Together always (22 page)

"Do you love me?"

"Lily, I-"

"Do you love me?"

Trace set his cup down and ran his fingers through his hair, avoiding her eyes. How could he answer her?

"I don't think-"

"Don't think, just answer me." She pushed her chair back and stood up. She was right in front of him. If he took a deep breath, he could inhale her scent. If he moved just a few inches, they'd be touching. "Trace, please. Do you love me?"

He felt crowded, hemmed in, pressured. Everywhere he looked, she was there, her eyes demanding honesty, asking for the truth.

"Lily-"

"Do you?"

"Yes. Dammit, yes." The admission was pulled from him. He felt a certain release that he'd finally told her how

he felt. Lily stared at him, her eyes wide, as if she hadn't really believed he'd say it. He watched elation fill her face, turning her eyes a bright sparkling green. "But it doesn't' mean anything," he added weakly.

"It means a lot to me. Oh, Trace, don't you see? All you had to do was say it. Why didn't you tell me? Why have you been acting like you couldn't care less?"

"Lily, just because I've admitted that I love you, that doesn't mean there's some kind of fairy-tale ending to this. All the same problems are still there."

"What problems?" She smiled up at him and set her hands against his chest. "Trace, whatever you think the problems are, we can work them out. This is right. We're right. Don't you feel it?"

He didn't trust what he was feeling. Life had taught him that when you wanted something bad enough, you could convince yourself of almost anything. The feel of her hands seemed to bum through the fabric of his shirt, warming his skin, making it easy to forget reality. He shifted, moving away from her, away from that tantalizing scent, away from her touch.

"Lily, I can't be the kind of man you need."

"What?"

"I can't be what you need. I'm not the right man for you." He got the words out with difficulty, aware of an aching wish that he could be what she needed, what she deserved. He might have expected several different reactions. Denial, hurt, even acceptance. He hadn't expected anger.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" She spit the words out and Trace turned to look at her, startled by the violent tone of her voice.

"What?"

"Just who the hell do you think you are to start telling me what I need and what I don't need? I'm a big girl now,

Trace. I don't need anyone to tell me what I need or what I want."

"You don't understand. I didn't mean it like that." How had he come to be on the defensive?

**Just how did you mean it? And what makes you think you aren't what I need?"

*'Look at you, you're beautiful, you're intelligent, you could have anyone.''

"And I want you. If I'm so intelligent, why do you assume I've made the wrong choice?"

"Lily, I'm a nobody. A white trash farm boy from a town in Oklahoma that nobody ever even heard of. My father wrapped his car around a telephone pole, my mother married a drunken wife beater and stayed with him because she didn't have the guts to get out. I didn't finish high school, I didn't go to college. I haven't traveled anywhere—"

"Stop it!" Lily broke into his words, facing him with her hands clenched into fists, her face flushed and angry. "That's a lot of nonsense. Who cares what your father did? And your mother did the best she knew how. Not everyone is as strong as you are. And you are strong. Look at what you've done. You took care of your mothei* the best way you knew how, and when I came along you took care of me. You ran away rather than see me get hurt. You were just a kid yourself but you took responsibihty for me and I never felt frightened as long as you were close.

"I may not remember everything about the time before we found Mike but I remember enough to know that it must have been pretty scary for you. But you never let me down."

"I—" She gestured sharply, cutting off his attempt to get a word in.

"I'm not through yet. After we came to Mike, you worked hard to gain his respect and to keep it. Mike loved you and he thought you were worthwhile. Are you going to say he was wrong, too?"

"If s got nothing to do with loving/' He thrust his fingers through his hair, ruffling it into dark blond waves. How could he make her understand when he wasn't even sure he understood himself? '*It's got to do with who I am. What I am. Deep inside I'm always going to be a white trash farm boy. Can't you see that?"

*'No. I can't see that. I>eep inside you're a warm wonderful man with a lot of love to give someone if you'd only let it go. You're afraid to let it go. You're afraid you'll get hurt."

'*No!" He took a deep breath, trying to regain control. "I'm afraid I'll hurt you."

"How? How could you hurt me? The only way you'll hurt me is if you keep denying what's between us."

"What if I end up like Jed? What if I start beating you?" Until the words were out, he hadn't even acknowledged that fear to himself.

"Trace, it takes two people to allow what happened to your mother and Jed. Your mother stayed with him. She gave him a kind of permission to do what he did to her. Even if you wanted to beat me up periodically, do you see me allowing it?"

"I—" He broke off and stared at her, realizing the truth in her words. "No, I don't." She was knocking down his arguments one by one but there was still one argument she couldn't get by, one she didn't even know about. And he didn't want her to know about it.

"Trace, don't you see? Whatever is wrong, we can work through it."

"No. No, we can't. Can't you just take my word for it? It's never going to work. There are reasons why it can't work."

"What reasons? Tell me."

He thrust his fingers through his hair again, feeling as if he were on a merry-go-round that was spinning faster and

faster. There'd been too many pressures for too long. His self-control was getting thinner and thinner, stretched taut.

"What reasons?" she repeated. Her delicate jaw was set with a stubbornness that spoke of infinite patience. "I'm not giving up until I know what reasons. Whatever they are, we can work them out."

"No, we can't." The words were spaced a little too far apart and spoken a little too loud. "We can't work out the fact that Mike's death was my fault."

Lily stared at him, her mouth open to refute his argument, but nothing came out. He watched her, waiting with a kind of morbid fascination to see what her reaction would be.

"Your fault? How do you figure?"

"There v/as a note left on my windshield the day after the shooting at the grocery store."

"The day after we made love."

He nodded. "The day after we made love. It said that it should have been me, not him, but that I'd pay anyway."

"Wnat did it mean, you'd pay anyway?"

"Someone is apparently trying to kill me. Mike got in the way. I was the one supposed to die that day, not Mike. He died in my place.''

He waited to see anger or distaste or even hatred come into her eyes. She looked at him for a long moment. "Do you think I'm going to hate you for this? You can't possibly believe I'm that stupid. Even if it was you they were after that day, it's not your fault that you weren't there."

"Technically, maybe, but the end result is still the same. It was supposed to be me."

"Trace, you can't believe even for a moment that this would change the way I feel about you."

He stared at her, his heart full of a confusing tangle of emotions. Elation—she still loved him. Guilt—no matter what she said, he couldn't help but feel responsible for

Dallas Schulze 'TaY^

Mike's death. And fear—how could he keep her at a distance? How could he keep her safe?

And beyond that, there was a part of him, deep inside, that knew he wasn't right for her. He couldn't be right i\:r her. It wasn't possible.

"This person who killed Mike and left the note—do you know who it is?"

*'No."

* * Are you still in danger?''

"Yes, and that's another reason we can't be together."

"But if you're in danger, I want to be with you." She set her hand on his sleeve and looked up at him, her eyes the deep green of a forest.

He steeled himself against the plea he saw there and shook her hand off his arm. "I'm not going to have your death as well as Mike's on my conscience. Besides, this is all wrong. All of it. I shouldn't have made love to you. I had no business getting involved with you like that. It's wrong. All wrong."

Lily opened her mouth to argue but the phone rang, cutting her off before she could say anything. Trace turned away, reaching for the coffeepot.

"That's probably the hospital," he said. "You'd better get it."

He felt the frustrated look she threw him, though his back was to her. She answered the phone while he poured another cup of coffee and gulped it down.

"They're ready to release John as soon as we get there."

"Good. We'd better get going. I'm sure he doesn't want to stay there any longer than he has to."

"Trace-"

"Lily, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I've had a rough couple of weeks. I'm tired. There's some nut out there who wants me dead and I just don't have the energy to deal with this anymore. What's between us isn't going to

work. I know it, and if you weren't so stubborn you'd know it."

'*No, I wouldn't, but I'll leave it alone for now. But not for good. Sooner or later you're going to see that I'm right. In the meantime you just make sure you stay alive. Trace Dushane.''

He lifted the coffee cup in a tired salute, wiUing to take the half victory she offered rather than push for more. '*ril do my best."

''See that you do."

Despite THEIR best attempts, the atmosphere between Trace and Lily was thick enough to cut with a knife. John could practically smell the tension in the car during the drive home. Lily talked cheerfully enough but Trace was silent unless asked a direct question. And all the time Lily was talking, her eyes would flick to Trace and then away.

John limped into the house, trying to favor his leg, his ribs and his aching head all at the same time. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the mountainside coming at him, but, he told himself, he'd survived worse than this. .Once he was settled in a chair in the living room, Lily cast Trace another one of those sidelong looks and then announced that she was going upstairs to make sure John's room was ready for him.

Maybe it was his aching head but John suddenly found himself out of patience with the two of them.

"You know, you're a damned fool if you keep pushing her away."

Trace threw him an enigmatic look. "Stay out of it."

"Fine. I'll stay out of it, but I still think you're a damned fool."

"That's your privilege." The phone rang before John could say more, though he wasn't sure he was all that inclined to add to what he'd already said. It was a brief con-

versation and Trace's end of it seemed to consist mostly of an occasional grunt of agreement or disagreement. When he hung up, his features seemed tenser, harder. He went straight to the bar and poured himself a stiff Scotch, downing it in one gulp.

*'It's a little early for that, isn't it?"

*'That was Captain Jacobs. Someone set fire to my apartment last night. The smoke alarms went off and the damage isn't too severe but the place isn't going to be livable for a while."

John watched him, his eyes narrowed. Despite the pounding in his head, his instincts were still working and they were telling him that there was more here than met the eye.

**You don't seem all that surprised."

**I suppose I'm not. Someone is trying to kill me. As a matter of fact, someone was trying to kill me the day your father was killed. It should have been me who died that day."

**You want to explain that?"

Trace told him the whole story in short terse sentences, biting the words off as if they tasted foul in his mouth. When he was done, there was a long silence. Above them they could hear the sound of Lily's footsteps. Trace finally turned to look at John, his lean body taut with rage and pain.

"I suppose you're waiting for me to revile you, to heap loads of guilt on you. Well, you're not getting it from me. What happened, happened. It sure as hell wasn't your fault if some crazy killed Dad when they were gunning for you. Dad would have been the first to tell you that. You know it as well as I do."

Trace's mouth twisted and he stared down at the empty glass. 'T know it logically but I can't seem to shake the feeling that it's my fault somehow."

**It's not, but you'll just have to learn that in time. Does this have anything to do with what's going on between you and Lily?"

Trace shrugged. "More or less. It's part of it."

**Let me give you a piece of advice. It's always a mistake to lose time with someone you love. Thinking you can make up for lost time tomorrow isn't a good idea because you don't always get a tomorrow. God knows, I can speak from experience on that. Don't let it slip away. Trace. You may not get a second chance."

"I'm well aware of my own mortality. That's why it's more important than ever to keep Lily away. I can't risk something happening to her because of me. Until this nut is caught, she's better off at a distance."

John leaned his head against the back of the chair and didn't argue any further.

Chapter Fourteen

Trace walked up to the door, reluctance and anticipation struggling for supremacy inside him. He hadn't been back here since picking up John at the hospital almost a week ago. He'd called once to see how John was getting along, and luckily John himself had picked up the phone.

He'd kept busy. Between attempting to repair the damage the fire had done in his apartment and going through files he'd already gone through half a hundred times trying to come up with someone who might want him dead, he'd had plenty to keep him occupied. But always, in the back of his mind, his argument with Lily played over and over.

She had sounded so sure. As if there could be no doubt that loving him was the right thing to do. He wanted to believe that she was right. He wanted to believe it so badly that he knew he couldn't trust his own judgment anymore. When you wanted something that much, you could convince yourself of almost anything.