picture. Her mom had griped at him for not giving her a chance to pose so she looked thinner. In the picture she simply faced the camera, standing in the surf, with the wind blowing her long hair in her face.

  The realization settled like a weight on her as she looked hurriedly through the rest of the pictures then back at the ones she’d set aside.

  “Lily, you okay?” Clay asked, sounding concerned as he stroked her back.

  She held the picture of her with her friends at the football game and said, “Clay, I remember looking at this picture and being ashamed for being so fat. I remember being fat in this picture!”

  She tossed it in her lap and lifted the portrait of her with the chair placed so strategically. “I remember thinking ‘why bother with the chair when I’ll just stick out on both sides of it anyway?’ Clay, I recall looking at the proofs of these pictures and telling my mom and dad that they didn’t need to order any of mine because I was so embarrassed by them.” Lily looked hard at the picture, and tears overflowed her eyes.

  She held up the picture from the trip she’d taken to the Gulf Coast with Clay and his family. “I remember being embarrassed that your family also had pictures like this with my gigantic, white thighs so exposed.”

  “How do you feel looking at these pictures now?”

  “I believed them, Clay. I believed my mom and I bought into what my friends said when they complained about being fat.”

  “So, Lily, do you still believe any of what you were telling me earlier? About being fat all your life, all those years you were growing up away from here.”

  She clasped the stack of telltale photographs to her chest as Clay pulled her close and tears rolled from her eyes. Her voice broke as she muttered, “I wasn’t fat.” The betrayal made her heart feel as though it was burning, and it was made worse by the fact she’d believed it so thoroughly. She remembered seeing a fat girl.

  “No, you weren’t.” Clay lifted the picture of her from the football game, dressed in her snug, faded jeans and the posed portrait and said
, “Baby, you had some nice legs. You still do. Do you see it now?”

  Knowing her body image was forever altered, Lily nodded and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Thank you for understanding. For not thinking I’m crazy.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for. Self-perception is an odd thing. I’m glad we looked at these and you had the chance to lay some old demons to rest. I think I could’ve kept telling you that you’re not fat until I turned blue in the face. Now you’ve seen the truth for yourself.”

  Lily nodded, feeling as though she were an onion who’d just had several layers peeled rather painfully back. Maybe she should continue the trend.

  “Clay, there is something I need to talk to you about.”

  Clay pressed his lips to the top of her head as he squeezed her gently in his arms. “Sure. What’s on your mind?”

  “I have a—”

  Lily was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Clay grunted in what sounded like frustration. Lily climbed from his lap and followed him to the door, caressing the head of the rising phoenix statue which he’d moved inside and positioned in the entryway for her.

  Clay opened the door, and she gasped when she saw who stood on the front porch, dirty ball cap crushed in his hands.

  “Dirk!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  JT’s brother nodded at her, appearing to have a difficult time looking her in the eyes. “Lily.” She noticed his eyes widened perceptibly as he got a look at her.

  Lily had never had a problem with Dirk. Given the way Natalie had disrespected him anytime they were all together and the fact that he’d been cuckolded by her, Lily had felt a little sympathy toward him. Being mild-mannered in the King family meant you were low in the pecking order. Clay wrapped a hand around her hip, guided her behind him, and hardened his jaw as he looked Dirk over.

  “Clay, this is my…”

  Dirk held his hand out to Clay. “I promise I’m alone and I’m not here to make trouble, sir. I’m Dirk King. I’m Lily’s soon-to-be ex-brother-in-law.” Clay shook his hand and at Lily’s urging, welcomed him inside.