“Oh my God, Ash,” she moaned. Overcome with sated weakness, she sagged against him.
With barely a pause, he lifted her then laid her on the bed. He stood for a moment exploring her nakedness with his gaze. She was glowing with satisfaction but still blushed at his blatant scrutiny. Without taking his eyes off her, he tugged himself free of his clothes. Once naked, he moved out of the darkness.
Rylee sighed as she admired his magnificent frame, every curve and angle accentuated or shadowed by the diffused glow, emphasizing his rugged masculinity. His cock stood out, fully erect, his naked balls hung low between his muscular thighs as he stepped forward and knelt on the bed beside her. He parted her legs to expose her inner lips, and she lay back on the pillows. He shuffled closer and brought his head down. She inhaled sharply at the exquisite pleasure that rushed across her skin as he slid his tongue sensuously back and forth over her clit. She lifted her hips ever so slightly to meet his explorations. As he sucked gently on her erect nub, she struggled to breathe, consumed with a fiery arousal that burst from the embers of her first climax. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth to draw in small puffs of air into her constricted lungs. Her legs trembled and she curled her toes in absolute bliss. Lithely, he moved his body over hers, and she slipped her hand between them and guided his hard length to her opening. He didn’t pause at her entrance but thrust deeply inside and moved fast and hard. She moaned and met his energetic thrusts with small lifts of her hips. He kissed her face and neck then stared deep into her eyes. She stared back, clutching him closer, scoring his back with her nails as he plunged again and again into her. Scorching tension held her suspended. Her pussy pulsated and clenched tightly around the hard length of his shaft as it moved inside her.
Sweat beaded his skin and he groaned, “Come, Rylee. I can’t wait.”
The intensity burst through her and she cried out as her orgasm blistered every nerve ending. She felt Ash sink deep and shudder with his own release. She embraced him tighter, clawing at his skin as if to make him part of her. Ash groaned and collapsed on top of her. She stroked his back and shoulders and ran her fingers through his hair before pulling him to her, claiming his mouth with a passionate caress of her own. As their kiss ended in a lingering touch, he laid his head on her shoulder and eased his weight from her.
They lay entwined, sexually sated and in silence for a long time in the quiet darkness.
Ash nuzzled her neck. “I want to do that every night for the rest of my life and then it won’t be enough to make up for the time we’ve lost.”
She pressed her lips to his cheek, fighting a small wave of sadness that tried to consume her.
* * * *
Ash had only been gone for two days, but already Rylee missed him terribly. Lilli was having a sleepover with a friend then going to her grandparents while her father was away. Rylee had breathed a sigh of relief when she’d found out that the arrangements were already in place and no matter how much Lilli’s protested, Ash had insisted they stand as arranged. But despite this escape—or perhaps because of it—Rylee was even more conscious of the unpleasant secret snapping at her heels, howling for revelation.
Lilli’s first pleading phone call went to the answering machine and Rylee was glad but felt guilty as she listened to the beseeching little voice.
“Rylee, its Lilli. I’m bored here at Grandpa’s. There’s nothing to do. Could I come riding with you, please?”
Rylee didn’t respond. She knew she was a coward, but the thought of having Lilli here to ride without her father or the safeguard of a teacher scared her to death.
Rylee found herself backed into a corner when the phone rang for the second time. She let it go again to the answering machine.
Lilli wanted to come and ride. Panic screamed in Rylee’s head. She couldn’t do it. She made excuses to herself and knew they sounded lame.
She got caught the third time.
“You didn’t call me back. Can I come for a ride with you?”
“Sorry, sweetie, but I have been so busy I forgot to get back to you. Look, we’ll make arrangements for riding when your dad gets back, okay?”
“Oh, can’t I come over? Dad wouldn’t mind. I know he wouldn’t.”
“I think your dad wanted you to spend time with your grandparents right now. We’ll go riding when he’s back.”
She heard Lilli crying as she hung up the phone. Damn it, you’re a gutless bitch—to hurt a child like that just because you’re too scared.
Regan glared at her over breakfast on the third morning as the phone rang and Lili left another pleading message.
“For Christ’s sake, Ry, tell him. Put him and yourself out of your misery. I can’t bear it anymore.”
“I can’t.”
“Then end it. God damn it, sis, for my sake if nobody else’s,” he yelled at her. “All you’re doing is hurting yourself, him and that poor, innocent child.”
She dashed out of the door and down to the stables where she hurriedly saddled Thor. She had to get away. To think. To come to terms with the end.
As she led him out of the stable, Ash’s car roared into the yard. She halted, her heart pounding. This was it. Ash hurried across the yard and pulled her into a tight embrace. He kissed her hard.
“God I have so missed you, Ry.” He pulled back looking from her to the horse. “So you going for a ride then? I thought you’d taken Lilli. Where is she?”
“Lilli? She’s not here. Isn’t she with her grandparents?”
He stared down at her. “No, they said she was picked up by your brother to come for a ride.”
Panic squeezed inside her. “It wasn’t Regan.”
Now Ash grabbed her arms. She saw the terror on his face.
“You mean she’s not here with you?”
Rylee shook her head. “No, she’s not here.”
Ash paced as he shouted and cursed. Three phone calls later, the search was on for the missing Lilli.
Rylee felt sick with fear and guilt. If only she had said yes to Lilli’s request.
Ash raged on and on about the dire consequences to the people responsible.
“I’ll damn well kill them if they hurt one hair on Lilli’s head. No one hurts my child.”
Rylee quailed under his rage, glad she wasn’t the target and knew with a terrible certainty she never intended to put herself in that situation.
It was getting late. Still Ash paced and raged. He’d yelled at his father and his stepmother on the phone for letting Lilli go with a stranger and he cursed when Arden failed to pick up. Finally, he threw himself into the lounge and sat slumped there. Rylee sat beside him. She clasped his hand. Ash looked at her—his eyes were filled with unshed tears.
“I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to her. I love her so much. How could my father be so stupid to let her go with a stranger? They had responsibility for her. I should have been here.”
“Ash, you can’t blame yourself and your parents weren’t to know. They’d never met Regan and they knew Lilli wanted to come out and ride.”
The shrill ring of the phone tore through the subdued atmosphere in the room. Rylee flinched at the sudden demanding interruption, but Regan jumped up from the chair to answer it before she could respond. “Yes, he’s here. I’ll put him on.”
After a minute or two, Ash slammed the phone down. His face was dark—a deep frown furrowed his brow. “Lilli’s in the hospital. Apparently Arden got a friend of hers to pick her up from Dad’s on the pretext of her coming out here for a ride. God knows what Arden planned. She was drunk as a skunk and they had an accident at the bottom of the freeway. Lilli is in the Women’s and Children’s. She’s unconscious. Arden is in the Royal Adelaide with a dislocated shoulder, a broken leg and cuts and bruises.”
“I’ll come. In fact, I’ll drive,” Rylee said.
Ash didn’t argue. He just pulled on his coat and strode out of the door in front of her.
He stared straight ahead, ignoring her
as she drove through the night. He moved restlessly in his seat.
Rylee clasped his hand and squeezed. “She’ll be all right, Ash. You’ll see.”
He looked at her for a moment and she saw the tortured expression in his eyes, his fear etched deep in his expression. A lump had settled in her stomach. She knew all too well what it was like to fear for a child.
“No thanks to my sister. She could have killed her. Wait until I get hold of her. I’ll never forgive her for this. She was pissed, for God’s sake—driving pissed. Lilli is my child. No one hurts her.”
Rylee cringed. The memory of her father’s angry rant as he’d beaten her echoed in her mind right beside Ash’s tirade.
* * * *
The hospital was bright and bustling. A young cheerful nurse showed them into a small room off the side of the ward. Lilli seemed so small in the big white bed with tubes and machines attached to her little bare arms, rattling and beeping with essential data output. She had a large white bandage around her head and already blue-purple bruises were forming around her eyes and down her right cheek. One leg was hidden under a square cage and she had another bandage on her left arm, apparently covering a large gash.
Ash leaned over his daughter and stroked her cheek with gentle fingers. His face, drained of color, looked gray and haggard. His eyes glistened with unshed tears and he sagged into the chair by his daughter’s bed. His big hand completely covered her little white one where it lay still on the bedcovers.
“God, I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens, but I never thought…” He glanced up at Rylee. “I have always given my sister the benefit of the doubt and believed her excuses. Now this. Nothing she says can justify this.”
The doctor came, and Ash stood to hear his diagnosis. Rylee saw the desperate pleading in his eyes. Pleading for good news.
“Mr. St. Clair, your daughter is very lucky to be here. She should never have been in the front seat of a sports car at all…”
“No, she shouldn’t have been. I did not give permission for her to travel in that car or for my sister to take her from her grandparents’ house.”
“Nevertheless she is very lucky. We’ve run tests. There is no sign of major trauma to the brain. She has a nasty gash on her arm and lots of bruising—very lucky, considering.”
“Do you have any idea when she will regain consciousness?” Ash asked.
“It’s impossible to say. It may be an hour, a day or a week. The brain will take what time it needs to heal. I suggest you and your wife go home and get some rest, because when she regains consciousness, she will really need you then.” He left them alone with the inert child and the beeping machines.
Occasionally a nurse came quietly and unobtrusively into the room and made her observations before slipping quietly away again.
“Ash, it’s two a.m.—there’s nothing you can do here. You’re barely awake as it is. What if I book a room at the nearest hotel? It’s just up the road. Less than ten minutes in the car.”
He stared at her for a long moment then nodded.
An hour later they climbed into the pristine hotel bed and into each other’s arms. Ash clung to her. They lay in silence and Rylee felt the dampness of his tears on her shoulder.
Chapter Nine
Two days later, Lilli regained consciousness, with all her faculties intact. Rylee joined Ash at his daughter’s bedside. Lilli studied them, her little forehead puckered into a deep frown and unshed tears shining in her eyes.
“Rylee, are you still mad at me about Moonbeam?” she asked with a tiny squeaky voice.
“No, sweetheart, I’m not mad at you. Moonbeam is all recovered now.”
“Then why didn’t you want to let me come and ride?” Lilli asked.
Embarrassment heated Rylee’s face. What could she say? She didn’t want to lie to the child. She leaned across the bed cautiously and gave the child a light hug. “I’m sorry I said no. It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to ride. It’s just that I was afraid something might happen to you—like this,” she said. “You see I’m not very experienced at looking after children.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “And you didn’t trust me because I hurt Moonbeam?” Lilli whimpered.
“No, I just didn’t trust myself, but I need to learn, so perhaps you can help me.”
Lilli nodded. “I’ll help you, Rylee, if you say so. So does this mean I can come back to the stables and ride Zea?”
Rylee glanced up at Ash, standing so quietly on the other side of the bed. She searched his expression for any hesitation, but saw none as he smiled and nodded.
Rylee turned back to the child. “Yes, if it’s okay with your dad.”
“Dad says I can ride, but you have to pick the horse for me. He’s still cross at Aunty Arden and he has made me promise never to ride her horses or to go driving in her car again.”
“Well that’s good, sweetheart, because Arden’s horses are trained for her and they can be dangerous for anyone else—especially a beginner—to ride them.”
“Right, honey. Rylee and I are going to have some dinner now. I will be back tomorrow to see you. You get some rest.”
“Will you come?” Lilli asked in a plaintive tone.
Rylee glanced across at Ash. He smiled and nodded. “Perhaps, but I do have to care for the horses.”
“Can I come for a visit then—when I get out?” Lilli asked.
Rylee nodded. “Of course, if it’s okay with your dad.”
“Dad?” she asked.
“When you get out, missy, we will go visit Rylee, but it’ll be a while before you are ready to ride again.”
“I know, Dad, but I just like the horses…” She quickly glanced up at Rylee then looked directly at her father. “And I like Rylee too,” she said.
“Good. We might see some more of Rylee then. What do you think?” Ash asked his daughter with a sneaky sideways peep at Rylee.
Lilli grinned, the smile a light in the bruised starkness of her face. “I’d like that.”
Rylee was struggling to smile. Ash’s angry response to Arden injuring Lilli had made her even more wary of revealing her secret. And now she had left it so late that both Ash and Lilli had expectations of a future as a family and she knew she could not fulfill those without telling Ash, because if she didn’t, someone else would. As a father, Ash had the right to make a choice.
* * * *
That night, in front of a number of television cameras, Arden announced her retirement from the equestrian arena from her hospital bed. In the same interview, she also pleaded with her brother for forgiveness.
As they watched it on television in Lilli’s room, the child moved restlessly in the bed.
“Dad, will I ever see Aunty Arden again? I know she was bad, but she did do nice, fun things with me.”
Ash looked at Rylee. “So what do I do with that, my love?”
“The decision is up to you, but she is your sister and I think she genuinely loves Lilli in her own way.”
“Could you cope if I allowed her to see Lilli on special occasions like birthdays?”
Rylee nodded.
He leaned in and kissed her. “Just remember my loyalty is yours, now and forever.”
Again she nodded.
Ash tuned back to his daughter. “I will talk to your aunt, then we’ll see. Okay?”
Lilli nodded. “Yes, Dad.”
* * * *
It was past visiting hours, but the ward nurse let them into Arden’s private room for a brief visit. The lights were dimmed and they could hear her sobbing quietly as they entered.
Ash went to stand by the bed. “Arden, are you up to talking, just for a moment?”
She looked up at him, her face swollen and bruised. She nodded and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes.
“I just wanted to say you’ve done the right thing, retiring. You’ll find something else to do.”
Rylee stood back, not really wanting to be there, but knowing that certain things needed
to be said.
Arden sniffed and began to cry again. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt Lilli. I love her and you.” She looked toward Rylee. “Can, can you forgive me, Rylee? I think I went mad for a while—the thought of losing all I’d worked for.”
“Maybe, Arden—in time, maybe,” Rylee replied.
“We’ll work on forgiveness. Maybe one day, sis.”
“Will you ever let me see Lilli again, please? Ash don’t cut me out of her life completely. I know Rylee will take my place, but please, will you let me see her sometimes.”
“I will give it some thought, but I need to calm down a bit first.”
“Ash, please. I’m sorry for all I did—ten years ago, the accident, hurting the horses, lying to you. I’ll do anything. I’m getting counseling. I don’t want to lose the only family I have.”
Rylee stepped forward. Ash looked at her. She gave a slight smile. “Arden, you can’t expect forgiveness on your say so. You have to show us both that you will make amends. Despite everything, Lilli still loves you.” She reached out and took Ash’s hand in hers and drew him forward. “And your brother still loves you too.”
Ash began to shake his head.
“Your brother still loves you,” she repeated. “Even though he’s hurt and angry right now, and I won’t come between you and them because I know what it is like to be refused forgiveness.”
Arden sniffed and hiccupped. “Rylee, I’m sorry for everything. If you can just give me a chance—both of you—I’ll prove I’m not all bad. I promise.”
“Get better, sis. Until you’re on your feet, I’ll put an allowance in your bank account. I’ll not see you on the streets. Get that counseling and we’ll see what the future holds.”
Blood Ties a Broken Heart Page 14
