"Fine," she muttered, again clicking a few keys, releasing the lock.
Then, knowing she'd run out of time, she took her reading glasses off and put them down. Rising from the small cafe* table, she clicked her laptop closed, and headed inside. Her feet bare against the golden oak floor, she noted its warmth and realized she'd been getting cold. It might be only early September, but already the weather was changing. Inside, though, the air was comfortable. A few last remnants of sunlight streamed in from the banks of windows flanking both the east and west sides of the cavernous living room that stretched the width of the house.
This room was her favorite. Light and airy, with just a few pieces of furniture. No shadowy corners. No odd shapes. No place to hide in the dark.
Not that it was ever truly dark. The sun might set; a chill might quickly descend. But with the security lights covering the entire property, her world was never entirely black.
She would not allow herself to be lost in the blackness again.
Thanks to him.
Her misgivings about Wyatt's arrival faded. She owed the man everything. If an occasional unexpected visit was the price she had to pay, she'd pay it.
And maybe she'd even manage to prevent him from ever realizing the truth-that she sometimes wondered if it would have been better if he'd never saved her at all.
"Stop," she told herself "The new you doesn't think that way."
Forcing the frown from her face, she strode to the front door, reaching it just as Blackstone's shadow darkened the grated window set in its center.
Taking a deep breath, she unlocked the dead bolt, the slider lock, and the knob, then pulled the door open. "Hello, Wyatt."
He stared down at her, the glasses still covering his eyes, the handsome face expressionless. Then, finally, he replied.
"Hello, Lily."
"Lily doesn't exist anymore. Remember?"
Wyatt nodded once, acknowledging the point. "I know. I just can't remember what false name you're using these days." It should have been easy to remember to call this young woman by a false name. After all, she no longer looked anything like the Lily Fletcher he had known.
The one everyone else in the world believed dead. Well, everyone except Brandon Cole.
And the man who had tried to kill her.
Gone was the long, straight hair that had fallen halfway down her back. Now cut short, it hugged her delicate face, emphasizing the haunted twist of her mouth and the gaunt hollowness of her cheeks. It was no longer a soft, sunny blond, instead dyed nearly black, a startling shade when contrasted with her pale blue eyes. He finally understood the comments he'd gotten throughout his own life, about the color combination. It was striking, did draw attention. Which was why she wore brown contacts whenever she left the house.
The hair had been shaved off by the doctors dealing with her injuries. The rest she'd done herself, choosing the contacts, the hair dye, the boxy clothes, all for the same reason she'd donned this alternate identity: for her own safety. She wanted to be anonymous, invisible, someone no one would notice, much less remember.
Funny, though, none of it-the hair, the clothes, the scars, the occasional dark smudges beneath her eyes- could change the fact that she was incredibly beautiful. If anything, the changes in Lily had made her even more so. Because instead of being a delicate, fragile woman, she was now a fully realized one, broken but rebuilt and aware of her own power.
She was almost intoxicating. And frankly, it was no wonder Brandon had gone from flirting with an office mate to falling for the woman they had both rescued. Who wouldn't fall for her?
Wyatt mentally shook off the line of thought, not wanting to go there, even in his head, when it came to Lily. She was his friend, his protégée.
"Can I come in?"
She stepped back, ushering him forward. "It's your house."
Perhaps on paper. Any emotional connection he'd had for this place had been sliced out of him decades ago. If not for it being a safe and secret place where Lily could hide and recover, he would never have willingly set foot here again. And even now, knowing it provided a haven for a young woman he was very concerned about, he still felt his heart skip a beat as he crossed the threshold, determined to see the house as it was now, not the way it had been in his childhood. Not the way it had been the night his childhood had ended all too violently.
Inside, he pulled off his sunglasses while she closed the door, securing every lock, testing them with a pull of the knob. He didn't smile at the overly cautious ritual. There was nothing funny about how seriously Lily took her privacy and self-protection.
Considering she had been shot, kidnapped, and tortured for a week by a madman, the surprise would be if she were not extremely careful. And this house didn't have a history of gentle security.
Perhaps that was one reason he'd brought her here. Because, really, lightning couldn't strike twice, could it?
"Can't be too careful," she said lightly as she triple-checked the dead bolt, wary and serious.
He just didn't know if wariness had slowly transitioned into blind rage. And he needed to know. Badly.
Did he really think the gentle, soft-spoken Lily Fletcher he knew could have killed the three men who'd been cut to pieces in those hotel rooms? That she'd lured them using their own sick desires against them, employing the names of her lost loved ones to do it? That she'd left a tiger lily to autograph her latest crime scene?
No. Deep down, he truly didn't believe she had it in her.
But the human mind could snap if pushed too far. He knew that, more than most.
"So what are you doing here?"
He had anticipated the question. "Monday is Labor Day. I thought I'd take a couple of days off and come up for the long weekend."
"You could have called."
"It's my house," he reminded her, his tone smooth and perhaps even a little bit mocking. This cold aloofness she'd shrouded herself in was almost too much of a challenge. He wanted her to be strong, knew she needed to in order to survive, but he sometimes found himself missing the Lily he'd once known.
He had to be honest, though. This woman fascinated him in ways he hadn't yet begun to evaluate. She was the living example of how a person could drastically change after one horrific ordeal.
Then again, she'd gone through more than one. He suspected the Lily he'd known had been different from the one who had waved her young nephew off to school or shared confidences with her twin sister.
He'd never know who she had once been.
"Suit yourself." She didn't even glance up at him as she spun on her bare feet and walked away from him, annoyance obvious in her tight shoulders. Her hips swayed, her long legs eating up the floor as she moved with determination toward the kitchen.
No, she couldn't be more unlike the young woman he had met a short fourteen months ago. That woman had been gentle and vulnerable, spiritually wounded after the terrible, tragic death of her nephew and her sister's resulting suicide. Lily had been soft-spoken and soft-tempered, with a quick smile, delicate, fluttering movements, and an eagerness to please that sometimes made her appear clumsy. But there had never been anything clumsy about the way her mind had worked. She'd been a brilliant programmer, a genius IT specialist, and he'd been damn lucky to get her.
That genius served her well in her new life. Not a thing could happen within a quarter mile of this house without her computer surveillance system warning her.
"I was just about to make dinner."