Till There Was You (21 page)

Running his fingers over their smiling faces, frozen in a moment from happier times, Linc let out a stuttered breath. He felt so...betrayed. His body shook. His head throbbed in time with his heart. This was unforgivable.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but it was only when Lily walked into the room wrapped in a towel that the natural flow of time returned for him.

“Oh no,” Lily gasped, her face registering confusion then horror as she glanced from him to the open folder on the table. Starting to step toward him, she stopped suddenly when Linc raised his hand and motioned for her to halt.

“You went behind my back,” he said, his voice dark and cold as he sifted through the papers.

“No, Linc,” she argued, trying to keep her voice calm as she moved around him like he was some kind of wild animal that needed subduing.

Linc’s blood boiled with his outrage. “You. Went. Behind. My. Back!” he yelled, stabbing a finger at the folder as he glared at Lily.

“It’s not what you think, Linc.”

“Really? This is
my life
, Lily! Spread out pretty fucking specifically in high definition.” His voice grew louder as his hands balled into fists, the tendons in his neck straining. Lily’s eyes widened as she held her hands up, still trying to approach him.

“I haven’t read any of it, I promise you. I told Matt I didn’t even want it,” she pleaded.

“
Then why is it fucking here!”
he roared, his chest heaving, his world shifting from side to side. He couldn’t be there anymore. “Fuck this shit,” he spat, stuffing the file under his arm with the journals as he headed for the door. He needed air. He needed space. He needed to be anywhere but there.

“Linc, wait. Please, just give me a chance to explain,” Lily cried, her voice high and panicked as she followed him to the door.

“There’s nothing to explain.” His voice turned cold as he felt the hard walls he’d used to control his emotions shift back into place.

“At least let me get dressed and I’ll drive you. You can’t go out in this storm.”

“Fuck the storm, and fuck you, too.” He wrenched the door open, the wind blowing in, bringing with it rain and debris.

“Please, Linc. You’ll catch your death out there. Just stop for a minute and talk to me—you don’t even have your shoes on!”

Uncaring, Linc stepped out into the storm. “I’ve dealt with worse,” he yelled over the wind, releasing his hold on the file so the wind blew the contents right back at her, causing pages to plaster against her chest and wrap around her legs.  “Read the fucking file. You’ll know everything about me then.”

“I don’t care about the files,” she yelled after him, pulling the wet paper from her body and dropping it to the floor.

“Fuck. You,” he yelled. Then he broke into a run.

“Linc,
please!
” she screamed after him, but her voice faded into the noise of the storm as it quickly embraced him as its own, its wild winds matching the storm raging inside his heart.

He’d trusted her, and she’d crossed the line.

Letting her in had been a huge mistake.

––––––––

T
he storm had knocked out the phone lines and Linc’s cell was still at her house. It left her no way to contact him unless she got in her truck and followed him out into that storm. By the time she’d gotten out of her towel and put on clean clothes, Lily had talked herself out of it, knowing any attempt to talk to him so soon would be futile. She’d never seen him in such a state and the way he left had felt so...so
final.

Every time Lily thought about the look of betrayal in his eyes and the anger in his voice, she burst into tears. He wouldn’t even listen to her when she assured him she hadn’t read the file’s contents. But the simple fact that she had the information in her home—information she’d promised not to ask after—was enough to send Linc out the door.

Moments before, she’d told him she loved him. She hadn’t expected him to say it in return, but she had needed him to know that was how she felt. Now, she was sure she had lost him, and wondered if she would ever manage to get him back.

Cursing her brother for being so damn pushy, she shoved their wet clothing in the dryer, sniffling and sobbing as she set about cleaning up the mess the storm had blown into her house. The wet pages of the file were strewn about her entry, sticking to the floor and walls, bent awkwardly in their tumultuous descent. Leaning down, she stacked one soaked page on another, shoving them all back into the folder as her tears blinded her eyes, making it difficult to see.

Her cries had made it easier to keep her initial promise and not read anything in the file, but when she came to a photo of a woman sitting with a golden-haired child, both smiling as they looked into the camera, she couldn’t help but pause.

Covering her mouth with her hand, she slumped against the wall and stared at them, sobbing a fresh bout of tears. Linc had a daughter. He lost his wife
and
his child. No wonder he’d been in so much pain.

Lily cried for a long time—both for the loss Linc had endured and the mess a pile of wet pages and a few photos had gotten them in. She cried. She cried in frustration and hopelessness, because she didn’t know what to do. Her heart felt broken and she couldn’t see straight to work out a way to fix it. Not yet, anyway.

When the sun’s first rays licked its orange hue over the walls of Lily’s room, she hugged her pillow to her chest, her eyes sore and body exhausted. Then, slowly, she closed her mind, falling into a fitful sleep filled with dreams of being left alone, shouting into a void with no one nearby to hear her.

“N
o,” Lily groaned as the blinds lifted in her room, spilling bright light across her swollen eyes and creating too much noise for her aching head. She felt hung over. “Go. Away.”

“Aw, come on. Don’t pick on your big brother. I came to check on you since Bec went to the bar and it was still shuttered up,” Matt said, his hands on his hips as he looked down at her slight form wrapped tightly in a nest of blankets and pillows.

“I’m not opening today.”

“No kidding. But why don’t you get Marty to do it? That’s what you have him for, right? So you don’t have to work every day?”

“Call him yourself.”

Matt reached out and pulled the blanket back from her face. “You look like shit. What happened, you and lover boy have a tiff?”

“No thanks to you,” she mumbled, hiding her face in the pillows while wishing the world would just go away.

“What the hell did I do?” he asked, his voice taking on a defensive tone.

Spurred on by a flash of annoyance, she rose up on her elbows and narrowed her eyes at him. “You brought that stupid folder around here and shoved it in my face—that’s what you did.”

“You read it?” Lily sensed a note of smugness that made her want to slap him in the face.

“No, you asshole. I told you I didn’t want it, but you left it here anyway, and guess who found it? Yeah, Linc. Now he thinks I’ve gone behind his back, and...” her breath hitched as tears sprung to her eyes again, “and he...he was so upset. He ran out into the storm and I...” she shook her head, her face crumpling as she remembered the way they’d left things last night.

“Hey,” Matt cooed, sitting beside her and drawing her into his arms for a tight hug. “No need to get so upset. Just tell him you didn’t read it. I’m sure if you just talk to him, you’ll be able to sort this out.”

“Don’t you think I tried that? I told him straight away I hadn’t looked at it. But he didn’t care. He just saw them, accused me of investigating him, and then he left. Actually...he broke up with me, then he left.” Bringing her hands to her face, her shoulders heaved as torrents of emotion left her eyes.

“Shit, sis. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to break you up. I just wanted you to be informed. Listen, I’ll go talk to him, tell him it was all me. Maybe it’ll sort this out.”

“No, Matt, stay out of it. I know what you were doing by giving me that folder, and I get that, in your mind, you were trying to help. But you don’t always know what’s right for me. I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman now, I’m not a kid. There has to come a point where you stop watching over me. I can handle my own love life. Please don’t interfere anymore.”

“But if I talk to him—”

“No, Matt!”

He held up his hands in acquiescence. “All right, all right. I’ll stay out of it.”

“Thank you.” Lily wiped the backs of her hands across her eyes. “Now, if you can please call Marty and ask him to take over for a few days, that would actually be very helpful for me. Can you keep your meddling to that?”

Pressing his lips together in a small grin, Matt nodded. “Sure. I can do that.”

When Matt left, Lily attempted to wallow a little longer, but found she couldn’t sleep. Forcing herself out of bed, she shuffled into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee and get something to eat. It wasn’t that she was hungry, it was just that she needed to do
something
. Pouring the sweetest cereal she could find into a bowl, she topped it with milk, then grabbed a mug of coffee and sat down. Staring at the colorful shapes in her bowl, she ate without tasting.

This is shit,
she thought.
I didn’t do anything wrong.
She felt as though she was being vindicated for doing nothing at all.
Perhaps doing nothing was the problem?

Standing up, her chair scraped back along the floor as a surge of energy jolted her into action. She wasn’t going to sit there and wallow. She was going to go up to his house and make him talk to her—make him understand she would never go behind his back. Last night was emotional, and perhaps she scared him a little when she dropped the whole L-bomb while they were making love in the shower. She decided they were going to talk this out—or at the very least, she was going to try.

Grabbing the things he left behind in his anger, she shoved them in a bag before snatching her keys from the counter and heading out the door. The sun’s bright light instantly warmed her skin as the calm blue sky gave her hope that today Linc would see things differently.

She drove slower than normal, despite feeling the need to get to Linc’s quickly. The storm had made the road conditions more treacherous than normal and the last thing she wanted to do was lose control of her vehicle or get another flat tire.

Lily accidently locked up her brakes and skidded to a halt in front of Linc’s gate when she arrived, her agitation coming through in her reaction time as the nerves turned to a heavy lead ball in her stomach. She remembered the last time she had done this—come out to Linc’s house in hopes of talking to him only to be ignored or turned away. But that was before. Now, there was so much between them. Surely he wouldn’t turn her away.

Getting out of the truck, she pushed through the gate, then stomped up to the front door, giving herself an internal pep talk the whole way. He was going to hear her out. They were going to fix this. It was just a misunderstanding.

Taking a deep breath, she lifted her hand and knocked on the door, waiting in the quiet as she listened for movement. Shade scratched at the door, then howled. She felt sure she heard other movement too, but there was no answer.

“Goddamn it,” she muttered, lifting her hand again, this time knocking loud enough to hurt her knuckles. “Open the door, Linc. I know you’re in there.” She kicked the door as frustration swirled in her chest.

Growing annoyed over the continued silence, Lily tried to peer into the windows with no luck. All the curtains were drawn, hiding everything from sight.

“In case you’re forgetting, I have your keys, your wallet, your phone, and your clothes. If I wanted in there, I could just let myself inside.” She paused and listened, hearing shuffling on the other side, hoping he was going to open the door on his own. Then things went silent again, so she sighed and continued. “But I’m not going to, Linc. I get that you’re angry. I’d probably be pissed, too. But you know me, and you should know when I make a promise, I don’t break it. I told you I didn’t read that file, and I still haven’t. I don’t want to know anything about your past that you don’t want to tell me. I love you enough to respect that some things are too painful for you to talk about. There, I said it again—I love you, Linc. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same, but don’t go throwing this away because of some misunderstanding, or because you’re scared. Just...just open the door,
please.”

Resting her head against the wooden door, she listened and waited. Footfalls drawing closer had her heart fluttering, and the sound of the lock being touched had her standing up straight in anticipation. Then, just as quickly as the hope had grown wings, they were clipped. Linc’s voice rumbled through from the other side of the door.

“Go home, Lily. You and I...we were never going to work out.”

“What?” she gasped, her hand covering her mouth as her eyes stung. Her disappointment churned in her stomach, turning into anger as she shook her head and kicked at the door again.

“You coward,” she cried. “You fucking coward. You want to do this again? You want to shut me out and force me to chase you to try to win you back? Fuck you, Linc.
Fuck you!
You can’t just run and hide whenever things get a little hard—it’s not how life works. You stand up and you fucking sort it out like a man.” She began pacing, energy pulsing through her limbs, pounding in her head, and chasing her tears away as she shook. “I’m not playing this game again. I won’t do this to myself.
You
messed up here, Linc. Not me. I kept my word and you took the first excuse you could to run off and hide without even trying to hear me out. Fuck this shit. Fuck chasing a man who doesn’t want to stick around when things get hard.
Fuck it!
” she screamed, kicking at the door again like a mad woman as she lost her composure. “I’m leaving, Linc, and this time, I won’t be back. If you want to try to fix things, then stop hiding and come find me, prove you can be a man who fights for what he wants. Otherwise, have a nice life. I’m done.”