Aftershocks (9 page)

“Mom, it’s too early for that.”

“Nonsense, it’s after noon on a Sunday. It’s not like you’re going to get drunk.” She draped her linen napkin across her lap and smoothed it, looking up at him from under her lashes. “Are you?”

“No, Mother, I’m not going to get drunk.”

“Well, you don’t have to say it like that. Many men in your position would be eager to do just that.”

Kell had to laugh. She made it sound like a desirable thing.

The server hovered discreetly, so they placed their orders for
salade niçoise
. Then his mother set her chin delicately on her fist, her elbow on the edge of the table, and gave him a conspiratorial smile.

“Tell me, dear, how you’re really doing.”

He shook his head. “Mom, you have your elbow on the table.”

She blinked. “So? The food’s not here. It’s not unmannerly.”

“You don’t have to put on the act. I’ll believe you’re interested, I promise.” He sighed when she sat back and looked down to fuss at her napkin to hide the hurt he’d glimpsed in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” She refolded the napkin and reached for her mimosa. “Old habits.”

Kell had always believed his mother loved him. But when he went away to college and saw how parents acted with other kids—kids who hadn’t gone to prep schools and been raised by nannies or parents for whom propriety was the golden rule—he realized she had a whole repertoire of roles. She
acted
like she cared about his interests. It had led to a big blow-up one Christmas, when she insisted the feelings were real even if her way of expressing them was…designed. Her term.

Things had changed slightly when Olivia was born. The world was different. Parenting—especially parenting among those who cared what the world thought of them—was different. Elise softened when it came to her daughter, but that didn’t always extend to how she interacted with her son. Most of the time Kell accepted what she was and took her at face value, but sometimes he wondered what result she was going for. And sometimes he just didn’t have patience for the role-playing.

“Kell? Are you okay?”

He’d been staring off across the golf course. “Yeah. I’m fine. Well, not fine,” he amended. “I’m coping.”

“I imagine it’s difficult to cope passively. It’s easier when there’s some action to take.”

Kell lifted his glass and stared at the way the light moved through the amber liquid. “Yeah, that’s true.” Then the note in her voice had him setting down the glass abruptly. “What action? Like what?”

“You haven’t told me what happened. What she told you when she left.”

He couldn’t stop a scowl. “Did
she
tell you?”

“No. She had other things to say.”

Electricity rocketed up his spine. “When? I thought she was refusing to answer any of your phone calls.”

“She was, at first.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You kept calling her?”

“Certainly.”

He left the eyebrows up.

“Oh, come on, Kellen, you can’t be surprised. I love Zoe. I think she’s a perfect match for you, and I think this breakup is a mistake. I wanted to talk to her about it.”

“So, not just to find out why she did it. You think you can change things.” He hated the sudden spark of hope. There was no way his mother could talk Zoe into returning to him. Even if the breakup had been more straightforward, he doubted she could do it. But straightforward wasn’t even at the table. “When did you talk to her?”

“We spoke Friday. In confidence.” She sipped her drink and didn’t look at him.

He gritted his teeth, wanting to demand she tell him but knowing she never would. His mother was the lead-lined vault of secret-keeping. “There’s something going on with her. It’s not just about our engagement not being ‘right.’ ”

She cocked her head and studied him. “Something like what? Another man?”

He stared at her, shock like cold water freezing his nerve endings. Then he laughed. “Can you believe that thought hadn’t even occurred to me?”

“A bit naïve, aren’t you, dear?” She smiled up at the server, who placed their fancy salads on the table with hardly a clink.

“No, not naïve. There’s something else going on. She sold her company.”

She gaped, her fork in mid-stab. “No.”

That was genuine surprise, which meant whatever Zoe might have told her, it wasn’t everything. “See?”

“You can’t let that happen, Kellen! You must—”

“Mom.” He laid a hand on her arm to stop her. “Don’t worry. I’m buying it.”

She beamed with pride. “That’s my boy. Oh, sweetheart.” The smile faded and she set her fork down, her posture a little slumped. “There is something very wrong.”

“I know.”

“You need to find out what it is and help her.”

“I want to, but it’s hard to do when she won’t let me. I have no idea where to start.”

“Do you know where she is?”

He nodded, feeling a little guilty. He was using one of the firm’s investigators to keep track of her. She was staying in a hotel, which didn’t make sense to him. “But she doesn’t want me anywhere near her.”

His mother straightened and picked up her fork again, digging into her salad. “She’s trying to protect you.” The word “dumbass” was implied.

“It occurred to me.” He forced a tomato between semi-clenched teeth. “I don’t exactly like the notion.”

“No man would. Any idea what she could be afraid of?”

“Not really.” He’d had some wild theories, but dismissed them as being farfetched. The stuff of television dramas. But now here was his mother, hinting, nudging him as if she knew there was something to figure out. It was fact that Zoe had started acting strange the night she got “sick.”
Something
had happened. Something she hadn’t trusted him with. Why? And why would she tell his mother?

“Do you still love her?” his mother asked.

He didn’t even have to think about it. “Of course.”

“Are there circumstances under which you wouldn’t want to be with her?”

“Probably.” He shrugged at his mother’s glare. “I’m a lawyer, Mom. There are always circumstances. But, no, there’s nothing I can think of that would make me want her to stay away.” He gave her his best courtroom glare and question-that’s-really-a-demand. “What do you know.”

She shook her head and stuffed lettuce into her mouth.

He gripped her wrist. “Mom. Please. If she told you something, you have to tell me.”

With a gentle flick, she pulled free and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “She just wants us all to be safe. I promised her I wouldn’t divulge her secrets to anyone.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Honestly, at first, I thought it was best to let her go. If she’s gotten involved in something that suggests people close to her take security precautions, then perhaps we’re all better off staying away.”

He stared at her, heart hammering, adrenaline flooding him with nowhere to go. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about things you two have to work out between yourselves. I thought it best for you to let her go and work things out later, when she’s ready. But after speaking with you…” She shook her head, lips pursed. “I changed my mind.”

“So tell me.”

“No. That’s still up to her. And I don’t have details, anyway. It would be tantamount to gossip.” She rested her hand on his shoulder and leaned closer. “Think about this carefully, Kellen. Pursuing this, pursuing her, could lead you to worse pain than you’re feeling now.”

“Not possible,” he shot back.

“Then you know what you have to do.”

He nodded sharply, all the agitation setting into a steady hum of intention. “Yeah.”

Except even though he did, he really didn’t.

* * *

Grant saw her before she’d even approached his shack. She rode down the worn asphalt road on a battered rental mountain bike, her blonde hair pulled tightly back but bursting out behind its holder in a bushy fluff. When she got close enough, he saw she was wearing cargo shorts and a plain t-shirt with a pair of sneakers. Her legs almost glowed in the sun, they were so white, and her arms were only slightly tanned. All in all, not the picture he’d have expected to see, given the things he’d been reading about her. Charity balls, a million-dollar company, and engagement to a corporate lawyer had him expecting a shiny convertible and designer clothes.

He wouldn’t have been expecting anything at all if his mother had been a little cagier. He’d realized—a couple of hours after he’d hung up the phone, not that he’d ever admit that—that she was planning to tell Zoe how to find him. His first reaction had been to stop her. But part of him didn’t want to, and he’d given in to that part.

From the time they were fourteen, he and Zoe had spent time together. Every waking minute during the summers, when they weren’t working. And sometimes, when they had the same shift, when they were. So even though he didn’t see her much during the school year, and hadn’t seen her at all since they were in college, he’d recognized her a hundred yards down the road. The way she pedaled, he supposed, or the way she held her head, looking up at her destination, not down at the street watching for stones.

The bike disappeared behind his shack and he heard the crunch of tires on crushed shell. He waited. There was no “front” door on the driveway side of the shack, so she’d be circling around any moment…

And there she was. Despite having watched her come down the road that ran parallel to the beach, despite having expected her for a few days now, Grant felt like someone had slammed a wall at his face.

Maybe his memories had shaded his view a little, because the woman standing in front of him didn’t look like the one he’d just watched. Her hair didn’t bush out behind her head. It hung from its ponytail holder in silky waves. Her shorts and shirt were definitely not Walmart purchases, and the purse she’d slung across her body was true designer. Not a knockoff.

Her face, arms, and chest above the veed curve of her shirt were as creamy white as her legs. But it was a vibrant paleness, one that came from pampering and high-end skin care products.

In short, her appearance proved the hype. She’d achieved her dreams. He could be glad for her—and still resent how those dreams had taken her away from him.

Judging by the look in her eyes, the achievement had only been temporary.

Grant slumped a little lower in his sling chair, propped his beer bottle on his stomach, and looked at her from under lazy lids. “What do you want?”

Zoe’s heart had started beating a triple-speed pattern even before she’d landed on the island. She couldn’t believe she was standing in front of Grant. It was so surreal, the fresh, breezy beach location compared to the memories that had filled her on the flight to Florida. At first it had been the good ones. The friendship they’d built after her escape, taking comfort in each other that first summer when no one else understood what they’d been through or what the aftermath was like. The romantic summers after that, when they’d worked together at the lake, lying under the stars every night, exploring each other physically and emotionally. The last summer before she went to college, when Grant had seemed so happy for her, so optimistic about his own future.

But then the bad ones had crowded in. The way it had all fallen apart. No one’s fault, really, but how the hell had they misunderstood each other so much, for so long? Had such opposing expectations?

The bad memories from the end had brought back the bad memories from the beginning. How she’d spot him across the boathouse parking lot and flash back to her time in captivity. How he’d hated her for being part of the mess that had led to his brother’s death. That had made him a freak with a gross ear.

Now she stood in front of him, his harsh question ringing in her ears, and wondered why she’d thought she could get any help here.

“I’m not used to that.” She schooled her expression as she stepped up onto the low deck where he sat looking so deceptively relaxed.

“To what?” He didn’t move, but his lazy eyes tracked her across the wide planks to the rail, where she leaned a few feet from his stretched-out legs. The skin on her shins tingled, sending a shiver up through her body and over her scalp. The kind of shiver that came with intense scrutiny you weren’t sure you wanted.

“Cutting right to the chase, no preliminaries.” He didn’t say anything, so she continued, “You know, greetings. ‘Hi, Grant.’ ‘Hi, Zoey, so nice to see you.’ ” He snorted, and she continued. “ ‘You’re looking well. Mercenary work has kept you fit.’ ‘Why thank you, how kind of you to notice.’ ”

This time Grant laughed outright and he stood, the tightness easing from his muscles and his wary expression fading to pleasure. He pulled her into a hug, and she breathed in his familiar yet far-more-masculine scent. Tears pricked her eyes and she hugged him hard.

“Jerk.”

Grant leaned back a little, his arms still around her. “Hey, you can’t blame me for wanting a little payback.”

Zoe shook her head. “If you wanted payback, you’d have gotten it ten years ago. What I wouldn’t blame you for is holding a real grudge.” She swallowed hard, the triple-time beat starting up again. So he didn’t hold a grudge. That didn’t mean he’d want to help her, or that he would even if he wanted to.