Chapter Eighteen
For one brief moment, Zach wondered if maybe he’d taken one of those damned pain pills and just forgotten about it, because that might explain why in the hell everything had just started to trip out on him.
But the pain pills had always made things just glide and float, even if they did f*ck his head up.
They didn’t turn the world into a nightmare and that’s what this was, he thought, jerking back from Keelie and staring at her like he didn’t even know her. What the hell—
And then he realized they weren’t alone.
Swinging his head around, he thought, Not Abby, not Abby, not Abby . . .
But he already knew who it was.
It was Abby, standing there, staring at him like he had just jerked her heart out of her chest and smashed it to the ground. And he imagined that just might be how she felt. He knew the feeling pretty damned well, but any time he’d ever seen her kissing that f*ckhead boyfriend of hers, Abby hadn’t ever belonged to Zach. He couldn’t call it a betrayal.
This, though . . .
“Abby . . .”
She just stared at him for a long moment and then, without saying anything, she jerked the door closed.
“What the hell . . .”
“Zach . . .”
He shot Keelie a narrow look and then took off running out the hall after Abby. But she was running away again.
And this time, she was running from him.
“Abby!”
She shoved through the door before he could catch up to her and he watched as she bolted down the sidewalk. “Damn it,” he snarled, shoving the door open. But she was inside her car. And then, seconds later, she was tearing off into the traffic on 4th Avenue.
Stunned, sick inside, Zach stared down the street after her. He’d wasted valuable seconds trying to chase after her, instead of going around to get his car from the back. There was no way he could catch her now.
He’d just have to talk to her at home.
Skimming a hand back over his hair, he nodded to himself. “Yeah. At home.”
Shoving back inside, he ignored the wide-eyed looks coming from the patrons, he ignored Javi’s concerned comment, and he ignored Keelie, who was standing in the hallway, a nervous look on her face.
In his office, he grabbed his keys and turned back around.
Keelie was in the doorway.
“You need to move,” he said quietly.
“Look, let me call her or something,” she said, misery on her face.
“You need to move,” he said again.
“Damn it, Zach!” She stared at him, tears glinting in her eyes.
Part of him wanted to feel bad for her, but he just couldn’t care that much right then. “Stop,” he said quietly. “I don’t want the poor Keelie routine. I don’t give a flying f*ck that you didn’t know she was there—it doesn’t matter. You know I’m dating her and you know I’m serious about her. Serious . . .” he trailed off, shaking his head.
Abruptly, he started to laugh, although there wasn’t anything at all humorous about this. Not a damn thing was funny. But just then, he felt like if he didn’t laugh, he just might lose it.
“Serious,” he said again. “Yeah. I’m serious about her.”
Saying he was serious about Abby was kind of like calling Arizona hot in the dead of summer. Slanting a dark look at Keelie, he said softly, “I love her, damn it. She’s my world. What the f*ck possessed you to pull something like that?”
“What possessed me?” she asked, staring at him. Then she sighed and shook her head. “The same thing that possesses you to chase after the same woman for seventeen years. I love you.”
I love you.
Those words didn’t want to come together in his head. Oh, he knew what they meant, but coming from Keelie? Swearing, he shoved the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. “What the hell . . .”
“Yeah. What the hell. That pretty much describes all of this pretty damn well, Zach.”
He lowered his hands to stare at her but she wasn’t looking at him. She started to pace, her long legs scissoring as she stalked across his office, her head bent, eyes on the floor. “You wanted to know why and there you go. And now, maybe I get it. Because you’re looking at me like I’m crazy. I’ve loved you for years. And you didn’t know, did you?”
“No. Look . . .” He blew out a breath, trying to think past the haze of anger. But he just couldn’t. Not then. “I’m sorry, Keelie. I can’t talk about this right now, but it . . . it wouldn’t ever work and you know it. Even if she walks away from me and never speaks to me again, I’ll never . . . well. You’re a friend, but that’s it.”
“I always thought . . .” She licked her lips and shook her head. “Part of me thought you knew and just pretended otherwise because you didn’t want to embarrass me. Okay. I guess maybe sometimes people don’t know.” She flicked him another look and moved out of the doorway. “I’m sorry, Zach.”
“I’m not the one who just had my heart ripped out,” he said quietly.
He headed down the hallway, his mind already intent on finding Abby, on what he would say to her, on what he could say.
It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been kissing Keelie, that he hadn’t been putting the moves on her or anything.
What mattered was that Abby had been hurt and he had to fix it.
Behind him, Keelie moved to stare after him. As he disappeared through the door, she rubbed the heel of her hand over her chest and sighed.
“No,” she said, even though she was talking to thin air. He wasn’t the one who had just had his heart ripped out. She had to agree there. That pleasure belonged to Abby . . . and herself.
But in the end, her heart was a problem of her own making. Something she’d have to deal with.
She hadn’t been very fair to Abby, she decided. She had to find a way to fix that.
But figuring out how to do that was going to be hard.
* * *
“You haven’t talked to Abby, have you?”
“Give me a minute, Zach.”
Marin’s assistant Leo put the phone on speaker, but judging by the sound of Zach’s voice, she might have to rethink that decision. Facedown on the massage table, she glanced at Leo and said, “I need some privacy, Leo.” She wasn’t too concerned about the masseuse, Rosa. Rosa was paid to be discreet and uber-professional.
Leo could be as well, when it suited him. That was one of the reasons she kept him around. He let things slip and it was usually the right kind of things, things that helped with publicity and the like, but her friendship with Zach and Abby wasn’t fodder for that particular mill. Leo didn’t always get that, and she wasn’t going to take that chance. Not with her two closest friends.
Once the door closed, she blocked out the brutally strong fingers that were trying to separate her muscles from her spine and said, “The last I talked to Abby was a few days ago. Everything okay, Zach?”
“No. When she calls you, tell her . . .” He stopped, sighed.
Something about the way his voice sounded set off a warning inside and even though he didn’t say anything for a long, long moment, dread curdled inside Marin.
“Zach?”
“Never mind,” he said, his voice flat now, emotionless. “But when you talk to her, see if you can find out where she is.”
“Ahh . . .” She lifted a hand and Rosa stopped, huffing out a sigh of frustration. Fine. Let her be frustrated. Marin lifted up onto her elbows. “What do you mean, find out where she is?”
“We had a fight. She’s gone. She isn’t at home, she won’t answer her phone, and I haven’t seen her in hours. Just see if she’ll tell you. I need to see her, okay?”
The misery she heard lying just under the flat tone of his voice made her heart hurt. No. Not this, she thought dismally. Things had finally clicked for them. Those two belonged together. That was something she had always known. What—No. Just stop. It’s a fight. Fights are normal. Couples have those sorts of things, right?
“Zach, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
In response, she got a long stream of colorful cuss-words that might have made her blush, except she’d already heard those variations and others from Zach or his brothers over the years.
“That’s very inventive, sweetheart, but that’s not a response,” she interrupted.
“Shit.” He muttered something else and then abruptly said, “I got to go. Let me know if you hear from her.”
As the phone disconnected, she groaned and dropped her head down. Immediately, Rosa’s nimble hands went back to work on her spine. “Wait, Rosa . . . I need to make a call.”
“The massage isn’t going to help with the tension if you don’t let me do my job.”
Yeah, well, she wasn’t going to relax when she was worrying about her friends, either.
* * *
Speeding down the highway, ignoring the thick, dark blanket of the sky overhead, Abigale propped her left elbow on the door and rested her head on her hand, swallowing the knot in her throat.
She’d thought . . .
Stop thinking, she thought darkly.
Thinking hurt. When she thought, she remembered what she had just seen. She’d gone to Zach’s thinking she’d figured out something amazing. Gone there thinking that maybe, just maybe, that thing she’d been looking for her entire life was already hers.
Have you ever been in love?
The expression on his face when he looked at her, then the careful way he hadn’t looked at her when he answered that question.
I’m thirty-two years old, Abby. Yeah. I’ve been in love. It didn’t work out.
Her heart ached and she tried to cut off that tide of memories.
She never seemed to notice that I was staring at her when she walked into the room.
Emotion swelled inside her throat and it was a miracle her eyes stayed dry. No matter what she did, she seemed to recall a hundred, a thousand times when he’d been staring at her when she walked into the room. When he’d look up at her, that slow smile would light his face. It was like he’d been waiting just for her and until he saw her, he couldn’t really smile. Not that way. It was the kind of smile that said . . . the day’s complete now.
And something about that smile made her day complete. It had been like that for a long, long time, too. She just hadn’t fully understood it.
She’d been falling for her best friend, all right.
Falling . . . already fallen. Flat-out in love with him. She’d gone to tell him. Confront him and demand he tell her how he felt, although she thought she already knew.
Yet if he was in love with her, then what in the hell had she seen when she walked into the office back at Steel Ink?
And damn it, that hurt. Thinking about it hurt so much, she wanted to pull off the side of the road and just curl up into a ball. She didn’t want to think about crying, though. If she started to cry, she’d never stop and she knew it. So the answer, really, was to just stop thinking.
The phone rang and she had to sniffle, had to grip the steering wheel in an iron grip just to keep from snatching it up and answering it. “Rebel Yell.” Zach’s ringtone. She ought to reprogram it to something like “Your Cheating Heart.”
“F*ck!”
Focusing on the road, she realized she was almost at the state line. She’d been driving for hours and New Mexico loomed up ahead of her.
She had absolutely no idea where she was going. Sighing, she grabbed her phone. Holding the button down, she waited for the beep and then said, “Find a hotel close to me.” She was not going back home. There was no way she could even think about it and never mind the fact that it was almost eleven p.m.
If she went home, she’d find Zach waiting there. She knew that. And she wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
She had to wait until she was up to talking to him without wanting to punch him. Kick him in the balls.
Rip Keelie’s two-toned hair out. Actually, that idea held a lot of merit and she wasn’t completely brushing that aside.
But she needed to pull over, get some sleep, and reevaluate. Look at things again in the morning. She didn’t know. The only thing she did know was that she wasn’t ready to go back and talk to Zach.
With something to distract her, the next few minutes passed with a little more ease. The nearest town with any decent hotel offerings was Lordsburg, New Mexico.
Sighing, she flicked another glance at the phone and grimaced. A Hampton Inn. She brought it up on her GPS and rubbed at her tired eyes.
Okay, she was going to Lordsburg. She could check into the hotel, collapse on a bed. Maybe find a liquor store and have a drink or two and rage about what she’d seen.
Try to understand what she’d seen . . .
The phone rang again.
“What the . . .”
As the strains of “I Will Remember You” by Sarah McLachlan filled the air, she was torn between disgust and fury. There was absolutely no justice in life. On the night when she really just wanted to be left alone to wallow in her rage and misery, Roger decided he was going to call.
She almost ignored it, but then she remembered. With almost savage glee, she thought about goal number two on her list. It involved Roger. Up until a few hours ago, she hadn’t been too concerned about it, but just then, the idea of venting some of that fury inside her sounded really, really good.
“Item number two . . . Tell Roger off.”
Snatching up the phone, she took the call and flipped it over to speaker before dropping it back down in the cup holder.
“What in the hell do you want?” she demanded as she checked the rearview mirror. Shooting over into the fast lane, she edged around a semi and checked the upcoming exits. She had about another twenty minutes before she’d be at the hotel.
Twenty minutes, then she could collapse and cry. In between now and then, she had the welcome distraction of giving her ex an earful.
“Hello, Abigale.”
“I asked you what you wanted,” she said flatly. “I didn’t ask for conversation.”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Roger said, his voice cool and detached. Modulated, even.
She wondered then if she had ever really talked to anybody who could be described as speaking in modulated tones. She was pretty certain she hadn’t.
“I’m so delighted you’re concerned about me,” she said, sounding like a bitch and not giving a damn.
“Zach Barnes called . . . he . . . well.” Roger paused, and when he spoke again, his voice wasn’t quite so modulated. “He called and asked if I’d heard from you. I’m not sure why he’d think you’d call me, but it had me concerned.”
“I can’t tell you how much I’m touched by your concern.” Something twisted inside her heart even as she sneered a little at Roger’s concern. Zach had called Roger? She must really have Zach worried if he was calling a shit like Roger. “Oh, I’m just peachy, Rog. Was there something else?”
Seconds ticked away and then he said, “Rog?”
“I’m sorry. Roger. Was there something else, Roger?”
“Abigale, are you certain you’re well?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I mean, other than the fact that I figured out that I’m in love with my best friend. Then I figured out that he’s in love with me . . . or at least I thought he was. Then I see him kissing that bitch, Keelie? Oh, yeah. I’m just fine.
A near-hysterical laugh rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back down.
“You don’t sound like yourself,” he said, his voice taking on a note of caution.
“Don’t I? I think I sound just like myself, especially when I’m pissed off. But what do you know?” She tapped her fingers on the door, keeping an eye on the speed because the angrier she got, the faster she wanted to drive. “You seem to think you know me when you don’t know jack shit.”
“Abigale, there’s hardly any cause to be rude,” he said. “I was just concerned. I’ll call back when you’re—”
“Don’t bother . . . you know what? I’m actually rather glad you called, because I’ve been meaning to call you. I kept getting distracted but there are things I need to say to you and those things need to be said. You’re a f*cking moron, Rog,” she said, smiling at how good it felt to say that. It felt damn good, she realized. Very damn good. “You don’t know anything about the life you think I want . . . a life where I’m up before dawn, where I’d have to starve myself to fit somebody else’s ideal, a life where I’m constantly being judged, where I can’t leave the house without makeup unless I want everybody to think I’m having a personal crisis—”
“Abigale—”
“Shut up,” she snarled. “You think that’s the life I miss? How about the two years I had to spend hours getting my hair dyed because it started getting darker and my mom didn’t approve? I hated it but it didn’t matter. Because I didn’t suit my part and I had to change to fit it. You think I miss that? Trying out for every two-bit part that doesn’t suit me just so I can get my name back out there? I know . . . maybe I should have taken that offer to act in a plus-size porno or I can start doing the Dancing with the Stars thing even though I’m just as likely to break an ankle as anything else.”
“You’re a serious actress, Abigale. That’s where your heart is. I know you have doubts, but I—”
“I’m not done,” she said quietly. She shot another glance at the mirror, checked her speed, and saw that she was edging up on nearly ninety. Letting up on the gas, she sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “I hated that life. I couldn’t get away from it fast enough but you are determined to push me back into it. What in the hell do you know about where my heart lies?”
He didn’t answer right away, but finally, he asked, “Isn’t there anything about it that you miss, darling? Wasn’t there anything about it that made you happy?”
“Don’t call me darling. You gave up that right.”
“You’re avoiding the question. That proves I’m not wrong about this,” he said, triumph coloring his words. “If you’d just stop being so worried, you could go back to it. I’ll be there. I’ll—”
“You will be there? First, you’re so wrong about this, it’s sad. And second? You are no longer part of my life. Even if for some bizarre reason I did go back to that life? My life no longer involves you. As for your question . . .” She didn’t have to think about it. “There’s nothing I miss about it. The things that didn’t piss me off I can have whenever I want them or need them. As to what made me happy . . .”
A face flashed through her mind and pain wracked her as she thought about him. Zach. Yeah. He made her happy. He’d always made her happy.
“Zach,” she whispered.
“Abigale, I can’t hear you.”
She licked her lips and cleared her throat before she tried again. “You probably don’t want to, darling,” she said mockingly. “But you asked if anything about that life made me happy and the answer is yes. It’s Zach. So . . . there you go. And I don’t have to go back to Hollywood to have him.”
She never seemed to notice that I was staring at her when she walked into the room.
“Zach . . .” Anger edged into his voice. “You actually think he can make you happy?”
“He already does.” Ice crept through her as she thought about what had happened over the past few hours. But even aside from that, Zach had always made her happy.
“You’re not serious about this,” Roger said, his voice cool. “You need somebody at your side who will support you. That’s all I ever wanted to do.”
“Support?” She snorted. “I think you just wanted to be along for the ride if I ever did go back to Hollywood. You wanted it for yourself . . . not me.”
He waited just a second too long to respond. “That’s insane, Abigale. We were together because we were a good fit. And I just wanted—”
“I don’t care. Whatever you wanted wasn’t what was right for me. Now, I think I’ve said everything to you that I needed to say. I don’t think you need to call me anymore,” she said softly. Without waiting for a response, she disconnected the phone.
Then she focused on the road.
There. She’d accomplished the second goal. She still needed to flip off a photographer but once that was done, she’d have done everything on her new plan.
The torrid affair . . .
Her throat ached, even thinking about it.
“Not now.” She rubbed her temple. She needed to get off the road, get to the hotel.
Screw the liquor store.
She needed a clear head because she had serious, hard thinking to do.
* * *
“You haven’t seen Abby, have you?”
“Huh?”
Zach shoved a hand through his hair and glared at the clock. It was nearly midnight. Zane lived in Albuquerque. She’d just driven away from his shop in a fury a few hours ago. No. It wasn’t likely that Zane had seen her, but neither had anybody else and he was worried.
Hell, he was so desperate, he’d even called Roger. If he could talk to that a*shole, then there was no reason he couldn’t call his brother and wake him up at midnight . . . although . . .
“Hey, why in the hell are you in bed at midnight? You’re a f*cking bartender.”
Zane grunted. “Night off and I’m tired. What’s this about Abby? No, I haven’t seen her unless she just up and relocated.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Zach tipped his head back. “I meant have you talked to her. She just . . . hell. I saw her a few hours ago, but . . . we kind of had a fight. I can’t get her to talk to me and I’m worried.”
“Ah . . . shit.” Zane’s voice was low and groggy and a few moments of silence stretched out, as well as a mumbled curse, followed by a grunt. “F*ck. No, I haven’t talked to her. What’s going on? What are you two fighting about?”
With his heart twisting, Zach said, “I don’t want to get into it.”
“Can’t believe you two are fighting already,” Zane said, his sigh coming across the phone loud and clear, and grating on Zach’s nerves.
“Oh, f*ck off.” He started to hang up.
“Hell, Zach. Ease up,” Zane said. “Look . . . hell. Okay. I just— I can listen if you need to talk. I’m definitely the best bet if you gotta vent, you know that. Unless you want to give Seb a ring.”
“I’d like to wring his f*cking neck.” Blowing out a sigh, Zach leaned against the car and continued to stare up at Abby’s dark, quiet house. He wouldn’t be able to loiter much longer. If he hung around here indefinitely, somebody was likely to call the cops and wouldn’t that just cap his night off nicely? He’d thought about going inside, but he didn’t think that was the right way to handle it. Of course, waiting in her driveway like a stalker wasn’t exactly ideal, either, he thought.
“Did you know that . . .” Blood crept up his neck. He could feel it, the red crawl of it, leaving his flesh stinging hot. “Ah. Well.”
“Just get it out, kid,” Zane said, his voice a little clearer now. “I’m having one of those moments where I’m wondering why in the hell I stopped smoking.”
“Because Mom was going to kick your ass if you didn’t after Dad had that cancer scare.” He closed his eyes and blew out a breath. “Keelie kissed me.”
Silence dropped like a ten-ton weight, crashing down heavy and destructive, smashing everything into oblivion.
He could hear the call and chirp of the night creatures but nothing else. It was like Zane had even forgotten to breathe.
And then finally, in a low, rough voice, the other man said, “What?”
Something sick moved inside him as he remembered something. Zane chased after hundreds of women, it seemed. Chased them, but it didn’t really matter if he caught them. With Keelie, though . . . with Keelie, it was different.
Now as that sickness spread, he could have kicked his own ass. “Look, I need to—”
“Say that again, Zach,” Zane said quietly. “Just say it again.”
“She kissed me. I’m sorry . . . I think I . . . you got a thing for her, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Zane said softly. “What’s going on with Abby?”
“She walked in. I was pulling away and . . . shit.” He shoved away from the car and started to pace, fighting to hold the words inside him. He needed to talk, but he couldn’t hurt his brother, either.
“Zach. Just talk okay?” Zane said tiredly. “Maybe I . . . f*ck. Screw maybe. Yeah, I thought maybe there was something with Keelie, but I guess it’s not ever going to work out so it doesn’t matter. You and Abby, though . . . that’s a different story. What’s going on there, Zach?”
“She walked in,” Zach said again, an ache spreading through him as he remembered the look on her face. “I was pulling away and I swear, Zane, there isn’t anything between me and Keelie. I was pulling away, but I know that’s not how it looked and—”
“You don’t need to explain it to me,” his brother said. “Look, you’re so gone over Abby, there’s no room left inside you for another woman. I know that. Anybody with a functioning brain stem should be able to see that, if they bothered to look. Abby excluded because she doesn’t see it. That’s because you always worked damned hard not to let her. But you’re not as careful with the rest of the world as you are with her. You don’t hide it and you never hid it from Keelie . . . so why in the hell did she kiss you?”
“She said . . .” He groaned and shoved a hand through his hair, staring down the road like that might make her car magically appear. It didn’t work. It hadn’t worked for the past few hours, but he wasn’t giving up hope. If he just kept watching, if he just kept waiting, if he just kept hoping, that car of hers would show up.
“Keelie . . .” He blew out a ragged breath and then made himself continue. “She’s got this f*cked-up idea that she’s in love with me. It’s not real. It can’t be. But—”
“Don’t speak for her, Zach.” Zane sounded even more tired now. Tired. Resigned. “She’s a big girl and I’m pretty sure she knows her feelings better than anybody else does. And again, this isn’t about Keelie . . . or me. I appreciate the concern, but it’s not about that. This is about you and Abby, okay? Let’s keep it about you and Abby. Have you talked to her?”
“No. She won’t answer the damn phone. It’s almost midnight and she’s not home and . . .” He trailed off as his imagination started to supply him with all sorts of nasty scenarios.
“Well, it’s not surprising that she hasn’t called. She’s pissed off. She saw you in a liplock with another girl.”
“I wasn’t kissing her, damn it!” he snarled.
“No. She was kissing you . . . and that will count for something, once Abby isn’t so angry, when she gets past the hurt, but for now? She’s hurt. Okay? She needs to get past that. Once she does, it will be okay.”
Zach drove the heel of his hand against his eye socket. “Okay. Shit. It will be okay. Zane, what in the hell does that mean?”
A few seconds ticked by and then Zane said, “It means it will be okay. Look, I’ll call her. Hopefully she can at least let me know she’s fine. You’ll feel better and maybe you can get some sleep and figure out where to go from here.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He continued to stare down the street, hoping against hope. Waiting. And watching. The car still didn’t appear and the street stayed dark and the night stayed quiet. “Will you tell her . . .”
“No.” Zane’s voice was flat and firm. “Whatever you have to say to her, it needs to come from you. Look, I don’t know what’s happening with the two of you, but I saw how she was looking at you at the party. There’s something growing there and Abby isn’t an idiot. Let her cool down and then you talk to her, okay?”