Montana Sky

afterward, like a baby. Huge, racking sobs.” She let out a little breath because it was too easy to remember, to see it all again. “Jesse had been in the Marines—hewas so proud of that, of his discipline and strength. You can’t imagine what it was like to see someone I’d thought was so strong cry that way. It was shocking, and devastating, and in a terrible way empowering.”
    Strength, Adam thought, had nothing to do with uniforms or biceps. He hoped she’d learned that as well.
    “He begged me to forgive him,” Lily went on. “Said he’d gone crazy with jealousy, thinking about other men being near me. He said that his mother had left his father when he was a child. Ran off with another man. Before, he had told me she’d died. Both were lies, but I believed him, and I forgave him.”
    It wasn’t easy to be honest, all the way honest, but she wanted to be. “I forgave him, Adam, because it made me feel strong, in that moment. And because I thought if he’d lost control that way it had to be because he loved me. That’s part of the trap—the cycle. He didn’t hit me again for eight weeks.”
    Slowly, and with great concentration, she stirred the bubbling eggs. “Doesn’t matter what it was over. It was a pattern that I refused to see, that I was just as much responsible for as he was. He started to drink, and he lost his job, and he beat me. I forgot the toast,” she said matter-of-factly, and walked over to the bread box.
    “Lily—”
    She shook her head. “I let him convince me it was my fault. Every time my fault. I wasn’t smart enough, sexy enough, quiet enough, loose enough. Whatever the situation called for. It went on for over a year. Twice he put me in the hospital and I lied and said I’d fallen. Then one day I looked at myself in the mirror. I saw what my friends had been seeing all those months, what they saw when they tried to talk to me about it, to help me. The bruises, that animal look in the eye, the bones sharp in my face because I couldn’t keep weight on.”
    She went back to the eggs, turning them gently as they set. “I walked out. I don’t remember exactly. I know I didn’t take anything, and that I went home to my mother, just like the cliché. I know I was afraid, because he’d toldme he would never let me go. That if I ever left, he’d come after me. But I knew I’d kill myself if I stayed even another day. I had thought about it, planned how I would do it. With pills, because I’m a coward.”
    She arranged the eggs, the toast, the bacon on a plate and brought it to the table. “He came after me,” she said, and for the first time looked into Adam’s face. “He was waiting for me one day when I went out, and he dragged me to his car. He choked me, screaming at me. He drove off with me half unconscious beside him. He was calmer then, explaining things to me the way he’d always done. Why I was wrong, why I needed to be taught how a wife was supposed to behave. I was more terrified then than I’d ever been before. When he was calm, I was more afraid of what he would do—could do to me.”
    She steadied herself, because the fear could sneak back at any time, peck away at her faltering courage. “He had to slow down for traffic, and I jumped out. The car was still moving, but I didn’t fall. I always thought it was a miracle. I went to the police and got a restraining order. I started to move around. He always found me. The last time, the time before I came here, he found me again, and I think he would’ve killed me that time, but a neighbor heard me screaming and beat at the door. Started breaking in the door. And Jesse ran.”
    She sat, folded her hands on the table. “So did I. I didn’t think he could find me here. I’ve barely contacted my mother because I was afraid he’d get to me through her. But I spoke with her this morning, before I came out to the stables. She hasn’t seen him or heard from him.” She drew a deep breath. “I know that you and Ben and Nate are going to talk to the police about this. I’ll answer any questions about him. But he never hurt anyone but me that I know of. And he only ever used his hands. It seems that if he had found me, he would have come after me.”
    “He’ll never hurt you again.” He nudged the plate aside so he could cover her hands with his. “Whatever the answers are, Lily, he’ll never touch you again. I swear it.”
    “If it is him . . .” She squeezed her eyes tight. “If it