Aftershocks (13 page)

Grant cleared his throat, interrupting her thoughts, but kept his gaze on the water lapping below their feet. Zoe couldn’t see his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking about this all summer,” he said. “Longer. It’s like…the end of something, and the beginning of something else, and I’m afraid we’ll be doing two different something elses.”

She went cold and pulled her hand free to wrap her arms around herself. What was wrong with that?

Grant turned his body to face her, sitting cross-legged, whatever he was holding still hidden in his fingers.

“I love you, Zoe.” He glanced up expectantly. It wasn’t the first time they’d said it, not by a long shot, but she dutifully replied, meaning it, but suddenly not sure what “meaning it” meant.

“You’re, like, the other half of me. And even though we’re going to be in different places, learning different things, we’ll be together. You know, in spirit or whatever.”

He’d never sounded so awkward. Tears pricked her eyes. She blinked hard, not wanting him to see.

He took a deep breath, straightened his spine again, and held out a tiny diamond ring. “Zoe Ardmore, will you marry me?”

She didn’t take the ring. “When?”

His face fell, and part of her, buried under the coldness, knew she’d crushed him and was sorry.

“What?”

“When do you want me to marry you?”

“I don’t know.” He spread his hands out, realized that put the ring over the water, and swung them back into his lap fast. “Whenever.”

He looked confused. Of course he did. Because she didn’t mean
when
, she meant
why
, but couldn’t seem to ask that properly. He would just say because he loved her, and that wasn’t the point.

Something was squeezing her lungs, tighter and tighter, the way it used to be when her parents tried to keep her “safe.”

“Whenever, like when I’m done with college and you’re doing your stint in the Army? Or whenever, like over the holidays, so you can freeze me in place?”

He gaped at her. “Not— I don’t know. I figured we’d decide that together.” He looked down at the ring and held it toward her again. She ignored it.

“I don’t think you want to marry me for the right reasons.”

He gaped more. “I want to marry you because I love you!”

Yep, there it was. “No. I think you want to marry me because you’re afraid. You think you might lose me.”

“Never.”

He said it fast enough, with enough confidence, to give her pause. Maybe she’d read him wrong. But…

“What are your plans, Grant?”

“You know my plans.”

“No, I don’t. I know you’re going to Wright State and then you have to be in the Army, and if you don’t die in some stupid war, what next? What kind of career do you want?”

He shrugged and gazed toward the sailboat marina. “Something like this, I guess. You know, on the water. Maybe fishing charters or tours somewhere.”

“That’s all?” The words sounded funny because her throat had swollen and now burned. She tightened her arms. “You really don’t want more than you have now?”

“Why would I?” He leaned to touch her arm and she tried not to flinch away.

“Because it’s not good enough!” He was too close. She scrambled to her feet. A splinter dug into her bare foot, but she didn’t cry out. It wasn’t important. What they were saying was. “Grant, I don’t want to live like that.”

His face went stony. “You don’t.”

“How could you not know that?” She shoved back her hair and tried not to feel like everything was falling apart. There was a reason they hadn’t talked about this before. She’d known, without thinking about it, that their goals were too incompatible.

“I don’t have to do that. I can do whatever you want me to do.”

“No. That’s not what I want.” The tears that had threatened earlier gave no such warning now, just started streaming. “I want you to do what makes you happy.”

“
You
make me happy, dammit.”

“But I don’t think that will last. I want—I want more. A lot more.”

“Like what?” he burst out, exasperated. “One of those?” He pointed at the yacht marina. “You want to become one of the people you just complained about?”

“Yes. No.” She paced along the pier, limping with her splintered foot. “I don’t want to be spoiled and treat others like crap. But I want to have my own business, a really successful one. I want to go to charity balls and write big checks that will help kids. I want beautiful clothes and a car I
choose
, not the cheapest one on the lot.”

“None of that stuff is important, Zoe.”

He was right. She just didn’t know how to explain. To most people, those were superficial trappings that had little to do with relationships and personal satisfaction and all that. To her, they represented so much more. A life that she created, that was hers from top to bottom. That had never been touched in any way by her past. By Pat’s power trip and Freddie’s crazy idea of motherhood, her mother’s fears and her father’s desperate rules that trapped more than they protected.

But she didn’t hear that from him. What she heard, that he probably didn’t intend, was “your dreams aren’t important.”

And that was it, the moment it had broken forever.

Chapter Six

Zoe realized the bedspread under her had grown damp with her tears and that she really, really needed a tissue. She shoved herself up and off the bed to find one. The light on the desk hurt her eyes, and when she blinked, her eyelids were so swollen they didn’t seem to fit together right. She had no idea how long she’d lain there, crying, immersed in the past.

She’d still been in therapy when Grant proposed, the second of a series of sessions with empowered and empowering people who’d helped her get past the residual effects of the abduction. One of those effects had been her need for control. When she first got home after her escape, that need manifested in screaming fits about what her mother tried to feed her at mealtimes. Once she adapted to a “normal” daily life and came to terms with her parents’ limitations, the things she tried to control grew more complicated and important. Deciding what classes to take, working at the lake, being with Grant, choosing a college—and planning the rest of her life. The therapist had encouraged the planning, as long as she recognized her need for control and worked to balance it against the needs of others.

That last part had been harder, and her relationship with Grant had been the first casualty.

He hadn’t understood. He had a typical poor-kid view of the rich and hadn’t wanted anything to do with that world. Zoe’s opinions weren’t all that different, but her goals had nothing to do with fitting in with “people like that.” He couldn’t see it. All he could see was that she was greedy and selfish, and now, from a ten-year vantage point, she knew she had been. Not necessarily about what she wanted, but how she treated his plans and dreams. They’d argued for hours, Grant intent on convincing her that he could do anything, go anywhere, that he just wanted to be with her, and Zoe just as intent on not believing him. She hadn’t simply wanted him to want his own things without making her the center of his existence. She wanted her new life so much she couldn’t understand why he’d be willing to give up his own. She was afraid that if he made sacrifices, it would force her to do the same.

And maybe it would have. Even in retrospect, she couldn’t see any easy path for them. They’d have been at different schools, so far apart. They’d have grown in different directions, made new friends, met hot new guys and girls. How many
normal
long-distance relationships survived? Once she was able to get real distance from the past, Grant would have been the only tie remaining. How strong would have been the need to cut that tie? Eventually, hurting him—hurting each other—would have become inevitable.

She threw her soggy tissues in the wicker trash can and looked around for an ice bucket. She needed some water. She spotted the ugly yellow plastic bucket on a table by the window and stood to get it, making sure she had her key card before she went out to find the ice machine.

The problem was, even though they’d ended things that day, it hadn’t been over. She had gone back to the bunkhouse and cried herself to sleep, because after her initial reaction to the
way
Grant had proposed came her reaction to the
fact
of the proposal.

She found the vending nook and grimaced at the puddle under the ice machine. This must be the source of the leak to the lobby. When she lifted the cover to the bin, she found small cubes swimming in a pool of water. There was no scoop, and she couldn’t bring herself to dip the bucket into that mess. She bought a bottle of Coke instead and headed back to her room.

Grant had loved her so much he wanted to commit to her, to make her commit to him, believing that would keep them together through anything that happened. And she’d loved him that much, too. The realization that they weren’t going to be part of each other’s lives anymore had felt like glass shattering, slicing every part of her that could feel pain.

She’d moved on, the only thing she could do. They saw each other one more time, at church during the holidays, when Zoe’s town held a vigil for missing children. Her mother had started the event and made it kind of in Zoe’s honor, or in recognition of the rarity of her escape, or something like that. And even though Grant’s family lived a few towns away, they always came for the vigil. After all, they’d lost a son to the same people who’d had Zoe, even though he’d been an adult and involved with them by his own choice.

That night, while everyone stood praying and singing with their candles, Zoe and Grant had snuck away and made desperate, powerful love in the graveyard behind the church. Neither one of them had really said anything to the other. Grant had looked at her with promises in his eyes, and Zoe figured he saw nothing but regret in hers. But she was already looking forward.

She drank her soda while she got ready for bed, changing and brushing her teeth by autopilot, still rolling through her past. She’d transferred from Amherst to Suffolk University once she decided on her career in graphic design and computer science. Then came internships, summer jobs in the city, every choice made to forward her goals. Every man she dated qualified as a rebound guy. Eventually, she’d managed to stifle all her feelings for Grant and start having real relationships, though all failed miserably before Kell. She’d met him a few months after she got a loan, quit her job at a major web company, and launched her business. He’d embodied everything she wanted and more. Despite the reputation of his profession, he was a core-deep good man, someone who made her feel as safe emotionally as physically, without being tethered by his dreams and expectations.

She missed him.

But now here she was, back with Grant. And things were far more complicated than she’d expected them to be.

Their mothers had kept contact. Zoe always thought that was weird, even when her therapist explained they had a connection beyond Zoe’s relationship with Grant. They’d both been through hell and “survived,” even if that word was as fragile as Zoe’s mother. They updated each other on their kids’ progress, and in turn told Zoe and Grant. That was how she knew about his stint in Special Forces before he took an honorable discharge and went private sector—the polite way to say mercenary—and that he hadn’t ever married. The Grant she’d put together from these updates and stories seemed so different from the man she’d loved, she’d hoped seeing him wouldn’t dredge up the past she’d put to rest. He was different, she was different, and there’d be no connection anymore.

She was so wrong.

Every movement he made was pure Grant, exactly how she remembered him, but now with the power and masculinity that had only been potential ten years ago. He smelled the same, smiled the same, and when she looked into his eyes—which she’d tried to avoid the entire time she was there, a mistake given the impact when she finally did it right before she left—whatever had made them perfect for each other as teenagers was still there.

She turned off the light and climbed into bed with a soul-deep sigh. She wished their connection was just because they’d shared something horrific, but it wasn’t. They
knew
each other in a way most people never did, a way she now understood she had never allowed with Kell.

All of that was bad enough on its own. Then it had to be compounded by attraction. Zoe had been attracted to other men. A faint buzz, a little
mmm, delicious
and mutual, silent acknowledgment of possibilities. That was all easily dismissed, even when the man was a client or colleague and she had to be around him more than in passing. This was different. Uncontrollable, raw, and if given any toehold, possibly her ruination. If she was smart, she’d send Grant a “thank you, but never mind” note and leave. But if she left, she might never get her life back.

So much for control.

* * *

Zoe had been drifting into sleep for only moments when her phone rang. She shot upright with a sharp gasp and whipped to look at the clock. Music and voices drifted in from outside her window. She snatched the phone off the nightstand and squinted at the display, heart still racing. The number on the screen didn’t match any of the ones in her contacts list. That meant it wasn’t someone from back home or Boston, so everyone was okay. She calmed enough to recognize the area code as Florida, which meant it was probably Grant.