ZANE - THE WILD ONE

by Bronwyn Jameson

  Mustering strength, she pushed herself away from the door and headed for the kitchen, out of habit more than anything. As she crossed the living room, the same kind of habit called her gaze to the answering machine. Its blinking eye of light caused her heart to miss a beat, then attempt to catch up with a rush of anticipatory hope.

  Every day—every single one of the last forty-nine days—her heart had responded that way, only to be disappointed when the caller turned out to be Chantal or Mitch or her parents calling from Europe. With a disgusted, "Whoever you are, you can just hang on to your britches," she boiled the kettle and made chamomile tea, then carried it through to a comfortable chair.

  But that infernal light wouldn't let her relax. Look at me, it blinked. Answer me. Blink. Talk to me. Blink. She struck the play button with unholy force. "There! Are you happy now?"

  At the first husky word her whole body jolted. Burning hot tea slopped over the rim of her cup, and, cursing her involuntary reaction, she dashed to the kitchen and stuck her hand under the cold water tap.

  Yet somehow she managed to hear every word.

  "Kree, what's the point having a cell phone when it's never switched on? Call me. It's urgent."

  She replayed the message—twice—but only to ensure that she correctly transcribed his number. Then she replayed it again, this time to catch the various shades of his voice. He sounded strained, not with the frustration of being unable to find Kree, but with something else.

  A phantom hint of worry, anxiety, or … pain?

  She stared at the carefully printed numbers on the slip of paper in her hand, and her pulse skittered erratically. How urgent was urgent? Did he even know that Kree was out of the country? It wouldn't surprise her if he didn't—they often went months without contact. She didn't understand how they coped with such sporadic communication, with not knowing if the other was hurt or in trouble.

  Call me. It's urgent.

  Julia glanced at the kitchen clock, moistened her lips and reached for the phone.

  * * *

  "I go get Mummy."

  Julia checked the number again, although she knew she'd dialed it correctly, digit by painfully uncoordinated digit. So why had a child answered? A very young child, who now seemed to be squabbling over possession of the receiver with someone called Krish-eeee.

  Then, thank you God, a distinctly adult voice asked, "Who is it, Jay?"

  "Shum lady."

  She had seven seconds—she counted them—for the implications to turn leaden in her stomach. A woman. With young children. At the number Zane had left in his message. Don't jump to conclu—

  "Hello? Are you still there?"

  Julia clutched the receiver more tightly in her damp palm. "Yes, hello. I'm looking for Zane O'Sullivan."

  "Zane? Oh, he's not here right now but— Put that down right now, Krissie! I can take a message."

  "Oh. Yes. I'm returning his call to his sister."

  Julia paused while the woman repeated her warning to Krissie, this time more forcefully. "Sorry about that. You have kids?"

  "Not yet."

  "My advice is keep it that way." Her dry chuckle was edged with exasperation. "Zane's sister … that'd be Kree, right?"

  "Yes. Zane left a message on the answering machine."

  "Did he tell you about his accident?" The woman must have heard Julia's sharp intake of breath, because her tone softened dramatically. "Now, hon, it's nothing to get in a tizz about. You know that knee he banged up back in high school? Well, he managed to do a real job on it this time."

  "How…?" That was all Julia could get out. She felt as weak and quavery as that one word sounded.

  "He was rescuing Jay from this big old tree we have out back. I swear, the boy's half mountain goat, climbing anything that stands still long enough. Anyway, Zane went up the tree after him, and the branch gave way. He landed awkwardly, and it just kinda snapped."

  "It's … broken?"

  "Not bones—some ligament or other. But the op went real good, so take a deep breath and relax. He's fine. Truly."

  "His message—" Julia took the deep breath, but she couldn't relax. "He said it was urgent."

  "He has this thing about making more work for me. Now he can't do Gav's job at the garage, being on crutches and all, he thinks he should leave. God knows, he's more than enough help keeping these demons out of my hair while I'm nursing the baby. Not that he needs to do anything to be welcome here. He's Gav's best mate, and we all love him to death, but you know what he's like when he sets his mind on something. Jay, please get down from there. Now!"

  Julia lifted a hand to her temple. The woman talked like a dervish—keeping up was making her head spin. Three children now, including a baby. And Gav would be … her husband? A friend of Zane's with a garage—perhaps the one he'd arranged to sub for while he took leave. Paternity leave? It made sense.

  "Sorry about that. Now, where were we?"

  Through the receiver, Julia heard the faint but distinct squall of a baby. The woman shushed it, and that purely maternal sound of comfort played all over Julia's rocky emotions. Tears pricked at the back of her throat, and she quickly rose to her feet. She shook her head to clear the persistent imagery—Zane rescuing a small boy, Zane cradling a tiny babe—and moistened her dry mouth.

  "He can stay with me while his knee mends. I'll come and get him."

  "You do what you have to, hon, but he's welcome to stay here as long as he likes. No, Jay!"

  "You have your hands full—I think it's best. If I can just get some directions…?"

  "We're easy to find. You got a pen?"

  * * *

  Finding them had been easy. Prizing her foot from the brake pedal so she could negotiate the last hundred meters of driveway … that was the difficult part.

  Julia blew out a ragged breath. After four hours at the wheel she needed to get out, to stretch, to ease all the kinks of tension from her back and her neck and her limbs. Of course, most of her tension came not from the driving but from anxiety.

  After hanging up the phone the previous evening, she realized she hadn't exchanged names with Zane's friend's wife. And the more times she replayed the conversation in her mind, the more obvious it became—she'd almost certainly been mistaken for Kree.

  In that neat brick house up on the rise, Zane would be waiting for his sister. How would he react when Julia drove up? She didn't know what to expect, or how she would deal with the awkwardness.

  "Awkwardness, schmawkwardness," she muttered. She'd been over the situation a zillion times. Her best friend's brother needed rescuing, and she was the only available white knight. Kree would do the same for her if it were Mitch needing help.

  Their one-night history was irrelevant. As was the fortuitous timing.

  Ignoring the erratic thumping of her heart, she squared her shoulders and gave herself a pep talk. "Okay, Julia. You can't sit here for the rest of the century. Get to it."

  * * *

  From the front porch of Gav and Lisa's neat brick house, Zane watched the stationary vehicle with growing testiness. Had she stalled it? Flooded the engine with her usual impatience? He didn't recognize the car—it wasn't her baby Mazda but a large sedan, which might explain the fact that it wasn't moving. On a compatibility scale of one to ten, Kree and cars rated a low one. And that was with cars she knew.

  Still, she had thought to borrow something that looked more reliable and more comfortable than her match-box toy. He should be thankful for that. If she ever got her butt into gear and made it up the hill, he would thank the hell out of her. He hopped to the edge of the porch and was studying Gav's home-made steps when the screen door behind him creaked open.

  "Don't even think about it," a cheerful voice advised.

  "These steps are a disgrace. Why didn't you make a handrail?"

  "Because I envisioned the day, my friend, when you'd be tempted to do something rash. And detrimental to the mending of that knee." Gav pulled over a chair. "Here, take a load
off."

  "I'll be sitting for the rest of the day."

  "Point." Gav followed the direction of Zane's narrow-eyed gaze. "That your sister?"

  "You expecting anyone else?"

  "Nah."

  Finally the sedan started to move, and Zane tracked its steady approach with a weird sense of foreboding.

  "Don't know a soul who drives a Benz," Gav drawled finally. "How about you?"

  * * *

  "It's hurting, isn't it?"

  Eyes closed, teeth gritted, Zane didn't bother answering.

  "Would it be better if I drove more slowly? Or I could stop and let you rest a while."

  When she eased off the accelerator, he responded immediately. Emphatically. "No. Don't stop. Keep driving."

  Quicker would be nice. Anything to get me out of this.

  Three hours. Three more bloody hours of solicitous questions and sidelong glances. Feigning sleep hadn't helped. Every time she turned those pitying eyes his way, he felt it in every cell of his body. Felt it until he damn near wanted to open the door and jump out. Forget what that would do to his knee.

  The trip had shaped up as torture from the start, when she'd slid those long legs out of her parents' Merc and their glazes clashed for one intense moment. There were no words of greeting, no smiles of welcome, nothing but a complex blend of sensation and emotion arcing between them. She'd turned away quickly, but he couldn't stem the scalding tide of memories. When she'd smiled at Gav, he'd seen the wicked curve of another smile, felt its hot pressure on his neck. When she'd laughed at Lisa's dry greeting, he'd seen the white flash of her teeth, felt their sweet nip on his shoulder.

  Would his traitorous body never let him forget?

  He'd stomached the introductions, explanations and invitations—"Have lunch with us, you can't turn around and head straight back"—in silence, while his brain had searched for alternatives. Come up empty. She'd provided the only available means of getting out of Gav and Lisa's hair.

  But the last thing he needed was to feel beholden to Julia Goodwin. He would accept her lift back to Plenty, to Bill's place, and that was it. He'd accepted it, but he didn't have to like it. In fact, with every passing mile he found more reasons to dislike it.

  Take her motive for coming to fetch him. "Kree's my best friend. It's the least I can do," she'd told Lisa with a smile bordering on martyrdom. Yep, Zane just loved being treated like a mission of mercy. He hated it almost as much as being incapacitated, but not half as much as being treated as an object of pity.

  That one took him back to his first months in Plenty, when every do-gooder worth their salt wanted to dispense charity to "those poor O'Sullivan children." And here he was, twenty years later, returning to that same damn place, needing to accept the same kind of help, because there was no other option.

  Why did it have to be her?

  Stifling a groan, he rubbed a hand over his jaw, felt the concerned touch of her gaze. Again.

  "Would you like to take a painkiller? I have some water in the—"

  "No."

  "Lisa said you—"

  "Which part of no didn't you get?"

  Zane turned and glared. It was the first time he'd really looked at her since enduring the humiliation of her helping him into the car. Like an invalid. And through the dull-edged pain, beyond his sharper-edged irritation, he noticed she seemed drawn. Skin even paler than he remembered. Smudges under her eyes. Hurt clouding those eyes as she quickly refocused them on the road.

  Hell.

  "I didn't mean to snap at you," he relented.

  "It's okay. You must be feeling every bump in the road."

  "Not with this suspension."

  She looked pleased. "Then I'm glad I brought the beast. I hate driving it, but I thought it'd be more comfortable, with the bigger seats and the extra leg room."

  Her gaze slid down, searing his legs and the general area of his seat with instant heat. He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. Tried to concentrate on the pain, on despising her pity, on the possible reasons for her tiredness. On anything but the way his body responded to her presence.

  In that regard, nothing had changed in the past seven weeks. Not one damned thing.

  * * *

  They drove into Plenty two hours and fifty-six minutes later. "You can drop me at Bill's," he said shortly.

  "I told you back at your friends' place—Kree's room is empty, and she would want you to have it."

  "Back there I didn't want to argue. I'm staying with Bill."

  "You're going to sleep on his too short sofa? With that knee?" Her gaze swung his way for a long second. It held no compassion this time, just a quiet strength. "Or do you intend kicking Bill out of his bed?"

  "I'll buy a bed."

  "And put it where? You and I both know Bill doesn't have room to swing a wrench."

  Zane set his jaw. "Then I'll get a room at the Lion."

  "With all those steps?"

  "You have steps."

  "Not at the back door," she countered mildly.

  "Then I'll try the new motel."

  "You're welcome to try, but I know everywhere's booked up for the Hobbs reunion."

  She eased the big car along the curb and cut the engine. The late-afternoon street was empty, the roomy interior of the car silent … except for the noise of frustration grinding away in his brain. If he couldn't handle sharing a car for a few hours, how could he share her house? A bathroom where he'd spread her thighs, where he'd first touched the damp heat—

  "I can understand what you're thinking—"

  "I doubt it."

  "—but it needn't be awkward," she continued, as if she hadn't heard his interjection. Her calm, even tone was starting to irritate him more than if she'd screeched and wailed. "I've already made up your room and bought extra food. I start work at eight in the morning, and I'm currently rostered for a lot of shifts, so I won't be around much."

  "Why?"

  She blinked slowly. "I thought I just explained. I'm working late almost every day."

  "I mean, why are you working so many shifts?"

  "Why does anyone work?" she asked with a little shrug.

  "Did Kree leave you in the lurch?"

  "Oh, no, she paid months in advance—that's not why I need the money. I'm saving for something."

  He remembered the day in her yard, when she'd told him she was saving to build a fence. A fence to keep her brother's dog in. And he remembered her terse response when he'd tried to point out that inequity. It wasn't something that needed debating now, not with her looking ready to drop with exhaustion and his knee aching like a bitch. She needed to get out of the car. He needed to get his leg elevated.

  He released a small measure of banked frustration in a long, ragged sigh. Not resignation, he told himself, but inevitability. "I'll take Kree's room, but only if we come to terms."

  "What kind of terms?"

  "I'll look after myself. I'll pay board. And I'll build that damn fence for you."

  A puzzled look narrowed her gaze. "Fence?"

  "The Mac-proof fence."

  She shook her head. Puffed out a disbelieving laugh. "Oh, no, absolutely not."

  Zane stared back at her, unrelenting. "Take it or leave it."

  "And if I leave it?"

  "I'll pick up my crutches and hop down to Bill's."

  One corner of her mouth lifted in a hint of a smile. "And what if Bill won't have you?"

  "He will. He'll give me his bed and move down to the Lion himself."

  As he watched her digest that possibility, he felt the power shift like a double shuffle. He knew he'd won. The sharp thrust of satisfaction felt very good.

  "Okay," she said slowly. "You can look after yourself, and you can pay some rent. But you are definitely not to go near that fence. You can't possibly do it with your knee."

  "No?" Zane smiled with grim determination as he released his seat belt. "Just watch me."

  * * *

  Chapter 8

&nb
sp; «^»

  Julia let him believe she'd caved because it got him out of the car and into her house. Pain had etched tense grooves beside his mouth and tinged his skin with pallor, but she knew he was stubborn enough to grab those crutches and hop all the way down to Bill's. Or as far as he made it before he collapsed.

  She understood why he'd felt compelled to make the "deal," that pride wouldn't allow him to accept her help without some sort of contribution, but that didn't make her any more comfortable with accepting his three provisos. Point One: how could he look after himself in his present condition? Point Two: Kree had already paid for the room. Point Three: it was her yard, her fence, her responsibility.

  For the next four days she quietly fretted over how she could squirm out of the agreement, which at least gave her something to occupy her mind … something other than the pregnancy issue. She had decided to leave the test until the weekend, when she had time for both the trip to Cliffton and to deal with the results. When Zane had had time to settle in and become a tad more comfortable in her home and with her company. By the weekend they might actually be conversing.

  It was his knee, she reasoned, making him so irritable. And it was only compassion, a natural empathy for any person or creature in pain, that caused the burning ache in her heart every time she saw him wince or pale. Yet he still insisted on doing for himself. No matter how tactfully she offered, her assistance was always curtly refused.

  Every evening she approached her house with trepidation, worried over what she mind find in her yard. Zane slumped over a shovel. Zane buried under a collapsed pile of fence panels. Zane carted off to hospital because he'd done some irreparable damage to his knee.

  Instead she would find him in the kitchen chopping vegetables, or watching television while something simmered on the stove. And when she found him there, every day looking in a little less pain and a lot less likely to take a finger off, her whole self gladdened.

  That troubled her.

  On Friday evening, after they'd eaten and cleared up to the accompaniment of their usual stilted conversation, he asked what kind of fence she had in mind. She noted how he was putting weight on his injured leg, and she noted the stubborn set to his jaw when she prevaricated. It was time to do something herself before he made good on his promise.