Page 8 of Liberating Lily

That was weird, wasn’t it?

Why would a man, whose name she couldn’t remember, want to help her?

“She would hurt you.” Lily knew how cruel that woman could be.

Maybe she should come out of the numb. However, it was too hard to resist.

And Lily kept slipping back into it. In the numb, she lost track of time, of what was going on. Something had obviously happened, though, for her to be in a car with a strange man who also wasn’t a stranger.

But just who was he?

Rick’s friend.

Harvey.

Oh God. She was in a car with Harvey? Another memory slipped through the numb . . . one of him carrying her out of that dreadful house where she’d lived with her mother for far too long.

“I can assure you that there is nothing that vapid bitch can do to harm me.”

Lily jolted slightly at hearing her mother called a bitch. Not that it wasn’t true. It was just that people didn’t normally say it out loud. At least not where she could hear them.

People were too scared of her mother to say anything bad about her in front of Lily. Not that Lily cared.

“She has a lot of power. She could make things difficult.”

“No. That’s what she wants you to think, but she has no power. None over me, and definitely none over you.”

No, he was wrong. He didn’t know what he was talking about.

“She’s going to be mad that I left. I need to go back.”

“Not happening,” he replied.

Oh, hell. What had Harvey done? Why hadn’t Mother stopped him from taking her? Why hadn’t Rick or Clem?

Wait, Clem had been there, hadn’t she? Had he left Clem on her own with her mother?

That wasn’t good.

“Where is Clem?” she asked.

Where were they going? Had they been driving for a while? Where did Harvey even live? Was he taking her to his house?

Had he kidnapped her?

Lily had lived her entire life in Beacon Hill. It was a gorgeous area of Boston, but at times it had felt stifling.

Everyone had known who she was, who her mother was. She hated feeling like she was under a microscope. For the last ten months, other than going to social functions with Rick, she’d stayed at home.

Hidden from the world.

It had seemed easier that way, rather than having to pretend to feel something she didn’t feel.

“I would say she’s headed back to Texas,” Harvey said.

All right. That was good. She wouldn’t like to think of Clem being stuck with their mother.

“That’s good. Clem loves Texas. She was always happiest there.”