And during the last two weeks after Tash was in bed, there were three occasions when Lily asked Nate to go to the pub with her.
They quietly walked together down the sea path to her local. There, they sat outside by the sea, Nate drinking vodka and ice, Lily having a glass of white wine. Eventually, she’d lean into him and rest her head on his shoulder, his arm would slide around her and together they would watch the water. She didn’t ask probing questions, she didn’t demand details of his past. Often, something in her thoughts would make her sigh but he never asked her about it and she never offered any explanation. Other times she’d break the silence and tell him about her family, her father, her mother, her grandmother, her old limestone house. These stories could be sweet, they could be funny but always they were tinged with her grief.
After a few drinks, they’d walk slowly home, taking their time and holding hands, and he’d take Lily to bed and make even slower love to her.
After those three nights, Nate noticed he’d had the most restful nights of sleep he could remember and he could remember every night of his life.
Once, when he had work to go over, needing to make detailed notes before a meeting the next day, he’d stayed late in his study asking Lily, for the first time that he had been in Somerset, to let Tash read to her so he could finish.
In the wee hours of the morning, Lily came down and knocked on his door. When he called her in, she jumped up and sat on the side of his desk and began a sweet and strange interrogation, asking him questions about what he was doing and what his work involved.
He calmly, but not very informatively, answered. He had work to do, it was late, he wanted to finish and join her in bed and he knew she had to be in the shop early the next morning. He was trying to ignore the soft skin of her thigh that rested next to his forearm. He was trying to ignore when she’d lean forward and point at a graph on a document and ask a question, her cleavage bared to his view. He tried to ignore it when she regarded him levelly, her eyes warm, her thumb between her bared teeth, her mind obviously somewhere else, somewhere better as she watched his lips form brief words to answer her questions.
Eventually, she giggled, threw her hands in the air and stared for a moment at the ceiling. Then she jumped off the side of his desk, grabbed his wrist and held it out so she could slide into his lap.
Then she asked one final set of questions that swiftly ended the late night interrogation.
“What’s a girl have to do around here to seduce her fiancé? I mean, how obvious could I be? Should I do a striptease? Roll around on your desk naked?”
She didn’t finish, couldn’t, as his mouth cut off her words.
And she did end up on his desk naked but she didn’t have to roll around.
In their bedroom, with the entirety of both of their family next door, Nate’s hand drifted from her jaw to tuck her hair behind her ear.
“My favourite colour?” he repeated.
“Yes,
you
pick our wedding colours,” she demanded, her tone teasing.
“Lily, my favourite colour is red,” he told her, her eyes widened and she burst into laughter, her body pressing closer to his.
“Dracula’s wedding!” she shouted and Nate hoped Laura didn’t overhear, her heart would explode. “I love that! I’ll wear black with blood red petticoats and carry red roses and you can wear a tuxedo with one of those crosses at your neck. We’ll be the talk of the town.”
Nate smiled at her outrageous suggestion as she snuggled closer.
“I’d rather not,” he replied dryly.
“Me neither.” Her sexy, knowing smile was gone and her quirky grin was back. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing,” he replied. For some reason, her hilarity and the loss of that smile caused his curiosity to recede.
Her arms tightened around him and she kissed the underside of his chin.
Then she said, “Come on, Nate. You had something to ask?”
“It isn’t important.” He dropped his other arm to her waist but, to his surprise, she let out an exasperated noise, pulled away and then, sharply, she pushed him towards the bed with both her hands at his chest.
He didn’t move.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she planted one foot behind her and began to shove his chest with her full, leveraged weight behind her shove.
He still didn’t move.
She ignored his question and muttered to herself, “Forget it, you aren’t going to budge.” And then she stopped shoving and started to unbutton his shirt.
At her bizarre and unexplained behaviour, his voice was edgy and he grabbed both of her wrists.
“Lily, what in bloody hell are you doing?”
Her head came up and she leaned into him, ignoring his tone and allowing him to hold her wrists but now pressing her chest tantalisingly against his.
“I’m making you talk,” she explained with a jaunty grin.
“I’m sorry?”
Without warning, her head bent to the middle of his chest where she’d managed to get his shirt unbuttoned. He felt her tongue on his skin and fire swept through him.
He jerked her back by her wrists.
“Lily, Natasha is in the next room.”
Her grin turned devilish.
“Then you better talk quick before I ravish you.” She leaned in again and ran her lips along the underside of his jaw and he felt his body’s immediate reaction even as he bit back a smile.
“Ravish me?” he said, amusement in his voice.
His hands loosened on her wrists and she put them to good use, pulling his shirt free of his jeans.
“You think I can’t do it?” Her head came up with her challenge and the midnight had nearly taken over the pale blue of her eyes.
He slid his hand into her hair at the left side of her head and gently fisted it at the back to hold her face tilted to his. His head descended and softly, against her lips, he said, “Oh yes, darling, I think you can do it.”
He felt, rather than saw, her smile and that feeling stole through him roughly.
“Tell me why you wanted to talk to me,” she coaxed, her hands edging lightly up the skin of his back.
He wasn’t proof against her playful mood and he gave in. “Tell me why you were smiling.”
His eyes were less than an inch from hers and he saw hers turn confused as her brows knitted.
“I’m smiling because you just admitted I could ravish you –” she began.
He shook his head and kissed her lightly then let his lips slide down her cheek to her ear, “Before, in your office, when you saw me in the door.”
She moved back and looked at him, and there it was, that knowing look in her eye, the smile twitching her lips.
“That?” she asked.
He nodded. “That.”
The smile deepened and, if it was possible, her eyes warmed further.
The she explained. “Remember when we first met, after Victor brought me back to his house and I was coming down the stairs when the police were there?”
Of course he remembered. He remembered like it happened only an hour earlier.
“Yes.”
“Well, you were leaning against the wall like the hero in a romance novel then and you were doing it again just now. And I remembered when you did it then and how much… how you…” she stopped for some reason and started again, “how I so very much wanted you to notice me when I saw you leaning against the wall like a romantic hero. And, well, and then you did, er… notice me that is.”
Her comment took him outside the playful mood, her words shaking him and he stilled.
“I’m sorry?” he queried.
She smiled at him, her eyes both alluring and dancing. “You’re just like the hero in a romance novel. I should know, I’ve read
hundreds
of them. So has Maxie, you can ask her. I
promise
, she’ll agree with me.”
Before he could reply, she pulled away, brought her hands up between them and started counting things, things about him, things that made his stomach clench, his chest ache and his throat close.
At the same time he felt all this, conversely, he also felt like bursting into laughter.
“First, you are inconceivably,
impossibly
handsome,” she began, “and you
lean
very well.”
“I
lean
well?” he asked incredulously.
She nodded vigorously. “
Very
well,” she assured him as if leaning well was a trait akin to honesty, integrity, diplomacy and generosity all rolled into one. “And you’re tall and dark and narrow-hipped –”
“Narrow-what?” Nate interrupted her but Lily ignored his interruption.
“And you’re very clever, beyond clever, you’re brilliant. And you’re hard-working. You’re virile and fierce –”
“Lily –”
“And rugged –”
He couldn’t help himself, he started laughing.
Rugged?
“Lily –” He tried interrupting her again but she stopped ticking off her hilarious list and put her hands on either side of face and what she said next made all amusement flee.
“You’re everything I ever wanted. You’re exactly what I wished for when I was fourteen years old. Exactly. You can ask Fazire, I told him what I wanted and then, years later, there you were. And you were perfect. I knew it the minute I laid eyes on you. I knew who you were and I knew I wanted you and I knew you were
mine
.”
Nate stiffened, his body going stock-still, and he shook his head, pulling away from her, putting distance between them and he felt his shields go up. He didn’t put them up, they went up automatically.
Softly, as a warning, he told her, “You have no idea who I am.”
She didn’t allow him to retreat. She closed the distance and wrapped her arms around his waist, holding on tightly.
“I know
exactly
who you are.”
He shook his head again, once, a definite negative but she kept talking, this time her voice was fierce and there was an iron edging her words.
“You’re Nathaniel McAllister, you’re my lover, you’re the father of my child, you take care of your family, you’ll never let us go without again and you’ll never let me go again.” She flattened herself against him and lifted her lips against his. “Nate, you’re
mine, you
belong to me and I belong to
you
.”
He felt her words tear through him.
If she knew about him, her words wouldn’t be so fervent, so determined. He lifted his hands to either side of her face.
“You’re right, Lily, I’ll never let you go but you’ve no idea who I am.”
She kissed him silent and then said softly, “You can have your secrets, I don’t care about them. You can tell them or you can keep them. But Nate, I know who you are. I may just have learned your favourite colour but I
know
you’ll never let me hurt again. And you wouldn’t have done it before if you’d thought it was within your power.” Her gaze, which had been intent, lightened and she finished, “By the way, Jeff doesn’t lean. He slouches.”
At her quick change in topic, her tone moving from impassioned to playfully informative, unusually, Nate lost track of the conversation.
“I beg your pardon?”
On a wicked grin she said, “Jeff, your brother, he doesn’t lean like a sexy romantic hero, like
you
do. He
slouches
, like a snotty schoolboy.”
At that, Nate finally allowed himself to give into laughter, letting the rest of it go, burying it deep so after she knew, after she went away, he could take it out and savour it.
Snatching her to him, he threw his head back and roared with laughter, holding her close.
Nate, nor Lily, had any idea that the inhabitants of the room next door went silent and listened to him laugh. Two of them smiled. One of them giggled. The last scowled.
In their bedroom, Lily’s mouth against Nate’s neck, when he stopped laughing, she said quietly against his skin, “Something else you should know,
I’ll
never let
you
go either.”
And Nate felt her words were less words and more a vow and his arms tightened around her.
* * * * *
Now he was on his way home, to his most recent surprise, another day bringing him closer to the end, another day he had to relish as he waited for his good fortune to run out.
Lily & Fazire & Nate
“Daddeeee!” Tash yelled, and they heard her crashing through the house to get to the front door.
Lily was in the kitchen helping Fazire prepare dinner. At her daughter’s cry, she knew Nate was home. She knew this because Tash’s exuberant shout had become the nightly ritual upon Nate’s arrival home however tonight there was a bit more excitement behind the mad dash.
Lily’s eyes flew to Victor who was sitting at the kitchen table going through some papers.
It was Thursday, Victor and Laura weren’t due to visit until Saturday but Lily had recruited Victor in her latest strategy to get Nate to trust in her, in their family, in happiness.