He was going inside. Dani and Myles had come up to the door. He faced me.
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry for what I did to Zoe. I’ve thought of her every day. Practically every second of every day. I miss her more than I can say, and I want to make it up to her. Even if it takes me my whole life. But I will respect her wishes. That’s what you do if you truly love someone.”
His eyes widened, and he nodded at me once. He spun around and put his hand on Dani’s shoulder as he led her inside.
I opened the paper and scanned the address scrawled there. This was where Zoe was. I refolded it and stuck it in my pocket. A wave of hope hit me. I was going to her.
Chapter 13
Nick
It was nearly a month since New York, and things couldn’t be going more smoothly. In fact, without much need of coercion, Zoe’d given me her extra keycard to get me into the condo building. I convinced her it would be easier than her having to buzz me in all the time. Next target, a key to her door.
Luckily it was unlocked when I got back with our breakfast because her terrified scream met me halfway down the hall. I ran, threw open the door, and stood with my heart racing. I blinked, not prepared for the sight in front of me. She stood in the kitchen sink, holding a broom above her head and shrieking. I searched the room for any sign of what might cause a woman to stand in a sink with a broom, screaming, and came up with nothing.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“He-he-he’s over there.”
I followed the finger she pointed with to a small circle of fur. A mouse?
“You mean the mouse?”
“Yes, I mean the mouse! What else do you think I would mean?”
I put my hands out. “Just asking a question.”
“I came out to-to clean up the popcorn we spilled last night when you…you know, got frisky, and I guess he hid behind the broom or something. Ahh! They freak me out.”
No kidding. “That much I’ve figured out, darling. But why?” I gestured. “He can’t hurt you. He weighs, like, four ounces or something.”
“I-I know. But…they scurry. And…they can run up your leg.”
I stared at her. “I think the odds of that happening—”
She stamped her foot. “It’s called a phobia for a reason. It’s an irrational fear. Just do something!”
“All right. Calm down.”
“I am calm,” she said, frost tipping her words.
“Ya coulda fooled me,” I muttered under my breath, but she heard me.
The hand went to the hip. “Are you going to help, or what?”
“I’m helping. I’m helping.” I started to put my bag of bagels on the table with my cup of coffee.
“No! Don’t put those there.”
I froze, the bag hovering over the wood surface. I knew I would regret asking this, but…. “Why?”
“He could run up the table leg,” she said like it was the most reasonable conclusion to come to.
“Hon, if that mouse hasn’t moved with you screaming like that, I don’t think he’s quite gonna have the gusto, or inclination, for that matter, to scale the table leg.”
“He’ll smell the food.”
I stared for a second, then moved toward the living room table.
“Don’t put it there either.”
“Where do you want me to put it?” I asked, trying to mask my irritation.
“I don’t know.” She looked around. “Can’t you just hold it?”
“Not if you want me to take care of the mouse.”
“Oh, good point. Well…hand it to me. But be careful.”
I tiptoed toward her.
“You don’t have to be a smartass,” she sniped.
I finished my trip to her, sans tiptoeing, and handed her the bag. “Are you sure it’s even alive?”
“I-I don’t know. I’m pretty sure it moved when I first saw it.”
“But it hasn’t since?”
“No.”
“Zoe, that mouse is dying. He probably got into some poison, or something.”
“Oh,” she eyed it. “Poor thing.”
“Poor thing?”
“Well, I don’t want him to die. I just don’t want to see him. Like EVER.”
“Okay. I’ll take care of it.” I began to circle the counter and enter the kitchen.
“Wait!”
At this point, her paranoia was freaking me out a bit. I was vibrating like I’d drank five cups of coffee. I stared at her.
“What are you going to do?”
I’m not sure why it mattered. “You don’t have to watch.” She trembled. She could take her skateboard down the courthouse stairs and into traffic and not break a sweat, but this tiny fluff ball gave her cardiac arrest? I came back to the living room portion of the room and reached through the archway to help her down. Climbing out of the sink and up on the bar extending into my side of the room was a bit of a challenge with the broom. “Here. Hand me the broom.”
She clutched it. “Nah-ah.”
I helped her down despite the awkwardness, then took her into my arms, broom and all. “You don’t have to be afraid.”
“I know. It’s just…they have those tails and claws and…they’re just disgusting. And they scurry,” she added, as if that were the most important and obvious factor.
“And run up your leg.”
“Right.”
I sighed. “Why don’t you go and lie down and I’ll take care of it.”
“No. I have to help you.”
“You really don’t,” I said flatly.
“I have to…make sure he’s gone.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I do, but…. I’d feel better if I watched.”
“Okay.” I let her go and half-turned.
“Take this.” She shoved the broom into my hands, then shooed me away. Once my back was to her, I rolled my eyes and again made a move toward the kitchen.
“Wait.”
What now? I twisted to glare at her. She crept up to me and clutched my elbow.
“What are you going to do? Do you have a plan or something?” she whispered. I guess we needed to keep our plan secret from the mouse. I’d never seen Zoe act so weird before. Her eyes were wild.
“Well, first I’ll take this broom and poke him, to determine if he’s alive or not.”
“Okay.” She moved forward with me until I got to the threshold, then let me go.
I shook my head. Normally this wouldn’t bother me at all, but her craziness ratcheted up my own nerves. I slowly reached out with the broom. I barely touched it and it ran. Zoe screamed and tried to make her own getaway, but hit the bar top on the way by.
“Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch, ouch.” She jumped around, gripping her arm.
The mouse lay still.
She panted. “What’s it doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It’s just sitting there.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I’m going to hit it with the broom and kill it.”
“That seems pretty brutal. I mean, he hasn’t done anything wrong.”
I found it interesting that, although she didn’t know the sex, she referred to the animal she hated as a male. “Do you have another idea?”
She thought, scanning the room for inspiration. “I know.” She snagged one of the eight cases of her soda we stacked on the counter. We’d found it on an incredible sale. She started laying the boxes end to end. “We’ll make a wall and funnel him out the door.”
So many things wrong with this plan. Where does one start?
“Zoe. He can jump over those boxes.”
“He can?”
I nodded.
She stopped and considered the three she had already laid, then came back to life and grabbed another. “He won’t though. He’ll be so scared he’ll just follow the soda wall out the door.”
“And if he does jump the Great Wall of Pepsi, and he’s loose
in the condo, what will we do then?”
She stuck her hand back on her hip again. “I don’t hear you offering any solutions. You just shoot down mine.”
I tilted my head, biting my tongue. “I gave a solution. It’s just not one you’re willing to take.” I studied it again. “If it’s not already dead, it’s halfway there. I need to kill it.”
“Isn’t there some other way?” she huffed.
“It is the most humane thing to do at this point.”
She still hesitated, examining her partially constructed wall. She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Okay. I guess you’re right.”
I twisted and raised my broom over my target. “I can’t swing with you holding onto my elbow.”
“Oh.” She transferred her grasp to the narrow wall to the left of the entry to the kitchen, making sure to keep her body behind it, though still watching my every move.
I moved my shoulders around and got ready to do my job.
“Wait.”
“Zoe!”
“I just want to know what you’re going to do with it once it’s, you know…deceased.”
“I’m going to get a plastic grocery bag from under the sink and use the bag to pick it up. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded contritely.
I waited a beat. “Is there anything else?”
“Umm…what side of the table are you going around?”
I frowned. “Why the hell does it matter?”
“I want to make sure I’m out of your way, is all.” She dropped her gaze. “You don’t need to get mad.”
I felt bad. She really was scared shitless of the little critter. I inhaled and let my breath out slowly. “I’m sorry. I will be going on the left-hand side. The side nearest the wall,” I added, knowing Zoe was directionally challenged.
She nodded, and I again prepared myself for what I needed to do. I decided to give it one last poke to make sure it was dead. The damn thing moved, Zoe screamed, and I brought the broom down. It continued to try to escape, but it slithered pathetically. I guess the blow broke his legs.
“Oh, my God! Kill it. Kill it!” She was crying and hysterical.
I brought the broom down again and ended its life. Zoe sobbed.
“You killed it.”
I set the broom down and crossed to take her into my arms. “That’s what you were yelling at me to do,” I said softly.
She tucked herself under my chin, her arms crossed between us. “You’re right. I could tell he was hurt. You needed to kill it.”
Why couldn’t you come to that conclusion twenty minutes ago when this whole thing started?
Her voice came muffled from my chest. “That was awful. That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
I drew back some, still holding her arms. “Why don’t you go lie down for a bit? You must be exhausted.”
“Not until…it’s gone.”
“Okay.” I pulled her in, gave her a kiss on the top of her head, then let her go. I collected the mouse’s remains. Zoe opened the front door for me, then took several large steps backward. She watched me the entire way down to the garbage chute, standing in the hall in a pink tank top and flannel Cookie Monster shorts. I smiled at her as I returned, calling out, “He’s all gone.”
Her shoulders seemed to loosen up and she even managed a smile. When I got to her, she threw her arms around me and laid a soul-rocking kiss on me. “My hero.”
I knew she said it in jest, but it made my heart soar all the same. She brought her lips to mine again, playing with my hair near the nape of my neck. Her kisses were waking up all parts of my body. I drew back. “If you keep kissing your ‘hero’ that way then he will have no choice but to strip you bare and take you to bed.”
She laughed, walking backward into the condo, leading me by my hands. Once I cleared the doorway, she kissed me again. I closed the door behind me without removing my lips from hers. I walked her backward until we tumbled onto the couch. Whatever energy she’d lost during the mouse ordeal, she’d apparently gained back.
It took an hour to get out of the apartment.
I locked the door for her. “I hope the courts are open. I need to see if you’ve still got your jump shot.”
She spun the ball in her hand as we walked down the hall. “Oh. I’ve still got it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “We’ll see about that.”
Exiting her building a few minutes later, Zoe bopped down the stairs in front of me, her hair swishing back and forth as she skipped steps on her way down to the sidewalk. The awesome fall weather we were having continued to please the citizens of Denver, who took to the streets in numbers this afternoon. A block party was going on in the park at the end of the street, with all kinds of food venders, entertainment, and even a handful of rides.
The warmth of the sun was energizing, making me feel like it wasn’t that long since we shot a round of hoops, even though much time had passed since we’d played on Zack’s driveway. As we neared the courts, the scent of carnival foods swirled around us and although I shouldn’t be hungry, it made me hanker for a hot dog and waffle fries. We only needed to wait about fifteen minutes before the court was ours. I guess a Lemon Shakeup on the Ferris wheel had more appeal than a round of horse on the court. I, however, was into our little game of basketball.
I let her score a couple of times. She did seem, at first, to have lost a step or two. “You’re right. I haven’t played in a while and I’m a bit rusty.”
“You’re doing fine,” I encouraged her.
She exhaled. “If you say so.” She dribbled lackadaisically, then, put on a burst of speed and sunk a basket, making me look like a fool.
I laughed. “What was that? I thought you hadn’t played in a while.”
“I haven’t,” she replied, slowly batting her lashes, the picture of innocence. “Other than every Wednesday night on the city league.”
My eyes widened. “What? I thought you were at knitting class.”
“Dude, have you seen any knitting around my place?”
I rubbed my chin. “Now that you mention it…no, I haven’t.”
She dribbled lazily up to the line to bring the ball in again. We were playing half-court in case someone else wanted to shoot some hoops. She turned, and she was smiling, her eyes dancing with fun. “I’ve been waiting for-ev-er for you to challenge me to a game so I could spring this on you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “No more Mr. Nice Guy for you.”
“Oh,” she heckled. “Is that what you were being? Mr. Nice Guy?”
“Uh-huh. But now you’re asking for it.” She dribbled in and I made a play for the ball. Spinning, she backed her way in for a better shot, but she did a whole lot more wiggling than was necessary. “Honey, you keep doing that, we’re going to be giving some of these neighborhood kids a real life biological demonstration of what happens to a male’s anatomy if a beautiful female rubs her tush against him.”
She laughed, then drove, cut, and put up a shot. I didn’t even have to check to see if it was in. I frowned, garnering the response I wanted. She waltzed over, still cackling, took my face in her hands and kissed me. I hugged her to me, lifting her off her feet and swinging her in a circle.
“I’m taking this jacket off. I’m burning up.” She sashayed away from me, throwing a teasing look over her shoulder at one point. She knew I was watching her, the little harlot.
I thought about the ring back at my place, locked in my safe, worth almost as much as one of my cars. I knew it was too soon to spring it on her. Besides, I needed to come up with a clever way of proposing. I’d been wracking my brain since I bought it, earlier in the week, and I’d come up with nothing. How could I ask Miss Zoe Marie McCord if she’d be mine forever?
Chapter 14
Zack
Since my confrontation with Mr. McCord was behind me, I had only one more stop to make before leaving town. I checked the address again, then bent to peer ou
t my window at the numbers on the doorframe of the trailer I visited. This was it. I sighed.
Now or never.
I stepped out of my car onto the pad of concrete serving as a driveway. It was too short to park the whole body of my Cobra onto, leaving my ride partially in the narrow street, which made me a tad uneasy. That uneasiness was doubled by my distaste for the task at hand. Closing my door, I continued to assess my surroundings.
Spotting the pile of miscellaneous crap at the end of the driveway, I understood why it seemed short. A rusty oven kept company with a pair of sketchy bikes, both with chains sagging to the ground. A lawn chair whose metal frame was bent leaned against the bikes, the straps of its webbing frayed, even missing in some spots. A lawnmower sat parked next to the oven. If the sparse, spindly, tall weeds surrounding the place were any indication, the sound of its motor hadn’t been heard in a while.
Sticking my hands in my jacket pockets, I walked around the car to the short set of stairs leading to the door. They were tilted and falling apart. I bypassed one of the four steps altogether as it didn’t appear to be capable of holding my weight. The platform in front of the door, though, seemed like it was made of newer wood, not even weathered yet, its blonde coloring standing in sharp contrast to the graying steps ascending to it. I scouted around some more, not eager to knock on the door. A Captain America blanket covered one window and the other appeared to be curtainless. The screen door was missing a screen in the bottom half and the frame was decorated with purple and blue butterfly stickers. In the corner of the deck where I stood, a stained child’s training potty ironically held what may have once been a plant, but now was simply dirt in a pot. A broom with its bristles sticking out in every direction leaned on the deck railing, stretching over the potty-seat-planter. In the opposite corner a black trash bag slouched like one of my students after lunch. I took the handle of the screen door and pulled it open with a loud creak. One corner had already scraped a groove into the new wood under my feet.
Pitchfork in the Road Page 13
