Colters' Lady (Colters' Legacy #2)(81)

“You girls get into your PJ’s and tell me what you want to eat. I’ll order it up,” Holly said.

“You pick for me,” Lily said. “I’ll eat anything.”

“Same here, Mom. You know what I like. Just get a lot of it.”

Holly smiled. “Okay, then. Hop to it. I’ll get our order placed.”

Callie followed Lily into the second bedroom of the suite they were sharing. “Can I see it again?”

“Sure,” Lily said.

She unzipped her jeans, peeled them away from her skin and let them fall to the floor. Then she stretched out on her side on the bed and carefully pulled the bandage away on one side.

“It’s amazing, Lily. Seriously. You have such talent. I know the guy inked you, but this is your design. It’s so intricate. It must have taken you hours to get all the detail you put into it.”

“Try days,” Lily said ruefully. “It’s all I’ve worked on for the last week. I drew and I pondered what I wanted to say to Charles.”

Callie grimaced and then plopped onto the bed next to Lily. “I admire you for doing this. I wish…I wish I had the balls to stand up and say, hey f**k you, you were wrong.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Lily asked softly. She replaced the bandage that the artist had told her to leave on for a few hours.

Callie hesitated for a long moment. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. I…I fell hard for someone. I thought he fell just as hard. I was wrong. He took what he wanted and then he was gone without a word.”

Lily eased up and then wrapped her arms around Callie. “I’m sorry. That must hurt so much.”

Callie hugged her back. “I’ll be okay. I ran home to lick my wounds, and to be honest, I haven’t had the desire to leave again. Maybe that’ll change or maybe I’ve changed. I’ve always been so restless. Ready to take on the world. See new places. Meet new people. Right now I like being surrounded by my family—people that I know love me and would never hurt me. That’s comforting, you know?”

Lily squeezed. “Yeah, I do know. Boy, do I know. I’ve felt that way ever since I met your brothers and was welcomed into your family. I’ll never be able to express to any of you just how much that meant to me.”

Callie smiled. “It’s going to be fun having a sister.”

“Oh crap, you’re going to make me cry,” Lily said with a sniff.

“We can’t have that. We have to keep you strong tonight so that tomorrow you can walk into your ex-husband’s home and kick his sorry ass.”

“My home,” Lily said softly. “Or at least it used to be.”

Callie gaped at her. “You mean that all that time you were homeless, that bastard was living in your house?”

“I couldn’t go back there. Tomorrow will be the first time I’ve been back since Rose’s funeral.” Pain still thudded in her chest as she imagined going back. Now. After three years. It seemed a lifetime and just like yesterday all rolled into one.

“I’d like to go with you so I could kick him in the balls,” Callie said with a ferocious scowl.

“Girls, the food’s here,” Holly called from the next room.

“Oh crap, we’ve been gabbing and still haven’t changed,” Callie said as she bolted up.

They hurried into their sleepwear and then went into the next room where Holly was arranging the plates on the small dinette.

“I have to say, Mom, you may not cook worth a darn, but you know good food,” Callie said as she surveyed the array of entrees.

Lily’s mouth watered as she looked from the filet mignon to the lobster tail to the grilled shrimp skewer and the jumbo fried shrimp on a separate plate. There were steamed vegetables, rice and bread rolls. And the piece de resistance: cheesecake with caramel topping.

Lily flopped into the chair. “Oh God, I don’t even know where to start. It all looks wonderful.”

“Which is why you take some of everything,” Holly said.

“A very sound idea,” Callie said as she reached over to snag a shrimp.

The women piled food onto their plates and chatted while they ate. Lily was glad she’d asked them to come. Not that Seth, Dillon and Michael wouldn’t have come in a heartbeat, but she wanted to surprise them with the tattoo. More importantly, she wanted to confront Charles on her own, and she was pretty certain the guys would never allow her to go near him. They’d want to be the ones to confront him, and it would probably be with their fists.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Holly asked gently.

Lily stirred from her thoughts and looked down at her half-eaten food. It did probably seem like she was distracted and maybe worried about the upcoming visit to her past. But in an odd way she was at peace. She’d already done the hard part.

“I’m not nervous about confronting him. I’m more nervous about seeing the place where my daughter was born and spent the first weeks of her life,” Lily said in a quiet voice. “It’s important to me that I don’t come across as a raving lunatic. I don’t want Charles to think he has any power over me. I need to be calm and rational when I tell him how wrong he was. Breaking down hurts my credibility.”

“You’re going to do fine,” Callie said firmly. “I don’t doubt you for a moment. When I think of all that you’ve endured and the fact that you still have such a warm, loving and generous spirit… It just amazes me. Most people wouldn’t even find the strength to go on. But you survived and you didn’t lose yourself in the process. You’ve given so much to my brothers. To our family. To me,” she added.