by Neesa Hart
With his fingers, still curled into tight fists, he strode around the house to the backyard. August still stood on the small tree-house ladder, trying to coax Teddy down. From the house, he heard his brothers’ voices mingled with the boys’ as they offered reassurances. He approached August and Teddy with measured calm.
When he took two steps up the ladder, August’s rounded bottom pressed against his waist. He dropped a light kiss on the curve of her neck. “Problems?”
She ignored him. “Teddy, it’s all right. He’s gone. Zack got rid of him.”
Teddy remained pressed against the trunk of the tree. With miserable eyes, he searched Zack’s face. “He’s gone,” Zack assured him. “You don’t have to be afraid of him.” August glanced at Zack over her shoulder. He saw the pleading look in her eyes. “It’s all right,” he told her. “Why don’t you go inside and change? Teddy and I need to have some guy talk.”
She looked unsure. “I don’t—”
“August—” he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead “—trust me.”
With a slight sigh of surrender, she glanced at Teddy again. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in, sweetheart?”
He wagged his head no. August slipped through Zack’s arms to the ground. “I’ll wait inside then,” she said. “Call me if you need anything.”
With a reassuring look, Zack nodded her toward the house. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this under control.” She searched his expression, but didn’t reply as she turned to pick her way across the lawn.
Zack watched until she’d disappeared into the house, then hoisted himself onto the wooden platform so that he could sit next to Teddy. “How you doin’, pal?”
Teddy didn’t budge from his spot by the trunk.
Zack rubbed his hands on the rough fabric of his jeans. “It was scary, wasn’t it?” Wide-eyed, Teddy nodded. “I thought so, too,” Zack confessed.
When he saw the skeptical look the child gave him, he nodded. “Really. I was scared like that once. I was a little older than you, but it was still frightening.” Teddy eased slightly away from the trunk. Encouraged, Zack continued with the story. “When I was fourteen, my father left me and my mother, and my twelve brothers and sisters. We didn’t have any money, and we were all scared that somebody was going to split us up.”
He paused as he studied Teddy’s face. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” Teddy shook his head no. “What about your mother?” The boy’s eyes dropped to the plank floor.
“Hmm.” Zack leaned back on his hands. “Well, anyway, I don’t think I stopped being scared of somebody taking my family away until we were all grown up.”
Teddy met his gaze once more. There was a look in his eyes that was years too old for his young life. With a deep sigh, Zack laid a hand on Teddy’s head. “But you know what I did when I was the most scared?”
Teddy shook his head.
“I talked to other people about it.” Zack waited long seconds while Teddy absorbed the statement. “Teddy, I want to help you. I’m going to help you, but you’ve got to trust me. I need you to tell me about that man.”
With trembling lips, Teddy slid closer to Zack. Zack waited until the boy’s thin leg was pressed against his own. “Am I your friend?” he asked him. Teddy nodded. “Then friends trust each other. You can trust me, Teddy.”
Long, tension-filled seconds followed. Teddy’s hands rubbed nervous circles on the plank floor. Finally, when Zack was ready to give up, Teddy whispered, “Are you going to forget what I look like?”
Breath froze in his lungs. Afraid to talk, afraid to move, lest he startle the child, Zack closed his eyes. In the gentlest voice he could manage, he asked, “What do you mean, Teddy?”
Teddy looked at him. In his gaze, there was an anguished plea for reassurance. “After Pop came last time, you said that after a while, we’d all forget what he looks like.” He paused. “If I have to go with him, are you going to forget what I look like?”
The breath drained from his body. With a low groan, he scooped the child into his arm and hauled him onto his lap. Zack leaned back against the tree so that he could cradle Teddy’s slender body against his chest. “No,” he said, mustering all the authority he possessed. “No, I am not going to forget. I’d never forget. And you’re not going with him.”
Teddy’s small hands crept around Zack’s neck. “I’m afraid of him,” he whispered.
“I know it. Why don’t we just sit here while you tell me why?”
From her vantage point in the kitchen, August had to stifle tears when she saw Teddy clinging to Zack. A large hand settled on her shoulder. “You okay?”
She glanced at Sebastiano. “Yes,” she said, her voice breathless. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Sebastiano’s gaze traveled to Zack and Teddy. “Zack the rock,” he said with a slight smile. “He’s always been that way. No matter what happened, we all counted on Zack.”
August frowned as she considered Zack carrying the world on his young shoulders. “Who did Zack count on?”
His eyes twinkled as he studied her in the morning light. “I think,” he said, “he finally found someone he can.”
When Zack returned to the house with Teddy, the child’s face was tear-streaked. August was nervously pacing the kitchen, when they entered the house. She’d watched the interchange from the window and barely restrained the urge to rush toward them. Instead, she dropped a dishtowel on the table, then crossed the room to give him a reassuring hug. “Better?” she asked. Teddy slipped his fingers into Zack’s.
Zack gave the small hand a tight squeeze. “It’s okay, buddy. Why don’t you go in with the guys? I think Sebastiano is probably helping them design a fortress for the tree house.”
Teddy glanced at August. She gave him a slight nod of approval, and he raced from the kitchen. Her gaze collided with Zack’s. “He talked to you,” she whispered. “My God, do you know what that means?”
Zack pulled her into his arms. Gratefully, August wrapped her arms around his waist. “Yeah, I know what it means,” he said. Turmoil laced his tone. “It means that hell could freeze over before I let Snopes have him.”
She laid her face on his warm chest. Still shirtless, the muscles bunched and flexed beneath his skin. She felt the anger, the tension, in him. “Zack, he trusted you enough to talk to you. As far as I know, he hasn’t spoken in at least three years. Don’t you know how important that is?”
“Of course I know.” Tremors raced through him. She recognized them as latent anger at the story he’d heard from Teddy. “It means that that son of a bitch Snopes scared him so damned much that he spilled his guts to me.
“No, Zack. It means that you reached him.” Her hands smoothed away the knots in his shoulders. “It means he finally found someone he thinks can keep him safe. For twelve dollars and thirty-seven cents,” she said, “he hired himself a champion.”
Zack tugged her closer. “God, August. Did you know? Did you know what that bastard did to him?”
“No one knew. The only details in his file where how the social worker found him. Nobody knows what happened to his mother, or why he stopped talking.”
He uttered a dark curse. “He watched his stepfather beat the living daylights out of his mother one night. Snopes threw her across the room, then cracked her on the head with an iron skillet. Teddy doesn’t know where she is, just that the rescue squad came and she never came back.” August pulled in a ragged breath. “He couldn’t have been more than four or five at the time. Hell, she probably died and Snopes never even told him about it.”
“Probably. Oh, Zack.”
Restlessly, his hands roamed her body, as if seeking solace in her warmth. “Snopes threatened him within an inch of his life if he ever told anyone what had happened. Teddy was scared out of his mind. They moved to some hole-in-the-wall apartment where Snopes would leave him alone for hours. Teddy was so afraid of accidentally telling someone about his mother that he just stopped talking.” Cradling her head in
his hands, he tipped it back so that he could meet her gaze. She saw the ravaged hurt that flowed from his heart to his eyes. “Damn it, August,” he said, “he told me that the slimeball hit him less when he didn’t talk. How could he do that to a kid? How could anybody do that to a kid?”
The need in his eyes spoke to her as nothing else could. August pressed a warm, life-affirming kiss to his strong mouth. “Zack, the world’s an ugly place. You know that. It’s filled with Joey Palfitanos who care about nothing but their own greed and survival.”
“Was it like that for you?” he asked her, his voice raw.
August hesitated. “I survived. That’s all that mattered.”
“No.” His hands clamped on her waist like iron manacles. “No.” With a gentle violence, he seized her mouth, rubbing, coaxing, plundering her lips until she shivered in his arms. “No one had the right to do that to you,” he growled. “So help me God, I’ll get even.”
She clung to his shoulders. “It’s over. Nothing’s going to change the past.”
Her protest seemed to fall on deaf ears. “I swear, August,” he said against her mouth, “I’ll never let them hurt you again.”
By the .time they broke apart, Zack had begun to feel his equilibrium return. As long as he kept touching her, as long as he could see and hear her, he could reassure himself that everything was going to be all right.
Together, they spent a subdued afternoon working with the boys and his brothers on the tree house. Every now and then, Zack would catch her watching him. Twice he leaned down from his perch on the ladder to drop a tender, reassuring kiss on her mouth. By mutual consent, August and Zack had not discussed the morning’s events, or the uncertain future. They’d concentrated, instead, on helping the boys regain their equilibrium. But he saw the fear in her, and ached to comfort it the only way he knew how.
By that evening, he wanted her so badly, he hurt with it. He barely made it through dinner without tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her back to his house, but he contented himself with watching the way the growing fire in her made her eyes sparkle and her color heighten.
When they finally said good-night and retreated, by silent consent, to Jansen’s house, he practically tossed her onto the bed. An unaccustomed wildness drove him. That afternoon, he’d taken the opportunity to phone Jansen with the news from Margie’s fax. Once again, Zack had made the decision to delay telling August, as if he knew the fragile bubble of contentment he’d built around them would burst if he did.
When they came together in a frenzied, shattering passion, she clawed at his shoulders in reckless surrender. When it was over, she lay against him like a limp doll. He absently stroked her damp flesh, paused to drop an occasional kiss on her overly sensitized skin.
Most of the night passed in silence, with only murmured endearments carrying on the sultry night air. Both knew that the next morning would bring tough decisions. They learned each other’s bodies. And Zack felt himself tumbling, like Alice down the rabbit hole, into an abyss of panic and yearning. He needed, the way he needed to breathe, to bind her to him so tightly that nothing would ever tear them apart again.
Dread like nothing he’d ever known engulfed him when he awoke the next morning, alone.
Quickly Zack pulled on his clothes and hurried next door. He found August sitting at the kitchen table, sharing the paper with Rafael.
Zack frowned. “What time did you get up?” he asked her.
She met his gaze over the top of the sports section. “Early. You looked tired, so I let you sleep.”
His gaze slid to his brother’s. “Everything all right?”
“Fine. Miguel and Sebastiano are outside, helping your boys build the Taj Mahal in the oak tree. You want some coffee?” He lifted a rakish eyebrow. “You look drained.”
A blush stained August’s skin. Embarrassed, she hurried across the room to the coffeepot. “I’m kind of in a hurry this morning,” she muttered. Her knees still felt weak and wobbly from being wrapped around him most of the night. Inside, she felt hot, melted. “Bubba Lorden is bringing one of his calves out here this morning. He’s supposed to be here by eleven.”
“August.” Zack placed two firm hands on her shoulders. They’d put off the pending discussion as long as possible. Jansen was due to arrive any minute, and if he didn’t tell her now, he never would. “Sit down.”
She ignored him. “I have to get my things ready before—”
“It’ll wait,” he ordered. “Sit down.”
“But I can’t—”
“August.” This time his voice held an unmistakable command. “There are a few things we need to discuss.”
Rafael’s dark eyebrows lifted. “What were you doing all last night, hermano?”
“Callate,” Zack growled.
August laid a hand on his chest. “That’s not necessary,” she said. “He’s just kidding.”
Zack gave his brother a warning look. Rafael had always known how and when to get under his skin. His nerves were stripped bare right now, and the last thing he needed was to renew the age-old argument. He dragged a hand over his face. “Listen to me” he urged. “We didn’t talk about this yesterday because you were upset, but now is the time. There are some things we need to clear up. I know how Snopes found Teddy, and I know Odelia Keegan was behind it.”
August gave him a shrewd look. “Can you prove it?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to.”
She placed several more items in the black bag. “Do you think you can get Teddy to tell Judge Laden what happened?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to do that, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know why Odelia wants you out of town, August.”
He watched as the color drained from her face. She thrust a cup of coffee into his hands, then dropped, too quickly, into one of the chairs. “You do?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Rafael reached to refill her own mug. “Drink this,” he urged. “You look pale.”
Zack took the seat across from her, then enfolded both her hands in his. “Do you want to know, August? I don’t have to tell you.”
Her eyes were wide and turbulent over the rim of the mug. She set it on the table with measured calm. “Of course I want to know. Why wouldn’t I want to know?”
Zack didn’t think he imagined the hysterical note that lurked behind her calm facade. “You’re sure?”
“Perhaps I should go outside,” Rafael suggested.
August shook her head. “Don’t be silly. Zack’s about to tell me who I am.” She glanced at him. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why shouldn’t you hear this? Why shouldn’t everyone hear this? I mean, it’s not like it’s something to be ashamed of. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Her fingers fluttered in Zack’s grasp. Her breasts rose and fell with the shallow force of her breathing. “It’s not my fault.”
“Honey, listen—”
“It’s not,” she insisted. “I had nothing to do with it. I was just a baby when they put me in that home.”
“Stop.” Zack would have pulled her into his lap, but she jumped from her chair and began to pace.
“I knew it, of course, when Enid left me the house, but I didn’t want to think about it. I mean, admitting it would be terrible. I’d have to say that I stayed here, even knowing the truth. I couldn’t have stood that. But now, Teddy depends on it.” She met Zack’s gaze. “Doesn’t he?”
“August, it’s not what you think,” he insisted.
“No?” She looked at him. “Then why don’t you just spit it out, Zack? I’m Odelia’s daughter, aren’t I?”
Chapter Fourteen
Rafael muttered a soft foreign curse. Zack eased out of his chair, placed a hand on each of August’s shoulders, then guided her back to her seat. “No, honey,” he said. “You’re not.”
A strange mixture of relief and terror poured through her. How could that be? She’d reasoned out t
he truth months ago, the first time she saw the portrait in Enid’s attic. Red hair ran in the Keegan family. Odelia’s had long since turned gray, Hiram’s had fallen out, and Betsy May dyed hers blond, but that oil portrait had told August all she needed to know. For some reason, Odelia had given birth to her out of wedlock, then surrendered her to the state. Enid had known, and left August the house. It was all a simple equation, except that Zack didn’t seem to believe it. “I’m not?” she asked him.
“She’s not?” Rafael asked.
Zack shook his head. “Rafe, would you please leave us alone for a minute?”
He stood from the table, pausing to place a comforting hand on August’s shoulder. “Trust him” he told her. “He can fix anything.”
She glanced at him in surprise. Rafael laughed softly. “We haven’t always gotten along, but I’ve never questioned his competence.” The kitchen door creaked shut as he strode to the backyard.
August met Zack’s dark gaze. “I thought—”
He shook his head. “So did I. I was sure you were Odelia’s daughter until I talked with Betsy May one day.”
“Betsy May knows about this?”
“No. She mentioned in passing that Odelia had an accident as a young girl. She could never have children. That confused me. I was certain I knew the explanation.”
“Oh.” The dark pit of longing in her belly had begun to unfold again. She’d had this feeling more times than she cared to count. Each time she believed she’d finally made a home for herself, this awful yearning had swallowed her whole. She swallowed hard, trying to still the turmoil.
“But I knew there had to be a connection,” Zack continued. “I just didn’t know what it was.”
“How did you figure it out?”
His hand rubbed hers, offering silent comfort. “The telephone line that connects your house with Jansen’s.”
“The coffee cans?”
“Yes. Remember when I first asked you about it, you said the boys used it, but it had been there when you moved in?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I asked Jansen about it. He told me he’d strung it as a kid, to communicate with Katherine Keegan.”