The Privileged and the Damned

by Kimberly Lang

  “You okay?” he asked. There was humor in his voice, and he dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

  Her lips didn’t seem to be functioning properly either, as it was tough to form a response. Not that her brain could come up with one anyway. Lily settled for a smile and a slight nod. She closed her eyes again.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  Her eyes flew open, and she saw the concern on his face. Ugh. She shouldn’t have even brought it up. “I told you, I wasn’t a—”

  She could tell Ethan was biting back a laugh. “I meant your leg. And your head.” He traced a finger around the Band-Aid on her forehead.

  “Oh.” How humiliating. “No. Both fine.”

  “Good.” Then all humor disappeared, and his eyes narrowed a little. “But…um…if it…”

  Kill me now. “All good. Really.”

  An eyebrow went up. “Just ‘good’? I really do owe you an apology, then.” He reached for her hand and lifted a finger to his lips, allowing it to trace the lazy, sexy smile there. “I was aiming for ‘amazing.’ Maybe even ‘fantastic.’”

  “Fishing for compliments?” Because “fantastic” doesn’t even come close.

  “Well, I hate to think I buckled under the pressure.” He nipped at her fingertip, and it caused a shiver to run through her. “I’m sure I’ll do better next time.”

  Her mouth went dry. “Next time?”

  “This time,” he corrected as he rolled her beneath him again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A REGULAR day off had been hard for Lily to adjust to. The rest of her work schedule might change from week to week, and her irregular hours might be considered odd to most people, but Wednesdays were always hers. The first couple of weeks she’d wandered around, unsure what to do with herself, but now she had a routine, she found herself looking forward to the time.

  The thirty-minute drive back to civilization used to feel like an eternity, but she was used to it now. Liked it, even, because she liked the seclusion of Hill Chase, and the distance to town just reinforced the feeling of being far from it all.

  As always, her first stop was the bank to cash her paycheck, then the Laundromat, where the owner greeted her and offered to change over her loads while Lily took care of her other errands. The next stop was the drugstore to pick up a few toiletries. The average mindlessness of it all was slowly becoming her new normal.

  Just something else she was coming to love.

  Today, though, her wander through the drugstore came to an abrupt stop in front of the condom display. Like she wasn’t having a hard enough time keeping her mind from wandering back to last night…this just brought it all vividly to the forefront of her mind.

  Her face heated, but it wasn’t regret or shame. Last night had been the stuff of fantasies, and she had no regrets at all. She’d still been sighing into the wee hours of the morning as sleep refused to come. But the bright light of day had her facing the reality she’d let herself ignore last night.

  Crush or no crush, fantastic sex or not, she’d be a fool to read anything into what had happened. Ethan had been pretty clear about his intentions—simply by not making claims or avowals or romanticizing—and she respected that.

  And, honestly, she wasn’t sure she wanted a lot of talk and explanation and all that. Sometimes you just had to grab the moments of happiness and not question where they came from or why. It made things much simpler.

  She didn’t regret sleeping with Ethan—not at all. Physically, it was the best sex she’d ever had. Not that she had much to compare it to, but she certainly couldn’t imagine it getting any better. Although Ethan had asked—vaguely, at least—she hadn’t been able to give him fully satisfactory answers about why she, at the age of twenty-two, had less experience than most would expect from a woman her age in this century.

  How could she explain—without confessing more than she wanted to—that even a delinquent like her had realized at some inner level that there were pieces of her soul she just didn’t want to give away?

  Why sleeping with Ethan was different was a puzzle to ponder another day. She just needed to accept it for what it was and enjoy the memory. There was no need to plan on any repeats either. Lily turned her back on the display and went to the register before she could change her mind.

  Her face was still feeling hot as she returned her books at the library and checked out the new ones Judith was holding for her behind the desk. Then she went to one of the computers and checked her email account.

  Only a few people had the address. She’d wanted—needed—to make the break as clean as possible, but there were a couple of people she wanted to keep up with, however infrequently.

  Seeing TJ’s return address made her smile. TJ’s transition out of the halfway house and back into real life had been rocky, but she seemed to be getting it together now. Her last email had been full of excited news about a new job and a new boyfriend. A “respectable” one this time, TJ had insisted.

  When she opened the message, though, it was brief.

  He’s looking for you. He has no idea where you are, and I told him I didn’t either. I heard he went to talk to Jerry too.

  Nausea curled in Lily’s stomach and the bile started to rise. She forced herself to take deep breaths. I’m an adult now. Pop can’t hurt me anymore. She had never doubted Pop would look for her. He needed her, after all, to do the things he didn’t have the skills for. Or was just too lazy to do. Add in the money she took, and Pop would be really ticked off that he didn’t know where she was.

  Pop didn’t like to have his plans disrupted.

  But to talk to Jerry? Jerry had supported her plan to get out of Mississippi altogether and find someplace else to start over. He’d signed off on her paperwork with a smile, calling her the biggest success story to ever come out of the diversion program. Her probation officer had agreed. Her juvie records had been sealed, and she’d moved out of the halfway house and left town with a happy heart and a big sigh of relief.

  Neither Jerry nor TJ would rat her out to Pop—not even if they did know where she was. They knew what kind of man he was. But if Pop was looking up her old friends and social workers that wasn’t good.

  Damn it. She didn’t want to look over her shoulder anymore.

  Lily closed the program and got several dollars in change from Judith, who told her she looked pale and asked if she needed to sit down. Lily took a minute to convince her she was fine, then left the library in a hurry. Two blocks away, she finally found a payphone and fed it quarters.

  TJ answered on the third ring, but her voice sounded slurry and thick. Damn. If TJ was drinking again…

  “It’s Lily.”

  “Darlin’! How are you?”

  “I’m good—really good. How are you?” For most people that would be an empty question, but in this situation it was so loaded Lily almost winced as she asked.

  “Rollin’ with the punches, darlin’.”

  Double damn. The only way TJ rolled with the punches was with a bottle in one hand. “Have you been to see Jerry?”

  “Of course, and he’s still just proud as a new daddy over you. Uses you as an example for all the newbies. You know, that’s how I found out about your pop paying him a visit. That freaked me out.”

  “Well, I’m not worried about Pop. I am worried about you, though.”

  “Lily, darlin’, I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound it.”

  “Oh, it’s just the same ol’, same ol’—ya know? Things around here never change.”

  That was what worried her.

  TJ sighed. “But your last message…wow. You’re really doing great. Sometimes I think I shoulda gone with you.”

  “You could have. And you could still leave, you know. Make a new start yourself.”

  “Nah. I’m good. Hey! I got news for you. Me and Roger are getting married.”

  Lily scrubbed a hand over her face in frustration. Roger’s addictions were the very last thing TJ needed.
Anything she tried to say about it, though, would either fall on deaf ears or alienate TJ. “Wow. I hope you guys are really happy together.” The words left a horrible taste in her mouth.

  “I’d invite you to the wedding, but I know you can’t come.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your pop’s really angry, you know. He was cussing about not having a place to live when he got out.”

  Figured. “I wrote him and told him Sid had all his stuff in his basement.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t change the fact the bank took the trailer. And he said you stole money from him.”

  That money was just as much mine as it was his. She would not feel one bit guilty for taking it. “Well, Pop will just have to deal with his own problems.” For once.

  “I promise I won’t tell him nothin’. Not even that you called.”

  “I know. Thanks for the warning, though. And just stay away from Pop. You don’t need to be involved.”

  “Don’t you worry. Your pop ain’t a problem for me.”

  “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  “You, too, darlin’.”

  TJ hung up the phone, leaving Lily feeling desperately sad.

  Lily fed another fistful of change into the phone. Jerry didn’t answer, so she left a brief message, saying just that she was great, but that TJ could probably use checking in on. It was all she could do, really, and that sat heavy on her heart.

  She finished her errands, but the satisfaction she’d been getting from a “new normal” escaped her now. Her new boots—tall enough to keep her feet dry no matter what trick Goose pulled—couldn’t lift the cloud either.

  She’d come so far, and the conversation with TJ underlined how just lucky she was to have made it out at all. On cue, she heard Jerry’s voice. “It’s not luck. It takes hard work to change your life.” She couldn’t save TJ—especially since TJ didn’t want saving—but she’d managed to save herself. She should take a small measure of pride in that.

  Even pulling into the long drive at Hill Chase didn’t lift her spirits the way it normally did. The sight of the mansion, surrounded by rolling lawns, was picture-book perfect, as always, but the usual feeling she got at the sight was now all tangled up in Ethan, and it made her think of him and all that had happened when she really didn’t want to deconstruct it all and ruin the memory.

  Lily dropped off her stuff in her apartment, grabbed a water bottle, book and blanket, and headed for her favorite rock. She couldn’t stay inside or else she’d just think, and she had way too much to think about today. She needed to escape for a little while.

  She’d discovered the rock accidentally, but it was perfectly designed for leaning against while she read, and Lily tried to lose herself in a book.

  Maybe she should have chosen a different book. The romance novel she’d been so looking forward to reading was messing with her head. Around page three the hero morphed into Ethan, and nothing she did could shake the image. Ethan was a walking example of every hero ever written in a novel, and Lily could easily picture him as a Scottish laird—kilt and all.

  And, with last night’s memories still so fresh in her mind, the vivid descriptions on the page caused her breasts to feel tight and heavy and an aching heat to settle low in her belly.

  Argh. She needed a horror novel, a thriller, even a tear-jerking memoir… Something other than a romance. Lily finally closed the book in frustration, leaned her head back and tried not to think about anything.

  How long she watched the wispy clouds, she didn’t know, but it didn’t seem like very long before she heard hoofbeats. Horse and rider were easy to identify, and Lily wasn’t sure if she was excited or nervous to see Ethan riding in her direction. With the afterglow faded away now, how was she supposed to face him? The shared intimacy of last night made an awkward gulf today—no matter how dispassionately she’d forced herself to examine it earlier.

  Whether from nerves or hormones, her heart was pounding louder and faster than Tinker’s hooves.

  Ethan pulled Tinker to a stop and grinned at her. “Gloria told me I’d probably find you here. She sent you cookies.”

  The neutral topic of cookies helped a bit to ease into the idea of actually speaking to him. “Thanks.” She held up her hands to catch the bag, but Ethan didn’t toss it down. Instead, he dismounted and came to sit across from her on the blanket, opening the bag as he did. “I thought Gloria sent those for me,” she teased.

  “Surely you were going to share? After all, I did deliver them, and they’re my all-time favorites.” He was completely unrepentant as he took a big bite of a cookie. “What are you reading?”

  Lily passed him the book, and Ethan’s eyebrows went up as he read the title. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the romance novel type.”

  “There’s a type?” she challenged, taking a cookie for herself.

  “Well…” He squirmed a little under her stare. “You just seem so practical.”

  “I can’t be practical and like happy endings too?”

  He shook his head. “There’s a reason it’s called fiction, you know.”

  “That’s possibly the saddest, most cynical thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t know if I should feel sorry for you or hate you on principle.”

  “Neither. I accept the world as it is. Realism is far better than optimism or cynicism.”

  “But it’s possible to be realistic without losing your optimism and hope for the best.” And I would know. But then, she realized, so should he. “Isn’t that part of what politics is all about? Wanting to make things better even if you have to work with what you’ve got?”

  Ethan seemed to consider her words for a second. “Maybe. If that’s why you go into politics. But I’m not involved in politics.”

  “But your father and—”

  Ethan’s face hardened. “I’m not my father,” he snapped.

  Lily realized she’d been right about Douglas Marshall and that he was obviously a sore spot with Ethan. But he seemed to catch himself quickly, and the lines in his face softened.

  “Maybe that’s where my cynicism comes from. I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by that system.”

  “I understand.” And she did. Not exactly, granted, but close enough. She’d grown up in a system too—and a family business, in a way—and wasn’t she doing much the same thing as Ethan by rejecting it for something else? “So, non-fiction for you, then? Just the facts?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He reached for the bag of cookies again.

  “How boring.”

  “Not at all. Choosing fact over fiction means I know how things are—not how I think they are or how they should be.” Ethan stretched out on her blanket, stacking his hands behind his head. “Case in point—Lily Black.”

  Oh, no. “Excuse me?”

  “You let everyone think you’re shy because you keep to yourself. That’s fiction, because I know you’re not shy.” Ethan’s eyes roamed over her meaningfully and her skin heated. “You just don’t want to talk to people. That’s fact. So, either you have some distrust of the world, or else you have something to hide.”

  She could hear the tease in his voice, but that didn’t stop her stomach from dropping. She attempted to brush the statement off casually. “I just don’t see the need to unload my life story on every person I meet, or get them more involved in my personal business than they need to be.”

  “I know for a fact you can’t have too much to hide because you never would have passed the background check required for employment here.”

  Oh, dear God. Her mouth went dry and she nearly choked on the cookie.

  “So,” Ethan continued, “you either have intensely personal issues, or else you have a general distrust of people.”

  She took a long drink of water as she tried to figure out what to say, and then she tried not to sound defensive. “I may not implicitly trust everyone straight out of the gate, but there’s a big difference between being a cautious and private person and being a distr
ustful and cynical one.”

  “You’re saying that I’m distrustful and cynical?”

  “Yes.” And it made her mad. She kept her voice level. “And your need to see the world in black and white terms proves that. Not everything has a clear yes/no or true/false answer.”

  Ethan pushed up on to his elbow. “That depends on the questions you ask.”

  “And what if you don’t like the answers you get?”

  “It’s all good as long as the answers are honest ones. Because then I have the facts I need to make a judgment.”

  Lily didn’t know whether to be horrified or angry. “So you’re judging me? I find that a bit offensive.”

  “Maybe ‘judgment’ wasn’t the right word.”

  She needed out of this conversation. “Honestly, I’d agree.”

  Ethan smirked at her word choice. “But everyone has to make a call about people one way or the other. Even you.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not painting me with that brush. I’m all about the gray area. I don’t make snap judgments about anything or anyone—especially judgments based only on what people say.”

  “Three days ago you’d never laid eyes on me before, and last night—”

  Great. Another place I didn’t want this conversation to go. “Stop right there. If you want to talk about last night— Wait. Actually, let’s not.”

  “Why not?”

  She took a deep breath. “Because I get it. It was a one-off. You don’t have to spell it out for me.” She pushed to her feet and grabbed her stuff, causing Ethan to roll off into the grass as she tugged at the blanket. “It was great and all, but we can go right back to our lives now.”

  Ethan pushed to his feet as she started to walk away. “Can we back this conversation up a minute? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m not looking for a repeat of last night.” She nearly choked on the words, because that was a lie. At least as far as her body was concerned. It was completely on board for Round Two. “In fact, I think we should back all the way up and return to a relationship with boundaries more appropriate to my position here at Hill Chase. Thank you for the cookies, Mr. Marshall. Enjoy the rest of your ride.”