Key Of Valor (Key 3)

"But you didn't even know me."

"I do now." He leaned in, took her lips with his.

"Man. Are you going to do that all the time now?"

Brad eased back, brushed a kiss against Zoe's forehead, then turned to Simon. "Yes. But I don't want you to feel left out, so I'll kiss you, too."

Simon made spitting noises and danced to safety behind his mother's stool. "Kiss her if you've got to kiss somebody. Are we going to eat soon? I'm starving."

"Big fat steaks about to go on the fire. So, kid, how do you like your frog?"

AFTER dinner, and the video rematch, after Simon's eyes drooped shut as he sprawled on the game room floor, Zoe let herself slide into Brad's arms. Let herself float into the kiss.

There was magic in the world, she thought. And this night had been some of hers.

"I have to take Simon home."

"Stay." He rubbed his cheek against hers. "Just stay, both of you."

"That's a big step for me." She rested her head on his shoulder. It would be so easy, she knew, to stay. To just let herself be held this way. But big steps should never be easy.

"I'm not playing games with you, but I have to think about what's right." For all of us, she thought. "I meant what I said about wondering how I've ended up here. I have to be sure about whatever happens next."

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt either of us."

"I'm not afraid of that. No, that's a lie. I am. But I'm afraid I could hurt you. I didn't tell you what happened last night. I didn't want to talk about it in front of Simon."

"What is it?"

"Can we go in the other room? In case he wakes up." "It was Kane," Brad said as he walked her into the great room.

"Yes." And she told him.

"Is that what you wanted, Zoe? To live in New York, work in a high-powered job?"

"Oh, I don't know about New York. Could just as easily have been Chicago, or Los Angeles, anyplace that seemed important. Anyplace that wasn't where I was."

"Because you were unhappy, or because there were things you wanted to do?"

She started to answer, then stopped. "Both," she realized. "I don't know that I thought about being unhappy, but I guess I was a lot of the time. The world just seemed so small and set where I lived. The way I lived."

She looked out the windows, across the lawn to the dark ribbon of river. "But the world isn't small, and it's not set. I used to think about that, to wonder about all that. The people and the places out there."

Surprised at herself, she turned back to see him watching her, quiet and steady. "Anyway, that's off the track."

"I don't think so. What made you happy?"

"Oh, lots of things. I don't mean to sound like I was sad all the time. I wasn't. I liked school. I was good in school. I liked learning things, figuring things out. I was especially good with numbers. I did Mama's books and her taxes. I took care of the bills. I liked doing it. I thought maybe I'd be a bookkeeper, or even a CPA. Or work in banking. I wanted to go to college, and get an important job, move to the city. Have things. Have more, that's all. Have people respect me, even admire me, because I knew how to do things."

She gave a little shrug, wandered to the fireplace. "Used to irritate my mama, the way I talked about it, and how I was fussy about what belonged to me because I wanted to keep it nice. She said how I thought I was better than anybody else, but that wasn't it."

Her brows drew together as she stared at the flames. "That wasn't it at all. I just wanted to be better than I was. I figured if I was smart enough, I could get that good job and move to the city, and nobody'd look at me and think, There's that trailer trash from over in the hollow."

"Zoe."

She shook her head. "People did think that, Bradley. They did because it was true enough. My daddy drank too much and ran off with another woman, left my mother with four children, a stack of bills, and a double-wide. Most of my clothes were what somebody'd given us out of charity. You don't know what that's like."

"No, I don't. I don't know what it's like."