Key Of Valor

Chapter four

It was trickier than Zoe had expected to talk Simon into spending the day with one of his school friends instead of coming with her to work at Indulgence.

He liked hanging out with the guys. He wanted to play with Moe. He could help with stuff. He wouldn't get in the way.

In the end she fell back on the most successful parental ploy of all. Bribery. They would stop by the video store on the way and rent two games and a movie.

When it turned out that Moe was welcome to join the play date and romp in the backyard with young Chuck's yellow lab, Simon wasn't only satisfied, he was in heaven.

It alleviated a big chunk of the guilt, and the worry, and gave Zoe the opportunity to explore her first theory.

If the journey in the clue was hers, and the forest a kind of symbol, maybe it referred to her life in the Valley. The paths she'd taken in the place she'd made her home.

She'd been drawn here, to this pretty little valley town, and had known it was her place the moment she'd driven through it nearly four years earlier.

She'd had to work, to struggle, to sacrifice to find the joy and the fulfillment. She'd had to choose her paths, her directions, her destinations.

She reacquainted herself with them now, driving along the streets she knew so well. Quiet streets, she thought, on this early Sunday morning. She cruised the neighborhoods, as she had years before when her mind had been set on finding a house for herself and Simon. She'd done that first, she remembered, to give herself time to find the rhythm of the town, to see how the houses struck her, how the people made her feel as she watched them walk or drive.

It had been spring, late spring. She'd admired the gardens, the yards, the settled feel of the place.

She'd spotted the For Sale sign on the scrubby lawn in front of the little brown house. And with a kind of inner click of recognition, she'd known it was the one. She stopped at the curb, as she had then, studied what was hers while trying to see it as it had been.

The houses on either side of it were small, too, but well tended. Nice trees offering shade. There'd been a young girl riding a bike along the sidewalk, and a teenage boy down the block, washing his car while music blasted.

She recalled the thrill of anticipation that had bubbled through her as she'd jotted down the name and number of the realtor on the For Sale sign.

And that's where she'd gone next. So she followed the same route now. The asking price had been too high, but that hadn't discouraged her. She'd known she probably looked like a mark, in her inexpensive shoes and clothes. She probably sounded like one, with that hint of rural West Virginia in her voice.

But she hadn't been a mark, Zoe thought with satisfaction.

She parked, as she had parked then, and got out to walk.

She'd made an appointment to see the house—one she would, shortly, bargain fiercely for—and had walked along this downtown street and straight into the beauty salon to see if they were hiring.

The real estate office was closed for Sunday, as was the salon, but she walked to both, seeing herself as she had been. Full of nerves and excitement, but putting on a cool front, she remembered. She'd bagged the job—maybe quicker, maybe easier than she should have, she thought now. Another one of those things that were meant to be? Or had it just been a matter of taking the right path at the right time?

Better than three years she'd put into that salon, Zoe mused as she stood outside the display window with her hands on her hips. She'd done good work there. Better work than the bitchy owner, Carly. Which had been part of the problem.

Too many of the customers had begun to request Zoe specifically, and her tips had been solid. Carly hadn't liked that, hadn't liked having one of her operators take the spotlight in her own place. So she'd begun to make things difficult—cutting Zoe's hours here, or loading them on there. Complaining that she talked to the customers too much, or didn't talk enough. Anything that would demoralize or scrape away at her pride.

She'd tolerated it, hadn't fought back. Should she have? she wondered. She'd needed the job, the steady clientele and the pay, the tips. If she'd stood up for herself, she'd have been fired all the sooner.

Still, it was demoralizing to realize how much crap she'd put up with for a lousy pay stub.

No. She took a deep breath and pulled back the anger and the shame. No, she had put up with it for her home, her son, her life. It wasn't a battle she could have won. In the end she'd been fired in any case. But it had been the time for her to be fired, to be at one of those crossroads.

And hadn't that anger, that shame, that sense of despair, even panic, when she'd walked out of Carly's for the last time pushed her toward Indulgence? Would she have begun to build her own as long as she'd been drawing a salary, as long as the bills were being paid and the house was secure?

No, she admitted. She would have dreamed it, but she wouldn't have done it. She wouldn't have found the courage. It had taken a kick in the ass for her to risk the next path.

She turned away, stared out at the town she'd come to know as well as her own living room. That way to the grocery store, turn there toward the post office, head left and past the little park, hang a right toward Simon's school.

Up the block to the Main Street Diner and the milk shakes Simon loved. Straight out of town and up the mountain road to Warrior's Peak.

She could find her way from here, blindfolded, to Dana's apartment, to the house where Flynn and Malory lived. To the library, the newspaper, the drugstore, the pizza parlor.

She could follow the river to Bradley's. Different paths, she thought, walking back to her car. Different choices, different destinations. But they were all part of the whole. All, now, part of her.

If the key was here, somewhere in what was her home, she would find it.

She got in the car and took a winding path, the long way around, to Indulgence.

ZOE said nothing to her friends through the morning. She needed to work first, not only physically but mentally, to sort through her theory and to decipher exactly what had happened to her the night before.

She couldn't talk about it until she had it all straight in her head. And it was, she admitted, a different sort of dynamic when the men were around. There were things she could say, and a way she could say them when it was just Malory and Dana that didn't fit the same way when you added men.

Even men she'd come to trust.

She left Brad to the carpentry, and spent her Sunday morning regrouting bathroom tiles. It was the kind of work that left her mind free to tinker with what had happened to her, and what it might mean.

Was it odd that her experience hadn't been like what had happened with Malory or Dana on their first encounters with Kane? Or was it significant?

Choose, he'd told her. That, at least, followed pattern. Each one of them had had to make a choice. And apparently the risk increased with each key.

He hadn't really hurt her. There'd been that moment of pain in the blizzard, but she'd had worse. Why had he shown her three different scenes, barely giving her time to settle into one illusion before tossing her into the next?

The first had been a harmless little fantasy, hardly anything huge and life-changing. The second, more tedious and familiar, and the third…

The third, she thought as she spread grout on the floor, was scary. To frighten her. You're lost, you're alone, you're pregnant.

Been there, she reflected.

Then the pain, the blood. Like a miscarriage, she realized. Losing the baby. But she hadn't lost her baby, and he was protected.

What if Kane didn't know? Struck, she sat back on her haunches. What if he didn't know Simon was protected? Wouldn't his first threat to her revolve around the most precious thing in her life, the one thing she would die to keep safe?

"Zoe."

The sponge she'd been using to spread the grout fell on the tiles with a plop.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you." Brad stayed in the doorway, one shoulder resting on the jamb. As he'd been standing for the last several minutes, watching her.

A lot going on inside that head, he knew. He'd seen all of it run over her face.

"No, that's okay." She bent back to the work. "I'm nearly finished here."

"The rest of the crew's about to break for lunch."

"Okay. I'll be down as soon as I'm done. It'll give the grout a chance to dry."

He waited until she'd worked her way over, was half in, half out of the doorway. Then he crouched. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

Her hand hesitated, then picked up the rhythm again. "What do you mean?"

"I've spent enough time looking at you to know when something's going on inside. Tell me what happened since yesterday, Zoe."

"I will." She put the sponge in the bucket she'd set just outside the room. "But not just you."

"Did he hurt you?" He grabbed her hand, used his free one to tilt her face around.

"No. Let go. My hands are all covered with grout."

"But he did something." His tone had chilled, the way it did when he was chaining down temper. "Why haven't you said anything?"

"I just wanted some time to think about it, work some of it out, that's all. It'll be easier for me to tell everybody about it all at once." His hand was still cupping her cheek. And his face was very close. "It'd be easier for me, too, if you wouldn't touch me that way right now."

"Right now?" He trailed his fingers back to the nape of her neck. "Or ever?"

She wanted to stretch into that hand and purr. "Let's start with now."

She started to push to her feet, but he was already up, her hand still caught in his as he drew her up beside him. "Just tell me this—Simon's okay?"

She could fight attraction. She could even fight the sexual buzz. But she was going to have a very hard time fighting his obvious and deep concern for her son.

"Yes. He's fine. He really wanted to come today. He likes being with you—with all of you," she added quickly. "But I didn't want to talk about this in front of him. At least, not yet."

"Then let's go down and talk about it, and I'll come by and see him later this week."

"You don't have to—"

"I like being with him, too. With both of you." He brushed the side of her throat, her shoulder. "Maybe you could invite me to dinner again."

"Well, I…"

"Tomorrow. How about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? We're just having spaghetti."

"Great. I'll bring some wine." Obviously considering the matter settled, he tugged her out of the doorway. "We'd better go down and clean up."

She wasn't sure when she'd lost her footing, or why it seemed so impossible to refuse. He'd boxed her in, Zoe realized as she scrubbed up for lunch. There was no question about that, but he'd done it so neatly the lid was on before she'd seen it coming.

Besides, that was tomorrow. She had enough to worry about today without getting worked up about a plate of spaghetti.

It might have been a work in progress, but the kitchen was the best gathering place. A sheet of plywood on two sawhorses served as a table, and there were buckets and ladders for chairs.

Dana scooted a bucket over to her. "Is that peanut butter and jelly?" she demanded, eyeing the sandwich Zoe had unwrapped. "Chunky peanut butter and grape jelly?"

"Yeah." Zoe started to lift one of the triangular halves to her mouth, and noted Dana practically salivating for it. "You want it?"

"It's been much too long since I had a good pb and j. Half of yours for half my ham and swiss on rye."

They made the exchange, then Dana took a test bite. "Excellent," she said around a mouthful. "Nobody makes these like a mom. So, are you going to tell us what's going on, or do you want to eat first?"

Zoe glanced up, then shifted her gaze around the room. Everyone was watching her. Waiting. "Am I wearing a sign?"

"Might as well be." Malory dipped a spoon into her carton of yogurt. "You looked upset when you came in this morning, but more like you were trying not to look upset. Then you shot straight upstairs. Plus you haven't said anything about how the kitchen looks now that it's painted."

"It looks great. I meant to tell you." Never easy with being the center of attention, Zoe tore her half sandwich in two. "And I wanted to wait until everybody was taking a break before telling you what happened last night."

"We're taking a break now." Dana rubbed a hand over Zoe's thigh. "What gives?"

She took her time in the telling, wanting to make it clear, wanting to be sure she didn't leave out any details. "It was different than it was with you. With everybody here who's had an experience with Kane. Even different than what happened to us here in the house, the first month."

"Did you know it was him?" Jordan asked her.

"That's the thing. I never stayed in any one of the three… places"—she supposed she should call them that—"long enough to feel it. And I don't think I pulled myself out, the way some of you were able to. There wasn't time for that. It was more like being somewhere, then closing your eyes for a second and being somewhere else."

"Let's take them one at a time." Flynn had already pulled out a notebook. "Swinging in a hammock." He tapped the page. "Were you in your yard?"

"No. I don't have a hammock. I've never actually lain around in a hammock in the shade with a pitcher of lemonade and a book. Who has the time? It'd be nice, and I was thinking about not having much breathing room over the next few weeks, then, pop, I'm swinging in a hammock and drinking lemonade."

She frowned, and didn't notice the narrowed look from Brad. "I don't know where I was. I don't think it mattered, that's what I've figured out thinking it over. It didn't matter where the stupid hammock was, it was just symbolic of having nothing to do for an afternoon. Or, I guess, as long as I wanted to have nothing to do."

"I think you're right," Malory agreed. "He clicks into fantasies, lets us get a look at them, experience them. Mine, being an artist and married to Flynn. The perfect house, the perfect life." She gestured across the table. "Dana's, being alone on a tropical island without a care in the world. And for you, a lazy afternoon."

"Pretty pitiful fantasy, compared to yours." But Zoe smiled, relieved that her conclusion seemed valid.

"But he yanked you out of it, instead of giving you time to wallow," Jordan pointed out. "Maybe he didn't want to give you the chance to see it as false. Just give you a quick taste, then move on. A new strategy."

"I think that's part of it. But, well, take the second part. That was my mother's trailer, and God knows I swept up plenty in there. I recognized the way it looked, smelled, the way my brother and sister were arguing outside. But I don't know how old I was. Was I the way I am now? Was I a kid? Somewhere between?"

Thoughtfully, she shook her head. "What I mean is, I didn't get a sense of myself, just the heat and the fatigue and the annoyance of it all. I just felt like this is all I ever do, clean up around this place, mind the children, and I'm so tired of it. I felt, you could say, particularly put upon and bitchy. I think it's sort of symbolic, too."

"Being trapped in a loop," Brad supplied. "Always doing what needs to be done, and for somebody else, and never seeing an end to it."

"Yes. Mama did her best, and she needed me to help out. But you get to feeling trapped. You get so you feel it's not going to get any better, no matter what you do."

"So you can lie around in a hammock and enjoy life, or you can sweat and run the same loop over and over." Dana pursed her lips as she considered. "But those aren't the only choices. It's not that cut and dried. You've proven that yourself."

"Some people might look at my life and think I'm just running a different loop now. I don't feel like that, but it could seem that way. Then there's the third part."

"He wanted to scare you," Malory said.

"Oh, yeah, and boy, mission accomplished. It was cold, and I was alone. It wasn't one of those pretty wonderland snows. It was vicious and mean, the kind that kills you. And I was so tired, the baby so heavy inside me. I just wanted to lie down somewhere and rest, but I knew I couldn't. I'd die if I did, and if I died, the baby died."

Unconsciously, she pressed a hand to her belly, as if to protect what had lived there.

"Then the contractions. I knew what they were, you remember that pretty quick. But this was meaner, it wasn't progress. The way labor pains are. It was an ending, an ending with all that blood on the snow."

"He wanted to threaten you, through Simon." Flynn's face hardened. "It's not going to happen. We're not going to let him."

"I think that's part of it. Trying to scare me, using Simon to do it. And I think that's one of the reasons he yanked me out of the last one, too, and told me to choose. I can tell you, as soon as I came back, saw Moe standing there growling, I was up and in Simon's room like a shot."

And shaking like a leaf, she remembered now. "But he was just all sprawled out the way he gets, one leg hanging off the bed and the blankets all wrapped around the other. I swear, that boy can't be still even when he's sleeping." "He was using Simon as another symbol." Brad poured coffee, and since she hadn't taken any for herself as yet, handed a mug to her.

Her gaze met his as she nodded, as the fear fluttered at the base of her throat. "That's what I worked out of it, too."

"A symbol for what?" Dana demanded. "Her life?"

"Her life, yeah," Brad replied. "And her soul. Choose. Comfort, tedium, or the loss of everything she is. He threw down the gauntlet."

"He did. But I think—I wonder if he doesn't know Simon's safe. Maybe he can't see that he's protected and that it won't do him any good to try to threaten me that way."

"You could be right. But," Brad continued, "I'd say he'll find out soon enough, then look for something else to use on you."

"As long as it's not my baby. Anyway, what happened made me think harder about the clue. It pissed me off," she said with a quick laugh. "So I spent more time trying to work it out. I had this idea that maybe the Valley's like my forest. The different things I've done or selected are like the paths."

"Not bad," Dana told her.

"It was something to work on. I took an hour early this morning and drove around, sort of tripping down memory lane. Trying to see it the way I did when I first came, and track how things changed for me."

"Or how you changed them," Brad put in.

"Yes." Pleased, she gave him one of her rare smiles. "I don't know if it's the right direction, but I'm putting together places and, well, events, I guess, that seem important to me personally. If I gather them up in my head maybe one will stand out. If I start heading the right way, it seems to me Kane won't like it. Then I'll know."

IT was hard to imagine herself in a pitched battle with anyone, much less a sorcerer. But she wasn't going to back down at the first punch. If there was one thing she knew how to do, Zoe determined, it was how to stick it out.

Maybe she wouldn't find the key, but it wouldn't be because she hadn't looked.

She spent Sunday evening plowing through notes, scanning the books they'd collected on Celtic myths, and tiptoeing her way around the Internet on the laptop Flynn lent her.

She didn't know if she learned anything new, but the exercise helped line up what she did know.

The key, wherever it was, would be personal to her. It would relate to her life, or to what she wanted out of life. And in the end, it would come down to a choice. Though her friends, one or all of them, might be connected to it, she would be the only one able to make the choice.

So what did she want? Zoe asked herself as she prepared for bed. An afternoon in a hammock? Sometimes it was just as simple as that. To know she'd shoved her way out of the door of that trailer and moved on? No question about that.

And that she'd found her way out of that terrifying forest, and given her child not only life but a good life.

She needed to know those things, and to know that she would keep building that life for Simon, and herself. She needed Indulgence to be a success. That was partly pride.

Her mother had always said she was too proud.

Maybe she had been, and maybe that pride had made things harder than they might have been. But it had also carried her through the hard times.

She hadn't gotten everything she'd dreamed of, but what she had would do just fine.

She turned off the light. If there was a pang that there was no one there, in the dark, she could turn to, there was the satisfaction, even the pride, of knowing she could always rely on herself.

She was working upstairs at Indulgence the next day, screwing the hardware onto her completed stations, when she heard the shouts from below. Excited shouts, she noted immediately, not distressed ones. So she finished the station she was working on before going down to see what was causing the commotion.

Following the voices, she walked into Dana's section, then let out a shout of her own when she saw the book display rack lining one wall and the two huge cartons in the middle of the floor.

"They came! Your shelves came. Oh, they look great. You were right to go with these. They look so good with your colors."

"They do, don't they? I've got the diagram I worked out, the one I changed six dozen times. But I'm wondering if I should switch the kids' section with the nonfiction."

"Why don't we just open the next one, put it where you have it planned, then see?" Malory wielded her box cutter.

The deliveryman wheeled in the next carton. "Lady, where do you want this one?"

"Oh, God," was all Dana could manage. "Just leave it here," Zoe told him. "We'll figure it out. How many did you get?" she asked Dana.

"A lot. Maybe too many, but I wanted to be sure I could showcase everything the way I had in my head. But now… Jesus, my heart's pounding. Is it excitement? Is it terror? You be the judge."

"It's excitement." Gleefully, Malory ripped open another carton. "Come on, let's get this one set up, too. Let's get them all set up, then you'll see how wonderful it is."

"It's real," Dana murmured as yet another carton was wheeled in. "It's really real. It's not just going to be empty rooms now."

"Shelves, books, tables, chairs." Zoe tore cardboard away. "In a few weeks we'll sit down in here and have our first cup of tea."

"Yeah." Bracing herself, Dana helped them move the next section into place. "Then we'll wander over and admire all the pretty things in Malory's gallery."

"And finish it off with a tour of Zoe's salon." Malory stepped back. "Look what we've done already. Can you get over what we've done?"

Zoe looked at the next carton to come in. "Right now, I can't get over what we're about to do. Get that box cutter going, Mal. We've got work to do."

They were still carrying bookcases when the next delivery truck pulled up.

"It's from HomeMakers." Malory looked back at them from the window. "Are we expecting a delivery from HomeMakers today?"

"We've got some things on order," Zoe told her. "I didn't think any of it was in yet. I'll go check."

She went to the front door and met the driver on the porch. "This Indulgence?" he asked her.

Hearing someone else say the name made her feel so good inside. "It will be."

"Got some windows on the truck." He handed her the invoice to check. "Got a list here, which one's we're replacing. If that's right, we'll get started. We'll have them in for you today."

"In? We didn't order installation, just the windows."

"Installation comes along with them. Got a note here." He dug into his pocket. "From Mr. Vane for a Ms. McCourt."

"I'm Ms. McCourt." Frowning, she took the envelope, ripped it open. Inside was a single sheet of letterhead, with a single line of message.

Don't argue.

She opened her mouth, shut it again, then looked back at the driver. She saw two other men now, getting out of the truck to lean against the hood.

"Mr. Vane, he said you should give him a call if there was any trouble with this. You want us to get started, or you want us to wait?"

"No. No, go ahead and get started. Thank you."

She walked back inside, rubbing the back of her neck as she watched Dana and Malory set another section in place. "The replacement windows are here."

"That's great. Maybe we should angle this," Dana suggested.

"There's a crew here to install them," Zoe continued. "Bradley—HomeMakers—included installation."

"Brad's such a sweetie," Malory commented.

"Pays to know the owner." Dana stepped back, shook her head. "No, let's keep this one flush."

Unsettled, Zoe nudged a sheet of cardboard with her toe. "Don't you think we should pay for it?"

"Gift horse, Zoe." Huffing a bit, Dana muscled the shelf into position. "I'd rather kiss it on the lips than look it in the mouth." She glanced back, added a quick leer. "Of course, this particular horse would rather you be the one giving out the smoochies."

"He's coming to dinner tonight."

"Good. Give him a big, wet one."

"I'm afraid."

Malory set the box cutter aside. "Of Brad?"

"Yes. Of him, of me." She rubbed a fist between her breasts as if something inside ached a little. "Of what's going to happen."

"Oh, honey."

"I don't know what to do, or what to think. It's one thing if it's just for the fun, the excitement. But I'm not looking for fun and excitement. Not this kind."

"You think he is?" "I don't know. Well, I mean, sure he is. He's a guy. I don't hold that against him. And I think maybe he's caught up in the romance of the whole thing. How we're supposed to link up and slay the dragon. But see, I have to think about what happens after that."

"He isn't careless with people, if that's what you're worried about." Serious now, Dana shook her head. "I've known him most of my life. He's a good man, Zoe."

"I think he is. I can see that he is. But he's not my man, and he's not likely to be. Still, if he keeps on the way he is, he's going to wear me down. I'm afraid, if that happens, I'm going to start wishing for something I can't have."

"I don't think there is anything you can't have," Malory told her. "We wouldn't have this place if it wasn't for you."

"That's silly. Just because I found the house—"

"Not just the house, Zoe. The idea, the vision, the faith."

Impatient, Malory laid a hand on Zoe's shoulder, gave it a little shake. "You started this. So I think when you figure out what you really want, you'll figure out the way to get it."

To keep her hands busy, Zoe picked up the box cutter and started on the next carton. "Were you ever in love, really in love, before Flynn?"

"No. I've been in lust, experienced infatuation, had some very heavy like. But I've never loved anyone the way I love Flynn."

Zoe nodded. "And it was always Jordan for you, Dana."

"Whether I wanted it to be or not, yeah."

"I've been in love." She spoke quietly as she worked. "I loved Simon's father. I loved him with everything I had. Maybe some people think you don't have a whole lot when you're sixteen, but I had so much love to give. I gave him all of it. I didn't think, I didn't hesitate, I just gave it."

She pulled the cardboard away, let it drop to the floor. "I've known men since. Some good men, some who didn't turn out to be so good. But none of them ever came close to touching me the way that boy did when I was sixteen. I wanted him, Mal, almost more than I wanted to live."

"He didn't stick by you," she replied.

"No, he didn't. He did love me, I believe that, but not enough to stick by me. Not enough to make the choice to be with me, or even to acknowledge what we'd made between us. He just walked away and went back to living his life, while mine was torn to pieces."

To vent some of that old, old anger, she sent the knife whizzing through the carton. "He got engaged just a few months ago. My sister sent me the clipping from the newspaper. Got a big wedding planned in the spring. I got mad when I read that. I got mad because he's planning a big, fancy wedding in the spring, and he's never once laid eyes on his son."

"His loss," Malory said.

"Yes, that's true. It is his loss. But still, I loved him, and I wanted him. I couldn't have him, and that almost broke me." With a sigh, she rested her head on the side of the unit. "I'm not going to want what I can't have again. So I'm afraid of Bradley because he's the only one who's come along in ten years who makes me remember, just a little, what it was like to be sixteen."