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“Lillian!”
Getting to his feet, Mitchell throttled back his volatile reaction to seeing Lillian’s face go chalk-white and her eyes glaze with such a look of torment he could feel her distress. She rallied as fast as she’d shaken him with the knowledge that bastard had done more than strike her. She started to get up and he held out his hand. “Give me your hand.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Damn it.” Grasping her arms, he lifted her up, his efforts earning him a glare out of those dark eyes. “Yes, you do, whether you want to admit it or not.” As much as her intrusion on his privacy frustrated him, he once again found himself admiring her gumption as she shoved back whatever memory he’d triggered that had wiped the mirth off her face.
Lillian pulled away and he released her, his own thoughts as jumbled as hers appeared to be. Mitchell didn’t want to involve himself in whatever trouble she was running from but couldn’t deny the desire to see her face infused with pleasure just once before they went their separate ways. It wouldn’t change the harm done to her, but it sure as hell would make him feel better, and her too for a short time.
“I think I’ll listen to you and get back inside.”
With some difficulty, he refrained from telling her to sit in front of the fire until her hair dried. “I’ll be in shortly.” He waited until the door closed behind her to retrieve his coat and gather up an armful of chopped wood.
Mitchell had been reminiscing about the long weekends he and Abbie had enjoyed at their mountain cabin back in Colorado when Lillian startled him with that first snowball. The unexpected cold splat jerked him back from the heated memory of restraining his naked wife to a tree one summer afternoon in the secluded copse of their private retreat and the way her soft cries would echo on the fresh mountain air. Lillian’s amused defiance when he’d ordered her to stop and go back inside had shaken loose his ire, the impish look on her face and sparking in her eyes preferable to the desolation, pain or simmering anger she’d been portraying.
Too bad his attempt to playfully show her who held the upper hand had triggered a memory that wiped off her engaging smile. He craved five minutes with the man who had tormented her, the strangling tentacles of his rage on her behalf unlike anything he’d experienced before. The cases of abuse that had come through the trauma center in Denver had stirred his pity and anger, but Lillian’s grit and determination in the wake of her trauma punched both those emotions up a notch. Considering that, he thought it was a good thing they would go their separate ways tomorrow.
Mitchell used his elbow to unlatch the door and shoved it open with his shoulder. Kicking it shut behind him, he turned with his load toward the fireplace and saw Lillian sitting on the hearth, the soft amber glow from the sizzling embers highlighting the dark burgundy of her shoulder-length hair. At least the stirring of lust he felt when she lifted her head and gave him a bland look was a familiar reaction he could accept much easier than what her expression lying under him in the snow had conjured up.
Dropping the logs except the bottom two into the bin, he said, “If you’ll move aside for a minute, I’ll stoke the fire.”
“Sure. My hair’s dry, so I don’t need to sit this close anymore. Do you mind if I raid your food supply and come up with something for dinner? It would give me something to do.”
“Knock yourself out, but I only stock the basics, some frozen hamburger and canned goods.”
He listened to her rummaging as he got the fire up and going again and then spotted the notebook he gave her sitting on the end of the hearth. Picking it up, he flipped through it, gazing at the three pictures drawn with a talented hand. The woman in all three appeared to be Lillian until he looked closer at the details of her face. The nose was slightly off with a small bump, the eyes were the same oval shape but Lillian’s lower lip was fuller than the woman in the pictures, and this woman’s hair curled under her chin instead of hanging down her back.
Because of the resemblance, he assumed the drawing depicted a family member.
“Who is this?” He held up the top sketch as she peered around from searching an upper cupboard.
Lillian’s slender body went rigid, her jaw tightening and her eyes filling with sorrow and then narrowing to slits. He stayed patient while waiting for her to answer, which she did after several moments of tense silence between them.
“My twin sister. Does chili work for you?” She turned away from him and lifted down two cans of beans.
“Sounds good. You’re an excellent artist. Will your supplies be okay sitting out there in these temperatures?”
“No. I’ll have to replace my paints. I need a big pot.”
Setting the tablet on the table, he walked over and pulled a large pan from under the sink and placed it on the burner before getting nosy again. “What happened to her?”
“She died,” Lillian returned, her clipped voice conveying both grief and anger. “Unless you want to chop onion, leave me alone to get this going.”
“I’ll pass. That way you can blame your tears on the vegetable.”
Lillian blinked away the watery sheen in her eyes, gritting her teeth to keep from railing at him and his inquisitiveness. She owed him for helping her, but not enough to give him more details about the circumstances leading up to Liana’s passing. She didn’t need anyone judging her for giving in to Brad’s blackmail.
They settled into a companionable silence with him relaxing in the recliner with a book while she browned hamburger with onions and then stirred in the beans. As it simmered, she returned to the table to sketch another picture, this one of Mitchell with the glow of the blazing fire behind him. If she had her colored drawing pencils, she would shade the right side of his rugged face with a yellow tint. She eyed the mix of grey and black coloring of his hair and goatee, wondering about his age. The small lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes could be from squinting against the sun since she doubted they were laugh lines. She’d caught the same bleakness crossing his face she’d lived with since losing her twin but didn’t care to delve into his personal issues any more than she wanted him inquiring about hers.
“What do you want to ask me, pet?” Mitchell looked up from his book and nailed her with one of those probing stares that never failed to shake loose something inside her.
Ignoring the undesirable response, Lillian scowled. “Do you call me that just to annoy me?”
“Partly. Now, ask.”
She couldn’t fault him for being honest even if the continued use of the generic endearment grated on her nerves. “I was wondering about your age.” Waving a hand toward his head, she said, “Your hair color on a woman would make her look older, but on men it’s deceiving.”
“I’m forty-two and the premature gray runs in my family.”
