Key Of Valor - Key Trilogy 3 Part 52

"I give up. Simon, let's start loading all this in the car."

It took considerable time and persuasion to settle Simon down for the night. Zoe couldn't blame him for jumping out of his skin with delight and excitement. The room he would use at Brad's was double the size of the one at home and boasted an entertainment center with its own TV.

Though she laid down the law in that area, she intended to keep her ear c.o.c.ked for the sounds of the television post-bedtime.

She unpacked her own things, laying clothes in the cedar-scented drawers of an antique mahogany dresser, setting out toiletries on the acre of pale green countertop in the adjoining bath.

"Don't get used to it," she warned herself as she trailed her fingers over the delicate white lace of the spread accenting the four-poster she would sleep in.

It's just for a few days, she thought. Like a chapter in a faerie tale.

She looked up at the honey-colored wood that formed the coffered ceiling and wondered what it would be like to wake in the morning in this bed, in this room.

She zipped her empty suitcase as Brad knocked on the jamb of the open door.

"Find everything you need?"

"All that and more. It's a gorgeous room, like being inside a warm biscuit." Crouching, she scooted the suitcase under the bed. "It's tempting to have a few jumps on the bed like Simon."

"Help yourself."

Though she smiled, her eyes were troubled. She gestured to the yellow roses on the dresser. "Were you so sure you'd get your way?"

"I was sure of your common sense, and your commitment to follow through on the quest."

"You've got a way about you, Bradley." She trailed her fingers over the bedspread again. "A smooth way about you."

"Regardless, I wanted you and Simon as safe as possible. If I'd had to bully you to get you here, I would have. I appreciate you sparing us both that."

"If you'd bullied me, I'd've gotten my back up, which would've canceled out my common sense. Anyway, it's smarter to stick together."

"Good. Are you going to let me sneak in here in the middle of the night?"

Though she tried for a cool stare, she felt her lips twitch. "It's your house."

"It's your choice."

She let out a laugh, shook her head. "A smooth way. We have to talk. Can we go downstairs?"

"Sure." He held out a hand, and though he noted her hesitation, he kept it extended until she stepped forward and laid hers in it. "How about a gla.s.s of wine by the fire?"

"That would be lovely. Everything here is lovely. I'm terrified Simon's going to break something."

"Stop it. The day I was moving back, Flynn stopped by with Moe. The first thing that dog did was run through the house and break a lamp. It wasn't a national tragedy."

"I guess I'm just jumpy, between one thing and another."

"Go in and sit down. I'll get the wine."

There was a fire already blazing. He must have seen to that while she was unpacking. Like the rest of the house, the room looked settled and warm andinteresting . All the little pieces, the things she imagined he'd collected on his travels, the art, even the way it was all placed.

It spoke of a man who knew what he wanted and was used to having the best.

She wandered over to study a painting of a Paris street scene, the sidewalk cafe with its cheerful umbrellas, the rivers of flowers, the dignity of the Arc de Triomphe in the background.

A far cry from her framed postcards.

And he'd sat at one of those busy cafes, drinking strong black coffee out of a tiny cup, while she'd only dreamed of it.

Brad came in with a bottle of wine in one hand and two gla.s.ses held by the bowls in the other. "I bought that a couple of years ago," he said as he joined her. "I liked the movement, the way the traffic's bunched up on the street. You can almost hear the horns blasting."

He tipped wine into one of the gla.s.ses, waited for her to take it. "We Vanes can't seem to stop collecting art."

"Maybe you should think about having a museum."

"Actually, my father's working on something. A hotel, a resort. He could fill it with some of his art, and have an excuse to buy more."

"He would build a hotel just so he has a place to put his art collection?"

"That, and enterprise. Art, wood, and capitalism are the Vane bywords. He's angling to find the right piece of land here in the Highlands, where it all began." His shrug was a gesture of easy confidence. "But if he doesn't, he'll find it elsewhere. Once B.C. knows what he wants, he doesn't take no for an answer."

"So you come by it honestly."

"I'll take that as a compliment. He's a good man. A little formidable, but a good man. A good husband and father and a h.e.l.l of a businessman.

He'll like you."

"I can't imagine," she said faintly.

"He'll admire what you've done with your life, what you've made. And what you're still building. He'd say you have grit, and there's nothing he respects more."

She expected a man like B. C. Vane would grill her like a hamburger patty if he ever discovered she was involved with his son.

"Do you love them? Your parents?"

"Very much."

"I don't know if I love my mother." It spilled out before she knew she meant to say it, before she knew she thought it. "What an awful thing to say. I want to, but I don't know if I do."

Shocked by her own words, she lowered herself to the arm of a chair. "And my daddy, I haven't seen him in so many years. I don't even know him, so how could I love him? He left us. He left his wife and his four children, and he never came back."

"That was tough on you. Tough on your mother."

"On all of us," Zoe agreed. "But especially on Mama. It didn't just break her heart, it shriveled it up until it was all dry and brittle and there wasn't any juice left for us. When he left, she took off after him. I didn't think she was going to come back."

"She left you alone?" The sheer outrage of it vibrated in his voice. "She left four children alone?"

"She was wild to get him back. She was only gone a few days, but...

oh, G.o.d, I was scared. What was I going to do if she didn't come back?"