Between Darkness and Daylight (26 page)

"You're sure?"

Ransom nodded as he put the cereal bowl on the table and Nova made her way over.

He watched her walk, liking the way she looked in one of Uncle Zane’s dress shirts worn over her jeans from yesterday, then looked away quickly, his face heating as she took the seat opposite his bowl.

He grabbed the box of Froot Loops from atop the fridge, then pulled the gallon milk container from the fridge and joined her at the table.

"Want some?" He shook the box.

"It's Sunday."

He stared at her. "And?"

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"You're supposed to have nice, big, hot breakfasts on Sundays if you don't on any other day of the week."

"Now you sound like my Gram Addie."

"A woman after my heart."

"You're welcome to cook a 'big hot breakfast.' I'll still have room."

"Oh will you?"

"I'm just warming up." Ran smiled as he brought a heaping spoonful of milk and colorful sweetened cereal to his mouth.

Nova got up and went to the fridge, taking out the frozen waffles, a carton of eggs and the frozen sausages.

Ransom clapped and rubbed his hands together between bites as she took her booty over to the stove. "Ah, now we're getting busy!"

She laughed. "You hush, wisenheimer." She playfully swiped at his head, then focused on her ingredients and got to work whipping up one of his favorite breakfasts—waffles, cheese omelets and sausages. She made enough for everyone, which was good, since as soon as she sat down with her plate, he got up for his share.

He rejoined her at the table, enjoying the companionable silence as they ate but bursting with questions just the same. He still wasn't sure about all this psychic phenomenon jazz she had told him about, but after seeing her in action with Manuela's mother and at the sports center, he couldn't totally discount anything.

He wondered how far her gifts went, if that was the reason she'd known he had taken her picture without his telling her.

What did that feel like, to see and know something was going to happen before it happened? To feel or see someone before you even met him? What kind of scary power trip must that be? And was that what had happened to Nova at the food court? Had she seen some sort of disaster?

Had she seen something bad happen to him or Uncle Zane?

"Was it bad?" he blurted.

Nova looked up from her plate, arching an eyebrow. "Was what bad?"

"The scene at the hospital? How…how did things go?"

She shrugged, picking at her eggs before she finally gave up. Putting her fork down, she took a deep breath and sat back in her chair. "It was pretty bad, Ran."

"Was her mother there?"

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She stared at him for a long time, and Ransom had begun to doubt she would ever answer him when she finally said, "It wasn't an ideal situation."

He could only imagine and was glad she and his uncle had made it home in one piece. "How is he? My uncle?"

"He'll survive."

"I guess we all will. But how is he? Really?"

"He's really upset, Ran. Sad, depressed. But I'm sure you know how that feels, having lost someone close to you."

He frowned, instantly on the defensive. "It's not the same thing."

"Why? Because she wasn't related to him?"

"You're damn right."

"Watch your mouth."

Was that term a part of every adult's parental-warning repertoire?

"I'm not related to you."

He gawked. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything. I feel the same way about you that Zane felt about that girl."

He couldn't think of anything smart to say to that one, so for a long moment, he didn't say anything, just stuffed his face with forkful after forkful of syrup-laden waffle and eggs, chewing and swallowing before finally murmuring, "Do you really?"

"Yes I do."

Ransom put another forkful of eggs in his mouth, trying to hide a smile. It felt too good to have her admit she cared about him.

Uncle Zane came into the kitchen then, shirtless and clad in his favorite weekend gear—worn Levis, the ones with the rips in the knees and thighs, the ones that rode low on his hips and reminded Ransom of an MTV rock star. Even the cell phone at Uncle Zane's ear fit the image, and Ran couldn't even guess who he might be talking to.

Nova gave him a "What's up?" look, but Uncle Zane just put a hand on her shoulder as he circled her chair and gave her a quick peck on the throat. He quickly finished up his conversation and slid his cell in his back pocket.

"Uncle Zane, it's Sunday."

Nova looked from him to his uncle and back again.

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"I'm not working. That was personal."

"Personal, huh?"

Zane nodded. "I was trying to get some information on the disposition of Manuela's…body. What plans her family is making for a funeral."

"You're not going, are you?" Ransom knew he had made a mistake as soon as the words were out, but he couldn't help himself. And he didn't think anything would keep that woman away from his uncle, not even respect for her dead daughter.

"Ransom, I can't not go."

"Sure you can."

"Ran…" Nova put a hand over his and he jerked away. He knew he was acting like a spoiled brat, but he just couldn't take this Hands-Across-America, We-Are-The-World attitude from his uncle any longer. "Why you, huh?" He slid his chair back and lurched to his feet. "Why do you have to be everybody's savior but mine?"

"Ransom, that's not tru—"

"Never mind, just forget it!" He ran from the table, but stopped on the threshold and turned back. "If you think I'm going with you to that girl's funeral, then you've got another thing coming!" Ransom stalked to his room and slammed the door behind him.

* * * *

"I'm beginning to lose my patience with that kid."

"He's going through a rough time."

"We all are. What does he expect me to do?"

"He expects you to be there for him."

"And you're suggesting I haven't been?"

"Zane…" Nova stood, slid her arms around his waist and snuggled her head near his chest before looking up into his face. "He needs your support."

He sighed and raked a hand through his hair.

"Show him you care. That's all he wants."

"I'm doing that, Nova. I do it every day I go out there to that school and punch in."

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"Keeping a roof over his head, clothes on his back, and food in his stomach isn't enough."

"What is?"

"You. Just you."

Zane stared at her for a long moment, half-resenting that she could see things he couldn’t, knew things he didn’t—knew things he had yet to acknowledge.

Damn, was he jealous?

"Look Zane, I know what you're thinking, that it's easy for me, Ms.

Nova-come-lately to just waltz in here and tell you how to run things. But I'm only telling you what I see. What I…what I feel here." She put a palm to her chest, piercing him with a look. "He needs you."

He swallowed a lump in his throat at the implication of her words.

"Have I been that bad a parent?"

"No, of course not." She chuckled, rubbing his chest with her palms.

"You're just fallible."

He frowned, but said nothing.

"Certainly that's not an alien concept to you?"

"I'm glad you're getting such a kick out of this."

"Watching you squirm? Oh, loads of kicks."

"C'mere you." He pulled her close, leaned in to savor her arched throat before she slapped him on the behind and pulled away.

"Now go to him."

Zane went to the threshold of the kitchen and paused at the doorjamb, glancing over a shoulder, silently appreciating her curvaceous form in his shirt at the kitchen counter.

"I'll keep breakfast warm for you," she said.

He grinned, hoping she'd keep a lot more warm than just his breakfast.

* * * *

Zane opened the door without knocking, not wanting to give the kid the benefit of rebuking him yet again. He was lucky Ransom hadn't locked the door, as he sometimes liked to do, or he would have cracked his knuckles pushing against the hard wood.

He drew up short when he saw the kid's head buried in a textbook.

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Big dilemma. Interrupt what appeared to be a serious studying session for a much-needed, long-overdue heart-to-heart, or let the kid fake his way out of a dressing down?

Ransom barely looked up from his book when he muttered, "I didn't say you could come in."

"Since when do I need permission in my house?"

"It's my room."

It took everything in Zane not to laugh at the teen's false bravado. He went over and sat down beside him, peeking at the text he was reading.

"Hmm, doing social studies homework. You must really be upset."

"Just leave me alone." Ransom snatched away the book and turned his back on him.

Zane took a deep breath, remembering Nova's words and the look in her eyes when she'd touched his chest, pleading for his nephew—

remembering his own promise to Sage to take care of her boy.

"Why are you here, anyway?"

"Here in your room, or here on this planet?"

Ransom smirked, mumbling, "And they call me a wisenheimer,"

before turning his attention back to his book and trying to shut him out.

"You don't have to worry about me, you know. I'm okay."

"Doesn't seem that way to me."

"All of a sudden you care?"

He winced, the kid's arrow striking its target.

"Nova said something to you, didn't she?"

"Nothing that I didn't already know." Zane realized it was true as soon as the words left his mouth. Somewhere deep down, he'd always known what Nova had told him.

He needs you.

"Whatever you think you know about me, you don't."

"Why don't you clarify for me."

"Sure you want to hear it?'

Zane spread his hands, palms up. "I'm all ears."

The kid was silent for a long time, as if trying to gather his thoughts in the right order before slinging another shot. He finally just sighed, slumped his shoulders, and closed his book before facing him, tears brimming.

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Zane reached for his cheek and Ransom jerked away.

"Don't."

He ignored the words, responded only to the lost and frightened look in the boy's eyes. Putting his arms around Ransom's resistant form, he pulled him into a hard hug, holding on until the boy finally relented and threw his arms around him, sobbing.

"Why, Uncle Zane? Why?"

He pulled back to search the young face and saw so much pain and confusion in the depths of the eyes it nearly choked him. "Ran—"

"I don't want you to go away."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I don't want you to die, all right!"

There, the kid had said it out loud. It had probably been on the tip of his tongue for weeks, ever since Manuela's mother had attacked him and Nova, maybe even longer, since his mother had died and left him, or maybe since he'd thought he'd lost Zane during the attacks.

He remembered the look on Ransom's face when they'd finally hooked up outside the school after the planes had hit, how he'd tried to cover his relief in front of all his friends and homeboys at seeing his uncle alive and well. Remembered how, during the weeks that followed, the kid would roam the apartment, pacing back and forth in front of Zane's bedroom, as if to make sure he was still alive and well and hadn't died in his sleep.

It had been a regular occurrence to wake up and find him curled up like a cat on the cushion of the maple rocking chair beside his bed. Zane would just yawn, stretch, and get up to tuck the kid into his own bed.

What else was he not saying? What other fears and mental anguish was he hiding?

"I know you can't make me any promises. About not dying I mean."

"Ransom—"

"It's okay. I'm not a baby. I can take it."

But he shouldn't have to, should he? And that was the crux of the matter, the message that Nova had been trying to get across to him. The kid was going through a lot, maybe too much for a thirteen-year-old. He was still a kid, after all—precocious sure, and sometimes a hard-ass—but still just a kid who, up until a little over a year ago, had been a sheltered and coddled suburbanite, cozy in the exclusivity of his mother's love.

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And now he had what? An uncle too busy with other people's kids to notice
him
? A workaholic role model who'd risk life and limb trying to help everyone else but his own blood?

Put that way, Zane couldn't really blame him for acting out the way he'd been lately. Couldn't blame him for the attacks on his character.

"Are we going to be all right, me and you?"

"I want us to be."

"Me too." Zane pulled him close again. He’d never realized until now how vulnerable was the boy he held in his arms, never realized how young and fragile. And Ran had been left in
his
care—by fate, by circumstance…

It no longer mattered how or why. The only thing that mattered was that he hadn't done his best to make the kid's life as good as he could. He hadn't done his best to make the transition from single-parent house in the suburbs to single-parent house in the city as smooth and easy as it could have been. "I'm going to try and do better by you, Ransom."

"It hasn't been all bad."

"It hasn't been all good either." Zane pulled back to grin at him. "We'll make this work."

Ransom nodded, solemn and teary-eyed but seeming much less

confused and uncertain than he'd been since coming to live with him.

This could only get better, Zane told himself. It would.

Nova knocked on the door and pushed it open. She had the cordless in her hand as she came in and headed to him, holding out the phone. "It's Detective Leary."

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Chapter 17