Key Of Valor (24 page)

“I'll keep that in mind,” Brad said equably, and made Crystal laugh in spite of herself.

“Maybe she's got better taste this time around. You don't look to be too much of an asshole.”

“Thanks.”

“You never tried to wiggle out of work,” she said to Zoe with a hint of affection. “I'll give you that.” On impulse, she reached out, touched Zoe's hair. “Good cut—got style. Anyway, you never were stupid, either. You got a chance for the high life here—'cause this one looks like the high life to me—you'd be a fool not to take it. A woman's got to take what she can get.”

“Mama.”

“I say what's on my mind, always have, always will.” Crystal dropped the cigarette, crushed it under her shoe. “I gotta get back inside. Get a ring on your finger this time,” she told Zoe, then tipped her chin at Bradley. “You could do worse.”

She dragged the screen open, went back inside. And shut the door.

“It never comes out right. It just never does.” Tears flooded Zoe's eyes and were ruthlessly blinked back. “We need to go.”

She started toward the woods almost at a jog, kept her head down when Brad took her arm. “She doesn't understand you.”

“That's not news to me.”

“She doesn't understand the light inside you. Or that it's not about what you can get, it's about what you want to make. She doesn't understand you, so she doesn't know how to love you.”

“I don't know what to do about it.”

“You keep trying, and it's going to hurt you. You stop trying, and it's going to hurt you.” He ran his hands up and down her arms for comfort. “I understand you, Zoe, so I know which choice you'll make.”

She looked back toward the trailer. “I'll come back at Christmastime and maybe . . . just maybe.” Because she thought they both needed it, she worked up a smile. “I told you she wouldn't like you.”

“She did too like me. She's already caught in my web.” He bent to kiss her lightly on the lips. “Just like her daughter.”

“Me, I'm hell on cobwebs.” She took his hand again, and they walked into the woods.

“Why do they call them cobwebs? They're not made out of cob.”

“There's a question for Dana. She'll look it up somewhere—I don't know where she finds half these things—and give you a whole lecture on it. I never knew anybody so smart with words. It was always numbers for me. Now I'm friends with Dana, who knows everything about books, and Malory, who knows everything about art. I've learned a lot from them in the last couple months. Sometimes it all seems like some kind of dream.”

She paused, looking around as she spoke. “And I'll wake up one morning and it'll all be the way it was. I'll be working for that bitch Carly again and I won't even know Dana or Mal. I'll pick up the newspaper and read Flynn's column, but I won't know him. Or I'll see one of Jordan's books and wonder what he's like, because I won't know.”

She looked up at Brad, touched her fingers to his cheek. “I won't know you. I'll go pick up something at HomeMakers, and I won't think of you because none of this happened.”

“It's real.” He curled his fingers firmly around her wrist so she could feel his grip, so he could feel her pulse. “This is real.”

“But if it wasn't, if I'm in bed having some long, complicated dream, I think I'd wake up heartbroken.” She looked back in the direction of her mother's trailer. “Or worse. Whatever happens next, wherever all of this ends, I couldn't stand it if I'd missed knowing you. Kiss me.” She leaned in, rose on her toes. “Will you?”

He drew her close, and laid his lips on hers gently. Letting the moment spin out. When she sighed, when she linked her arms around his neck, it was more lovely than any dream.

She felt something shift inside her with an ache so sweet it brought the tears rushing back. The air was cool, his mouth so warm. Love, beyond what she'd ever hoped for, was here.

She felt his hand stroke her hair, smooth it all the way down her back. His slim young body pressed to hers with his need quivering through it, and into hers.

She eased back, looked into bright blue eyes, and let a tear trickle down her cheek. “James.” She said it softly, cupped his face in her hands.

“I love you, Zoe.” James's voice—a little breathless, eager, fell on her ears. “We were meant to be together. You'll never feel this way about anyone but me.”

“No, I won't.” Swamped with the love that poured from a sixteen-year-old girl's heart, she pressed his hand to her lips, to her cheek, held it there. “Nothing will ever be the same, not for either of us.”

“We'll run away together. We'll be together forever.”

She smiled, very gently. “No, we won't.” She kissed him again, with no regrets, then stepped back. “Good-bye, James.”

Brad hauled her upright when her knees gave way and continued to shake her, to say her name, as he had since he'd felt her leave him.

Her eyes had blurred, her cheeks had paled.

She'd called him James.

“Look at me. Look at me, goddamn it.”

“I am.” Limply, her head rolled back, and though her vision grayed with the effort, she fought to focus. “I'm looking at you. Bradley.”

“We're getting out of here.” He started to scoop her up, but she pressed a hand to his chest.

“No. It's all right. I just need a second. Let me take that second sitting down.”

She slid down, sat on the ground with her forehead pressed to her updrawn knees. “I'm a little dizzy. Just need to get my bearings.”

He pulled the knife from the sheath under his jacket and took a long scan of the woods before crouching in front of her. “You clicked off, like someone had flicked a switch inside you. You called me James.”

“I know.”

“You slipped away. You weren't with me, you were with him. Looking at him.” With love. “You said nothing would ever be the same.”

“I know what I said. He took me back. Kane took me back, but I knew it.” Steadier, she lifted her head. “I knew it, almost as soon as it started. I felt . . . I'm not ashamed of what I felt, and I'm not sorry for it. That would mean I'm ashamed and sorry about Simon. But I can be sorry Kane used you that way.”

“You cried for him.” Reaching out, Brad caught a tear on his fingertip.

“Yes, I cried for James. And for what might've been if he'd been stronger, maybe if we'd both been stronger. Then I said good-bye.”

She laid her hand over Brad's, curled her fingers into his palm. “Kane wanted me to feel all those things I felt for James, and he wanted to use them to drive something between us. Has he?”

“It pissed me off. It hurt.” He looked down at their
joined hands and, after a moment, turned his over so their fingers linked. “But no, he didn't drive anything between us.”

“Bradley.” She started to lean in, wanted to touch her lips to his. And saw the knife. Her eyes went huge. “Oh, God.”

“He can be hurt,” Bradley said simply. “If I get the chance, I'm going to hurt him.” Standing, he sheathed the knife, then held a hand down to her.

She moistened her lips. “You better be careful with that thing.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Still a little pissed, aren't you? I know who you are, Bradley. I know who I am. He tried to make me forget that, but he couldn't. That has to mean something. I felt exactly like I did when I was sixteen and with James. My body, my heart, my head. He ran his hand down my hair. I wore it long then, and he used to do that. Run his hand all the way down my hair when he kissed me. That kind of thing's inside me, in those memory boxes. Kane can get into those.”

It took a supreme act of will, but Bradley forced himself to think beyond the personal, toward the quest. “What did he say to you? James—what did he say to you?”

“That he loved me, that I'd never feel about anyone else the way I did about him. That's true, I won't. I shouldn't. But Bradley, I
knew
.”

She spun around now, and her face shone. “Even when I was standing there with hair halfway down my back and his face in my hands, I knew it wasn't real. Just a trick. And
I
used it.”

She pressed her palms together, tapped the sides of her fingers against her mouth as she turned in a circle. “This place. I had to come back here. More, I had to come back here with you. But the key isn't here.” She dropped her hands. “It's not here.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No.” She shook her head, twirled again, with a brilliant smile. “I know it's not here. I feel it. I don't have to wonder, I don't have to come back hoping or looking, because I've done what I needed to do here. Or we have.”

She jumped into his arms, hard and fast enough to knock him back a full step. Laughing, she hooked her legs around his waist and gave him a noisy kiss. “I don't know what it all means, but I'll figure it out. For the first time in days, I believe I'll figure it out. I'm going to unlock that box, Bradley.”

She pressed her cheek to his. “I'm going to unlock it, and they're going to go home.”

 

WHEN
they pulled up at Flynn's, Zoe aimed a steely look at Brad. “This is on your head, I want to make that clear.”

“You did. About six times already.”

“I'm not going to have any sympathy for you or your belongings.”

“Yeah, yeah. Blah blah.”

She stifled a laugh, kept her face stern as she followed him toward the house. “Just remember who tried to be practical.”

“Right.” He shot her a grin as he pushed open the door. “You were a goner as soon as you looked into those big brown eyes.”

“I could've waited a week.”

“Liar.”

The laugh escaped as she set the puppy down and let him race down the hall. “This ought to be interesting.”

Moe shot out of the kitchen, then skidded to a halt. His eyes rolled, his body braced. And the little pup, a ball of brown and gray fur, yipped in joy and leaped up to nip at Moe's nose.

Brad grabbed Zoe's arm before she could run forward. “But what if—”

“Have a little faith,” Brad suggested.

Moe quivered, sniffed the pup as it jumped and tumbled. Then he collapsed, rolling over on his back in an attitude of bliss as the puppy climbed all over him and chewed on his ears.

“Big softie,” Zoe murmured, and felt her own smile spread, big and foolish, as Simon wandered out from the kitchen.

“Hey, Mom! We're having subs for lunch. Me and Flynn made them, and . . .” He trailed off, his eyes going round as the puppy deserted Moe to charge him.

“Whoa! A puppy. Where'd he come from?” Simon was already down on the floor, laughing as the pup licked his face, tumbling back as Moe tried to horn in. “He looks like a bear cub or something.”

Buried in dogs, Simon twisted enough to look at Brad. “Is it yours? When'd you get him? What's his name?”

“Not mine. He's just been liberated. And he doesn't have one.”

“Then who—” He went very still, and those long gold eyes fixed on his mother's.

“He's yours, baby.”

In that moment she knew the puppy could chew through her house like a plague of termites and she would never regret it. She would never forget that flash of stunned joy on her little boy's face.

“To keep?” Simon's voice shook as he managed to get to his knees. “I can keep him?”

“I think he's counting on it.” She walked over to kneel down and ruffle the pup's cloud-soft fur. “You're going to have to be very responsible, and make sure he's fed right and taught, and loved. Puppies are a lot of work. He's going to depend on you.”

“Mom.” Too overcome to be embarrassed that Brad looked on, Simon threw his arms around his mother and buried his face against her shoulder. “I'll take good care of him. I promise. Thanks, Mom. I love you more than anything, ever.”

“I love
you
more than anything, ever.” She answered his fierce hug with one of her own, then managed a watery laugh when both dogs tried to wiggle between them. “I think Moe's going to like having a friend.”

“It's just like a big family.” Simon lifted the puppy high.

The newcomer expressed his delight by peeing on Simon's knee.

Z
OE
rubbed the exfoliating cream over Dana's calf and grinned as her friend let out a long, heartfelt moan.

“I really appreciate the two of you giving up your Sunday afternoon to be my guinea pigs.”

This time Dana grunted. Malory sat on a stool in the treatment room and rubbed her fingers over her newly scrubbed and polished skin. “I can't get over how good it feels.”

“I wasn't worried about the results—these products are great. But I want to be sure the whole experience works.”

“Works for me,” said Dana's slurred and muffled voice.

Zoe glanced around, scanning the shelves of products, the glowing candles, the neat stack of mint-green towels on the counter, the clear crystal she'd hung from the ceiling over the padded table.

It was, she thought, exactly right.

“Of course, when we're doing this for real there won't be three people in here talking. You want us to be quiet, Dana?”

“You don't even exist in my little world. That stuff smells as good as it feels.”

“It's good we're doing this.” Malory sipped some of the lemon water Zoe had chilled in a squat glass pitcher. “If we're going to open on Friday, we want to work out as many kinks as possible, in all three areas.”

Swallowing hard, she pressed a hand to her belly. “God, we're going to open on Friday. Even if it is a kind of dry run for the grand opening on December first, it's happening.”

“Big day, all around,” Zoe said.

“You're going to find the key.” Malory touched her shoulder. “I know it.”

The connection—Malory's hand on her, hers on Dana—bolstered her. “That's another reason I wanted to do this today. I needed some time with just the three of us.”

She glanced up at the crystal again. It certainly seemed she'd become a bit more mystical-minded over the last few months. “To recharge my energy. My girl power.”

“Rah-rah,” Dana cheered and made Zoe laugh.

“With what happened yesterday I feel more confident, but this little voice keeps sneaking in asking me why the hell I think I can do this.”

“Is it Zoe's voice,” Dana asked her, “or Kane's?”

“It's Zoe's, which makes it more irritating. Yesterday, there was this rush of excitement, of energy, when I realized what was going on, that I knew what it was and could control it. But I need to move it from there.”

“You went back to a beginning, and an ending.” Curious, Malory examined the bottles and tubes neatly lined up on Zoe's shelves. “And with the three of us here today, we're going back to basics. Both Dana and I had periods during our part of this when we felt discouraged and lost.”

“Check,” Dana confirmed. “And when we went off on tangents that dead-ended. Or seemed to.”

“Seemed to.” Turning back, Malory nodded. “But without
those tangents would we have gotten on the right track? I don't think so. It's something I've thought about a lot,” she added, leaning back on the counter. “A quest isn't linear, it isn't straightforward. It circles and it winds and overlaps. But every step, every piece, has its place. Let's take yours.”

“Dana has to rinse off.”

“Then hold that thought.” Wrapped in the bath sheet Zoe provided, Dana headed for the shower.

“You've got some ideas.” Zoe walked over to rinse her hands. “I can see it.”

“I do, actually. It might be easier for me to see, well, the forest for the trees, because I'm not in it the way you are. And the experience I had in the attic here was similar to what happened to you yesterday. In that I knew what was going on, and controlled it. And part of me, a little part, wanted to stay in that illusion and let the rest go.”

Zoe looked back, saw the sympathy, the understanding on Malory's face. The tension in her shoulders dissolved. “I really needed to hear that. So much. I didn't want James, Mal, not really, but part of me remembered how much I
had
wanted him.”

“I know. I know exactly.”

She could, Zoe thought. She and Dana were the only ones who really could. “Part of me felt that same way, had that same yearning. And it would've been so easy to drift back there and believe everything would turn out differently.”

“But you didn't drift back.”

“No.” She began changing the cover on the treatment table, adjusting the pad, smoothing the cotton. “Everything but that one little part knew I didn't want it to turn out differently. I didn't really want the boy who couldn't stand by me or his own child. But I had to remember him, really remember him, and what I felt for him. So I could say good-bye.”

“Do you want the man who's willing to stand by you, and your child?”

“I do.” There was a flutter under her heart as she selected the lotion for Dana. “But I don't seem to trust either of us to make it work. Lie on your back,” she said when Dana came back in. “And there's more than that, than not trusting us.”

Efficiently, she adjusted the towel that covered Dana from breast to crotch, then warmed the lotion in her hands. “If I take that last step with him, how much danger will that put him in? It's kind of a quandary. If you love someone, you want to protect them. If I'm going to protect him, I can't let myself love him. Not all the way.”

“If you love him, you ought to respect him enough to know he'll protect himself.”

Zoe stared at Dana. “I do respect him.”

“I don't think you do. You keep wondering if and when he's going to let you down, let Simon down. When he's going to walk. You're talking to somebody who's been there. You're thinking you shouldn't give him a hundred percent because you'll need something in reserve when he takes a hike. I'm not saying you don't have a right to that. You've got a lot on the line.”

“And what's most on the line for Zoe? Personally,” Malory qualified. “The single thing you won't risk?”

“Simon.”

“Exactly.”

“I know Bradley won't hurt him.” Zoe massaged the lotion in, working her way down Dana's body. “But the more Simon looks to him for the sort of things a boy looks for from a father, the more of a jolt it'll be if things don't work out. He's had to deal with not having a father. Ever. Not like a divorce or even death, but never having one. However much I've smoothed it for him, however much he knows I love him, and I'm there for him, he's always known there was someone who didn't, who refused to be there. I don't want him to ever feel unwanted again.”

“And to keep that from happening, you'd sacrifice. You'd fight,” Malory added. “Whatever it took, whatever it cost you, you'd fight. Because of all the choices you've made, Simon is the most important. He's your key.”

“Simon?” Zoe repeated as Dana sat up. “Oh, sorry, over on your stomach. My mind's churning.”

“Mal's clicked on something.” Dana rolled over, but propped her head on her fist. “We're the keys, the three of us. That's been emphasized over and over. But of the three of us, Zoe's the one who has—you could say—re-created herself in a child. Simon's part of Zoe. Zoe's the key, ergo, Simon's the key.”

“Kane can't touch him.” Fear wanted to leap up and choke her. “Rowena said she'd protected him.”

“Count on it.” Dana looked over her shoulder. “If he could do anything about Simon, he'd have tried by now.”

“I think it might be more than Rowena that protects him,” Malory added. “I think whatever can be done from the other side is being done. Someone's children were already harmed. They won't let it happen again. Between all that, and us, nothing touches Simon.”

“If I believed otherwise, I'd walk away from this in a heartbeat.” Zoe paused as she caught Malory's nod. “Which Kane has to know, so he would have done anything he could to threaten my son. He hasn't, because he can't. Okay.” She let out a long breath. “Okay, let's work from there. If Simon's the key, or part of it the way he's part of me, doesn't that take me back to choices I've made regarding him? Having him was a choice, keeping him was a choice—the best ones I ever made. But I've been back there. And though I think going back mattered, I don't have the key.”

“You made other choices,” Dana pointed out. “Went in other directions.”

“Been over some of those, too. It's been a kind of journey, I guess,” she continued as she finished slicking the lotion on
Dana. “Remembering, seeing it again, thinking about it all. It's been good for me, all in all, because it validated my choices and let me see that the mistakes I made weren't all that big. You want to roll over? I'll get you your robe.”

“You came here to the Valley,” Dana began. “You got a job, you bought a house. What else?”

Malory held up a hand while Zoe helped Dana into her robe. “I'm not going to say all of that's not important, and maybe going through some of the details is one of the answers. But we could look at this from a different angle. What if some of the answers have to do with Simon's choices?”

“He's a kid,” Dana pointed out, rubbing a hand on her forearm to admire Zoe's work. “His biggest choice is which video game to play.”

“No.” Thoughtfully, Zoe shook her head. “No, children have a lot of choices. Right or wrong. Some of those choices stick with them, and push them in a certain direction. What friends they make. Maybe they read a book about a fighter pilot and they decide they want to fly. Right now, in a hundred different ways, Simon's deciding what kind of a man he'll be.”

“Then maybe you need to take a closer look at some of those decisions,” Malory suggested.

 

A
decision Simon was particularly pleased with at the moment was his choice of Homer as a name for the pup. It combined some of his favorite things into one—baseball, a cartoon character, and a dog. Outside in the crisp fall air, watching Moe chase a tennis ball and Homer chase Moe, Simon figured life didn't get any cooler.

Plus, the guys were coming over pretty soon to watch the game while his mom and her friends did girl stuff. He could eat potato chips till he puked.

He snatched up the ball Moe dropped at his feet, then did a lot of dancing and fake throwing to make the dogs totally nutso before he hurled it toward the trees.

When he went to school the next day, he'd tell all his pals about Homer. Maybe, if it wasn't too goofy, he could get Brad to take a picture so he could show everybody.

He looked back toward the river while the dogs rolled around together. He really liked it here. He liked his house, too, and the yard and all. And living next to the Hansons. But, boy, he really liked it here, with the woods to explore and the river right there.

If they were going to stay longer, it would be so cool to have his friends over. Man, they would freak over the game room. And they could build a fort in the woods, and maybe go tubing on the river in the summer. If his mom didn't wig out over the idea.

Maybe he still could, even after they went back home. He could ask Brad, and then Brad would help him work on Mom. That was cool, too, having another guy so they could double-team her.

It was sort of like having a father. Not that he cared about that, but it was probably like it. Sort of.

Anyway, it was going to be totally awesome to have Thanksgiving here, with everybody piling into the house, and the guys all arguing about the game, and eating pumpkin pie until they busted their guts.

His mom made really good pumpkin pie, and she always gave him little pieces of the dough to make dough people with.

He wondered if Brad would think that was lame.

He looked over, then ran toward the house as Brad came out. “Hey! You want to throw the ball some? Moe's teaching Homer how to fetch.”

“Sure.” He snugged the knit cap he'd brought out over Simon's head. “Getting cold.”

“Maybe it'll snow. Maybe it'll snow six feet and there won't be any school.”

“We can always dream.” He picked up the ball and winged it in a way Simon desperately admired.

“If it snows six feet, can you stay home from work?”

“If it snows six feet, I'll make a point of staying home from work.”

“And we can have hot chocolate and play ten million video games.”

“That's a deal.”

“Do you wear a condom when you have the sex with my mother?”

All the blood in Brad's head drained out of the soles of his feet. “Do what?”

“Because if you don't, you could make a baby. Would you marry her if you made a baby?”

“Holy Mother of God.”

There was a tickle at the back of Simon's throat, a kind of sick nervousness. But he couldn't stop the rush of words—they
had
to be said. “The guy who made me with her, he didn't marry her, and I think it hurt her feelings. I have to look out for her now, so if you're not going to marry her if you make a baby, you can't have the sex.” Because his belly was jumping, Simon looked down and gave the ball a good kick. “I just wanted to say.”