Out of Exile

“Jacob Tilley’s father, Walter, was our family lawyer at the time my father passed away. He’s now in prison for running illegal aliens through our ranch and murdering a young woman who worked here as a social director. He also nearly killed my brother, Mark and his wife, April, when they stumbled on his operation.”

Lilly gasped and listened as he told her the details of Jacob’s father’s crimes. “But surely you heard about all this,” he said as he finished the story.

Lilly shook her head. “No, I didn’t hear anything about it. But you have to understand, most of the information I get about the ranch and what’s happening with your family is from Aunt Clara and the letters she gets from Johnna. Johnna doesn’t write her very often, and I think Aunt Clara often forgets what she’s been told in those letters.”

“That’s how I managed to keep up with your life over the years,” he replied. “Johnna would mention a letter she’d received from Clara and Clara’s letters were usually filled with tidbits about your life.”

Lilly grinned. “They must have been pretty boring letters.” She took a sip of her tea, then placed the glass on the porch next to her chair. “Whenever I visited out here, I thought you led the most exciting life I could ever imagine.”

“Really?” She heard his disbelief in his low voice.

“If you’d been here longer than a week or two at a time, you’d probably have realized just how unexciting ranch life can be. It’s a hard life. It can be brutal.” A hard edge had appeared in his tone.

He cleared his throat and stood. He moved to the porch railing and stared out at the encroaching darkness. For a long moment he was silent…a silence that invited no entry.

Lilly stared at the width of his rigid back and wondered if he dated, if he had a special somebody in his life. She remembered him as somebody who had difficulty opening himself to anyone, sharing pieces of himself.

In those summers when she had visited here, she had worked very hard to get through the barriers she sensed he’d erected to guard him from everyone. And when she’d felt she’d succeeded, it had been a sweet success.

But he wasn’t sixteen or seventeen anymore, and she had no right to intrude on his thoughts, his emotions or his life.

“You mentioned that Clara wants to make her home here permanently,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “I need to warn you that there isn’t any guarantee this place will be permanent.”

She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?” She rose from her chair and joined him at the railing.

He didn’t look at her but continued to stare out at some indefinable point in the distance. “I’ve received an offer from a development company that wants to buy this place in five months when it officially becomes ours.”

“But surely you aren’t considering selling,” Lilly protested. She placed a hand on his forearm, and when he turned to look at her, his eyes were as dark as the night that surrounded them.

“To be honest, I don’t know what I’m considering.”

“But what does the rest of your family say about selling?” Lilly asked. She dropped her hand from his arm, conscious that she was too aware of the firm muscles, the smooth skin beneath her fingertips.

He took several steps away from her and raked a hand through his hair. “I haven’t told them about the offer yet. I’ve called a family meeting for tomorrow night and we’ll all discuss it then. I just figured I should let you know that, at the moment, nothing here is permanent.”

Lilly didn’t know how to reply. She was stunned that there was even a possibility that the Delaney heirs would want to sell this place that was their roots, their heritage.

How she wished she had roots like this…a place that was home, had been home for years. But Lilly also knew she had no right to fight for a home that wasn’t hers.

Again they stood in silence. Lilly tried to ignore the fact that she could smell his masculine scent, a pleasant combination of the outdoors, of leather and hay and spicy cologne.

She could feel his body heat, as if the sun had fevered him all day long and his skin still retained the warmth. Suddenly she remembered how much she’d wanted him to kiss her years ago.

There had been a time when she’d thought she might die if he kissed her, that a single kiss from him would have the power to make her expand and blow away with sheer happiness.

On those summer visits they had explored every inch of the Delaney ranch, he’d taken her into town for ice cream and to the movies. They’d even spent time dancing together at a Fourth of July celebration the town had put on.

They had indulged in the flirtatious games of teenagers just learning the power and strength of their own sexuality, but they had never kissed. Certainly she had wanted him to kiss her, and there were times she thought he’d come precariously close, but it had never happened.

She returned to her chair, finding it ludicrous that she was thirty-five years old and wondering how Matthew Delaney kissed.

“Did I mention that a moving van will be arriving first thing in the morning with the rest of Aunt Clara’s things?” she asked in an attempt to school her errant thoughts.

“No.” He released a sigh as if the very thought made him tired, and Lilly wished it weren’t dark so she could see his face, see the expression that might be there.

“There isn’t a whole lot. Mostly boxes of clothing and knickknacks, her favorite rocking chair and a few other small pieces of furniture. She sold most of her things in an estate sale last week.”

He turned to face her, his features still shadowed by the night. “I’m going to be interviewing and hiring some new hands in the morning. Just have the movers unload the things in the living room, and I’ll deal with it tomorrow afternoon. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to call it a night.” He didn’t wait for her reply, but opened the door and disappeared into the house.

“Good night, Matthew,” she said softly, oddly disappointed by his abrupt departure.

He intrigued her. When they’d both been teenagers she’d sensed there was an unusual depth to him, a sensitivity that he tried to keep hidden from everyone, and she sensed those same things now.

She shook her head ruefully. Maybe she should call it a night, too. She’d done all the driving on the long trip from Dallas, and she was tired.

And apparently that overtiredness was filling her head with silly notions about a boy she’d once spent time with…a boy who’d grown into a man she didn’t know at all.

Rising from the chair, she stretched her hands overhead to work out kinks that had tightened during the long hours in the car.

She froze with her hands over her head, a sudden, creepy feeling that she was being watched raising the hairs on the nape of her neck. Slowly she lowered her hands, the creepy feeling persisting.

Gazing around the area, she didn’t see anyone around, although the darkness of night, especially around the barn and stables was profound.

Definitely overtired, she decided, and with one last look around she went inside and headed upstairs to bed.

The moving van arrived just after ten the next morning. Matthew was in the midst of showing around a couple of new ranch hands he’d just hired. They were standing near the corral when the van pulled in.

“It takes a lot to keep an operation like this running smoothly,” Matthew said, trying to focus on the men before him instead of on Lilly, who had just appeared on the front step to meet the movers.

It would have been far easier to stay focused on the task at hand if Lilly hadn’t been wearing another pair of those damnable short shorts.

“I expect each of my workers to give 100 percent at all times,” he continued. In the bright yellow T-shirt, she looked like a ray of sunshine as she told the two men in the van where to put the items they’d begun unloading.

He focused back on the two men before him. “Any questions?”

“Yeah, is she your wife?” It was the younger of the two cowpokes that asked the question with a thumb pointed in Lilly’s direction.

“No, she isn’t my wife, but she’s a guest at the ranch, and one of the cardinal rules of working here is that there is no fraternization between the guests and the help. I expect you to be friendly and helpful to the guests, but nothing more.” Matthew looked at the two men. “Any other questions?”

“None from me,” Ned Sayville, the older of the two said.

Eddie Creighton, the younger of the two shrugged his shoulders. “Just tell us what to do from here.”

“There are a couple of stalls in the stables that need to be cleaned out and fresh hay laid down. Why don’t you start there, and when that’s done hunt me up and we’ll get you going on something else.”

He watched as the two headed for the stables. For the next couple of days they would be jacks of all trades until he could assess their strengths and see where they would best fit at the ranch.

Now the next problem he had to deal with was Lilly and Aunt Clara, and he wasn’t particularly in the mood to deal with either.