Seven Reasons Why

by Neesa Hart

  His presence soaked into her troubled spirit like the first drops of rain on parched earth. With an almost alarming sense of ease, the words came. “I grew up a foster kid,” she began. “I was born in Nashville, and bounced around from place to place while the state tried to find somebody who’d take me.”

  She felt the warm strength of Zack’s hand close on hers. He waited in silence, offering her the slight physical comfort. Her fingers tightened on his. “I was an ugly kid,” she said, with a slight self-deprecating laugh. When he opened his mouth to protest, she shook her head. “I mean, really ugly. I was skinny, and my hair was so red, it looked like a shaggy carpet. I had more freckles than skin, and I had some physical problems nobody knew how to fix. I was sick all the time. Colds, flu, viruses, you name it. I don’t think I was well more than twenty or thirty days a year.

  “The state kept trying to place me, but in those days, they handled things a little differently. Usually, families would come to the state homes and look us over. Everybody wanted babies, and if they were willing to take an older kid, they didn’t want one that looked like a redheaded skeleton.

  “When I was about six, I finally got picked. I went home with this young couple.” She met Zack’s warm gaze. “You know what I remember most about them?”

  He shook his head in mute denial.

  August managed a slight smile. “She smelled good. Up until then, the only smells I knew were the stenches of the streets, and the antiseptic odors of the state homes. This lady smelled really, really good.” She fell silent for several long minutes as she remembered what it had been like to put her shopping bag of meager possessions on the large bed in her airy new room.

  “What happened?” he prompted.

  “I don’t know.” August shook her head. “I never knew. I lived with them for about three weeks. I tried so hard to make sure I did everything right. Then, one day, I came home and found my stuff, packed in a shopping bag, sitting on the bed. That meant it was time to go back to the home.”

  Zack swore beneath his breath. Startled, August realized she hadn’t been paying attention to his reaction to the story. Her fingers tightened on his hand. “It’s all right, Zack.”

  “The hell it is. How many times did this happen to you?”

  “I don’t know. I lost count.” She wondered if he’d find the lack of emotion in her voice odd. She’d long ago lost the ability to grieve about those moments in her life.

  With the pads of his fingers, he softly pushed her damp bangs off her forehead. “I’m so sorry, querida,” he whispered, and somehow, the words didn’t carry the same pity she usually heard. There was a wealth of understanding in him that she struggled to understand.

  “It’s over,” she said. “I survived.”

  “No kid should have to go through that.”

  “That’s why I’m a foster parent.”

  “Yeah. I guess it is.”

  “When I was in high school, I realized that the only way I was ever going to have a life for myself was if I made one. I got a job working in a pet store after school to save some money for college. There was this doctor who came in twice a week to care for the animals, and she was the one who really encouraged me to become a vet.

  “By working weekends, and waitressing, and just about every other odd job I could get, I managed to put myself through college in five years. That’s where I met Kaitlin.”

  “Kaitlin Price—the social worker who handled the boys’ paperwork?”

  “That’s the one. She was my sophomore roommate, and we lived together until she graduated. She majored in sociology, and I had told her that as soon as I got established, I wanted to become a foster parent. Kaitlin understood, knew my history, so when I inherited the house from Enid Keegan, she already had Lucas, Chip, Teddy and Bo lined up. I guess she figured the paperwork wasn’t nearly as important as getting them out of the system.”

  “That would be my guess,” he concurred. “So you came to Keegan’s Bend, and the boys came to live with you?”

  “Three months later.”

  “And when did your troubles with Odelia start?”

  “Before they even got to town. She was furious that Enid had left me the property. It’s the first time since anyone can remember that a Keegan property didn’t get left to a Keegan.”

  “Had you ever met Enid?”

  “No.”

  “So a complete stranger left you a family home?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t know why?”

  “The will said she owed my family a debt.” August glanced away again. He was probing too close to the truth.

  “Did you believe that?”

  She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because a woman who spent her whole life trying to figure out where she belonged wouldn’t just accept that as an answer.”

  “It’s the only answer I have, Zack.”

  He tapped on her chin until she faced him again. “Why do you think Enid left you the house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s never occurred to you that you could be related to the Keegans?”

  “Of course it’s occurred to me,” she said. She’d already laid herself bare for him. His probing was beginning to grate her already vulnerable nerves. “That’s every orphan’s fantasy, Zack. There was a mistake at the hospital. Somebody switched the babies. My real family is rich, and beautiful, and they wanted me. But that’s the fantasy, not the reality.

  “The reality is, nobody knew who my parents were, and for whatever reason, I was turned over to the state. Hell, I don’t even have a real birth date. Whoever my mother was, she didn’t even bother to record the day I was born. If Enid Keegan cared so damned much about me, then why did she leave me in the state home to rot?”

  “Ah, querida,” he reached for her then. She went easily, naturally, against his chest, where she drew solace from the solid press of his body. “It’s okay.”

  To her horror, she felt her shoulders lurch with fres tears. She simply would not cry. She was stronger than the memories. She’d spent a lifetime proving it. Zack’s hand found the nape of her neck, where he traced a slow, easy pattern.. “We’re going to fix it,” he promised. “I swear to you, we’re going to fix it.”

  “Why is she doing this?” she whispered. “Why does she care?”

  He didn’t have to ask to know she was talking about Odelia. “I don’t know. Some people come into this world mean to the bone. I think she’s one of them.”

  “What are the chances that she could take my boys?”

  “It’s not going to happen.”

  “Dut you think I should take her money and leave here?”

  “I think you’d have a better chance of keeping your kids without a battle if you did.” He tilted her away from him so that he could study her face. With excruciatingly gentle fingers, he brushed away the two tears in the corner of each eye. “But you need to be here, don’t you?”

  She searched his face. “How do you know that?”

  “Because this is the first real chance you’ve ever had to find out who you are. That’s the reason, isn’t it?”

  She paused, then nodded. “I’ve never been this close to an answer.”

  “And I think Odelia knows what it is.”

  Shivering, August pulled away from him to lean against the tree. “They’re just little boys,” she said. “She’s got no right to terrorize them.”

  Zack shifted so that he could sit shoulder to shoulder with her. To the west, the setting sun had streaked the sky with orange and lavender wedges. “I asked Emma to bring the boys up here for the fireworks,” he told her. “Do you want to go back to the fair, or would you rather rest here awhile?”

  Her head dropped heavily onto his shoulder. “I should go back.”

  Zack encircled her with his arms. “Stop fighting the battle on your own, querida. You don’t have to anymore.”

  Her answer came as a whispered sigh
as she settled against him. Emotionally drained as she was from the afternoon’s events, her eyes drifted shut just moments later.

  Zack leaned against the tree, holding August while she dozed in the cradle of his arms.

  The soft feel of her against him reawakened every fantasy he’d had for the past week. Inside, a burning anger tore at him as he considered the stories she’d told him. He had the same nauseating disgust for the people who’d done this to her and her boys as he’d had the day he looked Joey Palfitano in the eye and knew he was lying. His hands trembled with it. He ached in an almost physical way to find the people responsible and force them to confront the emotional damage they’d inflicted.

  Holding her brought out every protective instinct in him. She was so soft, so vulnerable, in her sleep. The curve of her neck, the downy soft hairs that curled around her face, the trusting way she leaned into him, made him think of a time when she’d faced her fears alone with no one to comfort her. He refused to think about the consequences of the feelings that ripped through him. He’d spent ten years avoiding commitments. If he took on August and her kids, he’d be up to his eyeballs in promises he might not be able to keep, but each time she sighed in her sleep, each time she shifted against him, resolve drowned out common sense. He couldn’t turn his back on her, when everyone else in her life had. Damn the consequences, he wouldn’t let her get hurt.

  By nightfall, he was almost glad the throbbing pain in his thigh had dimmed the sharper, more insistent ache that centered in his groin. During the evening’s fireworks display, he gingerly massaged the tender flesh around his wound. August had awakened when the boys joined them. She seemed refreshed, more relaxed, as she shared her boys’ enthusiasm for the spectacular light show. He, too, found he could put the unsettling thoughts from his mind as long as he concentrated on August. Watching her, however, had its own price. Twice, Zack actually groaned out loud as he saw the wonder on her face.

  Emma collected an exhausted Josh as the last of the fireworks twinkled away. Sam and Jeff stumbled down the hill with their father. Zack helped August pack up the remains of the picnic as the boys gathered their things.

  On the short walk back to her house, the boys trudged along in tired silence. Zack was relieved to have an excuse not to make conversation. His leg was burning now. He’d seriously overtaxed the injured muscles, and had to concentrate to walk. Zack waited while the boys filed through the gate and headed for the back door. By the time he dropped the latch into place, he’d broken into a sweat. When they finally reached August’s back porch, he collapsed onto the swing with a dull thud.

  She glanced sharply at his face, then at the fingers of his right hand massaging his leg. “Oh, Zack, your leg…”

  “It’s fine.”

  Chip’s worried face peered at him over the arm of the swing. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded. “Just a little sore.”

  “What happened?” Bo crowded in. Teddy stood in front of him, wide-eyed, watching Zack with obvious concern.

  “I’m fine,” he told them again. “My leg hurts a little.”

  “You should have said something.” August set the picnic basket down on the porch. “Lucas, would you go get the ice pack?”

  Without comment, he raced into the house. She reached for Zack’s hands and firmly moved them away from the sore spot. “Is it cramped, or just throbbing?”

  Throbbing, he thought, was the operative word. When her firm, slender hands settled on his thigh, most of the pain in his body shifted in a new direction. He groaned.

  August interpreted the sound incorrectly. “Am I hurting you?”

  He managed to shake his head. Lucas returned with the ice pack. She placed it firmly on his leg. “We could have gotten a ride home.”

  “Are you going to be all right?” Bo asked, his eyes huge and worried.

  “Sure,” Zack told him. “Nothing to worry about.” Just because he might spontaneously combust, that wasn’t cause for alarm.

  Chip looked at August. “Can you fix it?”

  Zack almost laughed out loud. She could fix it, all right. She could take him to bed and stay there for a week, and he’d be just fine. August smiled at her four boys. “He’s fine. Honest. I’m going to give him some aspirin, and he’ll be good as new by morning.”

  They seemed to accept her reassurance at face value. Teddy gave Zack’s hand a reassuring pat. “Now,” August told them, “while I work on Zack, I want everybody upstairs in the bath or shower in the next five minutes.”

  “Why do we have to take baths?” Chip asked. “We went swimming in the duck pond.”

  “Because I said so.” She waved them in the direction of the house. “Let’s go. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and you have to be clean.”

  Amid grumblings and a minimum of fuss, the boys herded through the door. “I’ll be up to inspect faces and hands in ten minutes,” she told them. When they disappeared up the stairs, she turned back to Zack. “Is that helping?” she asked, indicating the ice pack.

  “Some.”

  “Let me get you some aspirin.”

  “I don’t need any. I’ll be all right. I just need to sit for a while.”

  “Are you sure?” She frowned at him. “You were limping pretty heavily.”

  “I’m sure.” He patted the bench next to him. “Just sit with me for a while.”

  She gave him a skeptical look, then lowered herself into the swing, next to him. “You should have told me you were hurting. I’d have done something about it.”

  “So far, everything I’ve seen you do on an animal has been some revolting procedure. Next thing I know, you’ll be coming after me with one of those three-and-half-foot needles you’re so fond of.”

  She laughed. The throaty noise had its usual effect on him. “Don’t tell me you’re grossed out by my job.”

  “Completely. I thought being a vet meant wading out through ten-foot drifts of snow to deliver a calf in the middle of the night.”

  “It does, sometimes. But most of the time, it’s like pediatrics. Pretty much every treatment I administer is disgusting. The only thing that makes it worthwhile are the patients.”

  He smiled at her then. In the moonlight, her hair glistened a dark auburn. Because he couldn’t resist, he lifted a hand to twine his fingers in the silky curls. “Thank you for tending to me,” he said. “And thank you for telling me your story today. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

  She put an infinitesimal distance between them. The shrill chirp of a cricket punctuated the still air. “You know,” she said, clearing her throat on a nervous laugh, “it certainly got hot today.”

  His lips twitched at the none-too-subtle change of subject. “Sure did,” he drawled.

  Her slight cough told him she didn’t miss the innuendo. “If you’ll be quiet a minute, I can tell you just how hot it is.”

  “No kidding?” He brushed his fingertip over the arch of her eyebrow.

  “Un-huh.” She wedged her forearm between them so that she could glance at her watch. Zack watched the intent expression on her face as she concentrated on the dial. The color was rising in her cheeks even as she made every attempt to ignore him. He moved his finger to trace the path of freckles on her nose.

  “Seventy-eight,” she announced a few seconds later.

  “Hmmm?” His hand had found the satin-soft skin of her throat.

  “Seventy-eight. It’s seventy-eight degrees.”

  “Is that a fact?” He pressed his thumb to the throbbing pulse at the bend of her collarbone.

  “The cricket,” she muttered, though the words were stifled on a gasp of surprise when his lips replaced his thumb. “I counted the chirps of the cricket.”

  He rubbed an openmouthed kiss on her neck while his hand found her nape. “How many chirps?” he prompted, when she seemed to lose the thread of the conversation. He nipped the sensitive skin on the underside of her jaw.

  “Oh.” The word was a sigh “Forty-one. Forty-one chirps.” Her bac
k arched against the armrest of the swing as she tried to move away from him. Zack pressed his body more fully to hers, pinning her against the pine seat. “You—” She gasped again. “You count the number of chirps in a fifteen second period, then add thirty-seven to get the air temperature.”

  This time, he did laugh. With a warm chuckle, he raised his head to meet her gaze. “August, why are we talking about crickets?”

  He saw the wariness in her gaze. “I just wanted to show you that not everything about vets is revolting”

  With a wicked smile, he raised both hands to cup her breasts. “It certainly isn’t.” Slowly, he dipped his head so that he could rub his mouth against hers. “You feel so good,” he told her. “I love watching you move. It makes me wonder what you’ll feel like when we make love.” He ran his hands down her back to cup her behind. He’d already decided the woman had the sexiest fanny in the world. He should know. He’d looked at an awful lot of fannies.

  “Zack.” She pressed her hands against his chest.

  He lifted his head a fraction of an inch. “What is it, querida?”

  “Please tell me you don’t feel sorry for me.”

  He heard the thready note of panic in her voice. “Sorry for you?” Deliberately he shifted against her so that she could feel how much he wanted her. “Does that feel like pity?”

  “I couldn’t stand it,” she confessed. “I just couldn’t stand it.”

  “You’re the strongest woman I know. I feel a lot of things for you, but pity isn’t one of them.” He pressed his lips to hers and whispered, “I wanted you all day today.”

  Chapter Six

  August gasped against the gentle pressure of his mouth. “Oh, Zack.”

  His name on her lips fueled the passion pulsing through him. “All I could think about was the way you tasted, the way you sounded, when I kissed you.” He pressed a hungry kiss to her lips. “I wanted…”

  Another kiss.

  “…to hear…”

  And another.

  “…you moan again.”

  This time, he swept his tongue inside and swirled it with hers until the sound he’d waited for was wrenched from her chest. “Like that,” he whispered. “Just like that.”