Cherry Adair - T-flac 06 (43 page)

"I want you to go and get yourself a shingle and start practicing for real.
You
seem to believe the nonsense you're telling me."

"Haven't you wondered why it is you refuse to believe how much I care for you?" He shook his head when she didn't answer, fury and frustration vying for first place. Infuriatingly stubborn woman. "You won't risk all we can have because you think that like everyone else in your life you've loved, I'll walk.

Isn't that right?"

She turned her head on the pillow and closed her eyes. Closed him out.

He ached to go to her, to grab her up and shake some sense into her. To hold her in his arms and assure her that he was in it for the long haul. The hard metal doorknob bit into his fingers as he clenched his hand around it.

This was something Lily was going to have to figure out on her own. For once the sheer force of his will wasn't going to fix it. He swallowed regret, and felt the sting of disappointment blur his vision.

Battle forfeited. But he hadn't lost the war.

"I'll send someone to get you when we're ready to leave." He shut the door quietly behind him.

Damn it to hell.

Twenty

"Your problem is, you bought into Sean's bullshit and lies instead of trusting Derek," Matt told Lily, bringing two mugs of his truly awful coffee to her as she sat at his kitchen table on a bleak Friday night.

It was more than a week after they'd returned home, and Lily felt as though someone had performed open heart surgery on her with a dull spoon. And forgotten to close.

"What's this? A very lame attempt to apply theories you learned in ten weeks of Psych 101?" She took a gulp of scalding-hot coffee and pulled a face. "Ew! How can anyone screw up with a Mr. Coffee?"

"How can anyone screw up when a decent guy loves her?"

"I know he
wants
me." She turned the mug in the wet ring on the Formica table, before looking up at her brother with a scowl. "As your older sister, that's not even
close
to the same thing."

Matt seated himself opposite her and shook his head. "Listen to yourself, for God's sake, Lily. You're splitting nonexistent hairs. The man's clearly nuts about you. Shit, I'm just nuts trying to get through to you. I'm a guy. If I can see it, why can't you?"

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"Because you are a guy," Lily told him dryly. "It's that whole Mars-Venus thing."

"It's the whole Sean bullcrapola thing. That slugbelly never told a word of truth in his miserable life. I can't begin to understand why, knowing what he was, you'd believed
him
and not Derek."

"I don't," Lily said quietly, feeling miserable down to her toes. "I don't believe the things Sean told me about Derek, but if I let go of that illusion—"

"What? What'll happen if you allow yourself the happiness Derek so clearly wants to give you?"

"Shit, you're like a pane of glass," her brother said, clearly exasperated. "Not to be confused with a
pain
in the ass
, which is also true. You keep wondering if he's going to let you down—note, I said
if
, not even
when
, right?" He shook his head, gulped coffee and grimaced as he slammed down his mug. "You think he'll do what Sean did and cheat on you. You think if you give him all you've got he'll eventually walk away and leave you with nothing in reserve. Admit it."

Lily stared at this brother of her heart. "Yes," she whispered, chest aching. "That's exactly what I think."

She rubbed the ache behind her eyes. "No—Okay. No. That's
not
what I—Damn it. I don't know what to think anymore."

"Well, start thinking something," he said with brotherly candor. "Because we guys have fragile egos—we can only stand to hear so many no's before we turn tail and run like hell."

"My point exactly."

Matt rolled his eyes and pushed off the table with both hands. "Want some brandy with that?"

"No."

"Good thing. I don't have any." He fell back into his seat. "You drive a sane man to drink."

"Sorry." Lily's throat ached and her chest felt tight. "How can I make my head believe my heart, Matt?"

she asked achingly. "How can I make myself trust on just blind faith that he won't break my heart?"

"How's that heart feel right now?" he asked quietly.

"Point taken."

He rolled his eyes. "I rest my case. There's a cure."

"But what if it's a case of what doesn't cure me will kill me?"

"And what if it's the best damn thing to happen to you? Prepared to risk never knowi—"

Her phone rang. She whipped it out of her breast pocket so fast she almost got whiplash.
Derek
—

"Derek?" Matt asked as Lily read the text message.

She shook her head. On the Wrights' plane, coming back home, she'd told Derek she needed space.

Time to think. It was hell getting what she'd asked for. "Joe. He needs help with a cow's early delivery.

Back to normal." She rose from the table and carried her mug to the sink and dumped out the coffee.

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"Thanks for dinner and the pep talk." She walked back, leaned over and kissed the top of Matt's head.

"You're a good brother."

"If I was that good you'd listen to me." He rose to hug her. "Don't give up everything because you're afraid, Lily. Some things are worth fighting for. And some things have just got to be taken on faith alone."

Faith, Lily thought, pulling her truck up outside the barn. Her heart, her body, her soul, had faith in Derek. It was her damn brain she was having a problem with. And even that was yearning to take the leap. Unfortunately, there was a last, infinitesimal part of her that held her back.

She tugged her knit cap down over her ears and unsnapped her seat belt, staring off into the darkness.

How could a broken heart feel worse than this? How could she possibly miss Derek more than she did right now? How could the pain of being without him from now on be as bad as the pain of having him and losing him?

"And when," Lily said out loud, exasperated with herself, "will I know?
How
will I know? How do I make that leap?" She grabbed her medical bag from the seat beside her. When that door had closed behind him in the hospital up in Nome, she thought her heart would stop beating. For a full five minutes she'd stared at the closed door, praying for it to open, feeling as though the air was being sucked from the room. Sucked from her life.

The truck door pinged when she opened it. And sitting here, half in and half out of the truck, wasn't going to resolve that part of her life. She stepped out onto the snow-crusted ground. She had a patient waiting. One thing at a time.

Back to normal. But nothing
felt
normal anymore. In fact, being back home felt weird. The trip to Alaska, and her experiences there, had knocked her world off its axis. Her life just didn't seem to quite
fit
anymore. She slammed the truck door and ran to the barn through a flurry of snow. A week ago she would've felt the chill in the air; not now. Now she knew what real cold felt like.

She ignored the square amber glow of light coming from the main house's kitchen a few hundred feet away.

Even from out here, she could hear the raised voices and laughter from Derek's friends and family, probably gathered around the kitchen table to enjoy coffee after one of Annie's excellent suppers.

To be fair, she'd been invited. She'd been included in the various activities of Derek's family all week.

She'd been far too busy to attend any of them. And even though it killed her to say no, it was better this way. A clean cut was easier to stitch, quicker to heal.

Better to get back to normal as quickly as possible. Maybe someday normal wouldn't feel weird anymore. Maybe then her memories of this past Iditarod would be wiped out and replaced by different memories.

Better to be content with what she had, Lily decided, rather than miss what she didn't. But oh, God, how she missed Derek.

Instead of lingering outside between the house and the barn like the Little Match Girl, Lily tugged at the barn door with both hands. The door was locked. "Geez, Joe!" She pounded a couple of times. No
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answer. Tugging up her collar, she started walking around to the other side of the enormous structure, wishing she'd grabbed her flashlight from the glove box.

She'd attend Derek's father's wedding in a couple of days because it would be rude not to, and she'd make sure she didn't stand too close to Derek. Didn't look into his eyes. Didn't smell his familiar, know-it-in-the-dark fragrance. She'd hear him talk, but she wouldn't listen to the timbre of his voice. And she would
not
touch him. Under any circumstances, Lily promised her heart, she would absolutely, positively not touch him. She wouldn't get close, because one touch from him would make her melt like snow in a microwave oven. And after his father's wedding—she wasn't sure.

So much had happened recently. Even the race had been anticlimactic. It had felt odd not finishing. Odd driving through Nome in the wrong direction, and seeing the crowds waiting for the first team to ride under the banner, through the rearview mirror.

Still, parts of the journey had been breathlessly exciting as well. Derek kissing her. Derek making love to her. Sharing a sleeping bag. Hearing his voice in her ear for mile after mile. Defusing a bomb and landing a plane had just been the cherry on the sundae. But during that time with Derek, she'd learned something—not just that she loved the man, which she hadn't expected at all, but that she was more
fearless
than she'd ever guessed.

She'd defused a
bomb
, for Pete's sake.

She'd landed a
plane
.

And she'd fallen in love with a man who was probably destined to break her heart without even trying.

She shook her head at herself as she pulled open the enormous barn door and slipped inside, inhaling the familiar fragrances that never failed to ground her. Animal and straw. This,
this
is what she'd miss if she left Montana. She was doing a job she loved, which was more than most people could say. Surely, she told her aching heart, surely this would eventually become enough.

Lily stripped off her coat, hat and scarf, and called out, "Hey, Joe? I'm here. Front door's locked."

"In back," he called, sounding worried.

Lily hastened her steps, boots crunching in the straw as she followed his voice to a back stall. "What's the prob—Don?"

She saw Don Singleton first, simply because he was the only face she recognized. Lily looked around uncomprehendingly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Joe lying on his stomach against the far wall.

Dead or alive?
He
hadn't called to her.

"
Run
, for chrissake!" Don yelled, struggling in the hold of a man as big as a sumo wrestler.

The stall was filled with men. "What on earth—" Her words ended in a scream as a beefy arm, coming out of nowhere, wrapped about her throat from behind and pulled her half off her feet. Her medical bag thudded to the floor.

The arm around her throat tightened and Lily was pulled hard against the person behind her. She made a sound like a cat with a hairball, and grabbed the beefy forearm with both hands, trying to yank it from her neck as she choked. Instead of loosening his grip, the man held her more tightly, cutting off her air. She
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gagged again.

Another man stepped out of the shadows. "Give the good doctor a little more air, Serg." The arm loosened fractionally, and light-headed, Lily sucked in a gulp of oxygen. "Good evening, Dr. Munroe."

She had no idea who he was; she'd never seen him before in her life. She noted he was medium height.

Solid build. Eastern European accent. And most important, he had a handgun. A
large
handgun. Pointed right at her.

Lily's blood ran cold. Lord, the thing was looking bigger every second. One shot from it and she'd be nothing but a messy spot on the straw at his feet. She didn't think there'd be time to feel any pain. Small comfort.

She struggled against the stranglehold around her neck. "Let me go this instant. Who the hell are you gu—Oh my God!" At a nod from the man with the gun, the sumo wrestler behind Don reached up and casually slit his throat. Horrified, unbelieving, Lily stared as, eyes open and startled, Don crumpled to the straw. Blood pumped from the obscene wound in his neck. Her gaze darted to the man in charge. The man whose gun didn't waver by so much as a hair. Bathed in a cold sweat, Lily felt her heart jerk and stutter as he stepped closer.

"He served his purpose by leading us here. Now I have a small request of
you
, Dr. Munroe."

"I'm not doing you any favors if that's how you repay them," Lily snapped, mouth dry. She stuck her hand in her hip pocket.

The gun jerked as he said impatiently, "Please to remove your hand from your pocket, Doctor."

"Sorry," she muttered, buying time and not immediately following his command, feeling for the flat little numbers on her cell phone. "I'm going to do exactly what you want. Look, I'm scared." Fear could actually
focus
the mind, she thought. And besides, once you've stared down a bomb, the muzzle of a pointed pistol just didn't have the same impact.

She pushed what she hoped was number one on her speed dial. "See, no problem here, just emptying my pockets to show you all I have is chewing gum." She pulled her hand out, palms facing outward, gum clutched in one of them in what she hoped was a conciliatory gesture.

"See how cooperative I am? There's no need for any more bloodshed. Want some?" She offered a stick of gum. Keep him talking, and hope that Derek picks up his phone in the middle of supper with his family. Pray he hadn't left his cell upstairs, or in the car or—