Out of Exile

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you both,” she said, then pointed to a gold chain and charm that hung around Ned’s thick neck. “What a lovely necklace.” The charm was a thick gold cross with twisted vines wrapped around it.

Ned reached up and touched the charm. “Thank you, ma’am. My mama bought it for me years ago.”

Eddie frowned. “All my mama ever buys me is underwear two sizes too small.”

They laughed, then Matthew told them about moving Clara into bungalow three. He told them where the paint was stored and what needed to be done.

“And could we move out the chair that’s in there so Aunt Clara can put her rocking chair in its place?” Lilly asked.

Matthew nodded. “Move the chair into bungalow two.”

The two men took off. “They seem nice,” Lilly said.

“They’re all right,” Matthew replied as they entered the house. “Neither of them has much ranch experience, but both seemed eager to learn and promised to be hard workers.”

“What about Jacob? Did he show up this morning?”

“At dawn. I sent him out to the old barn that we’re getting ready to renovate. The plans are to turn it into sort of a community building. Mark has been working on getting it cleaned up.”

Abby raised one of her dark eyebrows. “Lots of hiring and renovating going on for something you aren’t sure is permanent,” she observed.

“Ah, there you are and just in time,” Clara greeted them as they walked into the kitchen. “I’ve just put it all on the table.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” Matthew protested as they took their places at the table. “You aren’t responsible for the meals around here.”

“But I wanted to,” Clara exclaimed. She leaned over and patted Matthew on the shoulder. “If I can’t do for my family, then what good am I?”

Matthew said nothing. If she’d wanted to do for her family, she should have done something years ago. She should have done something to save him and his brothers and sister from their father.

Anything she did for them now was too little, too late. And for that he could never forgive her.

Chapter 3

The afternoon stretched out before Lilly. Matthew disappeared immediately after lunch, telling them he had chores to attend to. Lilly thought about tagging along as she had when he’d done his chores on those long-ago summer days. However, something about his closed-off expression forbade her to follow him.

“I just knew things would be fine here,” Aunt Clara said as the two women cleared the lunch dishes from the table. “And it’s wonderful I’m going to have my own little place.”

“And it’s a nice little cottage,” Lilly assured her. “Small, but quite nice.”

“Small is fine, with it just being me.” She filled the sink with soapy water to wash the few dishes they had used. “When you come to visit, you can either sleep on my sofa in the cottage or stay here. And you will visit frequently, won’t you?”

Lilly smiled assuredly. “Of course. When I get back to work, I’ll have Christmas and spring vacations and all summer long to visit you.”

Aunt Clara nodded in satisfaction and plunged the glassware into the sink water. “Of course, what would really be nice is if you’d move here to Inferno. They have schools here, and I’m sure they would be thrilled to get a skilled and caring counselor like you.”

Lilly laughed. “One step at a time, Aunt Clara. At the moment my main concern is seeing you settled in.”

Aunt Clara frowned and handed Lilly a soapy glass to rinse and dry. “I can’t believe I let that young man talk me into mortgaging my home and giving him all my money. He seemed like such a nice young man, too.” She pulled her hands from the soapy water, grabbed a towel and sank down at the table.

“I guess the saying is true, there’s no fool like an old fool.” She closed her eyes and sat perfectly silent for a moment.

“Aunt Clara, are you all right?” Lilly dried her hands and knelt down next to the older woman, who suddenly appeared deathly pale.

“Fine, fine. I just got a little dizzy spell.” She looked at Lilly in bewilderment. “Now what were we talking about?”

“We were talking about the fact that I think we need to get you in for a checkup with a doctor,” Lilly said, worry fluttering through her.

“Nonsense,” Aunt Clara exclaimed and stood.

“I’m fit as a fiddle, I just sometimes move a little too fast or something.”

The two women returned to the sink, where they washed and dried the dishes and chattered about inconsequential things.

When they had finished putting the dishes away, Lilly asked if Clara would like to take a walk with her.

Clara declined, stating that perhaps she would take a little nap so she’d be rested for the family meeting that night. “It will be so nice to see everyone this evening. Did you know Mark has a nine-year-old stepson, and Luke is the stepfather to a precious little girl and boy. So many new family members, such joy. You are coming to the meeting?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lilly said hesitantly. “I might pop my head in to say hello to everyone, but I don’t think it’s a good idea….”

“Nonsense,” Clara said. She reached up and placed her hands on Lilly’s cheeks. It was a gesture as familiar to Lilly as her own heartbeat. “Legally your last name might be Winstead, but in your heart, and in my heart, you’re a Delaney through and through. And you should be at that family meeting.”

Lilly smiled and pulled Clara’s hands from her cheeks. She planted a kiss in each hand, then closed Clara’s fingers as if to capture the kisses. “We’ll see and now I think I’ll take a little walk. Sure you won’t join me?”

“Not me, but enjoy the sunshine.”

Sunshine. There was plenty of that in Inferno, Arizona, Lilly thought as she stepped out the front door a few minutes later.

Although it was October, the sunshine was bright and warm and the temperature was in the eighties. Lilly had no specific destination or direction in mind, but she set off walking in the direction of the old barn Matthew had mentioned they were renovating.

Lilly and Matthew had spent lots of time in that barn years ago. Back then the barn had been in use, the loft filled with bales of hay, the lower level storage for machinery and grain.

The two teenagers would crawl up in the loft, make themselves comfortable among the hay, and talk. Well, actually, Lilly would do most of the talking.

Thinking back, it was funny to realize that she’d never shared with him the circumstances of his aunt “adopting” her, and he’d never spoken about his family. It was as if they’d both silently agreed that discussing parents or personal history was off-limits.

Instead they spoke of school and favorite subjects, they discussed and compared ranch life and city life. They shared dreams and talked about what they saw for themselves in the future. But always Lilly sensed turbulent emotions just beneath his surface, simmering passions that he kept tightly reined.

Brush tickled her ankles as she walked, and the heat on her shoulders was pleasant. Although much of the Delaney ranch was desert-like, there was a beauty in the landscape that surrounded her.

To the distant right of where she walked, she could see the green grass and tall trees she knew were nourished by a nearby creek. She and Matthew had waded in the creek numerous times. She could still remember how he’d looked with his jeans rolled up to expose his athletic calves and his shirtless chest so broad and tanned.

She shook her head to dispel the images from the past. Oh, that boy had stirred frightening, wonderful yearnings inside her teenage heart. And it unsettled her more than a little that the adult Matthew seemed to be stirring the same kinds of feelings in an adult Lilliana Winstead.

The old barn rose up in the distance. Weathered gray and minus the doors, the place certainly wasn’t the one from her memory. Just as Matthew wasn’t the young boy of my memories, she reminded herself.

As she walked closer, she saw Mark, Matthew’s brother, and Jacob Tilley carrying out a load of old lumber and dumping it into the bed of a pickup.

“Lilly.” Mark swept his hat off his head and approached her with a friendly smile. “Matthew told me this morning that you and Aunt Clara had come to visit.”