Key Of Valor - Key Trilogy 3 Part 46

Opening her purse, Zoe pulled out a tissue, offered it. "I don't understand."

"I didn't see this, nor did Kane. Didn't antic.i.p.ate it, nor did he. If she was able to show you, to let you touch what she is, he was able to reach her."

"Who?"

"The king. It is not only Kane who can use war to his own ends. If we can win on this ground, the king will win on his. You've been given a gift, Zoe. For a few moments you were a G.o.ddess, the daughter of a king." Her face glowed. "You weren't only shown what they are, what they lost, you touched it. Kane can never break that bond."

"She tried to fight, but she couldn't. She drew her sword," Zoe said, and could feel-even now-the way it had all but flown out of its sheath. "But he struck her down before she could use it."

"The battle's not done." Gently now, Rowena touched her hand. "In your world or in mine."

"She knew him. She understood-when it happened, she understood, and she looked him in the face."

"She touched you, lived in you for those same few moments, knew, I think, what you knew. That was your gift to her."

"I'm not going to leave her there. I hope she knows that."

Brad hung back as they started to leave, and turned to Pitte while Rowena walked Zoe to the door. "If he hurts her I'll come for you, whatever form you take."

"I would do the same, were our situations reversed." Brad glanced toward Zoe, kept his voice low. 'Tell me what to do to make him come after me."

"He will, because you're linked. All of you are linked. Make her love you, and it will be the sooner."

Chapter Thirteen

Sleep, Zoe decided, wasn't going to be a priority for a while. The way she had things planned, it wasn't even going to make the top five. She had a son to raise and she didn't feel as if she'd been giving him the time or attention he deserved. She had a business to get organized, and that was going to eat up considerably more time.

She was having her first serious adult relations.h.i.+p with a man, and she hadn't had the time to figure out how she'd gotten into it, much less how to enjoy it.

She had a quest, and if she didn't cross the finish line in under two weeks, all was lost. What was trapped inside a gla.s.s box had for a miraculous moment lived inside her. She was prepared to sweat blood to save it.

So sleep would just have to wait until she could work it into her schedule.

She spent a day at Indulgence interviewing her prospective employees, working out potential hours and a pay scale. She spent the evening with Simon, helping him design a birdhouse for a school project, giving his hair a trim, and just enjoying his company.

Most of the night was split between paperwork and household ch.o.r.es she'd let slide for too long.

She crunched numbers, she juggled them. She stretched them, and she compressed them, but the results were the same. The start-up costs had devoured her capital at a staggering rate. A great deal of that had to do with her own determination to start up with style, she admitted. But she'd be d.a.m.ned if she would allow anything to dull this dream.

So, she would be running close to the bone, she acknowledged as she studied the spreadsheet she'd created on the computer. She had run close to it before. If they managed to have their opening the day after Thanksgiving,and if they actually had paying customers, they would quickly start to offset the outlay. In dribbles, but a dribble could become a trickle and a trickle a flood.

Those weeks before Christmas were the prime cut in retail, and just what Indulgence needed to get it off the ground.

If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was how to stretch a dollar. She'd make it. She would need to eke out another two years on her car without any major repair bills, please G.o.d.

She could nip at corners a little here, a little there, without it affecting Simon. Six months, maybe a year, and Indulgence was going to make such a big difference in their lives. It would give them the stability she so desperately wanted for her son. And it would give her the pride and respect she so desperately wanted for herself.

It was where she'd been heading since she'd walked out of that trailer at sixteen. A major intersection among the many in her life. One more direction. Considering, she sat back. What about the others?

If Indulgence was one of her crossroads, so was the house she lived in, the house she'd saved for and was paying for every month with her hard-earned money. It seemed to Zoe that if both a trip back to her roots and an exploration of the attic at Indulgence could churn up power and forces, then scrubbing her own kitchen floor might do the same thing.

She tidied her papers, shut off the laptop, and got out her scrub bucket.

She'd picked this house first because she could afford it. Barely. And she'd known, just as she'd known when she stepped into the house that had become Indulgence, that this was her place. The home she would make for Simon.

It hadn't been much to look at then, she recalled as she soaped the floor on her hands and knees. Dirt-brown paint and a weedy yard hadn't added up to much of a presentation. Inside, the carpets were worn and the plumbing questionable, the kitchen linoleum a disgrace and the walls pocked with nail holes.

But the size had been perfect and the price right.

She'd sc.r.a.ped, she'd painted, she'd dug, she'd planted. She'd scavenged from yard sales and flea markets, and even the town dump.

She hadn't slept much back then, either, she recalled as she sat back on her heels. But it had been worth every hour. She'd learned a lot about herself and what she could do.

Smiling, she ran a finger over the s.h.i.+ning square of vinyl. She'd laid that floor with her own hands. She'd watched for sales and had hunted up the clean white pattern at HomeMakers.

She'd bought the exterior and interior paint at HomeMakers, too, she realized. And some of the plumbing supplies, as well as the light fixture in the upstairs bath.

In fact, there wasn't a room in the house that didn't owe something to HomeMakers. That had to mean something.

It had to mean Bradley.

He was everywhere she looked, Zoe mused. And even when she wasn't thinking of him, he was in there, circling around in her mind. Being involved with him was thrilling, and just a little frightening. But being in love with him... that was just impossible.

More, it was dangerous for him. She hadn't missed what Pitte had said. The more she cared about Bradley, the more he could be hurt. She didn't question that he was part of the quest, that he would be a part of her life somehow. But she wouldn't let her own fantasies about what could be, if only things were just a little different, put him in Kane's path.

It was enough to have a man like him care about her, and care so much for her son. She wouldn't be greedy and ask for more.

With the floor done, she glanced at the clock on the stove. It was nearly three-thirty in the morning. She had a spotless kitchen, a balanced checkbook, a menu design, and a price list. But if she'd taken another step toward the key, she didn't know it.

She decided to get a little sleep and start fresh in the morning.

Bradley sat by the red glow of the campfire and drank lukewarm beer. The temperature didn't matter. When you were sixteen it was all about the beer. His father would skin him if he found out-and he nearly always found out. But nothing could spoil the freedom of a hot summer night.

He didn't intend to sleep. He was going to smoke another cigarette, drink the rest of his beer, and just be.

It had been Jordan's idea to camp up here in the hills, close to the shadows of Warrior's Peak. The spooky old place had always pulled at his friend, so he was forever making up stories about it and the people who might have lived or died there.

And Brad had to admit that the house was fascinating to look at. Interesting to think about. When you did, you had to wonder who the h.e.l.l would build such a big-a.s.s monster on a mountaintop in Pennsylvania. It was kind of creepy, but cool.

Still, he would leave the Peak to Jordan. He much preferred the rambling wooden house by the river. Even when he thought about moving to New York after college, or traveling around, he couldn't really imagine living anywhere but the River House.

Not for keeps.