Out of Exile (10 page)

“Well, it's a damn shame that you'll miss the festivities.” They stepped up on the porch and Lilly held the front door so he could angle the ladder inside.

He carried it into the family room where April and Clara were waiting. “Anyplace is fine,” Lilly said and watched as he propped it up against one wall. “Thank you, Ned.”

“My pleasure,” he replied, then with a nod of his head to them all, he turned and left.

“He seems like a nice young man,” Aunt Clara said.

Lilly nodded, although she wondered if it had
been Ned who had stood in the trees the day before and tried to shoot them.

She had spent much of the night wondering who might want to harm her or Matthew. But no matter how often, no matter how fervently she'd turned it over in her mind, no answers had been forthcoming.

There was only one thing that was crystal clear in her mind, and that was the fact that she'd fallen in love with Matthew Delaney. And she didn't intend to do anything about that but run back to her home and her life in Dallas.

“Why don't we set up the ladder against that wall and I'll decorate the mantel,” April said.

Lilly moved the ladder to where she wanted it, but stopped April from climbing up it. “How about I do the high decorating. After all, I'm not the one who is pregnant.”

April laughed. “I'm not an invalid,” she protested. “Even though Mark has certainly started to treat me like one.”

Lilly smiled at her. “That's sweet.”

April smiled, a smile that reflected the love she felt for her husband. “Yes, it is sweet,” she agreed.

“It does my heart good to see Mark, Luke and Johnna all so happy with their spouses,” Aunt Clara said from her perch on the edge of the sofa. She was working to put together a honeycomb table decoration.

“They're tough, the Delaneys,” April replied. “All of them have a hard shell that tends to keep people at bay, but the people who manage to break through that shell are lucky, indeed.”

These words of April's haunted Lilly as they continued to work. It was just after noon when Aunt Clara announced that she intended to make the three of them lunch, and she disappeared into the kitchen, leaving April and Lilly alone.

“Mark told me what happened yesterday evening,” April said in a low voice.

“Thanks for not mentioning it in front of Aunt Clara,” Lilly replied. “I don't want to worry her.”

“You must have been terrified.” April sat on the sofa where Aunt Clara had been moments earlier.

Lilly sat next to her. “No more terrified than you must have been when Jacob Tilley's father was going to kill you and Mark.”

“Ah, so Matthew told you about that.” Her green eyes darkened. “Yes, that was absolutely horrifying. Walter Tilley's henchmen locked us up in a root cellar in the old barn. They were about to kill us when Matthew, Luke and Johnna showed up to save the day.”

She smiled. “But it wasn't all horrible. It was in that root cellar waiting for death that I realized just how much I love Mark.”

A universal experience, Lilly thought to herself. Apparently, when faced with your own mortality you had the ability to see the emotions otherwise denied or evaded. Just as April had discovered her love for Mark when faced with imminent death, so had Lilly discovered her love for Matthew when their lives had been threatened.

April reached out and touched the back of Lilly's hand. “You're in love with Matthew, aren't you?”

An instantaneous denial sprang to Lilly's lips but refused to take the form of a verbal reply. She looked down at her hands, then back at April. “I care about Matthew…deeply, but—”

“But he's a difficult man to love,” April said. “They all are difficult to love. You have to get through lots of layers of protection to get to the core of each of the Delaneys.” April shook her head. “Their father really did a number on them.”

“But Mark and Luke and Johnna all have managed to put their childhood and their pain in the past. I don't think Matthew has managed to do that. He seems so filled with…with anger.”

A crash from the kitchen halted the conversation. “Aunt Clara? Are you all right?” Lilly called.

There was no reply.

Lilly jumped up from the sofa, a sudden sense of dread rocketing through her. “Aunt Clara?” she cried out again, then raced for the kitchen, her heart banging frantically.

April followed behind Lilly, and as they entered the kitchen, both of them cried out in alarm as they saw the old woman crumpled on the floor, a broken plate nearby.

Terror shot through Lilly as she saw the woman she loved clutching her chest, pain torturing her features into a mask of fear.

“My heart,” Clara gasped breathlessly. “I-it's my heart.”

“Should I call for an ambulance?” April asked frantically.

Lilly made a split-second decision. “No, there's
no time. Just get a couple of men to help me carry her to my car,” Lilly replied, praying that she was making the right decision. “I've got to get her to the hospital.” Before the words were completely out of her mouth, April had left the kitchen.

“Hang on, Aunt Clara,” Lilly exclaimed and grabbed Clara's hand. “We're going to get you help. You just hang on.”

It took precious minutes for Eddie and Ned to carry Clara out to Lilly's car and gently deposit her in the back seat.

“Want me to go with you?” April asked.

Lilly started the engine with a roar. “No. Just tell Matthew we'll be at the hospital.” Without waiting for April's acknowledgment, Lilly yanked the car into gear and took off.

As she heard Aunt Clara's gasping breaths and moans of pain, Lilly felt as if she were having a heart attack, so deep was the pain and fear that coursed through her.

“Hang on, Aunt Clara,” she said, trying to keep the panic, the terror out of her voice. “Everything is going to be all right. Just try to relax and keep breathing.”

Lilly drove like a NASCAR racer, grateful that she encountered little traffic between the ranch and the hospital. With each moment that ticked by, she hoped she hadn't made a mistake in transporting the beloved woman herself.

She squealed to a halt at the emergency room entrance, grateful to see Dr. Howerton waiting for them.

“April called and told me you were coming,” he said curtly as Aunt Clara was gently loaded on a gurney. “I'll speak to you later in the waiting room.” He didn't wait for her reply, but instead hurried after his patient, leaving Lilly alone outside the emergency room doors.

For a long moment Lilly stood staring at the doors, blinking back tears as she thought of the woman who had given her life meaning, the woman who had loved her when nobody else had.

Lilly couldn't imagine her life without Clara in it. Clara had been her anchor, the family Lilly had never had.

For the first time in her life, Lilly was sorry for the solitary lifestyle she'd chosen. Never had she needed somebody to lean on, somebody to hold her as much as she did at this moment.

H
e found her in the waiting room, sitting alone in one of the cheap plastic chairs that lined the wall. Matthew had always thought of Lilly as energetic and vital, but at the moment she looked small and achingly vulnerable.

Her hands were folded in her lap and her eyes were closed, as if she were mentally sending prayers heavenward. “Lilly?” He spoke her name softly.

Her eyes opened and she launched herself up and out of the chair and directly into his arms. “Oh, Matthew,” she cried, burrowing her face into his neck. “I'm so glad you're here.”

As quickly as she'd thrown herself into his arms, she stepped away from him, her entire body emanating restless anxiety. “I've been waiting forever, but nobody will tell me anything. It's been too long. Something must be horribly wrong.”

Matthew reached out and took her hands in his, then led her back to the chairs where he forced her to sit next to him and released her hands. “Lilly, it hasn't been that long,” he said gently. “I came as soon as Eddie found me, which means it's been less than an hour.”

She slumped back in the chair, her eyes haunted and dark. “It feels like I've been sitting here waiting to hear something for an entire lifetime.”

“So what exactly happened? All April told me was that Clara had collapsed and you'd rushed her here.”

“I don't know.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, then refolded her hands in her lap. “April and I were in the family room and Aunt Clara had gone into the kitchen to see about some lunch. We heard a crash and ran in there and she was on the floor clutching her chest.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes as she stared at him. “She has to be all right, Matthew. She's all I have. She's all I've ever had.”

Matthew wanted to gather her into his arms, kiss away her tears, but at that moment Dr. Howerton entered the waiting room, his features grim as he faced them.

“How is she?” Lilly asked as she jumped up from her chair and faced the doctor.

“She had a heart attack, but we have her stabilized at the moment. We're running some tests on her now to give us some idea of what's going on with her heart. We'll have the results of those tests back within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“And then what?” Matthew asked.

“I've called in Dr. Winesburg from Tucson,” the doctor explained. “He's a heart specialist and should be here within the hour. He'll make the decision on what happens once we have the test results back.”

Dr. Howerton looked at Lilly sympathetically. “I'd suggest the two of you go over to the cafeteria, get some coffee or something to eat. It's going to be a while before we know exactly what's going on.”

“We'll just wait here until Dr. Winesburg arrives,” Lilly replied.

Dr. Howerton nodded. “We'll let you know what's going on as soon as we know.” With these words he disappeared back through the door through which he had come.

Matthew and Lilly sat once again. “She'll be all right,” Matthew said softly, trying to ease Lilly's fears. “She's strong and you got her here quickly.”

She nodded, but he could tell his words had done nothing to assuage her worry and fear.

Minutes ticked by, agonizingly slow. They remained sitting side-by-side but not speaking. Matthew knew that nothing he could say would help. Only the doctor could erase the lines of tension from Lilly's face. Only the doctor could take away the dark fear in her lovely eyes.

It was nearly an hour later when Dr. Winesburg came into the waiting room. The heart specialist was an older man with kind blue eyes and a head full of
white hair. He took Lilly's hands in his as he explained what they had found.

“Clara has a severe blockage of one of her arteries and we're going in to correct it.”

“You mean surgery?” Lilly asked in alarm.

“Yes. Without immediate surgery Clara is a time bomb. Another heart attack is certain to happen unless we do something to widen the artery and get blood flowing once again.” He released Lilly's hands.

“How dangerous is the surgery?” Lilly's voice trembled.

Dr. Winesburg smiled at her confidently. “It's a relatively simple procedure that I've done a thousand times before. She'll be in surgery for about two hours, and if all goes well she'll be able to go home within forty-eight hours.”

“Can we see her?” Lilly asked.

“For just a few minutes. We'll be taking her in for surgery shortly. She's in room ten—through the doors and down the hall on your left.”

Lilly reached for Matthew's hand, as if needing his support as they followed Dr. Wineburg's directions to Clara's room.

Matthew was shocked to see Clara lying so still, so pale in the large hospital bed that seemed to swallow her up. Lilly released his hand the moment they entered the room and rushed to Clara's side.

“Aunt Clara,” she said softly, and Clara fluttered her eyes opened.

“Ah, my precious Lilly,” Clara said. “I've given you a fright and I'm sorry.”

“Shh, don't you dare apologize,” Lilly exclaimed, and grabbed her hand.

“I guess they told you I'm going in for some surgery,” Clara said.

“Yes, and we just came in to tell you that we love you and Dr. Winesburg told us everything is going to be fine,” Lilly replied.

“Well, of course it is,” Clara replied. “Of course, he's probably going to make me change my diet, cut out everything that tastes good.”

She directed her gaze toward Matthew. “Dear Matthew, I'm so glad you're here.” She held out a hand toward him.

He hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and allowed Clara to grab his hand. As he gazed down at her, he felt the stir of the old resentment he'd always felt for her…a resentment tempered for the first time by a wave of something frighteningly soft and strange. Her hand was dry, the skin feeling paper thin.

“Matthew…I'm sorry,” Clara said, her gaze holding his intently. “Lilly told me about your father. I…I didn't know. Although I did worry… I did what I could, but it wasn't enough.”

Matthew patted her hand, discomfited by the pain that radiated from her pale-blue eyes, a pain he knew had nothing to do with her physical condition.

Again he felt a reemergence of old resentment. Why hadn't she been able to see that they had desperately needed help? On her infrequent visits to the ranch, why hadn't she recognized that the Delaney children were in fear of their very lives?

He pulled his hand from hers and instead stuck his hands in his pockets. “Why didn't you visit more often?” he asked, trying to keep his voice evenly modulated despite the emotion that suddenly swam inside of him.

Clara closed her eyes for a long moment, and when she opened them once again there were tears sparkling in the pale blue depths. “Adam made it quite clear I was never welcome there.” She paused a moment as if to catch her breath. “I…he frightened me. When we were young, he terrorized me so. He had such a mean streak in him.”

He fought to hang on to his anger, needing it, but he couldn't. Any anger he might have once felt toward her was gone beneath the realization that she'd been as afraid of his father as all of them had been.

Why had he expected any more of her than he had of himself? Of other adults? She had been a woman all alone. Why had he thought it was her duty to take on a mean, hateful man?

“I wasn't sure there was anything wrong and I prayed that Adam was a good father,” she continued. “I'd hoped he'd outgrown some of his meanness. But still I called Social Services several times. I wanted an investigation to set my own mind at ease.”

Again she paused a moment, as if fighting for the energy to continue speaking. “Your father was a powerful man with influential friends. I'm sorry, Matthew, I'm so sorry for letting you and the others down.”

“There's nothing to be sorry about,” he said. He
realized it must have been hell growing up with an older brother like Adam Delaney. Her childhood had probably been no better than the Delaney children's.

“And all you need to focus on is getting well.” With an impulse that surprised him, he leaned down and kissed her cheek, then stepped away from the bed.

At that moment the doctor came into the room and shooed them out. They returned to the waiting room and found it filled with Delaneys.

As Jerrod, Johnna, Mark, April, Luke and Abby all gathered around Lilly to learn about Clara's condition, Matthew stepped outside into the late-afternoon sunshine.

He walked over to a stone bench beneath a shade tree and sat down, his thoughts whirling.

The absence of any negative feelings for Clara surprised him. He'd wanted to make her a villain in his past, had needed somebody to blame for all the misery, all the pain they had endured. Aunt Clara had been an easy scapegoat, but she'd had no more power than the Delaney siblings had had.

She'd been a woman alone with no power or resources to help. If she'd attempted to step in the way of Adam, he would have crushed her beneath his heels.

He leaned forward and placed his head in his hands, hoping…praying that Clara would come through the surgery all right. She had to be all right, not so much for his sake, but for Lilly's, who loved her so.

“She's all I've ever had.” Those were the words
Lilly had said to him, her eyes filled with unshed tears. They were words that confused him.

According to what his father had told him, Lilly had had a family until she was sixteen, when they had been killed in a tragic car accident. So how could Lilly believe that Clara was all she'd ever had. She'd had a family until she'd been sixteen.

“Matthew.”

He looked up to see her approaching. She sat next to him, her gaze warm as she looked at him. “What are you doing out here?”

“Getting some air…thinking.”

“I want to thank you,” she said softly.

He frowned. “For what?”

“For being kind to Aunt Clara. For kissing her and letting her know you care.”

He drew a deep breath. “I've blamed her for years for not rescuing us from my father.”

“I have a feeling she underplayed the trauma of her childhood with your father.”

Matthew nodded, knowing she was probably right. He looked at Lilly curiously. “You mentioned earlier that Clara was all you had…all you've ever had. But weren't you sixteen when your parents died?”

This time it was her turn to look surprised. “Don't you know how I met your aunt?”

“I have no idea. My father told me your parents had been killed in a car accident when you were sixteen and Clara took you in.”

Lilly shook her head. “Aunt Clara was probably afraid to tell your father the truth.”

“And what is the truth?”

“The truth is I met your aunt when I'd just turned sixteen and I tried to snatch her purse on the street outside her house.”

She smiled at Matthew's stunned expression. “It's true. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, but I tried to grab her purse off her shoulder and run. Instead she grabbed hold of me and didn't let go.”

“Why were you trying to steal her purse?” he asked incredulously.

She leaned back and gazed off into the distance, her smile fading. “Because I'd been living on the streets for three weeks and I was hungrier than I'd ever been in my life.”

Matthew gazed at her in confusion. “I don't understand. Why were you living on the streets? Was this after your parents died in the accident?”

“No. That was just a story we made up,” she replied. When she turned to look at him again her eyes were dark…haunted. “You aren't the only one who didn't have such a terrific childhood. My parents were drug addicts, and my early childhood was nothing but chaos and uncertainty.”

Matthew was stunned by her disclosure.

“We moved around a lot because they often couldn't pay the rent,” she continued. “We spent the summer that I was six living in our car.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned back against the trunk of the tree behind them. “My father was a carpenter. He'd try to stay clean, get work, but those periods never lasted very long.”

“So what happened to them?” Matthew asked.

“I don't know. When I was eight years old we were living in a small apartment, and for the first time in a while life seemed sort of normal. I went to school one morning and when I came home that afternoon they were gone. They'd packed up and moved what little we owned and disappeared. A social worker was waiting for me.”

She closed her eyes, and Matthew knew she was remembering that day. He reached out and took her hand in his, wanting to comfort the little girl she had been—a little girl thrown away by her parents.

Her fingers curled around his, and when she opened her eyes tears glistened there. “I was sure they'd be back, that it was all some sort of a horrible mistake. I insisted the social worker sit with me on the stoop of the apartment building and wait for my parents to return. We sat there all night long. When morning came I knew they weren't coming back for me.”

Matthew placed an arm around her shoulder and drew her close against his side as she continued to speak. “I went into foster care after that. From the age of eight to sixteen I was in fourteen foster homes, then when I was sixteen I ran away.”

“Where did you go?”

She shrugged and leaned her head against his shoulder. “The mean streets of Dallas. I found an abandoned building and stayed in it for three weeks. I've never been so dirty…so hungry and so scared in my life. The best thing I ever did was try to steal Aunt Clara's purse. She grabbed me by the arms,
took me into her house and scrubbed and fed and loved me like I'd never been loved before.”

For a long moment neither of them spoke. Matthew silently tried to digest all that she had told him, imagining the pain of being abandoned and the fear of being alone. “Why didn't you tell me all this years ago?” he finally asked.