Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(30)

“No, Zoe, that’s not what I’m saying at all, and I’m sorry, that was a poor choice of words. But she’s your great-aunt, so there’s blood there.”

Zoe didn’t answer, as a swell of guilt and discomfort rolled over her.

He knows how I feel about everything not being out in the open.

Lord, even Tessa’s horrible ex was more forthcoming, out of respect for what was important to Tessa. Quiet, Zoe stuck her fingers in the soft soil and sifted it. She really should tell her best friends, but now she’d lied to them for so long she wouldn’t know where to start.

“Do you even remember your mother, Zoe?” Tessa asked quietly.

Start right there.

No, she couldn’t. The lies were so ingrained, so imprinted on her heart, that after a few dozen times of reciting them, they became truths.

My parents died in a car accident when I was ten. Aunt Pasha was my only relative. She raised me. We move a lot because there’s gypsy blood in the Tamarin line.

“Barely,” Zoe said, instead of lying by rote. “Pasha’s my mother, for all intents and purposes. And you could be that person to another child who doesn’t have parents. What you need is to get a kid that’s been housebroken.”

“Like a foster child?” Tessa asked. “I don’t know if I could stand to give it away.”

Zoe couldn’t even respond to that. She turned away, certain that even in the moonlight Tessa could read her expression.

Could the door be open any wider?

The truth would feel so good. To sit here in the moonlight and share histories and secrets. Just to let the pressure of a lifetime of lies lift from her heart would be so liberating. Sure, Tessa would be mad as hell, but they’d be closer and more trusting, wouldn’t they? It would be a breakthrough moment, and they’d tell Jocelyn and Lacey, and surely they’d all rally round Zoe. They’d finally understand what made her tick, forgiving her deceptions, and be all Fearsome Foursome, go team go. Right?

Or would they hate her for hiding the truth for all these years?

And if she told the truth, even whispered it right here in the moonlit garden to a woman whose perspective could change if she knew Zoe’s history, would Zoe be breaking a promise to someone who’d been so much more than a friend?

What a bitch of a dilemma.

“Anyway, I’m not sure I’m equipped to handle a foster child,” Tessa continued. “Some of them have been abused and neglected and God knows what.”

Yeah, God knew what and didn’t do a damn thing about it. But Pasha did.

“You could probably handle it, Tessa.” Zoe’s hands shook a little as she played with a row of strange bean pods, popping one off and snapping it to find three splotchy red lima beans inside.

“I want a baby to keep and raise, not a social services project I’m scared to get attached to,” Tessa said.

Was that what she’d think Zoe was? Had Pasha? Of course not. Pasha had just scooped Zoe out of her life and saved her ass. Which is why Zoe owed her complete loyalty to Pasha, not Tessa, who was actually pissing her off even more than usual right that moment.

“A child like that needs love, like any other kid.”

”But don’t you have to give a foster child away at some point?”

“How would I know?” Zoe said, sounding irrationally defensive and not giving a shit right then. The misconceptions about foster kids made her crazy, and so did this conversation. “I don’t think all of them are like delinquents or crack babies. You might get your maternal instincts appeased for a while.”

“Well, that’s not what I want.”

“What about what they want?” she demanded. “Why is it always about you, Tessa? You and your uterus. Don’t you ever think about those poor kids and how much one of them could be transformed by living here, learning from you, loving you, eating this tie-dyed bean?”

Tessa gave a weak smile. “That’s a Christmas pole lima bean, Zoe. And, honestly, this isn’t about my poor, empty uterus. It’s about the one thing I wanted to be in my whole life. A mother forever. Isn’t there anything you ever wanted to be or do, something that burns inside of you like a lifelong dream, the thing that would make you so happy and whole that you just know you have to have it someday?”

Oh, yes, there was. A permanent, stable, enduring address to a place that had history and happiness in every corner. But nothing could make Zoe say the ultimate four-letter word out loud.

Home.

“Isn’t there?” Tessa demanded.

“No,” Zoe lied. “I just want to be a hot air balloon pilot who drifts from city to city without any chance of putting down roots that could do nothing but strangle me.”

Even she could hear the sarcasm in her tone and, damn it, she wanted that line to come off as the truth.

“Roots are what I live for.” Tessa leaned forward, her eyes piercing. “Roots don’t strangle if the plant is well tended, my friend. Roots nourish. They provide stability. They make sure the plant doesn’t merely survive, but thrives and grows and produces a fruit or vegetable.”

“Enough with the gardening metaphors. You know what I meant.”

“No, I don’t, Zoe. You don’t really like this…this whimsical, immature life you’re living, do you?”

She snorted. “Excuse me, but I am not the one sobbing in the dirt.”

“You just keep on pretending to be someone I know you’re not.”

Zoe gasped a little, shocked at how the conversation had turned on her. “I am? You know this how?”

“You’re always pretending to be some sex-loving, hard-drinking, joke-making party girl, when deep inside you’re really a sweet angel who would do anything for her old aunt and gets tipsy on a glass of Chardonnay.”

Oh, God, Zoe, just tell her.

“You know damn well it takes two glasses.” The tease tasted like vinegar on her tongue, but she said it anyway. Because she couldn’t face the truth. “And now that we have me all figured out, why don’t we talk about you and your issues?”

“Nah.” Tessa stood up, brushing dirt off her jeans. “I feel much better. And I know what you should do, Zoe.”

“Stop pretending?”

“Well, that, yeah, and you should move.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will. That’s my life.”

She held out her hand to help Zoe up. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean here is where you should move. Right here, to Barefoot Bay on Mimosa Key. I think this is the one place you can have that thing you’re longing for, that dream that will make you whole and happy.”

“You sound like Pasha the Predictor now.”

Tessa ignored the comment. “A home, Zoe. This can be your forever home. And isn’t that what you want more than anything?”

So much for secret longings. How did Tessa know that?

“You’re not going to deny it, are you?” Tessa asked.

“Home is overrated,” Zoe said, looking up to the stars, suddenly imagining the utter peace and security of a night balloon flight wrapped in silence and sky. “I prefer to be untethered.”

Tessa sighed. “I guess that’s the difference between us, then. I’d kill for a few tethers I could diaper and love.”

Zoe put her hand on Tessa’s shoulder, handing her the lima bean. “Here. There were two little beans in this pod. Pasha would say that’s a sign you could have twins.”

“I wish Pasha’s predictions were right.”

Zoe angled her head, surprised. “They are.”

Tessa looked a little hopeful when she took the bean and headed into her bungalow, seeming much more lighthearted and leaving Zoe feeling exactly the opposite.

What was stopping her from telling the truth? Habit? Fear? The anger and disappointment she’d see in one of her closest friend’s eyes?

And yet she wanted to talk about it so much. She walked toward the bungalows, aware of a pressure on her heart so heavy she almost couldn’t breathe. What was that?

This can be your forever home. And isn’t that what you want more than anything?

Considering how well her friends knew her, it was a miracle they hadn’t figured out the truth by now.

She kicked the dirt and peered up at the moon, suddenly turning in the opposite direction, toward the other side of the resort, no longer concerned about night critters. Her heart ached with untold secrets. Her body tensed with the need to tear down that wall that surrounded the hard-drinking, joke-making, sex-loving party girl who never lets her feelings show.

Meandering through the back of Casa Blanca, she made her way to another wall—a wooden fence, actually. On the other side of it was…the thing she wanted most right then.





Chapter Eleven