Fortune in Name Only, page 14
Not that she’d share her feelings about it with him.
The one thing he and Lily rarely talked about—the one thing he couldn’t ever remember hearing her talk about—was her personal emotions.
Not that he was any scholar on that front himself, it was just...with all of the women he’d ever dated—and there’d been enough to have a pretty good cross section—he hadn’t had to wonder about what they were thinking or feeling. They’d all made it pretty clear.
Good and bad.
Like when he and Lily had run into Baylor Minser on Main Street. The woman had left no doubt of her disdain for Lily.
Or her willingness to take Asa on whatever grounds he offered. Married or not.
Lily hadn’t shown any obvious reaction then, either.
On Thursday afternoon of the following week—with the party only two days away—he rode silently, trying to work out a way to approach the topic. They were out on a longer ride, checking all of the ranch’s wooded hiking trails. Their current one was an easy, flat family trail that wove by a natural little rock waterfall into the small creek that ran through part of the property.
“Sometimes, when we’re out here, I can’t help wondering if it looked the same when my parents took our stroller on these paths,” Lily said, throwing all party strategy conversation starters out of his mind. “It’s almost like I can see us here with our whole lives stretched before us...”
The words stunned him. Or maybe it was her tone. Whenever she’d mentioned her parents in the past, it had always been with cheer. But her voice had changed before it had drifted off completely.
Filled with a longing so acute, he felt inept to deal with it.
Slowing Major to a stop, Asa glanced over to see the unusually melancholy look on her face. And pictured a ten-month-old baby version of her. He felt his heart swelling with sorrow for her. Regret. That little triplet girl had had parents, a father who’d have given her away at her wedding, a mother who’d have intervened with common sense when Lily announced she was marrying her best friend so he could get his ranch.
Or so he thought. Because in his gut, he knew it was wrong for her to go to a party filled with everyone she knew and cared about, pretending to be something she was not. The lie would be with her forever.
As would the divorce.
Even if the failed marriage was all his fault, she’d still be the woman who’d only been married six months. The one who’d made the poor choice to wed him.
Even if it was for the best reasons. To help a friend. And reach for her own hearts’ desire in the process.
“They’d be proud of you, Lily,” he said, feeling inane, and yet, confident, too, as the words came with a power that forced him to deliver them.
She shrugged, looked at him, and started to speak, but a call came over the radio with a crackle, followed by the voice of Jack, one of Asa’s two full-time ranch hands. “A stray dog’s been running through the cabin area,” he said. “He’s got no collar, looks like he’s been on his own for a while, kind of mangy, too skinny. Mixed breed. About thirty pounds. Brown and white. I tried to catch him but he ran off. We’re taking care of the barns and corrals now, making sure the entrances are closed and he doesn’t get in and spook the animals...”
“We’ll keep an eye out,” Asa replied when Jack had finished detailing the steps being taken, wishing the interruption had come at any other time. Lily hardly ever spoke of her parents. She’d been opening up to him—needing him?—and when she heard the message, set off immediately in search of the dog.
That was his wife, always putting others before herself, but at what cost?
Would there come a time when the pain the woman bore silently and alone rose up and damaged her happy spirit?
Was being married to him contributing to that cost?
Asa didn’t like the questions.
Or their probable answers.
Chapter Fifteen
They’d be proud of you, Lily. As Lily listened to Asa talking to his ranch hand, warning him about the stray dog and making certain that the barns and petting zoo were being checked, the entrances closed off, she kept hearing Asa’s earlier words ringing simultaneously in her head.
She sighed. More than anything, she hoped they were true. Glancing around a 360-degree perimeter of land in sight, she saw trees, with spring leaves just starting to show up in force. And acres of ground with the residue of crushed fall leaves, twigs, and branches broken by storms. All was still. Quiet.
Peaceful.
No evidence of a dog running wildly through the woods.
The horses would surely notice, as well, if another animal was in their vicinity. Both of them were standing calmly, Laura’s head just a foot from Major’s thigh. Major, probably bored by their slow pace—and the fact they’d now stopped altogether—looked about ready to take a nap.
And...the path ahead of them on the trail...it jogged off to the left. Then immediately right. Then left again. Like an S. And in the middle of the jog, a red oak tree.
A curve around a tree...
Heart pounding, she slid down from Laura, keeping the horse’s reins loosely in hand, to lead her ahead of Major and Asa. Toward the small double curve.
It couldn’t be, could it?
Her hands were shaking so hard as she pulled out her phone that she had to push twice to access the picture gallery. The photo she wanted was the first one in the gallery.
The last one taken.
It was a photo of a photo.
One Val Hensen had found in some old ranch boxes she’d been going through and dropped off to Lily earlier in the day. Lily had snapped the phone photo and put the original in the office safe. Needing time to process it on her own before doing anything else with it. Or telling anyone else about it.
Including telling her sisters.
Glancing from her phone, to the S the trail made in the ground, and the placement of the tree in that formation, she knew she had to be seeing things.
It couldn’t be the same.
She was just emotionally in over her head. How could she not be? With her fake Vegas wedding, then the work at the ranch and planning Esme’s legitimate marriage, and her and Asa’s wedding party looming on Saturday...it was a lot to take in.
Lily wanted to believe that was all that was happening. Her mind playing tricks on her. And yet...
“What’s up?” Asa had come up behind her.
She turned without thinking, paying no attention to the tears on her cheeks. She was that far gone.
He didn’t ask again. Just took Laura’s reins out of her limp hand, tied the mare and his gelding to a couple of trees and walked back over to her.
“It’s too much, I know,” he said, his tone softer than normal. Compassionate. A sound she’d heard directed toward his beloved Major before. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to bring up the party on Saturday, and just...”
Shaking her head, she cut him off. He’d thought she was crying in front of him because of a party she’d get through, just as she’d come through every other difficult moment in her life? She’d planned to enjoy herself Saturday night.
Making the most of a gathering that starred her and Asa together.
Wiping her eyes, swallowing the emotion, she bucked up and handed him her phone.
“What the...” The way he glanced sharply from her phone to the trail had her heart thumping all over again.
Could she possibly be right?
She saw him look at the phone again. Enlarge the clearly old photo. Look at her.
And then... “Look at the tree root.” Followed immediately by, “Is that... Oh my God, Lil. It’s you and your sisters, in your stroller, with your mom, isn’t it? Right here.”
It couldn’t be. It was just too...
She glanced at her phone again. But hadn’t needed to. She’d stared at the photo so long that morning that it was forever ingrained in her memory. She was the middle one. Tabitha’s hair was lighter. Haley’s face more beautifully round than Lily’s oblong features.
When the tears started down her face again, there was no way Lily could contain them.
She was standing on the very ground her mother had stood on, pushing her and Haley and Tabitha, and looking like the happiest, proudest, woman on earth.
* * *
He reached for her without thinking. Seeing Lily cry...tore him up. She wasn’t a crier. Ever. And now...he had no idea what to do. How to console her.
There was nothing he could fix about the current situation. No way to make the past better for her.
Or less painful.
But when her arms slid around him, holding him, he could let her do that. Could embrace her, just as tightly, be there for her, a friend at her back—or wrapped around her—so that she knew she didn’t have to be alone anymore.
He didn’t try to find words. There were none.
Holding her firmly around the waist, pressing her body against his so that his presence, his warmth was solidly there—ready to support her completely if she started to fall—he stroked his other hand through her hair. Slowly. Again and again.
Not patting her head, either. Truly caressing her hair, across her head, over her shoulders, down her back. Even losing his fingers in its silky lengths, hoping that it felt good to her, could reach her, in the midst of whatever agony she was allowing herself to release.
Good with the bad, that’s what she’d always told him. The way she’d always gotten through any hardship was to focus on the good.
He had to give her good to focus on.
When he felt the bone-deep shudder against him, he slid his hand under her hair, going straight for her back. With both hands. Running his fingers slowly down each side of her, still pressing her to him.
She’d never really been sobbing, just, in pure Lily fashion, quietly crying, but then her breathing changed, giving him the impression that her tears were abating.
Until it changed again.
To a rhythm his senses recognized.
And responded to. With his groin.
Her arms around his neck tightened, and she lifted her head from his chest, looking up at him.
She didn’t say a word, just looked.
And he knew she’d felt the hardness that had sprung up against her.
But he wasn’t pulling away. No way he could tear those soft, feminine arms from the warmth they were clinging to.
No way he’d add his rejection to her grief from a lifetime of loss.
She needed him. He was not going to let her down.
He’d be strong.
For both of them.
And he was.
Right until her lips lifted and planted against his. Her eyes had been wide-open as she’d done so.
Her gaze connected to his.
She’d moved slowly. Watching him.
And he’d watched her, too.
Knew the second she closed her eyes.
Just before he felt those soft, smaller lips touch his bigger ones.
There was nothing tentative about Lily’s kiss. Nothing at all weak.
But the caress was most definitely filled with need—of a different kind.
Surging with sudden flame, he kissed her back, let her lead him down to the ground by the old oak tree, and then led her toward the dance that was coming.
It wasn’t slow or sweet, but frantic and hungry.
She kicked off one boot while he pulled down her jeans and got both of her legs free. She went for his belt buckle. The fly was so tight he had to help with the button and the zipper, and the second he sprang free, he slid into her.
The ride was his shortest ever. A few strokes. She came. He came.
And there they were, half-naked on one of their family hiking trails, with their horses tethered just feet away.
He’d tried to give her a feel-good rub on her back. But the intensity pouring through her had obviously needed much, much more than that to counteract it.
She’d reached for the good.
And he was glad he’d been there.
Had been about to tell her so when Major snorted, Laura stepped back, and a flurry of fur came charging through the woods in the distance, aiming straight for the half-naked people lying on the ground.
* * *
Asa had his pants up and was sitting down, in front of Lily, before the dog almost reached them and then veered away. Still watching them.
“You can go after him,” she hissed, as she scrambled to get back into her jeans, pull them up and then, sitting down, pull on her boot. She didn’t kid herself that what they’d just done designated any change in their relationship or future plans.
Worst case, he’d had pity sex with her. But she didn’t really think that, either. Asa was virile, and she was the only woman in his life for the next several months.
“Stay down,” he said, not moving. “He ran from those running after him. Let him come to us.”
Still reeling from everything that had happened, half-numb, all emotion spent, she did as he asked. Boot on, she remained completely still, expecting the dog to get so close and then, change directions and head off.
Instead, as it approached again, it slowed, tail wagging, and came closer.
Head down, it stopped a few yards away.
Reaching into his pocket, Asa pulled out one of Major’s sugar cubes and held it out to the dog. “It’s okay, boy,” he called softly.
Lily, who’d had a couple of dogs in her growing-up years, pets that had been with the families she’d entered and stayed with them after she was gone, held her breath.
Somehow, awash in so many different emotions as she was, it seemed as though, if the dog would come to them, that somehow meant that she and Asa were okay.
Dogs could sense trustworthiness.
He didn’t run right up to them. Didn’t approach at all at first. But his nose started moving the second Asa reached his hand further out. And with each sniff, he came closer. One step at a time.
Asa took out a second cube. Held it in his other hand, closer in, and slowly, with those cubes, eased the dog in until he stood there of his own accord.
She expected Asa to grab him then. Gently, of course, but to make sure the dog didn’t run off again.
Instead, he petted the dog’s head.
His back.
Reminding Lily of the way he’d first comforted her such a short time before.
She smiled. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” she asked the dog, in a tone of voice she’d use for a child.
She didn’t reach out for him. She had no sugar. And didn’t want to scare him off.
The dog looked from Asa to her, and then, to her complete shock, he came right up to her, sat on her lap, and gave her a lick on the chin.
Burying her face in his fur, choking back a new wave of tears she’d thought completely spent, she hugged him, kissing his mangy fur. And finally, when she was emotionally able, stood, still holding on to him.
She couldn’t ride back with him. She wasn’t that strong.
But she could carry him to the horses. Still holding him in her arms as she approached Laura, she turned to trade the dog for Laura’s reins as Asa untied the horses. Laura didn’t wait for Lily to get the reins. The young mare moved with Asa, straight toward Lily, nudging the side of Lily’s head softly with her own.
Much like the dog had sat in her lap.
A complete stranger.
They knew.
It was like, on some level, Laura and the dog were telling her she wasn’t alone.
Almost as though, for those moments, the animals had claimed her as theirs.
She’d never ever felt so loved. She really did have her own family. A growing one. Laura, for sure, who was all hers. And Asa, her forever friend. Maybe her family wasn’t a conventional one. It wasn’t mom, dad, and the kids. But her dream was coming true.
She’d come full circle. Right there, on the same exact earth where she’d been Lily Perry, precious triplet baby whose mother glowed with happiness just because she and her sisters existed.
As she handed over the dog to Asa and climbed up on Laura for the trip back, Lily truly felt like her parents were there in her midst, smiling.
In her mind, they were happy to see her so loved.
And, in that moment, she was truly happy, too.
Chapter Sixteen
Asa needed space. Time to breathe in air that didn’t contain an excess of...everything. The confusion of feelings that had bombarded his life would not get the best of him.
He just had to have a chance to rope them one by one and get them back where they belonged. Most of them in the ether, where they would evaporate and mess with him no more.
He’d called the animal shelter as soon as he and Lily had returned to the house with the dog. No one had called looking for their pet. While he’d given the dog a bath, figuring him for part cocker spaniel and maybe some small shepherd breed, Lily had made up fliers to post around town, inserting, as the last piece, the newly cleaned dog photo Asa took for her.
She’d insisted, without any fight from him, that they’d make certain that the dog ended up in a good home.
While she made up a chicken and rice concoction to feed him, Asa gladly escaped to head into town to put up the fliers, and to stop at the GreatStore for dog food, treats, and maybe a toy or two.
Before he pulled out of his drive, he texted the picture he’d taken of the dog to Devin Street. Asa had only met the man a couple of times, at the Corral, but he’d liked him. Respected him. Owner of the Chatelaine Daily News, Devin not only got wind of everything going on in town, he was also known to foster dogs.
