Wrecked

by Shiloh Walker

  He just didn’t know.

  Of course, it would be nice if he could just get her to talk to him.

  Snagging his phone, he tapped out another message to her. Probably the twentieth. Maybe the thirtieth. He had lost track. And though he was beyond desperate, he tried damn hard not to let that or the frustration show in his words.

  Just wondering when you’ll come home so you can kick my ass and we can talk.

  Things weren’t how they looked, Abs. I swear.

  Come home . . . please.

  He gripped the phone and waited.

  Seconds ticked by and not a message arrived.

  After about two minutes, he gave up and tossed it back down.

  He needed to get to work.

  His schedule had him down to get started on the layout for a sleeve somebody wanted done. They had brought him a design that looked like a knockoff of a design inked on a pretty popular wrestler-turned-actor and that garbage wasn’t happening in his place.

  He had a few ideas that hopefully would work, but if they didn’t, the man would just have to get his ink done elsewhere.

  Hopefully, it would work.

  Zach needed the distraction.

  Chapter Twenty

  Abby stood in front of the window, wearing a shirt that Zane was almost positive his mom had bought for Zach.

  Her red hair was pulled up into a ponytail and her eyes had shadows under them.

  She looked beautiful and tired and pissed and sad.

  As he dropped down on the couch, he snagged his camera and turned it on. He had the first picture snapped before she realized what he was doing. By the time she turned to face him, he’d snapped a second, and the third one had her flipping him off.

  He grinned at her as he lowered the Nikon to his lap. “I should sell that last one to the tabloids.”

  “Oh, bite me.”

  “What’s going on, Abby?”

  She flicked him a look. “It’s not like you don’t have a clue. You’ve already talked to Zach. That’s why you were bugging me at midnight last night, because he was hassling you.”

  “Hey . . . I was bugging you because I was a little worried myself,” Zane pointed out. Putting the camera down, he came off the couch and moved to stand next to her. Catching her hair in his hand, he tugged on it gently and then slid an arm around her waist, hugging her. “Yeah, I talked to him, but he didn’t exactly explain what was going on. I know you’re pissed off at him, otherwise you wouldn’t have driven six hours to glare at me. Now why don’t you tell me why you’re mad?”

  She wiggled away from him and started to pace, her gaze locked on the floor. “I’m not mad . . .” Then she snorted. “Screw that. I am mad, but that’s not exactly why I drove here. I could handle the mad part in Tucson.”

  “Okay . . .” He suspected he needed more coffee for this. Circling around, he waited until she made another circuit and then he caught her arm. “Maybe we should have this discussion in the kitchen.”

  She slid him a sidelong look. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Me, neither.” Then he smiled. “But I want coffee. I’m not tracking this conversation and I’m hoping the caffeine will help.”

  She muttered, “I’m thinking alcohol might.”

  “Well, I’ve got that, too.”

  She settled herself down at the island, one foot hooked on the rung of her chair as he poured himself a cup of coffee. He needed to brew another pot the way he was going. But instead of worrying about that now, he turned around and stared at Abby from across the kitchen. “Okay. I’m getting caffeinated. Spill.”

  He took a sip and waited.

  “Is Zach in love with me?”

  He choked and sprayed coffee all over the floor. Slamming the cup down on the counter, he pounded a fist on his chest while his eyes watered. Strong coffee, windpipe, shock: bad mix. Once the burning stopped, he snagged a paper towel from the counter and wiped it across his face. “Abby . . . shit. Don’t you think that’s a question you should ask him?”

  “Hmm. Let me rephrase . . . has he been in love with me for . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Lowering the towel, he looked at her through his lashes and tried to figure out how in the hell to answer that. He knelt down and wiped up the coffee he’d almost choked on while a hundred different delaying tactics rolled through his head.

  “Abby, why aren’t you talking to Zach about this?” he asked softly.

  “I’ve tried.”

  He flicked a glance at her.

  She was staring at nothing while one hand rubbed at something under her shirt. Over and over. “He . . .” She stopped and bit her lip, like she was thinking something through. After a second, she looked back at him. “I had this plan, you know.”

  “Abby, you always have plans.” He crooked a grin at her and shrugged. “That’s nothing new.”

  “This was.” She reached into the bag she dumped on the counter and pulled out a ragged, rather tattered book. And then, before he could even stand up, she threw it at him. “Hey, look . . . I did another thing from the book!”

  He barely caught it. “Watch it,” he said, looking down at it for a second without really seeing it. The he stopped and looked at it again. He’d seen this in bookstores before. “Wreck This Journal?”

  “Yeah.” She shrugged. “Zach bought it. I’m . . . well, I’m not writing in it much. I think I’m doing too much journaling and worrying, not enough living. But I had a plan. It’s on one of the early pages.”

  Cocking a brow, he waited.

  “Go head.” She squirmed a little on her seat and took up a rapt interest in the surface of his island.

  Curious, he flipped it open, grinning a little as he saw the first set of instructions. “Must have killed you to crack the spine.”

  “Zach did that one,” she said softly.

  “Ahhh . . .” He kept flipping until he came to a page where he saw the handwriting. He had to assume it was hers. Too elegant and neat to be Zach’s, that much was certain.

  Wreck this life: My new plan

  1. Stop worrying so much about the future

  2. Call Roger and tell him off

  3. Flip off the next photographer you see

  4. Get a tattoo

  5. Have a torrid affair with a hot guy

  Something twisted inside him as he came to the last step. A torrid affair . . . Was that what she was doing with Zach? “Abby, if you’re just using Zach, you need to stop. He—”

  “Zane . . . be quiet,” she said, and there was steel in her voice.

  Closing the book, he tossed it onto the nearest countertop and then he hooked his thumbs in his pockets, staring at her until she slowly lifted his head. “Be quiet?” he echoed. “That’s my brother, Abigale. My brother, and I love him. Okay? I love—”

  “Stop it,” she said, sliding off the stool and coming around the island to glare at him.

  Abby wasn’t a small woman. She was nearly five nine and almost all of her was leg, it seemed. But Zane was still a good four inches taller than her. She held her ground as he advanced on her. “Look, damn it, you’re not being fair to him if all you’re doing is trying to make yourself feel better after that fucker dumped you,” he snapped.

  “I asked you a question,” she said, her voice low and hard.

  “Fuck the damn question.” Zane caught her arm and glared down at her. “I know Roger treated you like hell. I get that and I understand if you need to . . . hell. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but whatever it is, it shouldn’t involve hurting Zach.”

  Her eyes glinted with rage as she glared right back. “Just when have you ever known me to intentionally hurt him?”

  “Intentionally? Not once. But over the past seventeen years, you’ve done it a lot. If you’re just fucking with him, you need to pull back and now,” he said, feeling a little sick inside as he stared at her. Damn it, this was going to kill Zach. It was just going to kill—

  “Seventeen years.” She shoo
k her head.

  “What?”

  “Is that how long?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and then turned away. “Abby, I think you should just leave, okay? I need to get some stuff done.” Call Zach. Call . . . hell. Maybe call Mom. I don’t know. “And I can’t do it with you here. So can you—”

  “Answer me!” she shouted.

  His temper snapped and he spun around, glaring at the woman he’d known most of his life. “Answer you?” he asked. “You want me to fucking answer you?”

  “That’s why I’m here. I just want a straight answer.” She jerked her chin up at him, attitude and disdain written all over her face. “How long, huh? Just how long has he been in love with me?”

  “Forever!”

  The word hung between them for an endless moment before he turned away. Slamming his hands down on the counter, he stared at the glass-plated cabinet in front of him, wishing he could yank those words back. “Shit. Shit. Damn it, Abby, this is something you need to be talking about with him. Not me.”

  Silence greeted him.

  Looking back over his shoulder, he saw her leaning against the counter, a lost look on her face as she stared off at nothing.

  “Abby,” he tried again. “You need to go home. You need to talk to Zach.”

  She flicked him a glance. The expression in her eyes was so raw it was hard to even look at her. “I tried.”

  “You tried to talk about this with him?”

  A soft sigh escaped her and he watched as her reflection turned and moved away.

  Slowly, he eased around, watching as she moved back to the island and settled back on the stool. “Yeah.” She hooked her hands over her neck, staring at nothing. “I did the tattoo thing first . . . we were talking. I said something about Roger . . . I dunno, but something like how could he do that to me if he’d really loved me. And Zach’s response? He said that Roger never did love me. So simple. So easy. So . . . so Zach.” She paused and took a breath. “Anyway, a few minutes later, I asked him if he’d ever been in love. He said he had. But it hadn’t worked, the woman hadn’t ever noticed.”

  Now she lifted her head and stared at Zane. “It was me, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s always been you for Zach.” Blowing out a breath, he stared up at the ceiling. “He is going to pound on me if he knows I’m discussing this.”

  “Then maybe he should have answered me when I tried to talk to him about it the other day. I asked him again . . . and he just talked around it.”

  “He thinks you’re going to run scared,” Zane said gently. “You live your life by plans—you’ve done that ever since you were a kid. Your crazy mom, everything she put you through. Zach . . . well, he never fit into your plans. He doesn’t want to scare you, especially not when he’s finally got you to see that he can fit into your life . . . like this.”

  Her eyes swung to his.

  “Can he?”

  Abby closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands. “I never saw any of this coming, Zane. But I can’t go a day without thinking about him anymore. Not an hour. Seems like it’s a struggle to even go a minute.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  Abby lifted her head. And although she didn’t say a word, he saw the answer in her eyes.

  * * *

  Zane looked like he was going to puke as he finished setting up his equipment. “You realize he’s going to kill me, right?”

  “Oh, shut up.” Abigale was nervous enough herself. She was also freezing. Which didn’t make sense, because the lights in his studio were hot. Of course, she was only wearing the green silk shirt. That would explain why she was freezing. That, and nerves.

  “We can do this another day,” Zane said, his voice abrupt, edgy with his own rush of nerves.

  “No. We’re doing it now.” She shot him a dark look. “If you can’t handle it, I can hit the road and see if I can find another photographer back home.”

  He gave her a pained look. “And like that is going to make it any better. At least Zach knows I’m not going to be staring at you and thinking . . .” He went red and focused on the backdrop he’d planned to use. “Can you explain why it has to be today?”

  “You’ll see.” The blossoms Zach had painted across her skin were already fading. If she waited more than a day or two, they wouldn’t show as well for photographs and she needed to give him . . . something. Something that showed him what she felt. And nobody could catch a moment on camera the way Zane did.

  Trying to distract herself, she stood in front of the counter where he’d spread out some of the photographs he’d taken. Most of them looked like they’d come from the barbecue, she realized. She saw herself, bent over the stove. Something about the way he’d caught her on film made her think of a time gone by. Of course, the old-fashioned sort of dress really added to that, as did the apron she’d put on.

  There was another one of the twins playing with little Clayton, then one of just the twins. Travis had his arm slung around Trey’s neck and if Abigale knew them, they’d been talking about Trey’s wife. Her death had left such a hole in the family.

  There was one of Sebastian, alone, staring up at the sky. Lost in the stars, the way he often seemed to be.

  A close-up of Zach. She touched his face, stroked a finger down the line of his jaw. “I like this one,” she murmured.

  “Take it.”

  Glancing up, she saw Zane moving closer.

  Pulling it from the pile, she smiled a little. “Sure you don’t mind?” Slyly, she added, “You could always sell it to the tabloids.”

  He laughed a little. “Nah. If I’m going to sell a picture of my famous brother to the tabloids, I’ll go for the one with more skin showing.” He plucked another from the stack and said, “But Zach would kill me. And you know I wouldn’t do that. Here . . . you might like that one, too.”

  It was another one of Zach, his upper torso and face, although he’d been staring at something off to the side.

  It had been right after they’d finished playing a game of baseball and Zach had taken his shirt off.

  She stroked her finger down the tattoo over his heart. She went to put them both down. But for some reason, something caught her eye just then. Maybe it was the lights . . . maybe it was the way Zane had framed the shot. Maybe she had just really looked for the first time.

  She’d noticed the lines and whorls around the dagger before. Really, she had. But she’d never really looked. Seriously, how easily could she stare at Zach’s chest? More often than not, he’d been wearing a shirt . . . at least up until lately. As much as she loved his tattoos, it wasn’t like she could just blatantly stare.

  But she was blatantly staring now.

  And the lines and whirls around that blade settled into place, forming a very distinct image.

  An A.

  It was stylized, decorated, and worked to be part of the tattoo so it didn’t jump out and scream anything. But there it was. The letter A.

  “Zane . . .”

  She swallowed as she stroked the tip of her finger over that letter and then looked up at him.

  He was watching her calmly. “It’s been there all the time, Abby. You just never saw it.”

  Sucking in a ragged breath, she turned away.

  Tears clogged her throat, but she couldn’t start to cry. Not right now.

  A hand touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said quietly. “Come on. Let’s get this done. I need to go have a talk with this man of mine.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The absolute last thing Abigale thought she could handle was that voice.

  She didn’t know how her mother had tracked her cell phone number down this time. She didn’t know, and honestly, she didn’t care. All she knew was that the name glaring at her from the display was one she knew too well.

  Blanche Levine.

  Her mother. Working on her fourth marriage now.

  And still trying to drag Abigal
e back into her life.

  Sighing, she took the call because it was either that or . . . run.

  He’s afraid you’ll run.

  Zach was right about one thing. She ran away from things, too often. Too easily. It had to stop. With everything. Including this.

  Just before the call would have ended, she hit the button and pushed it so that it rolled over to speaker. “Hello, Mother,” she said, keeping her gaze focused on the road in front of her. She still had a few hours before she’d reach her destination. Spending any of that time on the phone with Blanche wasn’t ideal, but getting it over with now was better than delaying it, she guessed.

  There was a very brief pause but Abigale realized she’d surprised the other woman. “Abigale. Darling . . .”

  “Stop it with the darling, mother. I’m not your darling anything. What do you want?”

  “Can’t I call just to speak with you? I miss you, you know. It’s been such a long time since we’ve seen each other.”

  Not long enough. But instead of saying that, Abigale just shot the phone a glare before focusing back on the road. “It has been a while, hasn’t it? Let me think . . . twelve years, if I remember right. That’s when the judge ruled against you in court.”

  “Yes, well. Water under the bridge, of course. Listen, I was hoping that you and I could—”

  “No.” Abigale gripped the steering wheel.

  “Darling, I haven’t even managed to say the words yet . . .” Blanche laughed and the sound was just as grating, just as fake and empty as it had been back when she’d been a child.

  “It doesn’t matter. Unless you’re calling to apologize for breaking my father’s heart, for destroying him . . . unless you’re calling to apologize for the misery that you made of my life, unless you’re calling to tell me that you’re sorry for the disaster that was my childhood, you and I can’t do anything.” She swallowed the scream trying to rise up inside her.

  Her mother heaved out a terrible, put-upon sigh. “Abigale, I know your father’s suicide was hard on you. It was hard on me, too, but—”