A/N: Aaaaand here's chapter 2. I'm trying to make the build up between our two heroines as realistic as possible and I hope that the progress they make here doesn't seem rushed. Like I mentioned in the last chapter, it's been awhile since I've done much writing, so let me know in reviews if there's anything you think I could work on or anything in particular you'd like to see. Enjoy the chapter!
Multicolored dots swam behind her eyelids as a bright light fought to tear through those thin barriers and reach her slate irises. With a groan of annoyance, Miley tried to turn over and away from the light, only to be shocked into wakefulness from the pain inflicted by her attempt at movement. It was like her everything hurt, with a strong focus on her left leg and her head. She lay there, eyes wide open now and heart thumping as she tried desperately to remember what had happened.
She remembered stopping on that trail, definitely remembered her phone conversation, throwing her bluetooth away...And that was it. All she had after that were brief flashes of a quickly approaching tree and a woman with angelic hair.
Miley furrowed her brow at that last one. She definitely didn't know this girl whose face was but a vague recollection. But for some reason, fixing that blurry face in her mind brought about a small sense of peace.
With great effort and no little amount of discomfort, she turned her head to take in the room she was in. Definitely not her hotel room, but just as definitely not a hospital room. The walls were a warm reddish brown, almost a toasted orange, and the room was decorated in a rustic but very tasteful manner. Hand carved wooden furniture adorned the room and what appeared to be custom paintings of various mountain ranges covered the walls.
Feeling around her, as she felt she was in no position to sit up, Miley determined that she was currently in a king bed with very expensive bedding. The sheets simultaneously slid across her body like silk and clung to her, soft and warm, like the best linen money could buy.
So that led to her next question of many: where was she?
Just then, there was a soft knock on the door. Instinctively, Miley attempted to rise to a sitting position. She immediately regretted this choice, but followed through with it stubbornly, eventually resting with her back against the headboard.
"Come in," she croaked out. Her throat felt like sandpaper.
The door at the opposite end of the room from the bed opened slowly and a blonde head peeked in. Seeing Miley sitting up, the mystery blonde let loose a dazzling smile and pushed the door open fully, revealing a tray piled with breakfast foods.
Suddenly, Miley realized she was ravenous.
"I thought you might be hungry," the blonde said brightly as she carried the tray over to the bed and settled it onto Miley's lap.
Miley's eyes widened at the sheer amount of food on the tray. Bacon, sausage, a quartered grapefruit, pancakes, and a glass each of milk and orange juice. It was like one of those ridiculous "complete" breakfasts on the cereal commercials.
Her stomach rumbled, loudly, just then, but she made the difficult decision to ignore the food for now and focus on answers.
"Thank you," she said to the girl still standing beside her bed, "I've got a couple of questions, though."
The blonde nodded. "I figured you would," she said. She settled down onto the edge of Miley's bed and snagged a strip of bacon, taking a bite before continuing. "Fire away."
Miley narrowed her eyes for a moment in though, trying to collect herself and figure out what she wanted to know first. Sorting information was painful still; her head felt as though someone had beaten on it repeatedly with a sledgehammer.
After a few moments, she turned back to the woman now sitting on her bed.
"Okay, firstly, who are you and where am I?"
The woman laughed, not loudly, but with a kind of simple delight.
"This'll be the third time I've answered these questions," she said with a giggle, "but the doctors did say you'd have some memory issues for the first couple of days."
She managed to calm herself before taking another bite of bacon.
"My name's Lilly," she went on, "Lilly Truscott. And you're at my home."
Miley's eyes widened, impressed. "This is your place? Sweet digs. If this is what your guest room looks like, I can't wait to see the rest of your house."
"Well, thanks for the compliment, but this is actually the master bedroom. Both of my guest rooms are on the second floor, and you'd have trouble with the stairs, given the broken leg. Not to mention the balance issues a grade 1 concussion will likely have."
At Lilly's mention of her leg, Miley gently set the tray aside and pulled up the covers to peek ignored for the moment that she was clad only in a tank top and panties, despite being very sure she was wearing much more clothing last she was aware. Her heart sank at the sight of the thick cast encasing her entire lower leg.
"What happened to me?" She asked finally, lowering the sheet and comforter gently.
Lilly gestured vaguely with the half of bacon strip she still held.
"You wiped out, to put it simply. I didn't actually see it, I got to you just after it happened, but from the looks of things you had caught an edge or something on a corner and got flung into a tree. We're not sure how the leg happened, but your concussion was likely the result of blunt impact with the tree."
Miley nodded, gently and only barely to avoid aggravating her head.
"That makes sense," she said, "I'm having these flashes of a tree rushing at me. That must be from the accident." She picked up a sausage link and started to eat, little nibbles at first. After a moment, she paused her chewing and swallowed as another question occurred to her.
"How did I end up here?"
Lilly smiled and seemed to turn just the slightest red from embarrassment.
"I kind of made the doctors let me bring you here. They said you were fine and just needed some rest, but from your drivers license I knew you weren't from around here."
"So they just let you bring me here? Just like that?"
"They didn't have much of a choice," Lilly said, turning just a little redder.
"So you just snapped your fingers and ordered them to let you take me home with you?" Miley questioned. It did seem a little crazy, "Where do you get that kind of power?"
"Well, when you own the mountain and resort a town is built around, people tend to give you a little respect," Lilly informed her, her face now flushed with embarrassment, "Enjoy your breakfast."
And with that, she stood, walked briskly to the door, and gently closed it behind her, taking one last glance at Miley before the door clicked shut.
Miley sat in stunned silence for just a moment before grabbing the syrup and settling into her breakfast.
"Wow," was all she said before shaking her head and taking a bite.
-GP-GP-GP-GP-GP-
As soon as the door was closed, Lilly leaned softly against the wall and fought to reduce the burning in her cheeks. Even after all this time, she still got so embarrassed whenever she told someone about her inheritance. When she took over the mountain, a lot of her friends in the freeskiing community had turned away from her, looking at her as a sellout.
She sighed heavily, her cheeks returning to their normal pink color, then pushed off from the wall and made her way down the hallway, moving past the kitchen and turning smoothly on the hardwood floors into the wide open expanse of her living room.
Of all the rooms in her home, this was Lilly's favorite. High ceilings set with criss-crossing beams of solid maple gave the room a warm, open feeling and the large, open fireplace set dead center in the outside-facing wall provided a perfect gathering place for friends and family. Seated in one of the cushy couches near the roaring fire was Oliver, his feet pulled up on the couch beside him, his face buried in a new issue of Powder magazine.
Lilly sat heavily in the couch opposite Oliver's, picking up her now warm glass of milk and taking a gulp.
"How is she?" Oliver asked, setting down the magazine.
"Seems better than yesterday," Lilly replied, nursing her glass with both hands and pulling her legs up and under her body Indian style. "She was a lot more alert and responsive. I'd say the effects of the concussion are probably fading."
Oliver nodded. "That's good," he said, "Now, onto the big question: what do you plan to do next?"
"Well, there's recovery time. The doctor said he doesn't want her flying until next week at the earliest. So I'll let her stay here until then at least. After that, I'm not sure. Her leg is pretty badly banged up. If she wants to go home, I won't stop her, but I'd like her to let that heal up just a little bit before she goes traipsing off."
Oliver was silent for a few moments after that, giving her a penetrating look. Lilly returned the look, tilting her head just a bit in curiosity.
"Whatcha starin' at, Ollie?" Lilly asked, almost nervously.
Oliver opened his mouth, shut it for a beat, then finally spoke what was on his mind.
"Are you planning on sleeping with her, Lils?"
Lilly gasped in mock indignance as Oliver cracked a big grin. Laughing, she threw a pillow at him.
"No, you idiot, I'm not planning on sleeping with her!"
Still laughing, Oliver replied, "I just had to make sure. After what happened with Lynsey..."
He trailed off, and Lilly's smile died.
"I'm sorry," he said, "But I know it's still getting to you, the way she left, so-"
"No, it's okay," Lilly replied, waving his concern away, "I get it. I promise, Oliver, I'm over her. And this Miley girl is just someone in need of a hand. She's far from home, alone, and hurt. She needs help, and as it's my mountain, I can decide to be the one to help her."
"Understood," Oliver said, leaning back into the couch and picking his magazine back up.
They sat in companionable silence for several moments before Oliver broke the silence again.
"She's probably not into girls anyway."
Lilly let out a mock shriek of fury and dove across the coffee table at him. He yelped in surprise, dropping his magazine and pulling up a pillow to use as protection. Lilly perched herself atop him and started raining playful blows down upon the pillow, laughing merrily the whole time.
"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," came a voice from the doorway.
The two halted their fight immediately and turned their heads toward the source of the voice. Miley stood in the wide archway leading into the living room, balancing precariously upon a crutch on her injured side, one eyebrow quirked up and a half smirk of amusement playing across her lips.
"Not at all!" Lilly said, hopping off of Oliver and walked toward Miley. "I'm surprised to see you up and about," she said as she reached the girl.
"Yeah, well, bein' cooped up in the bed for awhile was starting to do a number on my back so I figured I'd get up and stretch a bit, now that I've gotten a bite to eat and my head doesn't feel like a giant, lead-filled balloon."
Lilly laughed at that, then turned and wrapped Miley's arm on her good side around her shoulders to help her over to the couches. Miley seemed grateful for the help, favoring her good leg much more now that she could keep some weight off of the uncomfortable crutch.
"So," Miley said as she sat down on the couch next to Lilly, "this is definitely a pretty nice house."
"Thanks," Lilly said, "It's my baby. Ever since I retired and took over the mountain I've spent most of my time up here, so I try to make it as nice as I possibly can."
"It definitely shows. I'm Miley, by the way," she said, holding a hand out to Oliver.
"Oliver Oken," he said, flashing her his trademark grin and winking.
"Oken...I know that name," Miley said thoughtfully.
"Yeah, well, I'm kind of a big deal," Oliver said with exaggerated arrogance.
"So you keep saying," Lilly said with a shrug, "I just don't see it."
Oliver's expression changed to one of mock hurt as he crossed his arms and pouted.
Miley snapped her fingers in triumph just then.
"You're the guy who won Dew Tour last season!" She exclaimed.
Oliver bowed, or as close to a bow as one can perform while seated, before replying, "Guilty as charged. I'm all done with the competitive stuff now, though. From now on I'll be working here, running the heli-skiing tours for Lilly."
It dawned on Miley then why Lilly's face seemed so familiar. She turned toward the girl sitting next to her with something akin to awe.
"So wait. You're THE Lilly Truscott?"
"In the flesh," Lilly said, a bit sheepishly. Even after all this time, fame was a strange feeling for her.
"Wow," Miley said, sitting back with a slightly shocked expression, "now I really feel like an amateur, sittin' here with a broken leg and a concussion I got from a flippin' blue trail of all things."
"Hey, everybody makes mistakes," Oliver said reassuringly, "Just the other day, Lilly was giving a private lesson to one of the shareholder's kids and she fell flat on her face on the bunny hill!"
Lilly's cheeks were tinged pink.
"I told you, my edge caught a burr. It was a freak accident!"
"That's what they all say," Oliver replied with a sly wink to Miley.
Miley laughed outright then, a deep and throaty laugh, and Lilly's embarrassment washed away with that sound.
'What a gorgeous laugh,' she found herself thinking before she could catch herself. She shook her head then, clearing her mind. She caught Oliver's eye and he gave her a knowing grin before standing up.
"Alright kiddos, time for me to scoot. I've got one more tour at one before I get to head home. You two have a fun afternoon, try not to get eaten by any coyotes."
"There aren't any coyotes out here, Oliver, stop trying to scare her."
"You don't know. This is the godless wild. There could be anything out there," he said, waggling his fingers spookily as he walked past the couch the girls were on. He gave Lilly a little pat on her head as he passed and shook Miley's hand over Lilly's head before swaggering out of the living room through a side entrance that lead to the foyer.
The girls sat in silence as the door shut behind Oliver, the sounds of his Jeep heading down the mountain road fading into the distance before either of them spoke.
"So," Miley said, breaking the comfortable quiet that had overcome them, "Did the doctor give you any instructions on how I should bathe when you strong-armed him into letting you kidnap me?"
Lilly grinned at Miley's joking tone.
"He said baths would be preferable to showers, to try to keep your cast clean. And, in my infinite wisdom, I had the only bath in the house constructed in the upstairs bathroom. Do you want a hand getting up there?"
"Please," Miley replied gratefully. Lilly helped her up off the couch then and, after making sure Miley's crutch was secure, lead the woman over to the stairs. For the duration of their difficult climb up, Miley rested a fair amount of her weight on Lilly, but Lilly found that she didn't mind all that much having this attractive young woman pressed against her.
Once in the bathroom, Lilly leaned down to start the bath, turning around once the water was warm. Immediately she gasped and for what felt like the fiftieth time today her face turned beat red.
While her back had been turned, Miley had begun the arduous process of stripping down while injured. As Lilly turned around, she had just finished shimmying her pajama pants off and was carefully stepping out of them, now clad in only a black bra and matching panties.
Lilly felt her mouth go dry, taking in a body that was obviously very well taken care of. She stared, intensely, for a few seconds. Her eyes crawled up Miley's body, starting at the cast and moving up her smooth, creamy thighs, the taut stomach, perfectly rounded breasts barely covered by that silky bra. When her eyes met Miley's returned gaze, she quickly averted her eyes, turning and heading for the door.
"Towels are in the closet, I'll be in the office just down the hall, yell when you're ready to go downstairs."
Before she could hear Miley's response, she opened and closed the door behind her, not turning around to avoid seeing Miley's expression. She knew what was waiting there. Awkward disapproval, maybe disgust.
Lynsey had been right after all. No girl would want to be with her.
Once safely in the hallway, Lilly leaned back against the wall and let out a heavy breath, sinking down to a sitting position against the wall with her head in her hands.
'I can't fall for this girl,' she thought seriously, 'I just can't.'
From within the bathroom, she heard the chorus of All-American Rejects' "Gives You Hell" blare briefly before hearing Miley's voice.
"Hello?"
There were a few seconds of silence, the party on the other end clearly talking.
"No, Jake, I'm fine. I have a broken leg and a concussion. No, I'm not coming back home just yet. The owner of the resort was kind enough to let me stay with her until I'm okay to fly again."
Another long silence.
"She's very nice. She's our age and used to be a competitive skier. NO, I'm not going to dump you for a ski chick. I don't know where you get these ideas."
She could hear a tinny voice then, the sound from the phone amplified by the acoustics of the bathroom, though she couldn't make out the words.
"God dammit, Jake, when did you get so insecure! I'm legitimately injured, and you're accusing me of making up a story to get out of marrying you? Well, if you're so worried about that, maybe I'll just stay here a little longer! I can afford a hotel room once I'm well enough to get out of Lilly's hair."
More yelling from the phone, much shorter this time, then-
"No. No, no. NO. Jake, shut the hell up! You know what? I'll make this a hell of a lot easier for you: wedding's off. Have a nice life."
She could only assume that the call ended there, as she heard plastic clatter to the floor and a loud, angry sigh emanate from Miley.
Much as she felt bad for Miley, as well as this mystery man, she couldn't help but smile a little.
Maybe there was a chance after all.