Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(47)

“But there’s that fluffy white thing.”

“American Eskimo.” Zoe nodded. “Pretty dog, too.”

Evan sighed. “I also like him.” He pointed to a black-and-white rat terrier, sound asleep and looking far more peaceful than he probably was when awake.

“Rat terrier? Sounds like he might bring home some unwanted friends,” Oliver mused. “But you pick the dog who speaks to you.”

Still pondering, Evan walked back down the glass, leaving them alone again.

“You were saying?” Zoe asked.

“I was saying you shouldn’t have left.”

“It was time.”

On whose clock? “I want you to spend the night.”

She gestured toward the dogs. “Gonna get crowded in that house.”

“I want to sleep with you next to me, Zoe.”

She inched away as if the very idea gave her claustrophobia. “Not tonight. You have a big day tomorrow.”

“We’re all ready, and so is Pasha.”

At the first mention of her aunt’s name, a shadow crossed over Zoe’s face. Instantly she walked away to join Evan. “Did you see that little dachshund?”

“Yeah, he’s cute, too.” He put his hands on the glass and shook his head. “I can’t pick.”

Oliver stood behind them, the urge to put a protective hand on both of their shoulders surprisingly strong. But Zoe would just duck and run.

“Listen, Evan, the man who owns the store has a lot of information about each dog, including how big they’ll be and what their temperaments are. Why don’t we get a copy of that and take it to lunch and you can make a more informed decision?”

Zoe turned and smiled. “Such an Oliver-like idea.”

“Logical and sound,” he agreed. “What do you say, Evan?”

He hesitated, his attention darting from dog to dog; he was clearly overwhelmed with the weight of the doggie decision. “ ’Kay. I’m hungry.”

The inability to pick a breed lingered over lunch at the mall deli, distracting Evan enough that he barely ate his burger. Side by side in a booth with Zoe, Evan pored over the list from the pet store, troubled.

Zoe asked him questions and helped the boy hone in on what was important, while Oliver relished the connection between them, enjoying her quips and the sight of his son next to the woman he…

No. It didn’t matter how he felt. He could love Zoe from now until he took his last breath—and, damn it, he might—but would that ever be enough to hold on to a woman like her? No matter what her circumstances? How many times would he come out of the bathroom to find an empty bed? Home from work to find an empty house?

Zoe pushed the paper away from Evan. “Stop thinking so hard, kid. Eat your food and think about something else and the right answer will come to you. You, too, Dad.” She winked at Oliver, obviously aware he wasn’t listening to this conversation.

“Is that what you do? Think about something else when you have a problem?” Evan asked.

No, she runs off.

Zoe shrugged. “No, but you’re not me. You’re way smarter and you have too much information now, and you’re no longer going on your gut. Plus, it doesn’t matter.” She picked up an onion ring and used it to point at him. “You’re going to love this dog no matter what you get.”

“Do you have a dog?” he asked.

She shook her head and dipped the ring in ketchup. “I move around too much.”

Like, constantly. Oliver swallowed the retort along with some iced tea.

“Did you have one when you were a kid?” Evan asked.

She shook her head, then stopped as if reconsidering that. “Actually, one place had a beagle. …” Zoe’s voice trailed off as she caught herself. She shared a look with Oliver.

She’d told him earlier that she’d finally come clean with her friends. Would that honesty extend to others now, too? To Evan? Oliver sat perfectly still as he waited to find out.

“One place? You mean you don’t remember?” Evan asked.

Zoe put down the onion ring without eating it, brushing her fingers so some crumbs fell on her plate. “I…” She took a slow breath, her eyes cast down. “I lived in a lot of places.”

“Did your parents move a lot?” he asked.

Oliver held his sandwich poised in the air, watching and waiting and wondering what was going on in Zoe’s head. She still didn’t meet his gaze.

“My parents…” She swallowed. “I didn’t really have parents.”

Evan looked up, ready to argue, but then his expression softened. “Aunt Pasha raised you, right?”

There, she had her usual out. Oliver waited for her to take it, to quip about life with her gypsy aunt, to mention that her parents died in a car crash when she was ten.

Basically, he waited for her to lie to his son.

“She did raise me,” Zoe said. “But before that I lived in foster homes.”

Something in Oliver’s chest slipped.

“Like, you were an orphan?” Evan asked.

Zoe nodded. “Yep. Little Orphan Zoe.” But the humor didn’t ring true. And he could feel discomfort rolling off her in waves. Oliver wanted to step in, help her out, change the subject, anything to take the agony out of her eyes, but something told him not to.

This was Zoe’s confession to make and all he could do was love her for making it.

“What was that like?” Evan asked, a little tentative, as if he knew it wasn’t polite to ask questions about being an orphan.

Zoe tried for a casual shrug, but her shoulder stayed up and her expression dissolved from a woman about to make a joke to…a face he saw so rarely. Her eyes, which normally glittered with her easy smile, looked wide and sad.

“It sucked,” she said quietly. “Hope I can use that word in front of your son.”

“He’s said worse.”

“Much,” Evan agreed, but his attention was riveted on Zoe. “How come nobody adopted you?”

Finally that shoulder dropped in a slow slump. “I got too old and most people want babies.”

“But you’re so much fun.”

She gave him an elbow nudge. “Just like the dogs in the shelter that you don’t want to consider.”

Evan’s expression changed as that hit home. “How many houses did you live in?” he asked.

Oliver stepped in to save her. “Hey, it’s personal business, Ev, so—”

“It’s okay.” She waved him off as if she were trying to convince herself as much as them. “Really, I’m ready…it’s okay.” She leaned back and took a second to compose herself, then said, “I lost count after fifteen families. Sometimes I was only at one for a few weeks, sometimes longer. I never knew when the call would come that I had to move on. And so I wasn’t really nice to those people because I figured if I got too…” She closed her eyes.

“Zoe, you don’t have to—”

She caught the hand that Oliver held out. “I want to. I want to tell him this.” She added a smile. “But thanks.”

“Zoe doesn’t tell a lot of people this, Evan,” he said softly.

“But I’m telling him, now.” She let go of Oliver’s hand and turned to Evan. “The hardest part was that I didn’t want to get too comfortable. If I felt like something was mine—like my closet or my drawer or my bed or my family—then, sure enough, some old bag would show up at the door and tell me I had to leave.”

Evan was silent, mesmerized. And Oliver simply wanted to punch a wall. How had he never considered this aspect of her life?

She’d said she always wanted to get away from that last horrific home, and he’d accepted that as her reason for running. But it was even deeper than that. Staying—staying anywhere—meant getting hurt.

“So, as you can imagine,” she said, fighting for that light tone of hers and losing the battle, “it’s always been easier for me”—she shifted her gaze to Oliver, slicing him in two with the sincerity of it—“to not get attached. That way, when I left the closet or the drawer or the bed I liked so much, I didn’t miss it too badly.”

Of course. It made perfect sense. Now all he had to do was figure out how to convince her that wouldn’t happen. And trust her to love and not leave.

Was that even possible with a woman as damaged as Zoe?

“But then you got with Aunt Pasha,” Evan said, like a child determined to find the happy ending. “And it was like somebody took you home, huh?”

Zoe shook her head. “Not exactly, but it was better.” She reached across the table to touch Oliver’s hand, as if she understood that her message had finally sunk into Oliver’s skull.

Evan pulled out his phone.