Key Of Valor (Key 3)

"No. It's all right. I just need a second. Let me take that second sitting down."

She slid down, sat on the ground with her forehead pressed to her updrawn knees. "I'm a little dizzy. Just need to get my bearings."

He pulled the knife from the sheath under his jacket and took a long scan of the woods before crouching in front of her. "You clicked off, like someone had flicked a switch inside you. You called me James."

"I know."

"You slipped away. You weren't with me, you were with him. Looking at him." With love. "You said nothing would ever be the same."

"I know what I said. He took me back. Kane took me back, but I knew it." Steadier, she lifted her head. "I knew it, almost as soon as it started. I felt… I'm not ashamed of what I felt, and I'm not sorry for it. That would mean I'm ashamed and sorry about Simon. But I can be sorry Kane used you that way."

"You cried for him." Reaching out, Brad caught a tear on his fingertip.

"Yes, I cried for James. And for what might've been if he'd been stronger, maybe if we'd both been stronger. Then I said good-bye."

She laid her hand over Brad's, curled her fingers into his palm. "Kane wanted me to feel all those things I felt for James, and he wanted to use them to drive something between us. Has he?"

"It pissed me off. It hurt." He looked down at their joined hands and, after a moment, turned his over so their fingers linked. "But no, he didn't drive anything between us."

"Bradley." She started to lean in, wanted to touch her lips to his. And saw the knife. Her eyes went huge. "Oh, God."

"He can be hurt," Bradley said simply. "If I get the chance, I'm going to hurt him." Standing, he sheathed the knife, then held a hand down to her.

She moistened her lips. "You better be careful with that thing."

"Yes, Mom."

"Still a little pissed, aren't you? I know who you are, Bradley. I know who I am. He tried to make me forget that, but he couldn't. That has to mean something. I felt exactly like I did when I was sixteen and with James. My body, my heart, my head. He ran his hand down my hair. I wore it long then, and he used to do that. Run his hand all the way down my hair when he kissed me. That kind of thing's inside me, in those memory boxes. Kane can get into those."

It took a supreme act of will, but Bradley forced himself to think beyond the personal, toward the quest. "What did he say to you? James—what did he say to you?"

"That he loved me, that I'd never feel about anyone else the way I did about him. That's true, I won't. I shouldn't. But Bradley, I knew ."

She spun around now, and her face shone. "Even when I was standing there with hair halfway down my back and his face in my hands, I knew it wasn't real. Just a trick. And I used it."

She pressed her palms together, tapped the sides of her fingers against her mouth as she turned in a circle. "This place. I had to come back here. More, I had to come back here with you. But the key isn't here." She dropped her hands. "It's not here."

"I'm sorry."

"No." She shook her head, twirled again, with a brilliant smile. "I know it's not here. I feel it. I don't have to wonder, I don't have to come back hoping or looking, because I've done what I needed to do here. Or we have."

She jumped into his arms, hard and fast enough to knock him back a full step. Laughing, she hooked her legs around his waist and gave him a noisy kiss. "I don't know what it all means, but I'll figure it out. For the first time in days, I believe I'll figure it out. I'm going to unlock that box, Bradley."

She pressed her cheek to his. "I'm going to unlock it, and they're going to go home."

When they pulled up at Flynn's, Zoe aimed a steely look at Brad. "This is on your head, I want to make that clear."

"You did. About six times already."

"I'm not going to have any sympathy for you or your belongings."

"Yeah, yeah. Blah blah."

She stifled a laugh, kept her face stern as she followed him toward the house. "Just remember who tried to be practical."

"Right." He shot her a grin as he pushed open the door. "You were a goner as soon as you looked into those big brown eyes."

"I could've waited a week."