Humiliation turned her inside out. Color swept up her body all over again. Sadly, it was more than humiliation;disappointment in him, in her and the realization that she couldn’t trust her greatest gift had overwhelmed her. The hurt had almost been unbearable.
“I gathered up my things and rushed out of there. He just rolled over and went to sleep. He didn’t say another word to me. I looked for Francine, but someone said she’d gone off with a man from the Trinity chapter early in the evening. She’d even deserted me. I was crying my eyes out and rushing for the door, and another Torpedo Ink member stopped me. He stepped right in front of me, blocking my way. He was really intimidating, but he asked me what was wrong, if someone had hurt me. I felt him, the way we can, and he was good inside. That part of him was protected, hard to see because he didn’t want anyone to see it, but I knew he wanted to help me, and if I had said someone hurt me, he wouldn’t have been very nice to them.”
“These men from this club, the ones Inez likes so much, they are good men, then?” Anat asked.
“It is difficult to answer that, Mama Anat,” Zyah said, wanting to be truthful. “Every single one of them that I came into contact with, including Player, had intense, dangerous layers covering the heart of them. I think these men could be either. It feels to me as if their intention is to do right, to be good men, but then good is relative, isn’t it? I’m certain Player didn’t intend to break my heart. He didn’t know me. To him I was a woman he paid to have sex with. I played that part so perfectly.”
“Zyah. Don’t be bitter or fall into self-pity,” Anat chided gently. “Those are wasted emotions. It is okay to be sad for what is lost. What you missed. Your gift told you this man was the right one, and you acted on it, but he, for some reason, was wired wrong and didn’t connect the same way. That wasn’t your failing. Perhaps it wasn’t even his. We don’t know what this man has been through or why he didn’t have the same feelings you did. You have to let that anger toward him go.”
Zyah nodded. “It really isn’t anger so much as embarrassment and sorrow that I feel I can’t even trust my gift. My feelings were so strong. It felt so right to be with him. Nothing had ever felt that way before. When he said those things to me, it felt like he slapped me in the face. Hard. It hurt so bad and still does. I hear his voice over and over and can’t seem to get it out of my head.”
She could feel intense sorrow dripping down her soul. She’d been born with a priceless gift, one Anat had told her, from the time she was a little girl, had been passed down through her mother’s family for generations. Anat was her mother’s mother, and all of the women prior to Zyah had shared an affinity with the earth, a connection they felt through their bodies.
Zyah had made it a point to study science, to find a plausible explanation for her ability to feel a connection to others. The only thing that made the slightest bit of sense was that beneath the forest floor, mycelium acted like a wide network, distributing nutrients and other much-needed attributes to living plants and trees. At the same time, the mycelium knew to close off aid to the dead or dying or already decomposing plants it couldn’t save in the forest. That was the short version, but it fit.
The human brain was very close to those same layers of threads of mycelium. She often wondered if she acted as that same wide network, a connection that was felt by her through the earth, her bare feet, or her hands in the air when she moved them in the graceful patterns taught to her by her grandmother and Amara, her mother. Their gift was a closely guarded secret, and no one outside their family was aware they could in any way help others through their dance or the sound of their voices.
Zyah found it strange that although she loved music, and had a way to pitch her voice to speak notes another person might need, she couldn’t sing. She could dance with the best, and she found joy in it, but she didn’t feel comfortable singing. Her gift was more about tuning to one person directly. She knew why her grandmother was always so amazing with her—she knew exactly what Zyah needed, as Zyah would know with her children and husband.
“My greatest fear, Mama Anat, is that I won’t have my own family. I’ve always wanted a husband and children. You told me about my parents, how much they loved each other. I remember them and how they were always laughing together. You speak of your husband, and your voice and face go soft with love. I want that too, and I’m so afraid I’ll never have it.”
“This man may have been the right one but not at the right time. Another will come, Zyah, you just have to close yourself to this one and let your heart be open to another. It won’t be easy.”
“It isn’t like I had him for weeks or months or even years. It was only a night. Not even twenty-four hours, yet it feels as if I had a long relationship with him and am grieving over the loss. I never want to hurt like that again,” Zyah admitted. “I can’t believe how far I let him in.”
“It’s the gift,” her grandmother said. “I knew when you told me about the man you were dating some time ago that he wasn’t right for you, because you weren’t reacting with intense passion. You had to find that out for yourself. I couldn’t tell you. This man, this Player from Torpedo Ink. He is dangerous to you now, Zyah. You’ll be very susceptible to him. You have to stay away from him, because if you don’t, you will continue to have great heartache. You know you won’t be able to control what your heart or body desires.”
Zyah knew that was true. She didn’t want to think about him, much less see him. She shouldn’t take the job at the grocery store because Torpedo Ink owned it, but there just weren’t that many jobs close to Sea Haven, especially not with the salary they were offering. Caspar was only a couple of miles away, and she needed to be close to her grandmother. She wasn’t healing as fast as Zyah thought she should be.
“How did physical therapy go?”
Anat winced. “Sometimes I don’t think it’s helping me, Zyah.”
Zyah frowned. Her grandmother never complained. Never. She was always stoic. No matter the situation, she just fought her way through. It wasn’t that she was complaining exactly, but she didn’t sound like her normal cheerful, positive self.
“Why?”
Anat shook her head and smiled, but Zyah saw that for the first time, that sweet smile didn’t reach her grandmother’s eyes.
“I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just taking longer than I thought it would to recover. I need to have more patience.” Anat’s hand dropped to her leg and she rubbed along her thigh as if it ached.
Zyah considered how many times her grandmother might have done that while she was whining to her about Player. Anat had comforted her over and over, yet now that Zyah thought it over, she had seen her grandmother rub her leg through the quilt on more than one occasion.
“We both liked the physical therapist. Terrie Frankle? She’s from someplace in Washington, isn’t she? A traveling therapist?” Zyah asked cautiously. “Do you still like her?”
“Very much. She’s quite sweet. She loves to travel, and when the clinic was looking for someone, she jumped at the chance to come here. She had heard of Sea Haven already because she met Francine, Lizz’s granddaughter, when she was traveling on a train to San Francisco to a job there a while back. She’s been all over.” Anat sounded very enthusiastic. “I like to listen to her stories of her travels while she works on me. It helps, so I concentrate on listening instead of feeling the pain.”
Zyah didn’t like the sound of that. “Should you be feeling pain? Do you tell Terrie that you’re feeling pain?”
“I have,” Anat admitted reluctantly. “She said a little pain is necessary, but it shouldn’t be too much. I never know how much is too much.” There was a little quiver in Anat’s voice.
Zyah glanced at her watch. It was too late to call the doctor’s office, but she was going to first thing in the morning. She wanted another X-ray of her grandmother’s leg, just to see if it was healing correctly. She als
o wanted to talk to him about physical therapy and just how much her grandmother should be doing. It was so unlike Anat to say anything at all negative that the little she had said meant the pain was severe and she was really becoming distraught over the therapy. No one else knew her the way Zyah did.
“Mama Anat, you should have told me when the physical therapy began to get painful. I know you told Terrie, but I know you so much better than she does. The therapists expect patients to complain to them about pain. She has no idea how stoic you are. If you ask her if it’s supposed to hurt, or say that it is painful, she just chalks it up to what every patient says. I know better, because I know you.”
“You have so much to do. You’ve been out looking for jobs to pay the bills. I didn’t want to worry you, Zyah.” Again, Anat rubbed her thigh.
Zyah noted her hand was trembling. Her heart fluttered. “Maybe I should take you to the hospital tonight and get your leg X-rayed again. Does it hurt the way it did when you first broke it? Can you tell if the bone is fractured?” She tried not to sound anxious. “Either way, we’re calling the doctor, tonight or tomorrow.”
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Anat denied. “We can wait until tomorrow and call the doctor. I’m certain he’ll say the pain is normal from the physical therapy.”
Just the fact that Anat knew Zyah would call the doctor and she wasn’t objecting meant her leg really hurt. Zyah was angry with herself and a little angry with Player all over again because she’d been so focused on her own shame and loss that she hadn’t read her grandmother’s distress and physical pain.
“Are you positive we can wait for tomorrow?”
“Absolutely. I don’t want to go to the emergency room. I’d rather have you talk to the doctor first. You know I really dislike the emergency room.”
Zyah knew that was the truth. Her grandmother would much rather clean her house, the entire yard and maybe her neighbor’s house and yard before making a trip to the emergency room. She thought it was such a waste of time sitting there waiting to be seen.
“I can wait just as easy in the comfort of my home, and the doctor can make my appointments for tests,” Anat said.
It didn’t matter how many times Zyah explained to her that sometimes haste mattered, not even after she’d been rushed to the hospital after the attack. Anat had a major aversion to emergency rooms, hospitals in general, and now, it seemed, she wasn’t going to be readily cooperative if it meant more tests.
Night had fallen outside, and inside the bedroom, Anat had the lights blazing. That was the one striking difference Zyah noticed. Before the break-in and vicious assault, Anat rarely had more than one light on; now she preferred to have lights on throughout the house and even outside. She didn’t sleep very well.
Zyah didn’t like the idea of being away from her in the evenings, but Anat had insisted she help out her friend’s granddaughter, Francine, although Francine had taken off with a man the first chance she got, so it would have been better if Zyah had just stayed home. Now, if she took the job in Healdsburg at the restaurant even two evenings a week, that would be leaving her grandmother alone, and clearly, she was frightened.
Zyah had money, but most of it was tied up in her retirement and deferred accounts. She could pull it with penalties, but she preferred not to if she could make enough money to keep her grandmother comfortable and pay the bills, not an easy task with the wages paid in the area. She’d always lived on the minimum it took to get by, sent her grandmother money and saved the rest for when she would need it. Maybe now was that time. Fortunately, she’d bought the house outright for Anat a few years earlier. They didn’t have a monthly mortgage, and that helped.
“Last night, when you were gone, you asked if any of my friends from the Red Hat Society would come and stay with me,” Anat ventured slowly.
Zyah heard the hesitancy in her voice. This was just as serious as the pain in her leg from her physical therapy. Zyah had to work at keeping her heart rate under strict control. Her grandmother would know the moment it was elevated. She pulled the privacy screen over the windows, not liking that the room was lit so bright and anyone outside could see them in the bedroom.
“Yes. You said Inez and her husband, Frank, came and played cards with you. I learned that Frank snores, but not very loud.”
Anat laughed. “That’s true. Inez and I both fell asleep a couple of times while playing gin. I was ahead.”
“Of course you were.” Zyah was patient, waiting for her grandmother to get to the point of the conversation. “There are very few people who can beat you when it comes to cards, Mama Anat. I always wondered if your gift included reading other people’s cards.”
Anat laughed, the notes sounding light in spite of the seriousness in her eyes. She rubbed her thigh again. “Someone came up on the back porch and tried the door. It was locked. You installed that fancy new lock just a few days before, but both Inez and I heard it slide open as if they had a key. Fortunately, you had put a chair under the doorknob. Inez went to check the door and the deadbolt was unlocked but the chair held. She called Jackson Deveau. She says he’s like a son to her. He came right away and took a report.”
Zyah could feel the color draining from her face. Her legs turned to rubber, and she sank into the armchair across from her grandmother before she fell down. “You didn’t think I should have been told this immediately? Before I went to the job interviews? When I came back home this morning? Mama Anat, your safety is more important than anything. Why in the world didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you wouldn’t have gone on the interviews, and I know you have to work. It was taken care of. The deputy came. They’re doing extra patrols.” In spite of her brave words, a shiver went through her. “I’ll admit, I’m afraid those men are going to come back. How would they already have a key to the new deadbolt? Jackson, he’s the deputy, didn’t have an answer for that, and neither did I.”
“I can’t take a job and be away from you, especially at night.” There was no way she was going to be away in the evenings and leave her grandmother home by herself. As it was, she was going to make certain someone was always with Anat while she was at work. They would have to make do with the money from the grocery store if she got that job. If she didn’t, she’d have to find something else that paid equally as well that was close. Maybe she should have taken the money Player had shoved at her. The hell with it—she’d pull money from some of her stocks.
“We’ll figure it out, Zyah,” Anat said, trying to pour confidence into her voice. “I talked to Inez, and she said whenever you were gone, one of the Red Hat ladies could be scheduled to stay here. She didn’t know that you were applying for the grocery store job at the time. I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to influence her. I didn’t think that would be fair to the other applicants.”
That was so like her grandmother. Everyone needed to achieve things on their own merits.
“I’m definitely not going to take the waitressing job at the belly dancing restaurant,” Zyah said. “We’ll just both go on diets. No more ice cream for me.”
Anat laughed, the sound a little like gentle tinkling bells. “Since we’re going to have to give up ice cream in the future, can we have some now? Before we go to sleep?”
Zyah wasn’t certain how much sleep she was going to be getting, but ice cream sounded perfect to her. She couldn’t help laughing with her grandmother, because when Anat laughed, everyone around her always joined in.
FOUR
“You’re absolutely positive,” Czar demanded. “The two of you were sitting in the diner for how long before the Swords came in? You could have been made and not known it. In that time, they might have threatened Delia to gain her cooperation and burned her diner down to show her they meant business. She might have come here to kill Breezy.”
Player looked around the meeting room at all his brothers and the two women, Alena a
nd Lana. All of them were present for this important meeting. This was his family, the ones he could count on. They counted on one another. They’d lived through a horrific nightmare childhood together, and it had bonded them tighter than most blood families could ever hope to be. It had been Czar who had saved them all, kept them human and given them hope. He’d brought them this far, and they believed in him.
The president of Torpedo Ink waited for input from the other club members. Player had known Czar would be concerned that Delia Swanson, the woman who had owned the diner Breezy, Steele’s wife, had gone into when she was alone and pregnant a couple of years earlier, might have been coerced into trying to harm her now. At that time, she’d given Breezy a job and put an apartment in her own name as well as given her a truck to drive so no one could trace her, to keep her safe.
“Not a chance,” Master said. “I was careful. I spent all that time with Delia driving her back. I made her stay in the same motel room with me. You know I’m good at reading people. I slipped in questions, went at her various ways. No one is that good. She’s shaken up, but glad to get out of there alive.”
“She’s in the apartment over the bar?” Czar continued.
Master nodded. “You said to take her there, and that’s what I did. I told her to get settled, get some sleep and then, today or this evening, she could see Breezy. I figured we’d have the meeting, report and then Absinthe and Scarlet could run into her at the clubhouse while she’s waiting for Steele to bring Breezy. They could chat with her and make doubly certain I’m right, but it’s very clear to me that she cares for that girl and can’t wait to see her again.”
Reckless Road Page 7