Key Of Valor (Key 3) - Page 68

She ran her hand over the shoulders of the jacket, which she'd draped on the back of a chair. "Since I've been thinking about it for a while, I had some pretty good stuff to say. But I just don't feel like saying it now. So I wish you weren't angry."

"I wish I wasn't either." He glanced at the table. "So, are we going to sit down and argue over coffee and cookies?"

"I don't think I can argue with you, Bradley, not after you put my boy to bed that way." Emotion swamped her. "But I'll listen while you yell at me."

"You sure know how to punch the stuffing out of a good fight." He sat, waited for her to sit across from him. "Let me see your arms."

Saying nothing, she pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt to reveal the cuts and scratches. When the silence dragged out, she tugged them down again.

"It was just briars, that's all," she said quickly. "I've had worse from gardening in my own yard."

She stopped, struck to silence by the cold glint in his eyes when they shifted to her face. "It could have been worse. A hell of a lot worse. You were alone, for Christ's sake. What possessed you to go driving off to West Virginia and tromping around the woods by yourself?"

"I grew up there, Bradley. I grew up in those woods. It's not wilderness once you cross the Pennsylvania border." To give herself something to do, she lit the three-wick candle she'd made for the kitchen table, one that smelled of blueberries. "My mother lives there in the trailer court beside those woods. Simon was very likely conceived in those woods."

"You want to go visit your mother or your childhood stomping grounds, that's fine. But these are not normal circumstances. You didn't say a thing to me about going there this morning."

"I know I didn't. If I had, you'd have wanted to go with me, and I didn't want you to. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but I wanted to go on my own. I needed to."

He swallowed the resentment, though it scorched his throat. "You didn't let Dana or Malory know where you would be either. You took off without telling anyone, and you were attacked."

"It didn't occur to me to tell anyone. That makes you mad," she said with a nod. "You'll just have to be mad, then. I made an agreement. I gave my word, and I'm trying to do what I promised to do, and you can't sit there and tell me you wouldn't do the same. Going back there this morning was part of that. I think I was supposed to go. I think I needed to."

"Alone?"

"Yes. I've got some pride and some shame along with the rest of it. I'm entitled to what I feel, Bradley. Do you think I wanted to take you along, in your Armani suit, to that broken-down trailer?"

"That's not fair, Zoe."

"No, it's not fair, but it's the truth. My mama already thinks I've got airs or something. If I'd gone in there with you… Well, just look at you."

She waved a hand and nearly laughed at the exasperation on his face. "You got rich boy all over you, Bradley, in or out of that Italian jacket."

"For Christ's sake," was all he could think to say.

"You can't help it, and why should you? Besides, it suits you. It wouldn't have suited her, and I needed to see her, to talk to her. There were things I needed to say that I couldn't have said with you there. Or with Malory or Dana either. I needed to go back there for myself, and for the key. It was for me to do."

"What if you hadn't gotten out again?"

“1 did. I'm not going to say I wasn't scared when it all started to happen. I've never been so scared." Instinctively, she rubbed her arms as if chilled. "It was like an ambush, the way everything changed, the way he came at me. It was almost like a storybook, and that's what made it so frightening."

She looked past him now, back to where she'd been. "Lost in the woods, and being hunted by something… not human. But I fought back. That's what I was supposed to do. In the

end, I hurt him more than he hurt me."

"You beat him with a stick."

"It was bigger than a stick." Her mouth curved a little as she saw the temper was easing on his face. "It was a good, sturdy branch about this thick." She demonstrated by holding her hands apart. "And between being scared and spitting mad, I whaled the hell out of him. Of course I don't know how it would've turned out if the buck hadn't waded in. But I don't have to, because he was there, and Kane was there. That tells me I did something right by being there."

"Don't go back alone, Zoe. I'm asking you. I walked in here tonight fully intending to tell you. But I'm asking."

She picked up a cookie, broke it in two, then offered him half. "I was thinking I'd drive into Morgantown tomorrow, go by the place where I lived, where I worked, where Simon was born. Just see if that's the next turn. If I could get going first thing in the morning, I could get back by around two, three at the latest, then squeak out a little time at the salon. Maybe you could go with me."

He simply pulled out his cell phone, punched in a number. "Dina, it's Brad. Sorry to call you at home. I need you to clear my schedule for tomorrow." He waited a beat. "Yeah, I know. Reschedule it, will you? I have some personal business to take care of, and it's going to take most of the day. I should be able to swing in after three. Good. Thanks. 'Bye."

He clicked the phone off, tucked it away. "What time do you want to leave?"

Oh, you are a very special man. "About quarter to eight? As soon as Simon goes to school."

Tags: Nora Roberts Key Fantasy
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