Dashing Through the Snow (10 page)

Smith felt sweat bead on his forehead and
again wished he’d stayed in bed and waited patiently for his dad.
“You can do this,” he muttered.

Lily suddenly stopped crying. “Do what?” she
sniffled suspiciously as she looked up at him.

Smith tried not to let his panic show,
knowing if he did, it would only increase hers. He knelt beside her
in the sand and pushed her wet hair from her face. “Don’t cry,
Lily-bud,” he said as soothingly as he could. “I’m gonna help you,
but you haveta trust me, okay?” He made sure she was looking him in
the eye.

She nodded and held her ankle out to him.
Smith looked at the sole of her foot. At eight after watching
“Jaws,” he’d decided that he was going to be a marine biologist and
a Texas Ranger and now two years later after having read everything
he could get his hands on regarding the subject, he knew what he
was looking at, and he didn’t think it was good. His heart was
somehow lodged and beating in his throat now, but he gave her an
encouraging smile anyway. “You know what, Lily-bud, you were
absolutely right,” he tried to say in a bolstering voice to deflect
her worry. He reached for her towel. “You have been stung by a
jellyfish. You must be the smartest eight-year old girl I know --
”

“
Girl,” she emphasized between sniffles as
she knuckled the tears from her eyes. “I’m the smartest
girl
you know, period.”

Smith rolled his eyes, but looked up briefly
to smile at her. “Oh, right, my mistake. You are the smartest girl
I know.” Using the towel, he gently grasped one of the two coiled
stingers stuck in her foot. She flinched, but didn’t try to jerk
away from him. “That a girl, Lily. Almost done.” He pulled the last
one out and tossed the towel aside. “There.”

“
Are you finished?”

Smith looked over at her and winced,
knowing that what he had to do next would totally freak her out.
“Not quite, Lily,” he told her as he stood. “I got the nematocysts
out and that’s good, but there’s more. Now I don’t want you to go
bananas on me or anything—and keep in mind that if I don’t do this,
you could die,” he warned. “Do you hear me, Lily? Y
ou could totally and completely die
.”

Wordlessly, Lily nodded her head and Smith
thought that she was probably terrified. He knew she was when in a
tiny voice, she asked, “What do you haveta do, Smith?”

Smith cleared his throat. “I have to…well…I
haveta…ta…ta pee on ya.”

Lily’s eyes widened in her tear-stained face.
“You WHAT! Gross! I’d rather die!”

Embarrassed at the prospect of her seeing his
penis and just flat out stressed out from panic now because he knew
they were running out of time, Smith yelled, “Just shut up, Lily
and let me do it! If you die, don’t you understand that our parents
will kill us both? Now stick your damn foot out and let me pee on
it!”

Lily pouted and her eyes flashed angrily up
at him. “All right, but you just better pee on that one spot and
nowhere else! Do you hear?” She stuck her foot out.

“
This ain’t no target practice, you dumb
girl!” Smith yelled as he pulled his trunks down. “Now stop being
such a baby and hold your stinkin’ foot straight!”

But Lily’s attention was riveted on something
else entirely now. “Euww!” she moaned as she stared at his penis.
“I didn’t know pink could be so ugly!” she wailed with her head
thrown back. “I wish we’d never even come to Florida!”

“You intend to ignore me the entire walk
home, sweetness?” Smith asked after they’d gone a couple of blocks
without Lily having opened her mouth once. Things had gone exactly
as he’d figured they would at dinner. Lily had pretty much ignored
him unless it was a situation where she couldn’t without being
blatantly rude, and her mother and aunt had fussed over both of
them while her father had tried to browbeat, cajole and finally
downright bribe her into giving up her career.

Smith hadn’t expected to be able to try to
patch things up with her that night, but now that he had her alone,
and therefore a shot at it, he decided to take it. It became
imperative that he fix things with her when he’d walked in the
kitchen at the beginning of the night and she’d smiled at him. Then
he’d gotten a whiff of her as she’d brushed past him. He had no
idea what she was wearing, but whatever it was, mixed with her
chemistry, it had gone straight to his head – both of them. And
he’d realized, just as she sauntered her saucy ass right by him,
that she’d set him up and he’d grinned. He had to admire her style.
Sly and subversive it might be, but it was quick and clean. It
always had been.

“Oh, yeah, by the way, thanks so much for
throwing me under the bus so early in the evening -- you left me
standing there looking like a paganistic doofus. I had to promise
your mama a month of Sundays before she’d let up on me.”

He heard a low chuckle escape her throat and
then, “You deserved it.” A couple more beats of silence in the dark
night and finally, “Is that even a word?”

He grinned. “What? Paganistic?” When she
nodded without looking at him, he said, “I don’t know, but if it
isn’t, it should be. It just about describes how I felt standing
there trying to come off as a repenter while Aunt Glenda peppered
me with all her questions.”

He heard her chuckle again, as if she
couldn’t help it. “Again: don’t think that’s a word.”

“Don’t like ‘repenter,’ hey? How about
‘Penitente’?”

Lily snorted. “You’re not Spanish and if
you’ve
ever flagellated or tortured yourself, I’ll take my
top three favorite outfits of my entire wardrobe over to Goodwill
tomorrow.”

Smith laughed and put a hand to his heart.
“Ah, you wound me. Skepticism, thy name is Lily.”

She snorted again. “Whatever.”

The next block was walked in silence, but it
was much more companionable than it had been before. “Are you ever
going to forgive me, Lily?” Smith asked quietly.

Lily was quiet for another half a block and
at first he thought she wouldn’t answer and then he heard her speak
in a soft tone that was filled with uncertainty. “I don’t know. It
depends on your explanation, I guess. I mean, were you suddenly
called to war? Or, I know! You’re a CIA operative and they needed
you immediately, so naturally you couldn’t tell me anything before
you left -- not even goodbye.”

Smith grimaced. “No, I’m afraid my reason
isn’t anything that good. Are you ready to listen to my explanation
anyway? It’s not a very good one, I admit, but it’s the truth and
worth hearing, I think.”

“All right, then,” she said after taking a
deep breath, “Explain.”

“Well, the plain fact is that I was scared.
You terrified me, Lily.”

Lily stopped and turned to look at him. “I
did?”

He could tell that the thought pleased her
and he frowned, using his free hand to playfully yank on her single
French braid. “Yes, but it doesn’t call for celebration.”

Lily didn’t even bother to hide her grin as
she looked away from him. “We’re about a block away from my
grandmother’s house. Let’s just go inside and talk where it’s nice
and warm. I’m freezing.”

Smith followed her into the house like a dead
man walking. “You know where the kitchen is, Smith,” Lily said as
she hung up their coats. “Do you mind putting my portion of the
food away while I use the bathroom?”

Her huge smile had him scowling. “No, not at
all,” he grumbled as he stalked to the kitchen.

“All right,” Lily said when they were both
seated on the sofa. She’d made a pot of coffee and Smith took a
bracing sip as he stared into her face, a face that showed signs of
being all-too eager to hear his explanation.

The flavor of the coffee hit his taste buds
and he blanched and spit the coffee back in the cup. “What the hell
kind of poisonous concoction is this?”

Lily’s lips twitched in humor, but she only
sniffed and said, “You obviously have no taste for the finer things
in life, cowboy. It’s blueberry whip.”

“Why would anyone want to fuck up a decent
cup of coffee by adding fruit to it? Jesus,” he said in disgust
before putting the cup down.

“Anyway,” Lily said. “Get on with your story
about how little ole delicate me terrifies big, strong scruffy you.
I’m just
dying
to hear the rest of it.”

“You keep making cracks like that and you
won’t hear a blasted thing,” Smith warned her. But as he stared
into her tawny eyes that were soft and friendly with teasing, he
knew he would quite possibly tell her anything she wanted to
hear.

“Smith?”

He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his
chin. “All right. I’m sorry for leaving you that morning without
saying anything. It was the most immature and irresponsible thing
I’d done in my adult life up to that point and I regret it to this
day. Do you believe me?”

Lily nodded. “Yes.”

“It’s hard to explain, but when I woke up
with you in my arms the next morning after we’d spent the entire
night making love, I felt damned good, but it wasn’t long before
the guilt crept in, and soon after that, fear. I couldn’t get my
gear together fast enough to get out of there. And all the while, I
was praying you wouldn’t wake up.”

Lily was frowning in confusion. “First help
me to understand about the guilt, and then we’ll tackle the
fear.”

Smith shook his head. “Really? You really
need me to explain about the guilt?” When she just lifted her brow
at him, he took that as a yes. “Aw, come on, sweetness. You know
how things were between us. I was supposed to take care of you –
that had been my duty since the age of two. I felt horrible. My
parents, your parents and all of the cousins would have killed me
had they known what I’d done. I was supposed to protect you from
guys like me. Taking care of you does not mean screwing your brains
out all night. ”

“It
did
to me,” Lily muttered around a
snort. “
What?
” she asked when he looked at her in shock. “At
the time, it did. Shoooo… I was horny,” she insisted and then burst
into laughter when he continued to look at her as if he had no idea
who she was.

Scowling, Smith just stared at her with his
arms crossed, and one look at him in that state sent Lily into more
gales of laughter. Holding her stomach now because she was laughing
so hard, she fell back against the sofa.

Looking at her, Smith felt his lips twitching
and finally he chuckled.

“Good,” Lily said as she sat up and wiped her
eyes. “Glad to see you still have a sense of humor. I’m not a
child, Smith, and I wasn’t then when you blew into town for the one
night. I have my needs just like everyone else does. As much as my
family would like it to be true, I’m not some fragile innocent who
needs to be locked away from the world. It’s surprising to me that
I have to explain that to you because at one point, you knew me
better than anyone.”

Smith winced at the disappointment he saw in
her eyes. “Yeah, I know, but you remember what it was like when we
were growing up. You were to be taken care of and protected. Hell,
Lily, you were a pampered princess.”

She smiled in confirmation. “I was, wasn’t I?
But I grew up, Smith, and I can take care of myself. Any pampering
that I need, I provide.”

Smith let out a sound of disbelief. “Shit,
you’re still spoiled by the family. It was in full evidence at
dinner tonight.”

Lily nodded. “Maybe, but the difference is I
can accept or reject it now, whereas before I didn’t have a choice
and the pampering bordered on smothering.” She put her coffee down
and sat back. “But that’s enough about me, let’s talk some more
about me.” Her grin held nothing but pure delight. “Why were you
afraid of me and just how scared were you?”

Smith guffawed. “Oh, yeah, like your ego
really needs to hear it.”

Lily scooted closer to him, grabbed his hand
between both of hers and fluttered her lashes at him, just as she’d
done when she was a little girl and wanted to wheedle something out
of him. “Come on, cowboy, pleeeaaase. You know you want to.”

Well, we’re not kids anymore, Smith reflected
as everything about her invaded his senses. Things are different
now. No shit, he thought when he looked into her eyes. I’m much,
much weaker. He wanted her so badly, but didn’t dare touch her.
Lily was the marrying kind. Not that he wasn’t, he just wasn’t
right now. But he knew if any woman could change his mind, it would
be Lily and she wouldn’t have to try very hard, either. He’d known
that four years ago with a sudden clarity and it hadn’t gotten at
all murky in the time since.

“Ease off, Lily, will ya? For both our
sakes.” Smith broke from her hold and stood, slipping his hands in
his back pockets to keep himself from snatching her up.

Lily only smiled. “It’s fine if you don’t
want to tell me. I have a general idea.”

Staring at her as she sat there all languid,
and looking like the cat that ate the canary
and
swallowed
the cream to choke it down, Smith couldn’t help but smile. He shook
his head and laughed under his breath. “Damn, Lily, you sure did
grow up nice,” he said in a quiet voice and with an intensity that
came straight from the gut. And just like that, the room was filled
with a thick, heavy tension, all of it sexual.

Lily’s gaze faltered and then fell shyly to
her lap. He watched as she pulled her legs up and folded her arms
around her upraised knees. She then pushed a lock of escaped hair
behind her ear, and he realized that though it hadn’t been his
intent, he was making her just as nervous as she was making him.
“Look at me, sweetness,” he commanded in a hushed tone.

“Cette
nuit
nous avons eu
ensemble
a été
incroyable,
” he said with
feeling once she’d lifted her gaze to look at him.