by Sharon Sala
Duff frowned and swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, removing cookie crumbs and tea droplets in one fell swoop.
“Aww, he’s out back, burying calves,” he answered. “Damn shame, too.”
For a moment, Lily couldn’t speak. She was dumbfounded. Burying calves? Surely the winds hadn’t been that strong? How did storms such as the one last night cause animals to die? This was all out of her realm of expertise.
Lily walked around behind the barn and headed for a small rise where she saw Case climbing down from a tractor. The closer she came to Case, the faster she walked, until she was almost running. She met him coming around behind the piece of equipment.
The look on his face stopped whatever question she’d been about to utter. He stared at Lily with a look of surprise on his face, traces of drying tears on his cheeks still there for her to see.
She didn’t know what had happened, and she didn’t know what Case had been doing, but she knew what he needed. She opened her arms, and he walked into them like a lost child who’s just found the front door to home.
“Damn hail,” he muttered, as he dug his fists into the wild, honeyed tangle of her hair and buried his face in its sweetness.
She smelled of lemon and soap, cinnamon and spice, and he’d never felt so complete in his entire life.
“Hail?” Lily didn’t follow his line of thought. But it didn’t matter, just holding Case was enough for now.
“Yeah,” he said, as he rested his chin on the top of her head and pulled her nose into the dip between his collar bone, letting his hands roam at will up and down her back as he stared sightlessly across the rolling hills of his ranch. “Hail was too big and some of the calves were too small. Got caught out in the open. I had to bury four. Damn shame, too,” he muttered. “They were so little.”
Lily caught her breath, knowing that another side of the man she’d come to love had just been revealed to her. He was a man of the land. He not only raised the animals, but cared for them in the true manner of a shepherd watching over his flock. And when one was lost, he grieved for it because he’d failed in his duty to care and protect.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” she said, not realizing that she’d used an endearment.
Case didn’t intend to remind her of her slip. He was too busy holding on for dear life. He was sorry as hell that he’d just lost four of his best calves, but he’d lose the whole damn herd if that’s what it took to keep Lily Brownfield in his arms forever.
Lily hugged him gently and then stepped away, suddenly aware of how open and exposed they were, standing in each other’s arms in plain sight of the ranch.
“Are you finished here?” she asked. “I brought some iced tea and cookies to the men. If you hurry, there might be a few left.”
“Hop on,” Case ordered, as he vaulted into the seat of the tractor and held out his hand for Lily to climb up beside him.
“Oh no!” she muttered, backing away from the big, green machine with an apprehensive look on her face. “I’ll just walk.”
“Scared?” Case asked, still holding out his hand.
Lily stared. First at the machine, then at the distance back to the barns, then back at the tractor, and up at Case’s face. It was the latter that swayed her decision. There was more than just trust in his driving ability at stake here. It was a matter of trust in Case, the man.
“I’m not scared with you,” she answered, and reached up, feeling the strong grip of his fingers wrap around her wrist and pull until she was sitting beside him in the tractor seat, her arms wrapped around his neck to keep from falling.
Her answer would be enough to get him through the rest of the day. With Lily he knew he’d have to take one step at a time. One very small step, at a time. Hell’s fire, I’d crawl, he thought, if that’s what it takes, I’ll crawl. But I will have Lily. I have no other alternative.
They’d no more than parked the tractor beside the barn when a truck came down the driveway and pulled to a stop in front of the area where the men were working. A big, heavyset man with bulging muscles and a matching stomach that hung heavily over his pants slid out of the truck. He sauntered over to Case who was helping Lily down from the high tractor seat.
The smile she gave Case went a long way toward healing the hurt she’d dealt him earlier this morning. If he was patient, surely she’d know that she was more than just a pretty face to him. He almost forgot that the trucker had arrived until he spoke. Case turned at his announcement.
“Got your load of sheet metal and two by fours,” the man said, pointing back over his shoulder with his thumb as he shifted a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue. “Where ya want it unloaded?”
“I’ll have Duff help you,” Case said, and turned away to search for Duff’s whereabouts, missing the look that passed between Lily and the man.
The man’s eyes followed the path of her scar, from the corner of her eye to the tip of her mouth. He frowned, ran a thumb unconsciously down his own cheek, took the toothpick from his mouth and turned his head, spitting onto the muddy ground as if to remove the bad taste of looking at Lily’s disfigured face from his memory.
Lily smiled sarcastically and met his shocked expression with her head held high. She’d seen it all before.
“I’ll see you later,” Lily said, as she walked past Case, startling him with her short, clipped words and her angry stride.
He swerved around and caught the stare of the big, beefy delivery man’s face. He was watching Lily’s slender hips sway from side to side as she hurried toward the ranch house.
“Damn shame about her face,” he said and stuffed the toothpick back in his mouth, sucking on the soggy corner with studied expertise. “She’d be real good looking ’cept for that gash on her cheek.”
Case flushed a dark, angry crimson and doubled his fists before he even knew he’d moved. He knew Lily had heard every word the man said as her back stiffened and the distance between her steps increased.
“Shut your damn mouth,” he muttered, eyes blazing, and walked right up to stare pointedly at the man’s face, “unless you want to wear one just like it.”
The man turned a pasty white, nearly choked on his toothpick and looked around for the person who was going to help him unload. He had a feeling he’d just put his size twelve foot into his mouth and if he didn’t get the hell out of here fast, might just get Case Longren’s boot in there, too.
“So, where’s this Duff fellow anyway?” he muttered. “I got plenty more loads to haul. You ain’t the only one who had storm damage last night.”
Case motioned for Duff and then, after a quick set of instructions to his foreman, walked away from the delivery man before he did something to him that he might later regret. He wanted to go to Lily and reassure her that what the man had said about her did not matter to him in the least, but he knew now was not the time to do it. He could tell that simply by the way Lily had walked away. If she hadn’t been a lady, he suspected she would have let the man have it with both barrels. It was all Case could do not to do it himself.
When he went to the house with the men later in the day to eat an early supper, Lily was all business. She wouldn’t look at him and answered only in monosyllables. He sighed, choked down his food, unaware of what she’d even served, and knew he was back to square one. He could tell by the way she was acting that she’d just appointed herself judge and jury of their relationship and decided to put it to an early but painful death.
Case shoved his chair back from the table, carried his plate to the sink and slammed it down on top of several others.
Lily blinked and whirled around, thinking that someone had dropped and broken a plate. The look Case sent her way made shivers go all the way up her back in nervous anticipation. He obviously wasn’t buying her silent treatment and, from the way he was staring, he was furious that she’d even tried it.
“I’m not about to put up with this ‘sorry for myself attitude,’ Lily Cathe
rine,” he muttered as he walked past her toward the door. “You’re not getting out of last night this easy.”
Lily swallowed back a shaky retort and watched him walk away in the growing dusk of nightfall. She didn’t want out of anything. But she couldn’t face the possibility of seeing a similar look of disgust on Case’s face...ever. And the only way she could prevent that was to stay away from him altogether.
Lily spent a nervous evening and a lonely night, but Case didn’t come into the den as usual to watch a weekly television show that they both enjoyed. He didn’t show, by word or deed, that he even knew she was in the same house. Instead, when he finally came inside, footsteps dragging wearily, he walked up the staircase and out of her sight as if nothing had ever passed between them.
Lily stifled a sob, turned around and stared mutinously toward the television screen, refusing to admit, even to herself, that she deserved every bit of Case’s disgust.
Finally, weary and heartsick, Lily made her way toward her own room beyond the kitchen, showered and then crawled into her bed with the soft, comforting mattress and freshly laundered sheets and wished for the ancient bedstead and the musty pillow-ticked mattress that she’d lain on the night before. And she longed for the man who’d lain beside her and loved her with a patience and a passion that she’d never believed existed.
* * *
“Goin’ to town. Need anything?”
Case’s question was short but less than sweet as he stared pointedly, waiting for Lily’s answer.
Lily shoved aside the mountain of pie dough she’d just mixed and wiped her hands on the front of her apron.
“A couple of things,” she answered quietly. “Do you mind going to the grocery store or would you rather wait and have me pick them up with the other foodstuffs later in the week?”
“Just give me the list,” he said.
Lily handed him the paper with the list that she’d begun earlier. He caught it, along with her hand, and pulled her sharply toward him until they were nearly nose to nose.
Lily stared, transfixed, watching the shades of blue in his eyes turning from dark and angry to white hot as he felt the whisper of her breath against his mouth.
“You’re driving me crazy, lady. I look at you and all I can remember is how soft your body was beneath me, and how hot you got when I touched you.”
It was the best...and the worst thing he could have said to her. It made her remember.
Lily swayed toward him as every muscle in her body went limp. Her eyelids drifted toward her cheeks in sleepy confusion as she watched Case’s lips thin and his nostrils flare. It was the last thing she saw as he pulled her off the floor and into his arms.
His mouth moved across her lips, searching and taunting, until she opened her mouth beneath his touch, just as he demanded, and swallowed his urgent moan of need. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into the strength of his body.
Everything Lily was, everything she’d ever wanted to be, revolved around the way this man was making her feel. His body swelled and hardened beneath her belly and Lily groaned in remembrance as he moved seductively against her, pressing himself into the part of her that burned for the man in her arms.
Then, as suddenly as he’d swooped, he stepped away, and Lily was left standing alone and aching as Case slid the list from her shaking fingers and smiled.
“I’ll be back. Don’t forget me while I’m gone.”
Lily stared, stupefied by the absurdity of his remark. Forget Case Longren? Not in this lifetime. She buried her face in her hands and leaned back against the door facing as she heard him drive away. She was not going to survive this damnable roundup!
* * *
It was late as Case came down the hallway toward Lily’s bedroom. His trip to town had been delayed by news he hadn’t expected to face so soon. Lane Turney had met Case on the street, demanding back pay and his belongings that were still at the ranch.
The confrontation hadn’t been pleasant, but it had served its purpose. Case had spent weeks telling himself what he would say to the man who’d frightened and shamed Lily so badly and then wrecked his car in the process.
Yet when the opportunity had arisen, all he’d been able to do was promise Turney if he ever so much as looked at Lily Brownfield again, there wouldn’t be enough left of him for the coyotes to fight over.
Turney had turned several shades of red fury and stomped away, knowing that the man who’d been his boss meant every syllable of every word he’d just spit in his face.
“I still want my things,” Turney had shouted over his shoulder as he’d hurried down the street, satisfied that he’d at least had the last word.
Case had completed his errands in brooding silence and hurried home, suddenly anxious to see Lily and reassure himself that she was all right. The memory of how close she’d come to harm at Lane Turney’s hands still rankled and frightened him.
The main house was in darkness as he drove up; the only lights burning were in the downstairs hallway and in the wing where Lily was staying.
He put away the things she’d requested from town, then picked up a small, flat box from the kitchen table and headed toward her room.
He walked up to her door, heard the sound of the shower running, and knew that she was already undressed and washing away the grit and grime of the day before retiring for bed. He groaned softly to himself, picturing the sight he knew he’d see if he’d only slip into the bathroom and into the shower with Lily. But it was too soon for familiarities such as that.
Yes, Lily had made love with him, but she’d also just as effectively shut him back out of her life. He had no intentions of rushing her into something she wasn’t ready to face. Even if Case knew in his heart that she cared, he needed to hear the words from her own lips, not just feel it in the way she touched him.
He carefully turned the knob, peeked into her room, secure in the knowledge that he could complete his mission and leave before Lily exited her shower, and hurried over to the bed, anxious to leave his surprise.
Moments later, Lily turned off the water, grabbed for the bath towel and wrapped it around her body as she stepped out of the shower. She wrapped another, turban style, around her long, wet hair, and then began to dry herself before reaching for the hairdryer and the brush.
The steam was hot and thick in the tiny, enclosed bathroom, and Lily opened the door and left it ajar as she started the hairdryer. She leaned over, letting her hair fall loosely forward toward the floor as she moved the hot air above it in an unconscious rhythm.
It dried, and as it did, it fell in loose, taffy-colored waves, still clinging to her face and back in damp persistence. Lily straightened, and then stared as the steam slowly disappeared from the vanity mirror, revealing by its reflection the long, gossamer gown lying across the bed in the room behind her.
The dryer slipped from her hands and swiftly unplugged itself as it fell to the floor with a thud. The towel Lily had wrapped around her body loosened and slid to the floor beside it as she turned and stared.
It wasn’t her imagination. It was strawberry silk, long and sheer, and Lily slid it up and over her head as if in a dream.
Case held his breath as he watched her walk across the floor toward her bed in unconscious abandon, oblivious of her own nudity as she picked up his gift and slid it over her bare body, lifting the heavy fall of her hair out from under the lace shoulder straps as she smiled softly in obvious delight.
Her hands slid down the length of the gown, from breasts to thighs, as she tested the satiny softness of its fabric against the palms of her hands. She closed her eyes, remembering the gown that Case had ripped from her body the night of the storm, and then turned at the thought of his name and knew he would be there.
Case took a deep breath as she turned toward him, met the wild green stare she sent his way as she realized he’d witnessed her state of undress, and shoved his fists as far down into his front pockets as they would go. God help him, he had to
put them somewhere besides on Lily Brownfield.
Every sensuous movement of her body was accentuated by the fluidity of the pink silk that cupped and flowed around her like wind on water. Every muscle in his body expanded. If he had to walk, he would burst.
“It fits okay?” he asked, his voice quiet, anxious.
She nodded.
“It’s beautiful,” Lily answered softly, and stroked her hands against her thighs, reveling in the feel of silk beneath her fingers.
“Just like you,” Case answered, and then before Lily could answer or argue, he disappeared down the hallway.
Tears came so quickly, Lily didn’t even know they were there until one fell from the corner of her mouth down onto the tip of one silk-covered breast, dotting the fragile fabric. A sob slipped up her throat and out into the quiet emptiness of her room. Lily shuddered, staggered backward until her legs felt the bed behind her and sank down in welcome abandon.
“Damn you, Case Longren,” she muttered through tear-stained lips. “Damn you for making me believe you.”
She rolled over on her side, drew herself up into a tiny pink ball of misery and cried herself to sleep.
* * *
Duff glared at Lane Turney as he swaggered and bragged while gathering his belongings. The sooner this man left the ranch, the better he’d feel. Something about him made Duff uneasy. He didn’t know whether it was the fact that bad blood had already passed between him and the boss, or the fact that Turney’s eyes kept sweeping toward the main house, obviously for a sight of Miss Lily. Either way, it would be none too soon for his liking when Turney left.
“You about through?” Duff asked sharply.
Turney glared, grabbed at his suitcase and jacket, and stomped toward the door, refusing to answer. He didn’t owe this beat-up and aging excuse of a man the time of day.
He walked out into the sunshine, threw his belongings into the back of his pickup truck, and started around to the driver’s side when one of the men came around the corner of the bunkhouse and shouted at Duff.
“Boss is looking for you,” Pete called, pointing toward the corrals where some good-sized steers were being loaded into waiting trucks.
