AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 6
Lilly had lied.
When Alec found her sitting on the floor, she hadn’t been fabulous or anything close to fine.
The explosive sound, the breaking glass, the shouts had sent her into an instant mental tailspin. Before Alec had even left her side she’d retreated inside her head and became once again that little kid who locked herself into the hall closet while her aunt and uncle’s “passion” raged on.
Not until Alec returned had she realized that the space surrounding her had cleared of other people. Not until he lifted her onto his lap and wrapped her in his warm arms had she breathed easy.
Everybody had their little quirks, she consoled herself.
“What happened?” she asked him now, sounding drowsy. A lethargy was overtaking her body as adrenaline seeped from her system.
His voice rumbled in his chest and was a deep hum against her body. “Nothing dire. A vehicle ran into a transformer and the power’s out.”
“Everywhere?” Her heart sped up again at the thought she’d have to spend the night without light. Even the closet had not been completely impenetrable. A crack at the bottom of the door had been enough to illuminate the scruffy toes of her sneakers as she sat curled in the cramped, dusty-smelling space.
“No,” Alec said, and he lifted one hand to smooth her hair from her face, a gesture both soothing and intimate. “But even if it was, we’d get your cell phone back and scare up a few flashlights.”
“Right.” No need to panic. Again.
“What about you, Lilly?” he asked quietly. “What happened to you?”
She held herself very still. “I told you about my bad sense of direction. When I heard the explosion, the screams, the breaking glass, I just sort of…got lost.”
“My question wasn’t about tonight, Lily.”
Her heart started thumping madly. He’d sensed there was something more complicated behind her reaction. Her face burned with shame and she fought the urge to bend into herself like a pill bug, protecting her sensitive underbelly.
“I-I don’t know what you mean,” she finally managed to croak out.
“Okay,” he said, stroking her hair from her forehead again. “It’s okay, Lilly. You don’t have to answer.”
Letting her head fall to his shoulder, she allowed her tense limbs to relax again. He continued the soothing caresses, the silence between them a balm to the last of her tattered nerves.
Lassitude swept her again and an odd thought drifted into her brain. What if she told him? What if she explained about being abandoned by her mother and about her aunt and uncle and the defect in her bloodline?
This is how Durands love.
“Are you going to take a nap on me?” he asked, his voice amused.
“Maybe,” she admitted, trying to ignore the temptation to let down her guard and tell Alec everything she kept behind her wire-wrapped heart. Audra knew the basic details, but Lily had never told those to any man and even her best friend didn’t know how it felt to have such a tenuous hold on survival.
As far back as she remembered, her aunt and uncle had threatened to kick her out of their apartment, or worse, pack up and leave and not take her with them.
To her despair, those experiences had only served to feed her most private, unspoken, and deep-set need for roots and real family, even as she knew she didn’t have the tools or the bravery to try and satisfy it. If you didn’t strive for something, it wouldn’t hurt when you failed to achieve it.
Once she’d met Audra, Lilly had lived in the Montgomery orbit, trying not to take up too much space, but basking in the outer edges of the sunshine they created as a unit.
The Thatchers radiated that same nourishing warmth, she thought. Stability. Security. Which meant Alec would never understand her or her situation and he’d likely offer up in return an embarrassed pity if she told him about it. People like him didn’t want to know there was ugliness and upset in the world. He would resent her for lifting the screen.
She stirred in the warm cup of his big body, thinking that he couldn’t be comfortable, and knowing she’d have to exit the comfort of his arms at some point. “I’m too heavy,” she said.
