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 Abigale 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—”
“Hard.” She laughed. “Yeah. It was hard. I mean, it wasn’t exactly fun for me, either, when the two of us walked in on you and that little swinging party you had going on. But I’ve dealt with that, because you don’t matter to me that much anymore. My father did. And you destroyed him. You humiliated him and he left me.”
“He killed himself,” Blanche said, her voice flat and empty. “I didn’t force that on him.”
“No. You didn’t. That was completely on him and maybe one day, I’ll stop being angry at him. But I’m done with you. I’m not angry at you, but you’re not welcome in my life, either. Now . . . please stop calling me.”
She disconnected the phone in the middle of whatever her mother was saying. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Abigale braced herself, waited for the pain she knew would follow. But it wasn’t there.
She just felt . . . numb.
Her mother, at some point in the past few years, had ceased to matter.
Another ring belted through the air and she flinched.
“Rebel Yell.”
Damn it.
Zach.
She still wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
She had a date, anyway.
One more thing to do before she went and confronted him.
She hit the button to ignore the call and punched in Marin’s number. As Marin came on the line, she asked, “Are you going to be able to make it or not?”
“Oh, hey, Abby! So nice to talk to you, too . . . yes, the flight was wonderful, and my goodness, it’s hot here in Arizona. No, I don’t mind a bit—”
“Ha, ha,” Abigale said, cutting into Marin’s chatter. “Hi, Marin. How are you, how was the flight, and of course it’s hot. It’s always hot around here. Are you going to make it?”
“I already said I’m here. So . . . have you figured out what you’re doing?”
Abigale rubbed the heel of her hand over her heart. “Yeah. I’ve got an idea. We just need to know where to go.”
“Leave that to me.”
* * *
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Zach listened as Marin droned on. After about another sixty seconds, he’d had about all he could take.
“Marin . . . this isn’t helping. What I need is to know where in the hell she is.”
Two days, damn it. He hadn’t seen or heard from Abby in two days.
It was killing him.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Zach,” Marin said, sighing. “Look, just give her some time. She’ll calm down.”
“Time.” He closed his eyes but two seconds later, he forced his heavy lids back open and stared outside over the twinkling lights of the city. “Give her time, you say. I’ve given her plenty of time, Marin. I waited seventeen years. I was patient. I hoped. I waited. And then she sees one bad thing and she takes off. Now she won’t talk to me. How much more time am I supposed to give her?”
“She just walked in while you were kissing another woman,” Marin pointed out.
“I wasn’t kissing anybody!” he snapped. “Keelie kissed me and I stopped her the second I figured out what in the hell she was doing. I didn’t plan it and I sure as hell wasn’t on board with it.”
“Zach . . . I’m sorry and I get that. But you need to see it from her side. How would you feel if you walked in and some guy had his lips all over her?”
He snorted. “I’ve walked in and seen that a hundred times.” And he knew how he’d feel. It hurt. Like acid in a wound.
“But you never had a right to call her yours before now. It’s different. It’s a different matter entirely. She just needs to some time to cool down.”
“If she’d give me five damn seconds, I could tell her there’s nothing to cool down about,” he grumbled. Spinning away from the window, he started to pace. “And damn it, I need to know she’s okay. She’s not coming home. She’s not been to work. It’s like she disappeared.”
“You realize she’s a big girl, right?”
Groaning, he dropped down on the coach. “So that means I can’t worry? Is that what you’re saying? I’m not allowed to worry?”
“Worry all you want. But I can tell you that she’s fine. Okay?”
His gut tugged at him. Lowering the phone, he glared at it and then lifted it back to his ear. “Worry all I want . . . damn it, Marin. Is she in LA? Put her on the phone, damn it.”
“She’s not in LA.” Marin laughed and the sound was easy, light . . . and completely full of bullshit. He knew it. “Zach, sweetheart, you need to calm down a little. Chill out. Hell, go hook up with one of your brothers and have a drink or something.”
“None of my brothers live here,” he snapped. “Put her on the phone and don’t lie to me. She’s in LA with you, I know you too well.”
“She’s not in LA with me, Zach.” Marin stared across the room, eyeing Abigale narrowly as a thin Asian man with his hair dyed blond and done up in spikes bent over Abigale’s bared chest. She was tempted to take a picture and send it to Zach. But that would be a bad idea. It would piss him off and he’d figure out that Abigale was with her. No, she hadn’t lied. They weren’t in LA. They were in Phoenix.
Marin felt more than a little guilty when she’d talked Abigale into meeting her. Not so she could tell her friend that . . . yeah . . . I knew. But . . . hell. Abigale said she had to figure out how to deal with this, and she had a plan, but she needed to make it better.
So . . . voilà.
They met at the airport and Marin had left her assistant scrambling to cover a few things. It wasn’t anything major and it wasn’t like she couldn’t take a few days off. And even if it was major, even if she had to walk out on something very major, her friend needed her.
She wanted to go a little closer and look at the tattoo, but she knew Zach would pick up on the familiar sounds so she kept her distance. “Look, sweetie, she’ll be home when she’s home. If she’s out blowing off steam . . . ? Then maybe it’s because she needs to.”
“Blowing off steam?” Zach muttered. “You realize this is Abby we’re talking about. Her idea of blowing off steam is to lock herself in her kitchen and cook up a couple dozen ancho-chocolate-chili cupcakes.”
“Hmmm. Maybe she felt a change of pace was in order and she decided to lock herself in a tattoo parlor and get a tattoo of your name on her ass or something,” Marin said, smirking a little as Abigale flipped her head around and glared at her.
Shut up! Abigale mouthed.
Marin smiled angelically.
“Marin . . . tell Abby to get her cute ass on the phone, or I’m going to call the damned paparazzi out on your butt,” Zach growled.
“Oh, man. You’re really pissed off.” She lowered the phone and glanced at it, thinking back over the past few hours. She hadn’t tweeted or posted anything to Facebook so there weren’t any of those stupid geotags and she’d never done that stupid Foursquare shit. And her assistant didn’t know exactly where she was. “Zach, one second, okay?” She muted the phone and looked up. “How much longer until we’re done?”
“Forty minutes.”
“If it’s possible to hurry it up without messing it up? Please do it.” Marin smiled at him and watched as a dull red flush crept up his neck. Hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary. But no point in taking chances. After she unmuted the phone, she lifted it back up to her ear. “Okay, sorry about that, Zach. Personal thing. Where were we?”
“We were at the point where you get Abby on the f*cking phone!” he snarled.
“Oh.” She pursed her lips and studied her manicure. “I don’t remember that scene. I’ll tell you what. I’ll call her again and let her know you’re still looking for her. Zach . . . stop worrying so much. That’s her specialty, right? That and ancho-chocolate-chili cupcakes . . .”
She disconnected before he could say another word. Blowing out a breath, she put the phone away. Lifting her gaze, she focused on Abigale’s face. “Honey . . . I don’t know whether to pity you or be envious. That man is all but desperate to find you.”
Abigale closed her eyes.
“What are you going to do when you see him?”
“I’ll think about that then.”
Marin lifted a brow. “Maybe you should start thinking about it now,” she suggested. “Before he actually tracks you down.”
Abigale popped one eye open and focused on Marin’s face. “What?”
“He’s threatening to unleash paparazzi hell on my ass, sweetheart. He’s determined to find you and he’ll do it if you wait too long.” She tugged the phone out of her pocket as it started to ring again. It was her assistant Leo. She’d told him not to call unless it was urgent. “And he’s probably already on the move.”
* * *
It was mostly an empty threat.
Mostly.
Because Zach knew one thing, almost as well as he knew his own name. Marin was with Abby.
Marin didn’t give a damn if he set the beasts from Hollywood hell loose on her ass. But Abby would. So it was a mostly empty threat. He’d hold it in reserve in case he didn’t track her down soon, but damn it, he was getting desperate—
The doorbell rang.
Hope was a funny thing.
It could burn inside him and turn everything inside him into electricity and even though he knew, he knew, that Abby was with Marin, he all but ran for the door.
He was less than a foot away when something was shoved under it.
The renovated loft where he lived was old. It was a wonderful place and he loved it, but it was old. Big open areas, huge windows . . . old doors. And whoever had just shoved that envelope under his door had absolutely no problem doing it.
He stared at the envelope for a split second and then lunged for the door.
The grate was already going down on the old freight elevator and he didn’t make it in time to stop it.
Swearing, he debated between chasing it down or going back to his place. He opted to go back, because he’d glimpsed something. It had been a guy. All he’d seen were the shoulders, but it sure as hell hadn’t been Abby.
Okay.
In the end, that was what mattered.
Back in the main room of his loft, he knelt down and scooped up the flat white envelope. It was the kind that Zane would send pictures in.
Zane . . . Narrowing his eyes, he jogged over to the window and stared down at the parking lot. He didn’t see his brother’s car. All he saw was somebody moving damn fast down the sidewalk, head bent, shoulders hunched, and a baseball cap tugged over his hair. And he was already too far away for Zach to get a good look at the guy.
Running his tongue over his teeth, he tore the mailer open.
And then he damn near choked.
Abby . . .
Minutes ticked away as he stared at the pictures.
It was Abby. Ten portraits in all. Some in color, others in black and white. Some were close-ups, some were full-body shots. Some of them had that soft focus thing going on while others were so clear and sharp, he almost believed he could reach out and touch her.
Stroke the soft shoulder bared by the green silk shirt she wore. A shirt that looked pretty damn familiar.
That was the first picture.
The second was her profile as she stared at the camera.
In the third one, she was looking away. She looked . . . ethereal. The black-and-white image had a soft, almost blurred look to it and she looked like something just not of this world.
The fourth one showed her fingers working down the buttons . . . another black and white, with the shadow and light playing across her skin. It almost made his heart stop, just from how beautiful and raw the image was.
And then blood started to pulse in his head as he realized something.
Zane had taken these.
He knew his brother’s work. Nobody could take a picture quite the way Zane could.
His hands were shaking as he turned to the next one. Her left breast was bared, revealing the lotus blossom he’d painted on her skin. Abby was staring at the camera through her hair and there was a faint blush on her cheeks . . . and the glint in her eyes almost laid him low.
Abby . . .
That look.
Swearing, he laid them down for a minute and stormed over to the bar. He needed a drink. Needed to think—
He made it two feet before he was back over there, staring at the picture again. He had to find her. Had to see her. The sadness in her eyes. The pain . . . and unless he was mistaken, there was something else.
His hands were shaking as he flipped to the next one. She wasn’t looking at the camera this time. Her shirt was open completely, but hanging so that all he could see was a bare strip of flesh.
In the seventh, she had let the shirt fall back to catch in the crook of her elbows. The shot was beautiful. It was erotic. And he was pretty damned certain this was as aroused as he’d ever been without actually having her there, with him. But if he didn’t find her soon, he thought he might start to just whimper like a baby.
The eighth one had her head hanging low with the shirt dangling from her fingers, while her other hand covered her face and she was half hidden from the camera. Another black-and-white.
The ninth one was another close-up, but of her back, with her looking over her shoulder, all those wild, crazy curls spilling down her back.
He had a feeling the tenth one might just make him either die from a heart attack or come in his jeans like a teenaged boy. He didn’t know. Passing a hand over his face, he sucked in a breath and tried to reach for some modicum of control. It didn’t seem to want to come and he didn’t know if he could keep it together.
And it didn’t matter.
He had to see that picture.
Then he was going to get Zane on the damned phone and rip his head off, even if he had to reach through the phone lines to do it.
That decision made, he flipped to the photo, eyes closed. Once he thought had himself ready, he opened his eyes . . .
And just stared.
It wasn’t the erotically beautiful image he had been expecting.
Zane had a way of capturing emotions with his camera. It was his gift. Something he’d been able to do even from the time he’d been a kid.
And the image he’d captured on film was the image of a woman in love.
She was sitting down, still wearing the shirt, with one knee drawn up. The look on her face was . . . her eyes stared into the camera lens, and although Zach knew she wasn’t looking at him, he felt like she was. He felt like she was finally seeing him clear down to his soul.
And she was just fine with what she saw. Fine with it, hell. She wanted it. Needed it.
He blinked hard and then looked back at the picture again, trying to make sure he wasn’t seeing something that wasn’t there.
But it was.
He was almost certain he was seeing the same damn thing in her eyes that he felt every damn time he looked at her. Every damn time he thought of her.
Swallowing the knot in his throat, he gathered up the pictures and then laid them carefully on the coffee table. When he pulled out his phone to call Zach, he tried to figure out what to say, how to convince him to talk. The words weren’t coming, though.
Damn it.
He’d just have to fly blind on this.
The phone didn’t even make it through one ring before Zane answered.
“Don’t kill me, Zach,” Zane said. “She wanted the damn pictures and it wasn’t like I could let somebody else do what she was wanting.”
Zach pressed the heel of his hand against his eye. He could handle, barely, the thought of Zane seeing Abby naked. She was like a little sister to him and Zach knew that. He could handle it . . . barely. As long as he didn’t think about it. “Just tell me where in the hell she is,” he said quietly. “I need to talk to her.”
Zane was quiet a minute. “You’re not calling me to rip my head off?”
“No. But I’d rather not think about it. The photo fairy took those as far as I’m concerned. A female photo fairy.”
“Okay. She’s a talented fairy, though, right?”
“Very. They are amazing. Now where in the hell is Abby?”
Zane blew out a breath. “I don’t know. But before you rip my head off, she had a message. She left here yesterday and I haven’t seen her since, but I did talk to her. She said she’d find you today. So . . . make yourself findable.”
* * *
As Marin cut through the Phoenix traffic, Abigale pulled out the battered journal and flipped through it. She needed to do more of the stuff in it, she decided. Hang it in a public place . . . she smiled a little and decided she’d find a way to string it up at Steel Ink and have people draw in it there.
She flipped to another page and almost winced at what she saw there.
Spill coffee . . .
Eyeing the cold coffee in the console, she caught her lip between her teeth and reached for it.
“What are you—Abigale!”
She snatched up a napkin from their fast-food lunch and dabbed at the coffee trickling down the pages. “I’m following instructions,” she said softly.
“You’ve lost your mind!” Marin shot her a look. “You just spilled coffee on a book.”
“The book told me to,” Abigale said soberly. Then she flipped it around and displayed the messy result. “Look.”
Marin kept her gaze locked on the highway. “That book has got to be the craziest thing on God’s green earth. What in the world are you doing with it?”
“It’s the journal Zach gave me,” she said softly. “I made myself a new plan with it, you know. Stop worrying so much . . . flip off photographers . . .”
“And have a torrid affair.” Marin pursed her lips. “All of this happened because of the damn book.”
“All of this happened because it’s supposed to.” Abigale gingerly turned the pages, studying more of the instructions. She still needed to mail it to herself, and all sorts of crazy shit. She’d been so focused on the plan, and then on Zach, that she hadn’t been paying as much attention to the rest of it. “It happened because Zach’s been the one all along. And I never saw it.”
“You just weren’t ready to, sweetheart. And he never let you see it on his end.” Marin reached over and caught her hand, squeezed gently. “It’s happening now. Take it and grab it and don’t let go.”
A fist seized her heart and Abigale closed her eyes. “I don’t plan on it. I just . . . hell. What if I’m reading this wrong? What if you all are off base?”
“We’re not.” Marin chuckled. “Trust me. We’re not.”
Abigale blew out a breath. “Man, I hope not.” She plucked her shirt from her chest and eyed the new tattoo on her chest. It was covered by the dressing, angry and red and not at all the sexy little surprise she’d hoped to present him with, but he’d get the sentiment, she knew.
“He has an A on his chest,” she whispered.
“I know.” Marin glanced over her. “We’ve only had a hundred get-togethers a year, Abby. I see him without his shirt all the time. I asked him once what he was going to say when you finally noticed.”
Abigale arched a brow, waited.
“He told me that you never did notice all that much about him, so it wasn’t an issue.”
Abigale winced. “That’s not . . . completely true.” She’d noticed plenty about Zach. When she let herself look. She just hadn’t always let herself look. And now she couldn’t not look. “Marin, this is insane.”
“No. It’s completely sane, and it’s completely right. What’s insane is that it took you this long to notice. Any idea what you’re going to say to him?”
Abigale focused on the clock. “No. And the way traffic is going, I’ve got a while to figure it out.”
Time enough. Too long. Not long enough. Closing her eyes, she started to try to puzzle her way through everything that had to be said between them.