Page 7 of Sheltering Lily

I’d gotten a lighter sense of being watched earlier, when we’d first come outside, but I’d written it off as people’s natural curiosity when someone was moving. It no longer felt like that. I mentally scanned through everyone we’d encountered coming in and out, trying to recall if anyone seemed to be behaving suspiciously in any way. My mind went straight to those two guys who had been in the hall when I’d arrived.

It wasn’t their behavior that had seemed odd so much as Lily’s reaction to them, though. She had practically yanked me into her apartment to avoid them seeing her. What was up with that? Maybe Lily had had some kind of a relationship with one of them? Or maybe she used to have a relationship that had recently come to an end? It would explain why she was eager to avoid them. And if that was true, I would understand why they might be watching me. If I’d had something with Lily, I’d definitely keep my eyes open if I saw her with another guy.

Lily hadn’t mentioned anything about either of the men. One I had never seen before, but the other…there was something vaguely familiar about him. I had the impression we’d met, but I couldn’t place the guy.

Nothing about the situation made me think we were actively in danger, but I swept the area with my eyes, nevertheless. The slam of a car door brought my attention back to Lily. She was leaning against her yellow car, finished with her task.

“I’m afraid of what will fall out when we get to your place and I open the door.” She was smiling, her head tipped back in the winter sunshine. “Will you come back upstairs with me for a sec? I want to do a final check to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and I could use another set of eyes.”

“Sure,” I agreed, even as I found myself wondering over the invitation. She could easily manage that herself. What was her motivation for wanting me along? Was she worried about the guys across the hall? Or did she really just want another set of eyes?

I didn’t know, but I fell in step beside her. She brushed close against me as I held the door for her. A light, sweet fragrance drifted off her as she went past, making me aware again of her attractiveness. That was a feeling I was going to have to learn to ignore—but it was a lesson I hadn’t quite learned yet.

4

COLIN

Iturned onto Silvan Street and chuckled at the butterfly stakes in front of my house. I’d had a similar reaction nearly every night on my trip home. I hadn’t been a huge fan at the first viewing, but by this time, I saw Lily’s point. The houses on the street were very similar. It wasn’t exactly the reason why I’d picked the house when I was shopping around, but I had liked that they were all family homes. Nearly every house on the street had kids, and it was nothing unusual to see children playing catch or basketball, riding bikes or scooters.

That was the kind of place I wanted to raise my daughter. Her childhood would be safe, protected from the nastiness of the world. Nothing like my childhood. I’d always been close to my brothers, and we’d always looked out for each other, but that hadn’t been enough to keep us safe. Not when the biggest threat to our safety was our own father. Mom had kept him in check, at least a little, when the three of us were babies, but she hadn’t stuck around for the long haul. I was six on the day when she told us she was going to the grocery store and that she’d be back soon. Too young to wonder why she was bringing a suitcase with her to go to the grocery store. Too young to realize that she wasn’t coming back. I never saw her again after that day. And Dad, who had been drunken and abusive even when she was still around, became ten times worse after she was gone. We were lucky we didn’t starve, given the way he spent all his money on booze. Lucky he never managed to beat any of us to death in one of his rages—though he came close a couple of times. Lucky, most of all, that he didn’t manage to break our spirits or turn us into him.

The man we did pattern ourselves after—the one who taught us how to be honorable and decent—was Admiral Peter Anderson, who took us in and became our foster father when I was fourteen. He saved us in just about every way imaginable. It was his example I was trying to follow when I stepped up to adopt Sofia. I knew it was what the Admiral would have wanted me to do. I could only hope to be half as good to her as he had been to us. And part of that meant making sure she had everything she needed to be safe and happy, to grow and thrive. Giving her a nice home was part of it, but there was so much more. I wanted her to have a mother, family outings, game nights, holiday traditions. The picture-perfect existence I used to think only happened on TV shows. But that was what Zach had built with Carolyn, Chance with Mandy, Harris with Rachel, and Lee with Viktoria. Strong, happy marriages really were possible, and they resulted in children who felt secure and loved. That was what Sofia was going to have, even if I had to date every single woman in Springwell in order to find the right wife.

But tonight, I mostly just wished she had a less shitty dad. It had been a fourteen-hour day, which meant that I’d missed bedtime, missed reading Sofia a story. Even though Lily was there the whole time, and I knew that Sofia was being looked after, I still felt like a piece of garbage for not being there for her myself. I hated it when a time-sensitive project meant that I had to stay late and miss out on spending time with her. I didn’t want her to ever think that work was more important to me than her. Nothing was more important than her. I tried to tell her that a lot, but I could never be sure it was fully sinking in. With toddlers, I had learned, the only things you could be sure that they’d hear and retain would be the words you didn’t want them to repeat.

I pushed open the door to the kitchen. Lily sat on a stool at the island, eating from a takeout container. Two thoughts hit me simultaneously. One, I liked coming home to her. Lily had been with us for three weeks, and I was glad she was around. And two, whatever she was eating smelled great.

“I hoped you’d be home soon,” she said.

“Something wrong?” Tension shot through me. Was Sofia sick or hurt? I dismissed the thought as quickly as it had hit me. Lily was far too relaxed for that to be the case—and I was sure that if anything serious had happened, she would have called me to let me know.

“Not at all.” She smiled and pointed to a brown bag on the island next to her. “I got you dinner. Lasagna, breadsticks, and a salad. Come eat.”

I put my briefcase down and readily joined her. “Can’t thank you enough.” I popped the lid open on the meal and inhaled. Lunch had been a quick sandwich hours ago—I was famished.

“Good day?” I asked after taking a few bites of the cheesy lasagna.

“Fine,” she answered as she broke a breadstick in half. “It was warm enough that we could take a walk to the park and spend the morning there. I think she went down the slide a million times.”

“She likes that,” I said with a chuckle and pang of regret. I’d like to have been there with them. “Thanks again for the food. You didn’t have to.”

“It’s no trouble.” She swirled the breadstick in a container of marinara sauce.

“You know you’re welcome to help yourself to anything in the kitchen—including the appliances, if you feel like making anything.” Her apartment had its own bathroom but not its own kitchen. I’d included a microwave, a mini fridge, and a coffeemaker, but if she wanted anything more complicated, she’d have to come to the main house. I’d made that offer several times since she’d moved in, but I’d seen no signs that she’d taken me up on it, aside from preparing Sofia’s meals.

“You’ve told me.”

“But I haven’t noticed you taking much,” I said. She’d hardly put a dent in the food I had stored in the pantry and refrigerator.

“I’m happy with keeping it simple. A sandwich for dinner usually works just fine for me unless I have a particular craving for something else. I cooked so much as a kid that cooking now doesn’t have much appeal for me. Besides, it can be tricky to pare down recipes—and all the ones I know were meant to feed a lot of people.”

“That’s right, you said you were the oldest of a lot of siblings, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “I have two sisters and five brothers, all younger than me, which meant that when someone got hungry, they usually looked to me to take care of it. And with five boys, someone was always hungry.”

“Five? Dang, that’s a lot.” I was starting to understand her need to be her own person. My brother and I had banded together to survive. We’d looked out for each other, but I hadn’t been made to care for them. Zach had done his best to look out for me and Alex, but the three of us were so close in age that it had never really seemed like he was our caretaker. We were all equals—and old before our time. We didn’t have the luxury of normal childhoods. After Mom left, we had to grow up fast.

“Yeah. Plus, I’m a decent cook, but a messy one. Counters, floors, you name it, food will be stuck to it when I’m done.” She tilted her head toward the white appliances, cabinets, and counters. “Your kitchen is a little too perfect for me. I’m afraid I’ll stain something.”

---