Always a Lady (13 page)

Lily leaned forward until her nose was almost touching the glass and turned first one way and then the other. It still looked as if she was staring into a broken mirror, and the image made her sick. She turned off the vanity light in disgust, turned on the water full force in the sink and proceeded to wash Case's blood from her hands and arms. There was no sense in dreaming about what-ifs. The scar was there, and that was that.

*      *      *

Supper had come and gone and still no blue pickup truck. Lily sat on the front porch steps, her chin in her hands, and watched the dusky horizon for a glimpse of headlights. It was nearly sundown. She could already hear the crickets tuning up. Several cows were bawling out on the meadow beyond the corrals, obviously searching for the calves that had recently been weaned, and somewhere to the west she could hear dogs barking. Probably chasing a rabbit that hadn't made it back to his hole before nightfall.

Everything was so foreign to the way she'd been brought up, and yet so familiar. Lily knew that if she'd been back in L.A., she would probably be sitting out on her deck, watching the sunset over the ocean and listening to the surf and the night sounds of the city as it came alive in the streets beyond her home.

In L.A. there was always a siren somewhere, and people everywhere. Lily may not have been brought up in the country, but she'd taken to it like icing on a cake. She didn't even want to think about how much she was going to miss all this space and silence when she had to leave. And she absolutely refused to admit that she would miss Case Longren. It didn't bear thinking about.

Lily heard the pickup shift gears as it came around the bend in the road that marked the beginning boundary of the ranch. She breathed a sigh of relief. They were back!

Duff pulled to a stop, but wasn't fast enough to beat Lily to the passenger side of the truck.

"Are you all right?" she asked, as she yanked open the door and peered into the dusky interior. Duff's cab light was out and all she had to see by was the glare of headlights in front of her. The first thing she saw when she peered inside were blue eyes walled in pain.

Case had never been so glad to see anyone in his whole life. He was hurting like crazy and had been alternating between curses and prayers when Duff turned into the front yard of the Bar L. The little man drove like a bat out of hell and there was no denying it.

"I'm fine," he growled, and stretched one long leg out of the cab, bracing himself on firm ground before swinging the rest of his body out of the cab.

"No, he ain't," Duff argued. "He wouldn't let them doctors give him any more painkillers after they sewed him up and he's sicker than a dog. Doctor said he should have somethin' on his stomach. Might help the nausea. It's caused from all the shots they used to deaden the cut."

"Thank you, Doctor Kildare," Case muttered.

"Help me get him in the house," Lily said. "Then I'll see to the rest."

"I don't need to be carried," Case argued. "Just let me lean on you. I can get myself there."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"Then come here, tough boy. I think you've had just about enough for one day." Her words were gentle, but her touch was gentler.

Lily leaned into the cab, offering her shoulder to Case, and stepped to one side as he slid his good arm across her back and swung himself out of the truck.

"Thanks, Duff. See you in the morning."

"Sure thing, boss," the foreman answered, and as soon as Lily and Case had cleared the yard and made their way into the house, he drove back to the bunkhouse and parked, anxious to get inside and regale the men with his version of the boss's trip to the hospital.

Lily maneuvered Case through the front door, up the stairs, and down the hallway to his bedroom without any incident. But as soon as she had him inside his room, he sank down on his bed, not caring about the dust and dried blood on his clothes, and lay back on top of that black satin with no more thought than if it had been a haystack.

"Oh, Case!" she said before she thought. "Your bed!"

"It'll clean," he muttered. "If it doesn't, I'll buy another one. I'm too damn tired to care."

"At least let me take off your boots," Lily argued. She had his foot in hand and the boots off before he had time to disagree.

His shirt had snap fasteners and Lily leaned over and slowly unpopped each one, revealing brown skin and taut muscles. It was sinful to delight in the fact that she could do this without any fear of being misunderstood. He had to have help. It was obvious.

She nudged his shoulder and he grunted as he rolled slightly, allowing her easier access as she slipped his shirt from under him and tossed it to the floor. It was beyond fixing. What the barbed wire hadn't torn, the doctors had cut, to open an area in which to work. A huge dark bruise in varying shades of black and purple was forming on the side and front of his belly, and Lily knew that was a direct result of the blow he'd taken from the cow that had knocked him down. Her fingers drifted gently across the bruise, and then she yanked them back as if she'd been stung. She shouldn't be touching him like that and she knew it.

"How many stitches?" she asked softly, letting her gaze drift across his chest and down the ripple of muscle across his belly.

"A whole damn lot," Case growled, glaring at the long swath of white gauze covering his forearm.

"Could you drink some soup if I brought it up?" Lily asked.

He nodded and watched her walk out of his room with his torn shirt in her hands. He was in fine shape. Here he was in his room, flat on his back in bed with Lily not three steps away, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. The room swirled around him and he cursed, closed his eyes, and dug his fingers into the satin beneath him, holding on to the only solid thing he could feel. He hated being weak. But even more than that, he hated going to bed in this filthy condition. Not only had he bled all over himself, but he still wore remnants of his roll on the prairie beneath the angry cow's feet.

Case staggered to his feet, wincing every step of the way out of his room and down the end of the hall to the bathroom. By the time Lily made her way back upstairs with a steaming cup of noodle soup, Case had shucked his Levi's, and was taking a shower with his freshly bandaged arm sticking out of the partially opened shower door. He knew enough to not get anything with this many stitches wet. He also knew he was going to have to hurry because he was dizzy as hell and hated to face how he'd look if he passed out buck-naked in the shower. A man had some pride.

Lily took one look at the empty room, set the cup of soup down on the bedside table and started out of the door with a look on her face her brothers could have warned Case about.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" she yelled, as she yanked back the bathroom door and saw steam, shower spray, and Case's arm in the midst of it all, pointing shakily toward the ceiling in a weak attempt to keep it dry.

"I'm through." His voice emerged from the clouds of mist and steam, as he turned off the knob to the shower. "Hand me a towel."

"I ought to hand you your head on a platter," Lily grumbled, "but from the looks of you, it probably already feels like it's there."

She handed him a towel, her actions gentler than her tone of voice. And much as she was tempted to do otherwise, she averted her eyes as she helped him from the shower.

"There's nothing worse than a woman who thinks she's always right," Case said as he wrapped the towel around his middle in a halfhearted attempt to conceal his bare rump and masculinity.

"Get yourself in bed, mister," Lily ordered, her green eyes flashing, as she stepped aside and pointed down the hall toward his room.

By the time Case had walked the length of the hall and into his room, his head was spinning, and even though he hated to admit it, his legs felt like a bowl of Pete's cooked-to-death noodles.

Lily pulled back the black satin and a light sheet and blanket that lay beneath, and stood without saying a word as Case sank gratefully into the cool comfort of his own bed. Lily pulled the covers up to his waist before she muttered, "Hand me that wet towel."

Case complied weakly as he slid his good arm down beneath the covers and removed his only clothing. He was too shaky to make wisecracks. He'd exceeded his limit by taking a shower, but he'd never been so glad to be clean in his life.

Lily leaned over and grabbed the extra pillow, intent on stuffing it behind his head to prop him up enough to drink his cooling soup, when Case sighed. She could feel his breath against the curve of her neck, and she shivered at the thought of how it would feel to lie naked, skin to skin, with this big man and feel his breath on every square inch of her body.

"My God!" Lily muttered to herself. This had to stop. "Can you hold this cup or do you need help?" she asked sharply, and then regretted her anger the moment it came out. Case didn't deserve to suffer just because she was having some kind of sexy hot flash.

Case stared. Her words were sharp, but the expression on her face and the gentleness of her touch told him that she cared.

"I can manage," he said quietly, and took the cup from her hands and drained it. "Thanks, Lily Catherine," he said. "You'd make a very good nurse, if you'd just work on your bedside manner a bit."

Lily started to argue when she saw the look in his eyes. Even in pain he was trying to make her smile. She felt a sharp tug in the region of her heart and knew that it was her conscience telling her to put up or shut up. She opted for the latter.

Lily took the empty cup, set it down and pulled the extra pillow out from under his head. She couldn't resist swiping at the dark, black swath of hair that kept trying to slide across his forehead and she brushed at it gently as she tested his forehead for signs of a fever.

"Where are your pain pills?" Lily asked.

"Probably in my pants pocket," Case mumbled, already nearly asleep. "But I'm not taking any of the damn things. They give me a hell of a hangover. Got too much to do tomorrow."

Lily ignored his arguing, hurried to the bathroom, retrieved the jeans and found the bottle of pain relievers in his front pocket. But by the time she returned to his room, Case was fast asleep. She set them down on his bedside table, filled a glass with water and set it beside the pills. She started to leave the room but then turned for one last look.

He looked so hurt and lonely, his bandaged arm flung out and away from the rest of his body, and she resisted the urge to crawl in beside him and just hold him tightly against her heart all through the night. She could remember vividly the pain of awakening in the dark, hurting and alone, and couldn't face the thought of Case suffering the same way.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she'd dashed downstairs, slipped into her pajamas and a housecoat, grabbed a blanket and pillow, and headed back upstairs to Case's room. If he awoke in the night in pain, she'd be there.

Lily couldn't face the reason why she'd done something this foolish as she curled herself into a ball on the floor across from his bed and pulled the blanket around her. She didn't want to hear the voice inside her heart telling her that she'd just stepped over a line in their relationship. She wasn't listening to anything but the restless sleep of the big man in the bed.

SEVEN

Case watched out of the corner of his eye, feigning sleep as Lily raised her head from the pillow, looked toward his bed, then quietly dragged herself to a standing position, gathered her blanket and pillow into a careless wad and staggered out of his room. It was almost dawn.

A lump formed in the back of his throat and he blinked rapidly, willing away the emotion that swept over him at the knowledge that Lily had slept on the floor in his room just to make certain that he came to no harm during the night.

He rolled over on his back, wincing as his heavily bandaged arm came in contact with the bedcovers, took a deep breath, swallowing what felt suspiciously like a sob, and ran his good hand over his face, feeling the heavy growth of his stubbly whiskers pricking the palm of his hand. He stared at the pattern of shadows forming on the ceiling overhead from the first hint of morning and knew he could deny his true feelings for Lily no longer.

He'd long ago admitted to himself that he loved her. He'd tried over and over during the last few weeks to let Lily know that his feelings for her were special, but it wasn't until this moment, when he'd watched her sleep, that he'd known the depth of his own emotions.

If Lily Brownfield left him, he would not survive.

For the first time, he had an inkling of the pit his father had fallen into when his mother had abandoned them. Now he knew what had made Chock Longren go to hell in a bottle. It was for something more than love. It was an enduring need to be near and to care for someone other than himself. To lose all selfish desires of pleasure for himself, and have only the desire to please another. There was no name in Case's vocabulary for the need he had to lie next to Lily and simply watch her sleep. To know that he had the right to hold her, fight for her, comfort and care for her for the rest of his days as they grew old together.

A slow, aching moan slipped out from between his tightly clenched lips and he covered his eyes and cursed. He had to do something to knock down the wall of hurt behind which Lily lived. He'd do anything it took to keep her here on the Bar L with him when roundup was over. He couldn't lose her.

Lily had awakened during the night to hear Case mumbling in his sleep. She knew he was hurting. She could tell from the way he kept rolling over and then back as he'd accidentally bump or bend his injured arm. And she suspected that the bruising on his side and belly were contributing to the discomfort he seemed to be suffering.

She got up from her pallet on the floor, tiptoed to his bed, shook two of the pain pills from the bottle, slid her arm beneath his head and whispered softly in his ear, rousing him just enough to get him to swallow.