Easter's Lilly Read online

Months had gone by, and I had my baby in late November. Max was the only one with me when I went into labor and Diego didn’t even come to see me in the hospital after the baby was born. Diego insisted on naming him Diego Jr., so we did. He treated me like a guest in his home and never seemed to notice the inappropriateness of my relationship with his brother. Max called me “baby girl” and often referred to himself as “daddy.” I never even saw Diego look up from his coffee when we were playing inappropriately at the breakfast table. In all these months Diego had never laid a hand on me, nor did he ask to. Max and I were totally platonic, although I must admit that I was crazy about him. The line was very clearly drawn. Whatever feelings we may have had or not had, Diego was my husband and Max was my bodyguard and best friend.

  Time went on. I had been living there almost three years and never heard a word from my parents. Johnny had become a distant memory. With the baby named Diego I hardly gave Johnny a second thought. We ended up calling him Dieguito, which means little Diego. It became very confusing with two Diego’s in the house. Max kept me busy for the most part. My baby called him Uncle Max and Leticia was very helpful. Max cooked me breakfast every morning and the cook made dinner every night. We spend hours upon hours at the creek. Max read me poetry by the water at night. I put my head in his lap and he would stroke my hair as he read. Yeats, Keats, Marvell and Donne, to name a few of the poets he shared with me. Every day I grew closer and closer to my husband’s brother.

  It was two days before Easter when I got the phone call from Sedona. My mom had been shot in her own living room and the funeral was Easter Sunday. Everything always seemed to happen on Easter. We left the baby with his nanny, Leticia, and Diego, Max and I headed for Arizona. The anticipation was overwhelming. I hadn’t seen or heard from my dad in years. I assumed he knew I had married the high profile criminal but he never sent a note, a gift or any recognition at all of the blessed event. When we got to the house, my dad didn’t even acknowledge Diego. “Max,” was all he said.

  “I’m sorry sir, for your loss,” Max said as he hugged him. Diego went to hug him and my dad rudely walked away.

  “I’m sorry, Diego, he’s just devastated,” I said as I tried to make excuses. Diego said nothing and headed into the kitchen. Max poured my dad some Irish whiskey and the two of them went outside onto the patio together. It was weird. We sat through the funeral and went to the gravesite. My mom and I did not speak for the last few years of her life, so I was a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t asked to speak, so I didn’t.

  I looked over in the distance and saw in the fog a hooded figure walking through the trees. At first I thought I was hallucinating, but then I realized that it was a man. I could see long brown hair falling around the hood and I realized… Oh my gosh! Could it be Johnny? The figure disappeared and I looked around to see if anyone else had seen him. Max looked at me and shook his head in disapproval. So I remained where I was and we went back to the house. I knew Max saw the hooded figure. Could Johnny still be alive?

  My old friend Candy showed up for the reception. She used to work for Johnny and we lost touch after his death. “I came as soon as I could,” she said. “Let’s help out your dad and go to the store for some more food.” She kissed my dad on the cheek and told him where we were going.

  “Sure,” I said. We headed out the door. We passed the supermarket and I looked at her curiously. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” she answered. She drove us straight to John’s old house. “What are you doing?” I asked. She pulled into the driveway. My heart was pounding. She opened the door and Johnny was standing in the kitchen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt.

  “Johnny!” I shouted. “I thought you were dead!” I ran over to him in the kitchen and hugged him.

  “You have one hour,” Candy said as she left and closed the front door behind her.

  “It’s been three years.” I backed up and looked at him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were alive? We have a baby, you know.”

  “It’s a long story, Lilly and we only have an hour.” He pulled me close and tried to kiss me. I pushed him back. “What is it?” he asked.

  “It’s been a long time, John.”

  “John?” he asked sadly. “I don’t think you’ve ever called me that before?”

  “Johnny,” I said, correcting myself, “I’m married now.”

  “To Max or Diego?” he asked. My face flushed and totally gave me away.

  “What?” I started to wonder if this was some kind of set up.

  “I have people too, you know. I hear you and Max are always together. Holding hands, touching…” He stopped. “Are you and Max… together?”

  “He’s my bodyguard,” I answered. “Why were you having me watched?”

  “Because I love you, Lilly. My Easter Lilly.” He stroked my hair back away from my now sweaty face. “Make love to me. I’ve missed you.” He moved to kiss me and he held me close. I couldn’t break free.

  “Stop!” I said. “Let go!”

  Just then the door flew open and Max was standing there at the door with a gun pointed at Johnny. “Lilly, you broke my most important rule!”

  “I know,” I said. I pushed John away and ran to Max. “Don’t leave the house without telling you.”

  “No sex with Johnny!” he shouted. Johnny laughed.

  “Calm down, Max. Nothing happened that she didn’t want to happen.”

  “This is a huge mistake,” I said. “Candy brought me here and dropped me off. I thought we were going to the store.” I was breathless and desperate for him to believe me.

  “Tell her why I’ve been dead all this time, Max.” Max never took his eyes off of John, pointing the gun right at him. You could see it was a struggle for him not to just shoot him.

  “Lilly, he’s married.” Max glanced at me for a second. “He knocked you up, dropped you off on our doorstep and married Diana.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I put my hands over my mouth and stared Johnny down. “How could you? You really are a pig, aren’t you?”

  “Diego said if I tried to contact you or the baby, he’d have you both killed!” Johnny blurted. “He made me marry Diana so I wouldn’t be able to come after you.” He looked at Max who was still pointing a gun at him. “Come on Max tell her!” Max began to lower the gun. “We don’t live in God’s world, do we Max. We live in Diego’s world. He is in control.” Max picked up the gun again. Beads of sweat began to form on his brow.

  “I should just blow a hole through you and put you out of your misery.”

  “Max!” I cried. “Stop!”

  “I bet you want her too, don’t you? But you’re going to hand her over to him, just like I did.” Johnny was pretty smug for a man with a gun pointed at him.

  “She’s not mine to give,” Max replied.

  “But she could be, right Lilly?” Johnny asked. “You want her so bad…” He paused and smiled as though he knew what he was going to say would destroy Max. “You can almost taste her.” Max’s eyes changed when he said that. “And I don’t mean just her lips,” he continued. Max shot a hole through the wall inches from Johnny’s face. “I think I hit a nerve.”

  “Shut up, you idiot!” I screamed. “Max, is Diego on his way?”

  He put the gun away and grabbed my hand. “Watch your mouth with my brother,” Max said to John. “He’s on his way and he’s not in a good mood.”

  “You know, I’m right, Maxwell!” he yelled after us. Max opened the car door for me and we took off.

  “Is what he said true?” I asked.

  “Lilly, you need to promise me that you will do everything I tell you until Diego has calmed down.”

  “Okay Max, whatever you say.”

  “I don’t care what Diego says to you, you cannot leave my side.”

  “I can do that,” I said playfully.

  “I’m being serious, Lilly. He’s going to think you slept with John and after he’s done with John, he’s probably going to think y
ou slept with me.” I began to panic. “Baby girl,” he continued. I loved when he called me that. “I will protect you. Just don’t leave me.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

  “You didn’t tell me if what Johnny said was true,” I reminded him.

  He was quiet for a minute. “Yes Lilly, every word.” We pulled into the driveway of my father’s house. Then he took my face into his hands and put his face close to mine. His breath on my face was warm. “Yes Lilly, sometimes I can almost taste you.” He let me go and my stomach leapt through the air. I never wanted him more. “Come on,” he said. “I need to see your dad.”

  We walked inside and my father was in the kitchen. “Mick!” he shouted. “Mick, send some men to Candy’s house.”

  “She brought her to John’s house, didn’t she?” he asked.

  “It’s probably too late,” Max said. “But try anyway.” I started getting scared. My dad called the station but when they got to Candy’s house she was gone. “Too late?” Max asked.

  “You?” my dad asked.

  “I don’t do women or children,” Max answered.

  “Great, a hit man with a conscience,” he snickered.

  “Would I tell you about it, if I did it myself?”

  “Okay, I guess not,” he answered. I wasn’t sure if they were kidding or serious.

  “Call Ray,” Max suggested. “He and Candy go out together.”

  My dad called the station and had them pick up Ray.

  “What the hell were you doing there?” my dad yelled at me. “After all these years, you still can’t stay away from him?”

  “Don’t worry,” Max answered. “When I got there she was pushing him away.”

  “Did he…”

  “No, I got there before anything happened,” Max answered. I loved how they were carrying on this conversation as though I was not in the room. “Mick?” he started.

  “Go ahead.”

  “When Diego gets here, you’re gonna have to trust me.”

  “Meaning?” he asked. His face had alarm written all over it.

  “I’m the only one who can handle him. If you pull your gun on me when I’m trying to control him, he could take her.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” he said.

  “I’m afraid he’ll take her, hurt her, lock her up…” He paused. “They’re legally married, you know. So please let me handle him.”

  “All right,” he agreed. “Why can’t she just leave him?”

  “No one leaves Diego,” he answered. “Unless it’s in a body bag.” He hesitated. “We’d both be dead before we got out the front door.” I wrapped my arms around Max and he held me close. “Daddy’s here, baby girl,” he said. My dad looked at him strangely. Max sat on the couch and put a pillow in his lap and motioned for me to lie down. I laid my head in his lap and he stroked my hair. I always felt so safe with him. He was reciting some poetry to me from memory, obviously trying to calm me.

  “I don’t get it, Max.” My father looked at us perplexed by our inappropriate relationship. Max was quiet for a minute. “Just leave him, Lilly and marry Max.” Max laughed a little and I looked up at him. “You’d make a great cop,” my father suggested. They both laughed.

  “I’m the bad guy, Mick, remember?” Max looked at me with sadness in his eyes.

  The phone rang and my father talked for a few minutes and hung up. “Ray said he and Candy had a fight and she left town.”

  “She’s dead,” Max said casually.

  “Max, who did it?” my father asked. “Diego?”

  “I can’t tell you, Mick. I have to protect myself to keep an eye on Lilly, you know that.”

  “Don’t they call you the iron man?” my father asked. Max laughed. “You know, the one no one can kill?”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” he answered. Then he turned my face to him.

  “Lilly, this is going to push Diego into overdrive and I want you to be prepared.”

  “Overdrive?” I asked. “You don’t mean…”

  “Just be prepared, Lilly.” He looked very sad when he said it. “He may want to… put his claim on you.”

  “No, no, no….” I said. “That can’t happen.”

  “Come on Max, take her and run,” my father suggested.

  “Just don’t leave with him tonight.” I turned back over and Max held me. My father watched us for a little while and left the room.

  “Sleep with him?” I looked at Max for some kind of comfort.

  “It’ll be okay,” he answered. “He’s not selfish.”

  “I can’t do that, Max.” It was totally unspoken between us but it was the elephant in the room.

  “I can’t take you yet. I have to stay focused.”

  “Is there something going on?” I asked.

  “I’ll talk to him, first.” His eyes filled with water and he turned away. “I’ll talk to him first,” he said again, almost under his breath.

  He was quiet for a minute. Then he turned my face to his and smiled. “Look at it this way. By the time you get to me, you’ll have saved the best for last.” He tried to make light of a really ugly situation.

  “I’m scared, Max.”

  “I know,” he said. “My only fear is that you might fall in love with my brother.” He paused for a few seconds. “He’ll treat you right.” He ran his fingers through my hair. “Sexually, I mean.” Then he said, “Sometimes I wish he was a little more like Johnny.”

  “Don’t worry,” my father said, coming back into the room. “If she falls in love with him, I’ll kill him myself.” Max gave up a halfhearted smile but the tears were still there. I reached up and touched his face. “Do you two know that you’re in love?” he asked us. “Seriously, is it that you just don’t know?” Max and I smiled at each other. I rolled over in his lap and I think we both fell asleep. Next thing I knew, I was awakened by my husband who was dragging me by the arm across the floor off of Max’s lap.

  CHAPTER 9

  Not Tonight