Cherry Adair - T-flac 06 (16 page)

"What?" Derek's voice sounded smoky and intimate, and almost right inside her head.

She'd forgotten he could hear her. "Dad always complains because I anthropomorphize—if that's even a word—the dogs."

"Since you practically live with them, I don't think it's strange you give them human characteristics,"

Derek said easily. "You probably know them better than you do most humans."

"I like them better most of the time, too," Lily told him dryly. She narrowed her eyes. Was Opal limping now too? She'd keep an eye on her for another mile or two.

"Is that why you became a vet?"

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Lily smiled. "That and all the money I make." What she earned had always been a joke to Sean. He'd told her she'd earn more waiting tables at the Dipsy Diner on Main Street. Their county wasn't big enough to support three full-time veterinarians.

Still, she loved what she did. Matt and her dad actually handled everything but the Flying F. The ranch, and the breeding and training of her dogs, kept Lily busy. Her marrying Sean had worked for all of them.

She'd supervised the breeding program to increase the herd. In fact, she'd named Diablo when Sean and Derek had brought the vicious-looking, three-and-a-half-million-dollar bull home. She'd had to authenticate every vial of Diablo's sperm that sold. Clearly Sean had forged her signature on the fake vials.

Of course she hadn't known anything then. Other than she'd found Prince Charming, he adored her and she was going to marry him. She'd loved the way he teased her, and the way his brown eyes warmed when he was with her. She'd loved his flirting and the way he made her feel like a woman, even when she was dressed in jeans and work boots.

She'd been blind and naive. Stupid and trusting.

Not anymore.

"I don't see you taking your loot and heading off to Fiji."

"I'm not big on traveling," she said, admiring the way the light struck the snow, making it look like whipped cream.

"You went to Montreal on your honeymoon."

"We didn't get out much," she fibbed, feeling the remembered weight of fury and humiliation tighten her chest. Sean had flirted with a sleek redhead in the bar. The second night of their honeymoon, he'd come back to the room at midnight, smelling of expensive perfume and reminding her that men weren't programmed to be monogamous.

Lily had tipped the room service tray that had sat there untouched for five hours onto his expensive suit.

Then she'd told Sean that good manners suggested that he at least wait until the honeymoon was over before screwing some French hooker he'd picked up in the bar.

Devastated by his betrayal, she'd immediately moved to another room. She despised liars.

Sean had quickly learned that his loving country wife had reached her saturation point and had an intolerance for one more ounce of bullshit.

Furious with herself for being oblivious to all the clues, Lily was also disgusted with herself for being blind to Sean's faults. And God only knew, there were a lot of them.

Hurt and bewildered by the sudden change in a man she believed loved her, Lily was at a loss. She was on her honeymoon. The beginning of their lives. Together. And now that life had gone up in smoke right before her very eyes.

Hurt. Angry. Confused. She was all of those. And worse. She felt stupid. And, damn him to hell,
used
.

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She'd spent her honeymoon exploring a city made for lovers. Alone.

That had been the beginning of the end for them. The scales had fallen from her eyes and she'd seen Sean for the man he really was. And in hindsight that had only been the tip of a very large iceberg. She should've run like hell then, because the minute they got home, she was stuck.

Sean had returned from the doctor's office a week later. The same day, in fact, she'd gone into town to see their lawyer, Barry Campbell. They'd faced each other in the impersonal, overdecorated dining room with a dinner neither of them wanted to eat laying between them.

Lily, filled with righteous indignation and a deadly calm, told him the marriage was over. Sean, somehow shrunken and not so self-confident anymore, told her he had terminal cancer. She'd discovered later that he'd been seeing the doctor for months.

The doctor had given Sean six months to live.

Of course she hadn't believed him. Not for a moment. But a visit to his doctor the next day confirmed the grim prognosis.

Lily couldn't leave then. Sean was a shit but she wasn't. Regardless of what had transpired between them, she couldn't bail on a dying man, not even one she could no longer love. She wanted to, God, how she'd wanted to, dreamed of it, in fact. She didn't want anything from Sean, especially not the guilt of leaving him to die alone.

Maybe that had been a mistake. Maybe she should have left him despite his illness. She might have had she known the six-month sentence would turn into three long, agonizing years.

"Lily?"

"What? Oh, um—travel. I took a cruise to Mexico when I graduated from college."

"I'll take you to Bora-Bora. The water's the most amazing translucent turquoise, and the sand is so fine it squeaks underfoot. You'd love it. Have you ever snorkeled?"

Despite the frigid cold, and her breath hanging visibly in the air, Lily felt a surge of heat at the thought of being anywhere
near
Derek scantily clothed. A picture superimposed itself over the whiteness of the winter landscape. Of a beach, the white sand hot underfoot. Of crystal-clear turquoise water. The sound of gulls. And Derek, wearing nothing but a white smile and a golden tan.

"Are you having trouble breathing?" he asked, sounding concerned. "The altitude—"

"We aren't that high. I was pushing the kids a bit too fast and got distracted," Lily lied through her teeth.

Thoughts of Derek were better than a thermal blanket. "Where were we? Oh, yeah. Snorkeling. The closest I've ever gotten was last year when Zephyr kicked me into the water trough. And believe me, what was floating in there had nothing to do with tropical fish."

Derek laughed in her ear and she smiled at the deep, rich sound of it. "Is Fiji where you're always going off to?" she asked, curious.

"Not as often as I'd like," he said absently. What the
hell
was he? A moron? Derek asked himself furiously. Why bring up her and Sean's honeymoon? Dumb ass. Of
course
they hadn't gone out much.

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Jesus. Sean had wasted no time on his return telling him every erotic detail of their Canadian honeymoon.

The couple had spent every second in bed. And very little of that time sleeping. Damn it to hell. Even after all these years Derek still had pictures in his head of Lily and what she'd done on her honeymoon.

Only he always transposed himself for Sean.

He saw one of the Iditarod's famous yellow-diamond highway signs ahead that stated watch your ass.

He stomped on the brake to slow down the team, and proceeded with caution, reminding himself to concentrate on the task immediately at hand.

"I appreciated you not going on so many trips after Sean got sick," Lily said in his ear.

T-FLAC hadn't exactly done the Snoopy dance about it, that was for sure, but he wasn't about to leave Lily with the burden of nursing Sean and worrying about the ranch. He had damn good hands in place, and a ranch foreman he paid an obscene amount of money for two reasons: one, he was that good, and two, Derek didn't want anyone stealing Ash away from him. His old T-FLAC buddy was indispensable, and he knew it.

"I wanted to be there, Lily. For
you
."

Lily sighed and the sound rippled through the mic right into Derek's ear and then slipped into his soul. He frowned, waiting to hear her brush off his concern, as she had so many times before. But she didn't.

Maybe it was the anonymity of being able to speak without looking into his eyes, but she seemed to be more comfortable speaking honestly with him now than she had been in years.

"Maybe I didn't say it in so many words," she said, her voice soft, wistful, "but I did appreciate it, Derek.

I don't know if I could have handled it all without knowing you were nearby."

It pleased him to hear her say it, but he knew that with or without him, she would've made it through.

One of the things he loved best about her was her spine. Sure, she could be stubborn as hell—but she was loyal to the bone. Even when she shouldn't be. Sean had had her loyalty and he hadn't deserved it.

But Lily lived by her own code, as Derek had learned over the years. The core of her was solid steel.

She could bend when she had to, but she'd never break.

It had torn a hole in his heart, watching her struggle to take care of her practice, the dogs
and
Sean. But there'd been no stopping her. "Yeah, you would," he said. "You're the strongest woman I've ever known, Lily."

He wasn't insensitive. Sean's death had been goddamn hideously protracted. He'd been given six months, and had fooled the doctors by lasting three years. Derek knew it had been hell for the man he'd once thought of as a friend. That said, Sean had milked every step of his slow decline for everything it was worth. He had been neither brave nor stoic. And he'd dragged Lily down the painful path every step of the way.

She'd eventually become pale and drawn herself, tending Sean without a word of complaint. She'd never suggested by word or deed that she felt anything other than total devotion to her dying husband. Yet Derek was pretty damn sure that Lily must've been aware of Sean's transgressions, even that early on.

She was smart as a whip. How could she
not
have known about the other women?

The question was, had she continued to
love
Sean? Really love him, despite what she knew? He didn't think so, but how the hell could a man be sure? Still, it would've been hard for any woman to forgive the womanizing, the lies, the wheeling and dealing, if she'd known about any of that.

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Why hadn't she kicked the son of a bitch in the balls and walked away?

Because she was who she was, Derek thought with equal parts frustration and admiration. Lily was a loyal, strong woman who refused to shirk even the most ghastly of obligations once she'd made a commitment. Come hell or high water, she
would
stick out something like Sean's illness. To the bitter end.

If she'd been the kind of woman to skip out on Sean—even though he'd deserved it—she wouldn't have been the woman Derek loved.

That's what made her who she was. And as much as Derek wanted to shake her for wasting those years on a man who couldn't, didn't, appreciate her, he also had to admire the hell out of her for her unshakable loyalty.

And mingled with his admiration for her was an ache, a persistent yearning to be loved completely. By her.

"You know," Lily began, caution flags dangling off every syllable, "it would have been easy to turn my back on Sean. You, too. We have that in common."

"I wouldn't have left you to go it alone," Derek assured her. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind he wanted to make damned sure that Lily knew she had been and was his only concern.

"You helped make a horrible situation tolerable," she continued. "And it wasn't just Sean's illness. It was…"

"Was what?"

He heard her long sigh in his ear before she spoke. "Nothing. He was your friend and he's dead. Let's leave it at that."

While Derek had no intention of ever telling Lily the truth as he knew it about Sean—what was the point?—what she knew, if she knew anything, was enough. There was such a thing as overkill. No. He'd leave sleeping dogs to lie, as it were.

Lily was the kind of woman he needed. Unconditionally supportive, strong, independent. God only knew, his life wasn't normal. He needed a partner who could deal with his chosen profession. Cope with the separations and not being kept in the loop. Quite simply, Lily possessed everything he could ever want from a woman.

The one thing he knew Lily despised was being lied to. He was going to have to tell her about his association with T-FLAC. He'd left that disclosure too long alrea—"Jesus Christ!"

He and his team had been dropping gradually down toward the valley below and zigzagging through forest as he and Lily talked. Suddenly he was plunging down a very steep hill; directly in front of him was an unnecessary warning sign: dangerous trail conditions.

No shit. You'd have to be blind and stump stupid to miss the trail vanishing over the edge of the
cliff
.

Even Lily's warm laughter couldn't chase away the chill of foreboding as Derek stomped like hell on the brake and hung on for dear life.

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"Reached the entrance to Happy River steps, have you?" Amusement rang in her voice.

He grunted, said a quick, silent prayer, then proceeded carefully and gently over the lip to plunge diagonally down the face of an extremely—God Almighty—
extremely
steep slope. It took nerves of steel not to look over the drop.

"Stay in the ruts." Lily's voice was calm.

His heart pounded as badly as it had when faced with eleven fully armed tangos in a backstreet Bangkok alley. "No ruts to speak of," he told her flatly, pulling up on the dogs. There hadn't been enough teams over this trail yet to
make
any ruts.

"Keep the brake on," Lily told him, "and trust the dogs. They've done it before."

Hell,
he'd
done it before. Last year. But it still scared the bejesus out of him. Give him a lunatic terrorist armed to the teeth any day. Then, he could at least shoot back. Here all he could do was pray and hope his dogs were feeling confident and fleet of foot.