Zyah detested leaving her grandmother alone for even a few minutes, but Anat’s care cost money, and Zyah was determined that she was going to receive the best care possible. That meant she was getting a job or two jobs while she lived with her grandmother so she could keep an eye on her and oversee her recovery.
She shrugged her shoulders and looked her grandmother straight in the eye, bearing up under that scrutiny, refusing to look away. “I wasn’t happy with what happened to you, but I wanted to come. I gave my notice. I didn’t take a leave or vacation, both of which I could have done. I left because I wanted to come home and stay with you. If you don’t want me to live with you, I can rent my own place, but I’m staying close. I understand if, when you’re better, you prefer me to leave so you can be alone to entertain Dwayne.” She kept a straight face.
Anat feigned shock. “Zyah. That is not funny.” But she looked pleased. “Of course I want you to stay with me.” She paused a moment, her fingers plucking at the beautiful comforter that she had quilted. “Are you going to tell me about the man who upset you? He caused real unhappiness. You let him in.”
Her grandmother hadn’t changed in the time she’d been gone. That was a comfort too. She’d always been a good listener, and she’d never been judgmental. She’d taught Zyah to be the same way.
“I brought it on myself. I can’t even blame him as much as I want to. Your friend Lizz Johnson? Her lovely granddaughter, Francine Winters, the one you asked me as a favor to be the designated driver for, that granddaughter? You know, that one who has despised me my entire life?”
“That bad?”
“Francine Winters is a shark in the water, Mama Anat, circling men all the time. I don’t understand why she manages to get men to fall at her feet, but she does. She lies and cheats and wouldn’t be loyal to a man if his life depended on it. She’s ending marriage three, and she was bragging that she dated several married men while she was married. She wanted to sleep her way to the top of the Torpedo Ink club so she could be the ‘old lady’ to the president. She knew two chapters were going to be at the party, and she had her eyes on the president of the new chapter. I guess right away she zeroed in on some poor man she was going to seduce to start her journey upward.”
“Oh, dear, Zyah. I’m so sorry for putting you in such a position,” Anat said. She eased her body to the side again, running her hand gently over her thigh.
Zyah frowned. “Did you take your pain pills tonight like you were supposed to? The doctor said not to wait. You’re supposed to take them every six hours.”
Anat waved her hand. “We’ll discuss my problems after. You went with Francine, the shark, to the party. What happened?”
Zyah couldn’t help laughing. “There is no derailing the conversation, is there? The party definitely didn’t look like anything I was ready for, so I explained to one of the women that I needed to study for the interviews, and she seemed to understand and told me I could wait in a back room that was supposed to be empty for the night. I wanted to practice belly dancing. I haven’t done it for some time, although I was always very good at it.”
Anat nodded. “You’ve been excellent at belly dancing since you were a little girl. The job at the restaurant in Healdsburg?”
Zyah nodded. “Yes. All the waitresses know how to belly dance—it’s part of the entertainment there. It’s not that far to drive, and I can supplement my income if I get that job as well. I know I have an excellent education . . .”
“I loved that you spent so much time abroad at school and then working,” Anat said proudly. “But if you’re telling me the truth and you are really finished with traveling, I’m very glad to have you home. Please do get to the part where you meet your young man.”
“He’s definitely not my man, Mama Anat,” Zyah said, jumping up and pacing across the bedroom floor to the window to stare out, suddenly feeling like a caged tiger.
She was barefoot as usual. She always felt trapped in shoes. With the soles of her feet pressed to the floor, she felt like she was connected to the earth. She could feel its vibrations. She’d felt connected to Player. She should have known, just by the name he’d given her, but that connection to him had been so strong, and now she wasn’t sure she could ever trust her gift again.
“Zyah. Child.”
Her grandmother’s voice was very soft. Very loving. Zyah didn’t dare turn around, not with tears burning behind her eyes. She wasn’t shedding them, but her grandmother knew her too well, and she would know. This had cut deep, and it was silly when she didn’t even know his real name. He hadn’t told her. He’d given her the truth of him. Player. He played women, and he’d played her for an absolute fool.
“You don’t have to tell me if it hurts too much, but sometimes it feels better to share. I’m always here for you. Always on your side.”
“I don’t know why I liked him so fast. I just gave myself to him, Mama Anat. All in. Everything. I danced for him. Laughed with him. I felt as if I’d known him my entire life. Being with him was magical. I thought he felt the same way. From the moment he walked through the door, he took my breath away. I never got it back. I still can’t breathe when I think about him.” She couldn’t.
She tried not to let her mind go back to that night of pure bliss, of perfection. Everything about Player had been exactly what she’d wanted it to be. Her complete fantasy man. Their connection had been so strong, on such an intimate level, she hadn’t even considered holding back. She’d surrendered everything she was to him.
Zyah’s hand crept to her throat. She could barely admit the truth to herself let alone to her grandmother. She whispered it, stroking the faint marks of possession he’d left on her body. She had them everywhere. She’d thought they’d meant something to him when he put them there. He’d acted like they did, but she knew better now.
“Can you come and sit with me, child?” Anat patted the bed beside her.
Zyah’s heart clenched. “I might cry, and I cried so much after the interviews, I thought my eyes would burn out of my head. At least I had enough discipline to get through both before I broke down. He isn’t worth more tears.” But she knew she would shed more. When she was alone in her bed, craving him. He’d set up some kind of terrible addiction.
“Tell me about him.”
Zyah closed her eyes against the sudden wash of sensation pouring over her skin. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed at her skin as if she could rid herself of his touch. “He felt like fire every time he touched me. He could be so gentle and then turn rough and wild, like he couldn’t get close enough to me or get enough of me. I couldn’t get enough of him.” She made her confession in an even lower tone.
Her grandmother remained silent, something she often did to encourage Zyah to continue telling her something important. Zyah swung around to face her, a little defiantly, this time deliberately looking her straight in the eye. She knew there was no getting around what she was revealing. Anat would understand that she was talking about having been with her partner sexually when she barely knew him. There was no judgment, but then her grandmother wasn’t a judgmental person. Throughout her childhood and teenage years, that had always remained a constant trait in her— one Zyah counted on now.
“He was so beautiful. Everything about him was beautiful to me, Mama Anat. His body was covered in scars. So many they made me want to weep. I didn’t ask him about them, or the tattoos he had, which covered quite a few. The tattoos were intricate and intriguing. I just talked with him because he seemed to need to hear the sound of my voice. We laughed so much. He loves music the way I do. He loves working with wood. His voice . . .” She broke off again, waving her hands in the air in despair.
Looking straight into her grandmother’s eyes, she asked the question that mattered the most, the one that nagged at her continually. “How could I have been so wrong?”
Anat regarded her just as carefully, never breaking eye contact. “You were so certain he was the one for you?”
Zyah nodded without hesitation. There hadn’t been any doubt in her mind or heart. Player had connected with her on such a level she felt complete. Soul to soul. She’d been that certain of him.
“I felt his heartbeat. When I danced. I was barefoot. He was barefoot. Something was wrong with him when he came into the room. His heart was straining. His mind was chaotic. His rhythm was off, but we were in perfect harmony. Movements, and the pitch of my voice—we connected, I know we did.” She faltered. “I was wrong. I connected with him, but he failed to connect with me. He didn’t. Not at all.”
“Tell me about him before you tell me what happened.” Again, Anat patted the bed beside her.
Zyah couldn’t help herself. She accepted her grandmother’s comfort. Her grandmother had been through hell, beaten and then robbed by intruders, but it was so like her to think only of Zyah and her anguish over losing what really had only been in her mind—an illusion caused by her reckless behavior. She wasn’t like that with men. She was cautious as a rule. Her last relationship had been two years earlier, and it had been a disaster in spite of the fact that she’d entered into it very slowly, taking her time, waiting to be physical with her partner for weeks. She hadn’t been with another man since—until Player.
She eased her hips and legs onto the bed, careful not to bump her grandmother’s fragile body. She curled onto the bed like a child, her grandmother’s hand stroking her hair just the way she had when Zyah was a little girl. It felt the same, like love.
“I came home to take care of you, Mama Anat, but really, I think I came home because I needed this. You loving me. I needed to feel loved. Maybe I thought he was someone special because I needed him to be.”
Anat continued to gently stroke her granddaughter’s hair, humming softly, the sound filling the room. Zyah closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel her grandmother’s comfort surrounding her, holding her close, enfolding her in loving arms.
“I love you so much, Mama Anat,” she murmured. “I hope you always know that. I hope when I was away working, you always knew it.”
The gentle, loving strokes in her hair never stopped. “Of course I knew, Zyah. You sent me letters every week and far too much money every month.”
“I was so homesick. I wanted desperately to come home, but I wanted to make you proud of me. You were such a strong woman, and I wanted to be strong like you. You came here alone after you lost everyone, with me to raise. I didn’t want to let you down.”
“You could never let me down, Zyah,” Anat chided, making her little trilling noise, this time definitely a small but loving reprimand. “You should know that by now.”
“What’s wrong with me that I can’t find the right man? I was so certain. I felt him touch me inside, soul to soul, just the way you said would happen when I listened to the earth. I heard her talking to me. I felt her move through me to him.”
Anat continued to stroke Zyah’s hair gently. “Gifts are strange things, child. You think the fault lies with you, but perhaps the failing was his. Tell me about him. He must belong to this club. The same club that owns this store you want to work for.”
Zyah sat up slowly and pushed back her hair, facing her grandmother. “Yes, Torpedo Ink. He’s a member. He has the same tree tattooed on his back that’s on their jackets. I need the job, and hopefully he won’t come in and bother me. If he does, I’ll look for another job, but there just aren’t that many around, and they offered the best wages for this area.”
“You are procrastinating, and that’s unlike you.”
She was. Zyah traced one of the flowers in the quilt on her grandmother’s bed. “I don’t want to feel like I’m so shallow I fell for him because he’s so beautiful, but he truly is. He’s tall and has wide shoulders and a thick chest, with muscles that go on forever. His hair is longer than I ever thought I’d like, falling below his shoulders. It’s thick and very unruly, light brown with sun streaks going all through it. I loved his eyes. He has the most striking blue eyes. They’re an unusual shade of blue—icy blue and then dark royal blue, and very piercing, as if he can see right into your soul. He has a short beard and mustache, nicely trimmed. So yeah, gorgeous man physically.”
“You are not a shallow person, Zyah—I will never believe that.”
Zyah gave her grandmother a small smile of thanks. “He’s intelligent and loves music. He has an affinity for wood—for the earth. He’s compassionate. His voice changed whenever he talked about his fellow Torpedo Ink members. He called them his brothers or sisters. I loved the way he talked about them. He clearly loves Blythe. You know her. Everyone does. She’s a cousin to the Drake sisters, you know, Sea Haven’s royalty.”
Anat nodded. She’d lived in Sea Haven a long time. “Yes, I don’t run in the Drakes’ circles, but Inez and Lizz talk of them. Everyone does.”
“Blythe is married to Czar, the president of Torpedo Ink, and Player told me that Blythe is kind of like a mother hen to all of the club members. It was the way he said it, not making fun of her like you might expect; his tone held absolute love and respect. He talked like Blythe walked on water. You just can’t fake that.”
Zyah rubbed at her arms, once again trying to remove the sensation of Player running his hands over her skin. Touching her. Creating flames licking at her. A hundred tongues of fire. She couldn’t get him off her or out of her, no matter how hard she tried.
“I thought, when we talked all night and laughed together, we were building a solid foundation. When we fell all over each other, I thought it meant something.”
She shook her head, refusing to give in to the burn behind her eyes. This mistake was hers, and she always learned her lessons, accepted her responsibilities and didn’t make the same mistake again, no matter how hard it was to avoid that same blunder.
“We were both exhausted in the early morning hours. He lay on the bed, and I went to lie down, just to sleep for a short while next to him. I wanted him to hold me. I wanted to feel his body curled around mine, but he shoved me off the bed. Pushed me away. Hard. He actually said he was done with me. He told me he never slept with women like me and handed me a wad of money. Said I’d earned it. It was a lot of money. He even told me to leave my number on the end table so he could give me a call sometime. Wasn’t that just lovely?”
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 th
is 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.
Reckless Road Page 6