Player was silent. She could tell he was studying the drawing carefully, his eyes moving over it line by line, quadrant by quadrant. There was no hurry. He did the same with the frame. “I would like to ask your grandmother if we could show this to Czar.”
Zyah turned her face up to his, completely horrified. “You cannot take this drawing over to Czar’s house, where Blythe and those children are. I was considering burning it.”
Player’s blue eyes warmed, crinkled around the edges. “Babe. Really? You’re going to burn our mystery? I thought the clubhouse or my house, where no one is. Czar might be able to identify him. I caught a few more details than you did. You didn’t read all of my notes. I also want to ask your grandmother a few questions. I think your grandfather had an item that was used to view the drawing through that would show the schematics of the bomb. It’s far too intricate for anyone to just take a chance for someone like me to come along.”
“I doubt there are very many people like you, Player.” Zyah didn’t think there was anyone like him. If that drawing really did have the plans for making a bomb, she doubted if anyone else ever would have seen it. “I’m not sleeping in here.”
“We’ll go in the guest room. Tomorrow, let’s take your grandmother out. She’s really tired of being cooped up. I can ask her if we can take the drawing to show Czar and the others and see if she’ll talk about it. She’d like the Floating Hat. I’d also like to take her to Crow 287. She’s so much stronger now, and if she stays inside much longer, she’ll get depressed. You could call a few of her friends to meet us at the restaurant. Let’s make this happen for her, Zyah.”
There was an odd melting sensation in the region of her heart. He was making it impossible not to fall harder for him. He had been very caring of her grandmother even when his brain injury was at its most severe. Now he was so thoughtful in the midst of some man staring at them malevolently right in the room he’d been sleeping in.
“Let’s take the picture off the wall, cover it and put it in the garage until we can get it out of here,” Zyah decided. “We’ll go to sleep in the guest room and figure the rest out in the morning. I’m so tired I can hardly stand up.”
“I’ll take care of the picture, baby. You crawl into bed. I’ll be right back up.”
That was Player. Always thinking about her. She was gratified he was no longer pushing her away. She didn’t know why he’d suddenly made the decision to let her all the way in, but when she needed him the most, he was there for her. Still, she wanted to be a little cautious. Just a little, in case at the end of all of this he pulled back, or worse, he wanted her more for the wrong reasons than the right ones. She sighed. She was tired and she was overthinking. She did that and she had to stop.
SIXTEEN
Player settled Anat’s wheelchair right up to the table close to the window so she could look out onto the street of Sea Haven yet see everything taking place in the Floating Hat. She nearly glowed, her dark eyes bright. He knew Zyah would be like her as she aged. A woman always positive, always bringing the sun with her everywhere she went.
He recognized Sabelia, the clerk, immediately when she came to take their order. She was extremely sweet to Anat and Zyah, engaging them in conversation about various teas and scones. He realized, as he inhaled the fragrance in the shop, that he’d been looking forward to bringing the two women there, not dreading it.
Blythe was meeting them, which would make it easier for him to fade into the background and just enjoy watching Zyah make new friends. That was what he wanted for her. She hadn’t had the time since she’d been back to connect with other women. Anat told him Zyah stayed very close to her, rarely leaving her those first few days, and then she was working. Player wanted her to have her own circle of women friends and feel comfortable reaching out to them if she needed to. He knew he wasn’t going to always be the easiest man to live with.
When Blythe walked in, she wasn’t alone. Anya, Reaper’s woman, was with her. Anya had long wavy dark hair and emerald-green eyes. She was tall like Blythe, and worked as a bartender with Preacher in Caspar at their very popular bar. No one knew how she’d managed to tame Reaper, but she had. She was definitely the center of Reaper’s world.