"You?" Cord nearly laughed until he realized she was telling the truth.
"You don't mean it. How could you afford to buy Sam out?" Cord asked with disbelief.
"Sam owed me…so I got the saloon for nearly nothing." Her voice lowered, and she looked away.
He pulled her chin around and saw the tear that ran down her cheek. "Owed you? Sit down, Lilly and tell me about it."
"There's nothing to tell." She started to leave, her hand was on the door knob but he came up to her and put his hand over hers.
"Please…" He encouraged. "I'd like to know. I'd like to talk to someone, it's been a long time since I had a meaningful conversation with anyone. And you know you can trust me. I'd like to think we're still good friends."
Lilly obliged, by taking a seat on the settee. "You know how Sam was…"
"Yes, I know." Cord's brows met and he frowned.
"A stranger came to town one day, and he was nice to me. We spent the entire day buying drinks, and talking. Naturally it wore on Sam's nerves. Even though he was a paying customer, it really irked Sam."
Cord studied her expression closely. "Go on."
"Sam didn't like it."
"Yeah, I remember how possessive he was of you. Did he hurt you?"
Lilly looked away. "Hurt me?" She turned sad eyes on him now. "Cord… He raped me."
"What?" Cord stood up and paced the room and then stared down at her, he raised her face to look at him with one gentle finger. "Why? He controlled you, wasn't that enough?"
"He'd been hinting at it for years. I thought it was a bluff. He'd never touched me before. I didn't realize what he intended until it was too late. He threw me up against the wall, I fell, and then later I blacked out. Then he…raped me."
"My God, Lilly…I wish I'd been here for you."
"After you left, Sam got very possessive of me. I didn't go down the hall with men, like the others did. And it certainly wasn't because Sam respected my age at the time either. I never understood why until that day. He said I was his, and always had been."
She shrugged, a tear in the corner of her eye. "It was a couple of years after you left, I was seventeen then. It was the first time he'd ever touched me, but it was the last too. I wasn't expecting him to do that. I had blacked out, but when he started…. I fought so hard, he had to knock me out. I scratched his face pretty bad before I blacked out again. When I came to, I hit him with a full bottle of whiskey over the head, nearly killed him. He never touched me again. But…" Now tears were in her eyes and she looked away from him again.
"But what?"
"It was enough. I was with child." Lilly pulled the tissue from her small bag and wiped her eyes.
"With child. You mean…you had his baby?"
"Yeah…I had his baby." Lilly admitted turning her sad eyes to him. "It's probably the only good thing that Sam ever did. Naturally, at the time the town shunned me, blaming me. They didn't know what had happened, and probably wouldn't have believed it anyway. They didn't know it was Sam's baby. They thought I whored just like the others. I never told a soul…until now who the father was. Of course some speculated that it could have been his."
"The son-of-a-gun wouldn't marry you?" Cord found himself more than a little angry. He paced the room like a bobcat.
"No," she looked at him as though he should know better. "I wouldn't marry him. He didn't have any more to do with me until he found his lady, then he pulled me aside, told me he was leaving for good, and that he'd sell me the place, I could make payments on it, it would support me and the baby."
Cord's mouth hung open with surprise. "My God, Lilly. He thought that would wash his hands clean?"
"I'm not telling you this because I want your pity, Cord. I don't want anyone's pity. I make a decent living. Charlie is nearly eight now…He's the love of my life."
"Charlie?"
"Yeah, that's what I named him." Lilly said quietly.
"That was my father's name." He eyed her.
"I know." She didn't look at him while she said it.