Just thinking his name made her eyes sting.
Tom and the others had brought Lilah back to their town. She went to live with the Chongs, who had a big house with plenty of room. Mrs. Chong took it upon herself to teach Lilah how to act “like a young woman,” with all the bizarre rituals that went with that. Lilah’s total lack of tact, deference, modesty, and hesitation was a jolt to the Chong household. After a while, some of the family manners and deportment she’d learned while living with George came back. Grudgingly.
Many times during those months, Lilah found the confinement of a house and the obligations of social interaction to be too much hard work. It became claustrophobic. It was frightening, because every day there were a hundred times when the things she said and did mattered to other people. Things she said caused as much pain as if she’d punched someone. It was confusing to her. So many times she packed her meager belongings—just clothes and weapons—and prepared to sneak away in the dark of the night.
She never did, though.
Partly because she wanted to belong to a family. The loss of George and Annie was so strong, even after all this time. It was as if the bounty hunters had literally carved away a piece of her body; she could feel the loss every day.
But there was another reason she stayed.
During her years of lonely isolation Lilah had read every novel she could find, from Sense and Sensibility to The Truth About Forever. She understood the concept of romance, of love. Of emotional and physical attraction. She was strange, she knew that, but she was still a teenager. A young woman.
Even so, she was unprepared for the moment when she discovered that Lou Chong had developed “feelings” for her. It was an absurd concept. He was a town boy. Not a hunter, not a fighter. He wouldn’t last a single night alone in the Ruin.
And yet.
Lilah did not want to have feelings for Chong.
She would rather have been with Tom Imura.
She even approached him once, on a winter night when no one else was around. She’d come right out and told him, “I love you.”
In the novels she read, that usually did it. The hero was swept off his feet by the honesty and directness of the heroine’s bold announcement.
What Tom said was, “Wow, Lilah. That’s a hell of a way to open a conversation. I thought you came over looking for Benny or Nix.”
“They are out,” she told him. “I waited until they left.”
“Ri-i-ight,” Tom said. They were standing in the kitchen. Tom had a cup of coffee in his hand. Outside it was thirty degrees and lightly snowing. “And you stood out there in the storm?”
“It is only snow.”
“Right,” he said again. “Okay, so here’s the thing, Lilah. I know that you like people to be direct with you, so that’s exactly what I’m going to be. I don’t know if this is going to hurt your feelings, but I think it’s absolutely necessary for us to put all our cards on the table. Do you understand that expression? Cards on the table?”
She nodded. “The truth, with nothing hidden.”
“Good. Then here’s the thing. I’m twice your age.”
“What does that matter—?”
“Shhh, let me talk. Let’s do this the right way, okay?”