Montana Sky (41 page)

SUMMER

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

—
Shakespeare

T
HERE WASN
'
T A DISH IN THE SINK
,
NOT A CRUMB ON THE
counter or a scuff mark on the floor. Lily stared at the spotless kitchen. Adam had beaten her to it. Again. She stepped to the back door, through it. The gardens she'd planned were tilled, with the hardier vegetables and flowers already planted.

Adam and Tess. Lily hadn't even gotten soil on her garden gloves. And oh, how she'd wanted to.

She struggled not to resent it, to remember that they were thinking of her. She'd been ill for two weeks, and for another, too weak to handle her regular chores without periodic rests. But she was recovered now, fully, and growing weary of being worried over and pampered.

She knew the freezer was stuffed to overflowing with dishes that Bess or Nell had prepared. Lily hadn't cooked a meal since the night Jesse had come through the door where she now stood looking out at the tender green buds on the trees, feeling the gentle warmth of the May air on her face.

It seemed like years since that cold and bitter night. And there were blank spots still, areas of gray she didn't care to explore. But she was to be married in three short weeks, and her life was more out of her control than it had ever been before.

She hadn't even been permitted to address her own wedding invitations. It had been discovered, to everyone's surprise, that Willa possessed the neatest handwriting among them. So Tess had assigned the job to Willa, with Lily playing only a minor role.

They'd let her lick the stamps.

The flowers were ordered, the photographer and music settled on. And she'd let them, all of them, lovingly step over and around her to handle the details.

It had to stop. It was going to stop. Closing the door firmly at her back, she marched toward the stables. Or she began in a march and ended up with dragging feet. Every time she ventured toward stables or pasture, Adam found a way of whisking her home again. Never touching her, she thought. Or touching her so dispassionately it was more like doctor to patient than lover to lover.

He stepped out of the stables as she approached, which made her think, not for the first time, that he had some sort of radar where she was concerned. He smiled, but she saw that his eyes remained sober, and searching.

“Hi. I'd hoped you'd sleep longer.”

“It's after ten. I thought I'd work with a couple of the yearlings today, on the longe line.”

“There's plenty of time for that.” As usual, he guided her away from the stables, his hand barely touching her elbow. “Did you have breakfast?”

“Yes, Adam, I had breakfast.”

“Good.” He resisted picking her up and carrying her back to the house, tucking her away where she'd be safe and close. “Did you finish that new book I brought you? It's a pretty morning, maybe you could sit on the porch and read. Get a little sun.”

“I nearly finished it.” Had barely started it. It made her guilty, knowing he'd made a special trip into town to buy her books, magazines, the little candied almonds she was so fond of.

And she hated the book, the magazines, the almonds. Even the flowers he was constantly bringing home to cheer her.

“I'll bring the radio out for you. And a blanket. It can get cool when you're just sitting.” He was terrified she'd catch a chill, lie shivering in bed again with her hand limp in his. “I'll make you some tea, then—”

“Stop it!” The explosive shout stunned them both. In the time he stared at her, she realized she'd never really shouted at anyone before. It was a powerful and thrilling experience. “Stop it, Adam. I'm tired of this. I don't want to sit, I don't want to read. I don't want you bringing me tea and flowers and candy and treating me like a piece of cracked glass.”

“Lily, there's no need to get upset. You'll make yourself sick again, and you're barely out of bed.”

For the first time in her life she understood the wisdom of counting to ten before speaking. Another time, she decided, she might even try it.

“I am out of bed. I would have been out of bed days before I was if you hadn't been hovering around me. And I am sick. I'm sick of not being allowed to wash my own dishes or plant my own garden or run my own life. I'm sick to death of it.”

“Let's go inside.” He treated her as he would a fractious mare, with great patience and compassion. “You just need to rest. With the wedding only weeks away you've got a lot on your mind.”

That tore it. She whirled on him. “I do not need to rest, and I do not need to be placated like a cranky child. And there isn't going to be any wedding, not until I say differently.”

She stalked off, leaving him stunned, speechless, and staggered.

She rode on the temper, the unfamiliar and exciting kick of it all the way to the main house, up the stairs, and into the office, where Willa was arguing with Tess.

“If you don't like the way I'm setting things up, why the hell did you dump the job on me? I've got enough to do without fussing with this reception.”

“I'm dealing with the flowers,” Tess shot back. “I'm dealing with the caterer—if you can call some bucktoothed jerk whose specialty is pigs in a blanket a caterer.” She
threw up her hands, then fisted them on her hips. “All you have to do is arrange for tables and chairs for the alfresco buffet. And if I want striped umbrellas, then the least you can do is find me striped umbrellas.”

Now Willa's fists rode her hips as well, and she went nose to nose with Tess. “And where in God's name am I supposed to come up with fifty blue-and-white-striped umbrellas—much less this canopy thing you're so hot for. If you'd just . . . Lily, aren't you supposed to be resting?”

“No. No, I am not supposed to be resting.” She was surprised sparks didn't fly from her fingertips as she marched to the desk and swept all the lists and folders and invoices onto the floor in an avalanche of paper. “You can toss every bit of paper that has to do with the wedding in the trash. Because there's not going to be any wedding.”

“Honey.” Tess broke out of her shock, slid an arm around Lily's shoulder, and tried to nudge her into a chair. “If you're having second thoughts—”

“Don't ‘honey' me.” Lily wrenched away, fuming. “And don't pretend you give me credit for having second thoughts when no one gives me credit for having the first ones. It's my wedding, damn it. Mine. And you've all just taken it over. If you want to plan a wedding so badly, then
you
get married.”

“I'll get Bess,” Tess murmured, and sent Lily into a fresh tantrum.

“Don't you dare get Bess and have her up here clucking over me. The next person, the very next person who clucks over me, I'm slapping them. I mean it. You.” She jabbed a finger at Tess. “You planted my garden. And you.” She spun on Willa. “You addressed my wedding invitations. Between the two of you, you've taken everything. And what slips through your fingers, Adam snaps up so quickly I can't even grab for it.”

“Well, fine.” Willa threw up her hands. “Excuse us for trying to help you through a difficult time. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed getting writer's cramp with this one here breathing down my neck.”

“I was not breathing down your neck,” Tess said between her teeth. “I was supervising.”

“Supervising, my butt. You've got your nose in everything and sooner or later someone's going to pop you in it.”

“Oh, and that would be you, I suppose.”

“Shut up, both of you. Just shut the hell up.”

They did, though their mouths hung open when Lily lifted a vase and sent it flying. “The two of you can argue till your tongues fall out, but not over my business. Not over me. Do you understand? I'm not going to be used anymore. I'm not going to be controlled. I'm not going to be brushed aside. I want everyone to stop looking at me as if I'm going to fall to pieces at any moment. Because I'm not. I'm
not!
”

“Lily.” Adam stepped into the doorway. He wasn't sure how to approach her now, so he stood back and hoped a soothing tone would work. “I didn't mean to upset you. If you need time to—”

“Oh, don't you start on me.” Vibrating with fury, she kicked at the papers scattered at her feet. “That's just what I'm talking about. Don't anyone upset Lily. Don't anyone treat Lily like a normal woman. Poor thing, poor Lily. She might shatter.”

She spun around so she could fire a stream of frustrated rage at all of them. “Well, I'm the one Jesse abused. He held a gun to
my
head. I'm the one he dragged into the hills and kicked into the snow and pulled along on a rope like a dog. And I got through it. I survived it. It's about time you did too.”

It was Adam who shattered, at the image that flashed into his brain. “What do you want me to do? Forget it? Pretend it never happened?”

“Live with it. I am. You haven't asked any questions.” Her voice hitched, but she steadied it. No, she promised herself, she wasn't going to shatter. And she wasn't going to cry. “Maybe you don't want the answers. Maybe you don't want me the way things are.”

“How can you say that?”

Now she drew herself up, made her voice as cool and
reasonable as she could with her heart pounding so hard it hurt her ribs. “You haven't touched me, Adam. Not once since it happened have you touched me.” She shook her head as Willa and Tess started to leave the room. “No, stay. This isn't just between Adam and me. That's only part of it. You haven't talked about it either, so let's talk about it now. Right now.”

She wiped a tear from her cheek. Damn it, that would be the last one that fell. “Why haven't you touched me, Adam? Is it because you think he did, and you don't want me now?”

“I don't know how.” He stepped forward, stopped. His hands felt clumsy, outsized, as they had for weeks. “I didn't stop him. I didn't protect you. I didn't do what I promised you. And I don't know how to touch you, or why you'd want me to.”

She closed her eyes a moment. Why hadn't she seen that before? He was the fragile one now. He was the lost one. “You came for me.” She said it softly, hoping he could understand just how much that mattered. “Yours was the first face I saw when I stumbled out of that cave, away from . . . away from it. You were the first thing I saw, and that's one of the reasons I can live with it.”

She took one unsteady breath, tried again, and found that the next one came more easily. “And all the time he had me, I knew you'd come. That's one of the reasons I got through it. And I fought back.”

She looked at her sisters. They, too, had to know how much it mattered. “I fought back and I held on just as you would have done. He had the gun, and he was stronger, but he didn't have control. Not really. Because I didn't give up. I drove into that tree. To slow him down, to make it harder for him.”

“Oh, Lily.” Undone, Tess sat down and began to weep. “Oh, God.”

“And when he tied my hands, I kept falling down.” A calm settled over her now, a calm that came from surviving the worst. “Because that would slow him down too. I knew he wouldn't kill me. He'd hurt me, but he wouldn't kill me.
But then it was so cold, and I couldn't fight back anymore. But I held on.”

Saying nothing, Willa walked over, poured a glass of water, and brought it to Tess. Lily took a deep breath. She would finish now, say it all, everything that hadn't been said.

“I thought he might rape me, and I could survive that. He'd done it before. But he wasn't in control this time, and he was afraid. Every bit as much as I was, maybe more. When we got to the cave, I was so tired, and I knew I was sick. Nothing he did to me then would have mattered because all I had to do was get through it. And get back here.”

She walked to the window, looked out. And gathering her strength because she had gotten back, she had made it through, she turned around once more. “He had whiskey, and I took some because I thought it might help. He drank a lot. I fell asleep, or passed out, listening to him drinking and boasting, just like he used to. I listened to the whiskey sloshing in the bottle, and in part of my mind I thought he might get drunk enough, just drunk enough, and I might be strong enough, just strong enough, to get away. Then someone came.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, hugged her elbows. “It's not clear.” If any part of the ordeal still frightened her, it was this. The nebulous, fever-soaked memories. “I must have had a fever by then and I suppose I was delirious. I thought it was you,” she told Adam. “I thought I was home, in bed, and you were coming in, sliding in next to me. I could almost feel it. And feeling it, I fell asleep again, and slept while whoever was there killed Jesse and cut the rope on my hands. I was only a few feet away, but—”

That quick, high-pitched scream that had snapped off. She could still hear it if she let herself. “When I woke up,” she continued, steadily, “Jesse's coat was over me. There was blood on it, all over it. So much blood. I saw him. The light was just coming in through the opening of the cave, and I could see him. Seeing Jesse like that was worse somehow than when he'd held the gun to my head. The need to get away from him was worse. Every time I took a breath, I
breathed in the smell of him, and what had been done to him while I'd been a few feet away, sleeping. And I was more frightened in those few moments than I'd been through all the rest of it.”