Page 60 of Guilty as Sin
Downstairs.
He was already out of bed when he heard Lily’s voice. “Power came back on.”
Oh. That was the other reason he’d woken, then. Because she’d been gone, and he’d felt her missing. Also, Tobias was downstairs. As he got back into bed, feeling a little embarrassed, Lily slid in beside him, wearing something long and silky-cool.Pity, he thought, and then she moved closer, curled up beside him with her hand on his chest, and relaxed. Something twisted in his heart, or maybe it untwisted. He held her, kissed her hair, and slept.
When he woke again, it actuallywasmorning, and she was standing beside him. Once again, he’d let himself relax further than he ever let himself. And something smelled good.
“Coffee,” she said, setting it on his bedside table. “Helpful start after a short night, maybe. No milk and no sugar, because you don’t like the sweet stuff.”
“Mm.” He sat up against the padded headboard and smiled at her. “I may have changed my mind about that.” She was wearing leggings and a stretchy top again. No makeup, and she looked so soft and pretty. She was still relaxed herself, then. “How long have you been up?”
“Twenty minutes or so. I let Tobias out and gave him some water.”
“Thanks.” He looked at her more closely. “Leg hurting?”
She sat down on the bed beside him like she wanted to be closer, and that was good news. He put his hand on her thigh and worked the muscles some, and she let him do it. “Hurts a little, yeah,” she said, and didn’t sigh, even though he could tell she wanted to. “I stretched it. It’s getting better. I put your clothes in the laundry with mine,” she went on before he could say anything about that. “But they’ll take a while to dry. I just realized that I’ve got absolutely nothing for you to wear. Even the robes would be ridiculous. Guess you’ll have to stay in bed until your things dry.”
“Nah.” He swung his legs out of bed and stood. He felt good. He felt amazing, actually. “I’ll borrow a towel, drive myself home like a surfer, or maybe just like an Aussie, get changed, and come back and make you breakfast. Have you checked on the animals yet?”
A hesitation. He said, “It’s all right to ask me, you know. It’s all right to think I could help you, and that I would.”
“It’s stupid,” she said. “I’ve put off looking. They’re… it’s not about me, so it’s… I’m nervous.”
It didn’t make sense, except that it obviously did to her.
“Wait, then.” He went into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and slung it around himself. “Twenty minutes, and you’ve got your help. With your animals.”
He did take five minutes at home, once he’d thrown on some clothes, fed Tobias, and grabbed some breakfast things, to do a little research. You could say that he hadn’t been engaged in rational thought last night, but this morning, the inconsistencies were too glaring to ignore. Montana or not, he was having trouble believing that lingerie-shop owners knew how to clear a room or make an operations plan like that, let alone everything else he’d seen. There was a big difference between an amateur and a professional, and Lily Hollander had more than goats in her background.
Except that she didn’t. She’d been divorced not even a couple years back. In New York. From an actor whose name Jace only vaguely recognized, but imagined Rafe would know. There were photos of the two of them together, and there was no mistaking that face and body, although she looked softer in the photos. Sweeter. Less guarded. More like she had this morning, when she’d been sitting on the bed and smiling at him.
Well, the divorce had apparently been nasty. That would change a woman, make it harder for her to trust. And she was older now. He didn’t look all that soft himself anymore. That part added up, but the rest still didn’t.
The problem was—whatever she’d told him or hadn’t, he still wanted her, and it was only getting worse. So he took his dog and his bag of groceries and drove back to her house.
She was already in the barnyard. He left the ute in the driveway, jumped down with Tobias, and asked, when he got inside the gate, “’Wait for me’ not clear enough?”
“It was weak of me to want to,” she said.
“Darling, you couldn’t be weak if you tried.” He took a look at the goats. Mamas complaining about not being milked yet, babies playing games. “How about this? You milk, and I’ll go check out the carnage at the chicken coop and report back, unless you’ve already done it.”
“I’ll take that,” she said, and smiled at him. Cautious still, but she’d said yes.
He gave in to temptation, put a hand behind her head, and gave her a soft kiss right there amidst the livestock. She swayed against him the tiniest bit, and he stood back, smiled down at her, and said, “Thanks.”
“For what?” She sounded a little breathless. He liked it.
“For letting me help you.”
It didn’t take him long to find the victims from the night before. One opossum laid out where Tobias had thrown it, a hen still clamped in its stiffening jaws. Nothing else dead in the vicinity, but when Jace let the survivors of the carnage out into their run and figured out how to open the back of the coop to take a good look, he found white and orange feathers scattered in enough profusion to suggest something of a massacre. Most of the eggs in the nesting area were broken, and a few hens looked seriously lacking in the tail-feather department as well.
“Good work,” he told the hens, opening the door to the wide world for them after taking a head count. “Survival of the fittest, ladies.” Then he unhooked their water container, carried it and the feed tray back into the shed, and told Lily, who was just getting Tinkerbelle up onto the milking stand, “You have seven live chickens, all looking like they had a bit of an exciting night.”
Her hands stilled in the act of wiping down the udder. “Three lost,” she said. “Could have been worse.”
“Not a bad survival rate at all.” He unwound the hose, rinsed out the water tub, and refilled it and the grain bin. “Which makes you wonder why whoever it was bothered. Why tell you the animals were in danger? You’d never have checked, and this morning, you’d probably be chicken-free.”
“Because,” she said, starting in on her milking, “They wanted me running around in the rain, in the dark.”
