Between Darkness and Daylight (15 page)

He shrugged, but she could feel his sense of well-being, his deep need to help, which not too many other jobs could satisfy.

"You love it," she repeated, smiling as she dragged him over to the train set. "Let's rev this baby up and take her for a spin."

After minor explanations of which controls handled which engines and switches, Zane handed the power pack over to Nova and watched as she sent one train flying down the track, through a tunnel, and screeching to a stop at one of the stations. He reached behind him, removing an authentic engineer's cap from the wooden peg on the wall and slapping it on her head. "Choo-Choo Foxx."

She giggled and started another train down the rails and over the bridge, watching the smoke puffing from the stack of the lead engine.

Turning to Zane, she smiled. "This is so cool."

"I think so. Can't get Ransom to try his hand at it though. And I bought and built it for him. But he thinks it's
corny
. Nothing like Grand Theft Auto."

"Video games don't have a thing on this. He doesn't know what he's missing."

"My thoughts exactly."

Nova felt him behind her, his body heat encompassing and blending with hers, and shivered at the feel of his breath in her ear as he leaned over her shoulder and watched her work the trains around the track. She leaned into him, felt his erection, hot and heavy, pushing against her lower back, and almost closed her eyes to better assimilate the pleasure of having him so close. "Ever had a derailment?"

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"Not yet."

"Ah, Mr. Cautious."

"Most of the time…" He nibbled her earlobe and she almost dropped the power pack. Her finger pressed the speed button on the control panel instead and sent one of the trains careening off the track when Zane gently circled the outer edges of her ear with his tongue.

A sliver of moist heat shot straight from her ear to her pussy and her clit throbbed with hunger and need inside her panties. "See what you made me do."

"I see." He leaned in, pressed his lips against the back of her throat, teased the skin with his tongue as if sampling a mouth-watering appetizer.

Nova put down the power pack and turned in his arms, kissing him full on the lips. His arms came up around her, his fingers caressing her back and creeping up her shoulders in a firm massage. She returned his embrace, fire in her belly as she pressed close to him and felt her vagina spasm. "Ransom?" she said between kisses and breathing.

Zane's eyes popped open, trained on the front door as if he expected to see his nephew standing there.

"No, I meant, is he going to be home soon?"

"Hmm, I'm glad you mentioned him."

Well,
she
wasn't. Nova suddenly felt cold when he released her and stepped back to glance at his watch. She wouldn't have expected anything else, and was both glad and sorry she had brought up Ransom. She would have regretted not mentioning him later if he'd popped in unannounced while she and Zane were in the middle of getting their swerve on. Sure, he was thirteen and an almost-hardened criminal, but she didn't want to traumatize the kid.

You did the right thing, girl, you did the
responsible
thing.

But the hunger roaring through her, liquid heat churning low in her belly and waiting for a release, said otherwise. How could allowing this sort of desire to go unquenched be right?

Kaylee would have said it just plain t'wasn't humane. Nova agreed, the throbbing in her groin nowhere near subsiding. She'd never wanted anyone this much.

She squeezed her legs together, desperately fidgeting, searching for escape or relief, whichever she found first.

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What was wrong with her? Was what she shared with Zane healthy?

Nova didn't think it was. Her feelings were entirely too lustful to be healthy. All he had to do was touch her hand, caress her palm with a finger, and she got wet; being in the same room with him inevitably had her wanting to be
with
him. That couldn't be healthy, not this early in the game, not knowing what she knew about him and how tenuous the foundation on which their relationship rested. Saving someone's life did not a life-long love affair make.

But it can't hurt.

"I'd better go put on the spaghetti."

Nova caught him by a wrist and drew him back to her. He frowned down at her and she silently got on her tip-toes to peck his cheek.

"What was that for?"

She shrugged and headed back to the train set, retrieving the power pack. "I'm going to work up an appetite riding the rails while you slave over a hot stove."

Ransom came in with his key just then and Nova almost sighed at how close they had come to being caught. That was probably half the excitement of trying to be with Zane, the constant threat that his teenage nephew was going to walk in on them any minute.

"I see he's got you hooked on the trains."

"I hooked myself."

Ransom hung his key on the wooden rack near the door and went to the kitchen, sniffing the fragrant steam rising into the atmosphere. "Whoa man, spaghetti and meatballs?"

"Meatballs are done, pasta'll be done in a sec."

"Sheesh, you should almost get stabbed every day."

Nova laughed from her spot at the train set, watching Zane shake his head as he broke and stirred pasta into a pot of boiling water.

"Get a load of him." He jerked his thumb at Ransom. "He'll do anything to get his favorite meal. Even have me fatally wounded."

Ransom went to his uncle and put a hand on his shoulder. "You know I was only joking, right, ol' man?"

"Old man?" Zane's brows rose.

"I mean that in the nicest way possible."

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Nova sat and watched the exchange, finding it hard to hold in her laughter.

Ransom left his uncle in the kitchen and joined Nova at the train set, silently watching for several moments before he asked, "So, you really like playing with this?"

"Are you kidding? I've wanted one of these since I was a girl."

"A train set? No dolls and tea parties?"

"Boy, don't make me hurt you." Nova took a playful swipe at his head and smiled at his giggling as he ducked and avoided her hand. "Dolls and tea parties are for sissies!"

Ransom pulled up a stool and sat opposite Nova, intently watching her take the trains through their paces around the tracks. "It's not like it takes any kind of skill."

"Is that what attracts you? Something to challenge your skills?"

"Yeah. Like rock climbing."

"I see you two have been talking behind my back." Zane finished draining his spaghetti. "How was Miss Ruben, by the way?"

"She was cool. Schneider wasn't doing too well. He had a little cold."

Ransom leaned close to Nova and said, "Schneider's Miss Ruben's Boxer.

I walk him sometimes, but he's not half as cute or half as much fun to play with as Yo-Yo. 'Sides, he's old, like twelve, so he doesn't have the same sort of energy."

Nova slapped a hand over her mouth. "Yo-Yo!"

"He'll survive a few hours without you," Zane said. "Besides, you can take him some leftovers. You're not thinking of leaving before dinner, are you? Not after I made all this food."

Nova looked from boy to man. They both seemed on edge, as if their lives hung in the balance of her response. Sure Yo-Yo would survive, but would she?

"Not that any of this will go to waste with the kid's appetite." Zane motioned to Ransom with his head. "But have dinner with us anyway, and I'll escort you home."

"Yeah, we'll escort you home."

"How gallant." She chuckled. "Like I said, you guys like to double-team."

"You'll stay?" Zane stared at her as if he could will her to say Yes.

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"Sure, why not? I'm starving."

"Bet!" Ransom leaped off of his stool and sprinted across the room.

"I'm going to wash my hands before supper."

Nova shut down the train set, replaced the power pack, and joined Zane in the kitchen.

"Anything I can do to help?

"Just eat." He leaned in for a kiss.

Nova felt his intent to make it a brief kiss—as if he was pecking his sister—and would have none of it. Taking a chance, especially since he was handling a hot pot, she pressed her lips to his, dipping in her tongue for a deeper taste of him. He gasped and she cupped his hard penis and lightly squeezed him through his pants.

Zane pulled back slightly after several lingering seconds. "You'd better go make that call," he murmured against her lips.

"To be continued." Nova scraped a nail across the crotch of his pants, reveling in the tremors that shook his body before she headed to her bag, which rested in a corner of the sectional. She didn't know where the
femme
fatale,
sexy seductress was coming from, but she liked Zane's reaction to her.

She retrieved her cell and made a call to her nearest neighbor, asking her to walk and feed Yo-Yo.

"Everything straightened out?" Zane asked as she finished her call and made her way to the table.

"Everything's cool."

"He likes you, you know."

"Ransom?"

"No, Schneider. Of course, Ransom, silly."

Nova laughed, more interested in how Ransom's uncle felt about her but not daring to ask. Instead, she said, "I like him too."

"He hasn't really had a female role model in his life since—"

"Your sister died?"

Zane nodded. "He and Sinny were pretty close, too."

Nova envied his family; as small as it was, it surpassed hers by far.

Her throat tightened with yearning as she thought about the

relationships Zane had shared with his sister and wife, and even the relationship he shared with his nephew, as troubled as it sometimes 106

Gracie C. McKeever

appeared. She used to think she and Matt had a pretty good relationship, that they easily shared intimacies, but just a couple of days in Zane's and Ransom's company showed her she hadn't know as much about her fiancé after five years as she knew about Zane after a couple of weeks.

Ransom came back, a troubled look on his face. She knew what was bothering him as soon as she saw him, though she wasn’t sure if that was a result of good old-fashioned intuition or an increase in her psychic gifts.

But she did know and cursed her carelessness as she wondered if Ransom would say anything to his uncle.

Zane noticed his nephew's look too. "What's up, sport?"

A car alarm went off outside somewhere nearby before Ran could answer. Nova thought she recognized it as her Mercedes and was almost relieved to excuse herself and head for the nearest window with her car keys out. She made it to within a few feet before the glass in one of the top panes shattered.

She froze, having just a second to think
gunfire
before Zane's footsteps pounded towards her as if in slow-motion. He tackled her to the carpet as another rock crashed through a second pane, and Nova felt the air whoosh out of her lungs beneath his weight.

"Uncle Zane!"

"Stay there, Ran, and get to the floor!" Zane glanced at Nova, eased off of her so that she could breathe. "Are you okay?"

"What just happened?"

He shook his head and looked at one of the large rocks.

Nova reached out to retrieve the closest one before Zane could and saw a bolt of lightening flash before her eyes as soon as she made contact.

Then her world went black.

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107

Chapter 10

He is hate.

Darkness and hostility permeate his soul and everything he does until
it is all that he knows, all that he is, delineating his existence.

She feels all these as surely as she knows her eyes are brown and her
hair is black. She cannot, however, see his face because his outer
appearance is so distorted and overpowered by his inner rage. She cannot
identify his heart's motives and this uncertainty scares her more than
knowing what he is.

He could be anyone, someone close to her. Someone close to Zane and
Ransom. How has he has gotten to this point? What has driven him to
such malevolence?

Who is he? In the end, it isn't important; what matters is that he is
hate.

And he is out there. Waiting.

* * * *

"Uncle Zane! Nova!"

Zane opened his eyes, chest tight, head thundering with weird images and uncanny emotions.

He looked over at Nova, who was also just coming around as Ransom ran over to them both. He slid his hand from hers, breaking their link a little too late.

"Uncle Zane?" Ransom stood by them, cordless in hand. "You want me to call an ambulance or the po—"

"No!" Zane and Nova chorused.

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Gracie C. McKeever

Zane rose to his haunches beside her and reached out a hand, simultaneously apprehensive and eager, wanting that feeling again, both longing for and fearing the electricity.

But it was Nova who denied it, ignoring his hand to stand on her own.

To protect him or herself?

Hate. He is hate.

Who was
he
? Did she think
he
was Zane and that he meant her harm?

Or was there someone out there that Zane didn't know about?

"Are you okay?"

"You're a dangerous man to be around."

He could tell from her grin that she was teasing, but her smile didn't soften the truth of her statement or make him feel any less guilty or responsible.

"How long were we out?" Zane blurted, knowing that his and Nova's blackouts had occurred simultaneously.

"A few seconds, maybe," Ransom said, standing in the middle of the room and shaking his head as he surveyed the damage. "Sheesh."

Zane put an arm around his shoulder and led him towards the kitchen.

"Sweep as much of this stuff up as you can for me, sport. I'll get in contact with a glass repair place."