Kiss Me (Fool's Gold #17)(28)
“I’m sure it did to Zane.” And it certainly did to her, although she couldn’t say why.
“Maybe.” Maya shook out the contents of her makeup bag and began sorting through the items on her bed. “But it’s not as if he loved her. Zane married Sally to provide Chase with a mother. He’s such an idiot. He actually told her that about a year into the marriage.”
“Chase?” Phoebe asked with a frown.
“No, Zane. I never got all the details, but I think Sally was pushing for kids of her own. Zane refused and finally explained that he’d married her so Chase would grow up with some stability. Hardly the romantic declaration designed to get a wife’s heart to fluttering. Especially when she thought they’d married for love. She split. Zane got worried about losing the ranch, but all Sally wanted was compensation for duties performed. I heard that she calculated a salary equivalent for the time she’d been married to Zane and presented him with a bill.”
Maya laughed, as if she found the whole situation amusing, but Phoebe couldn’t help thinking how sad it all sounded. Zane marrying someone he didn’t love to provide his brother with a mother. He’d done the wrong thing with the best of intentions. How many times had she done exactly the same thing...and gotten burned?
“I guess it’s not completely his fault,” Maya said reluctantly. “I know he had a tough time after his dad died.”
“Meaning?”
“My former stepfather loved Zane’s mother so much, he never recovered from her death. From what I could tell, he barely noticed Zane. The old man married a few times to try and forget, but it never worked. Instead he made everyone’s life hell.”
Phoebe’s tender heart clenched at the thought of Zane’s pain. “He’s had to deal with a lot,” she murmured.
“I guess. But he still acts like he’s got something stuck up his ass. Look at how he is with Chase.”
“You always talk about him as if he doesn’t care about anything, but didn’t marrying Sally prove that he worries about his brother?” she asked. “And what about the cattle drive? He’s doing it to teach Chase an important lesson. You love Chase. You should be pleased that Zane’s willing to show him how to be a good man.”
Maya’s green eyes widened. “Oh, my. Someone has it bad.”
Phoebe shook her head. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Absolutely.”
Maya didn’t look convinced, and who could blame her? Phoebe didn’t have it bad...but she did have it.
* * *
IT WAS CLOSE to midnight when Phoebe realized she wasn’t going to be able to sleep. Maya had crashed shortly after ten—no doubt the result of working twenty-hour days all week so that she could take time off. Phoebe should have been tired, but instead she felt restless.
She pulled jeans on over her pj bottoms and grabbed her jacket, then walked barefoot along the hall and down the stairs.
The house was still, with that hushed quality that comes when everyone is asleep. Phoebe noticed that a few lamps had been left burning, probably for the safety of any guest who felt compelled to wander in the night.
As it had the first afternoon she’d arrived, the house impressed her with its high ceilings and open floor plan. While the furniture in place worked, she could easily imagine other styles fitting well with the moldings and hardwood floors. In the least expensive neighborhoods of Beverly Hills this place would get at least three million. On the exclusive streets, the price would come close to doubling.
At the front door she paused to check for an alarm system, then remembered where she was and laughed quietly. She doubted Zane went in much for motion sensors or perimeter alarms.
She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. The night was even more still out here, and cold. She was surprised she couldn’t see her breath. It would be warmer down in Fool’s Gold, but the ranch was at a higher elevation. Her toes curled against the freezing temperature of the painted wood, but she didn’t retreat. Instead she walked to the railing and looked down at the storybook town nestled on the shore of the little lake. Then she stared up at the inky, black night.
There were thousands of stars. Even on the clearest night in Los Angeles, she’d never seen half this many.
“I should have paid attention in astronomy class,” she murmured, then smiled. “Okay, I should have taken astronomy in the first place.”
She tilted her head in an effort to find something easy like the Big Dipper and the North Star. She found the former, but couldn’t remember if the North Star was off its handle or did she need to look for the Little Dipper first. Then, as she took in the endless sea of twinkling lights, she became aware of a...presence.
Milliseconds before she turned, she heard a footfall. Had she been anywhere but Zane’s ranch, she would have panicked. Strange footsteps at night in the city were never good news. But this was different. Despite her unfamiliarity with her surroundings, she felt safe. Besides, the odds were good that she knew who was out here with her.
She turned and saw Zane approaching. In the dim light of the porch, he was little more than a shadowy silhouette, but that only added to his appeal. He wore a thick, leather jacket that hung open. Unlike her, he still wore the clothes he’d been in that day. He was imposing and more than a little out of her league. She probably should have run for the hills, or at least her room. Instead she hugged her arms to her chest and wondered if she’d been in bed long enough to make her hair stick up in weird places.