Between Darkness and Daylight (6 page)

She didn't know if her attraction had anything to do with their psychic connection or just the fact that Zane was so damn gorgeous, with his raven hair and tea-colored eyes framed by curling lush lashes and set beneath thick eyebrows that she wanted to
lick
.

Then there was his body—Nova salivated now at the memory of it—

the broad shoulders that tapered down to a flat washboard stomach and lean waist that made all her previous visions of him pale in comparison.

Since when had parental guardians and uncles started looking sexier than centerfold models? No person, no man, should be that good looking, that alluring.

It had taken everything in her not to throw herself in his arms at the precinct.

Nova looked at the antique ivory clock on the fireplace mantel and noted the time. Zane had called a little earlier to say what train he and Ran would be on, and now she had just enough time to get to the station before they arrived.

She was on the verge of euphoria, bordering on panic. She shouldn't feel this excited at the prospect of seeing a relative stranger, especially when she surmised the man probably didn't like her very much.

She’d seen the predatory way he’d given her the once-over—with grudging admiration, chewing up her assets and spitting them out as if they weren't worth his time, as if
she
were a fluffy snoot who didn't deserve the time of day from a hard-working, serious man like him. Nova wanted to tell him they were on the same side but knew she needed to take her time.

Then she’d almost blown it when she’d mentioned the smoking. How could she tell him she’d seen him smoking in her mind—what he was wearing, how and where he was standing—when he’d put out his last cigarette?

Now she understood why the boy had seemed so familiar to her, why she’d had such a visceral reaction to him. He was from her visions, too, a part of her thoughts and soul, though not as intimately as his uncle was.

But one element was missing.
Where is the woman from my visions?

Who
is the woman?

Nova grabbed her car keys and handbag on the way out of the house, looking forward to what promised to be a very interesting day.

Between Darkness and Daylight

39

* * * *

Ransom pulled the covers over his head as Zane burst into the room for the third time that morning, flicking on the light this go-round to emphasize that he wanted his nephew to get up, pronto.

"Rise and shine, slugger. Three strikes, you're out."

Ran turned his back to the door, grumbled something into his pillow.

"Get up." Zane crossed the room and pulled off the covers. Ran curled into the fetal position and stuck his folded hands between his thighs, as if to keep them warm. Zane almost laughed as he sat down beside him.

"Ran, gotta go."

"Why? It's a freakin' Saturday."

"Watch your mouth." Zane brushed away a long lock of hair that had fallen over one of Ran’s eyes. His heart sped at how much the boy looked like Sage, more and more every day. "Besides, what does the day of the week have to do with the price of tea in China?"

"What?" Ran turned over to squint at him with that confused, grownups-are-weird look he’d perfected over the last couple of years.

"Never you mind. Just get up. We're already running late."

"I don't wanna go."

"You should have thought of that before your little escapade."

Ransom jerked to a sitting position and pinned him with an accusatory look that made Zane's heart sink and his brain go oh-oh-what-now..

"I don't see why I have to ruin my weekend just cuz you wanna push up on a sister!"

"What?"

"You heard me. I saw the way you were looking at her. Just trying to impress and score some points is all."

"Whether I am or not is none of your damn business, mister. Now get up." He knew he shouldn't have come out and cursed like that, regretted it as soon as the words flew out of his mouth. He’d lowered himself right down to the kid's juvenile level, but hadn't been able to help it. The enormous amount of time he spent with fresh, jive-talking teens day in and day out now showed in appalling ways.

"You're not my father."

40

Gracie C. McKeever

"You know what, Ransom? I'm the only father you've got."

Ransom jumped out of the bed and stalked towards the door, catching Zane completely off-guard as he fled from the room.

Zane got up and went after him. When he caught up halfway between the large loft's living room area and the front door, he grabbed an arm and turned the kid around to face him. "Where the heck do you come off, Ran, and where do you think you're going?"

"To find my father."

Zane sighed at the threat. The kid had delivered it often in the past, especially when he’d first moved in, boldly declaring his intention to run away and find his dad. Once he’d gotten halfway to Hoboken, the last known residence of the ignoble Trevor Cross. Just went to show how resourceful a kid could be when pissed off with the guardian in his life.

"You think he’d put up with half the crap I put up with from you?"

"I put up with crap, too."

"Fine, so we both put up with crap. Live with it."

"I don't want to live with
you!"

"Don't you think you're taking this whole rebellious youth thing just a little too far, Ransom? Just how far do you think you’d get out there on the streets all alone, in your pajamas?"

"I’d manage." Ran flushed, pushed past him to go back to his bedroom.

Zane followed several steps behind. "You and your father deserve each other, you know that? You're both incorrigible."

Ransom froze in his tracks just outside his bedroom door and turned a such a wounded look on him, Zane's heart dropped at his own betrayal.

Ransom looked as if Zane had just killed his mother, and Zane felt like he had, too.

"I hate you." Ransom continued into his room and slammed the door behind him.

That was not something that would ever have gone on in his mother's house when he was growing up. Adair Youngblood-Baldwin did not like closed doors in the house where she lived and paid bills. And no way would Zane or Sage have gotten away with all the back talk—
especially
that ‘hate’ word—not without having to retrieve several teeth from the floor.

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41

Zane pounded the door with his fist a couple of times. "You can hate me all you want, Ransom, but you’d better be dressed and ready to leave this house in fifteen minutes!" Then he went to a far corner of the loft to let off the rest of his steam with the extensive model train collection he’d bought and set up for Ran. He played with it more often than the kid did, especially at times like this.

Right about now, he wanted to blow up a set of model trains like the dad on
The Addams Family
did on a regular basis. Maybe there was something to be said for being creepy and kooky.

* * * *

Ransom came out twenty minutes later, instead of fifteen, pushing Zane's buttons further. But he was freshly showered and clad in a just-pressed red-checked flannel shirt and a pair of baggy carpenter jeans that, despite their name and intent, still looked too clean and neat to wear for a painting job.

"What?" Ransom raised his arms away from his body.

"You're going to wear brand new clothes for this job?"

Ransom reached around his bedroom doorjamb, retrieved a knapsack from the floor, and flung it over one shoulder. "Bringing sweats to change into."

"You're smarter than I give you credit for."

Ran smirked. "What about you?"

"Me?" Zane put a palm on his chest. "This is your party, not mine."

"You're not even going to help me just a little?"

"We'll see." Zane pushed the kid towards the door. "Let's get moving.

We're already—"

"Late. Yeah, yeah, I know."

* * * *

Ransom knew he’d acted like a total spoiled brat earlier, knew he did it a lot. Half the time didn't like his own self, so he knew he wasn't very likable to his uncle. He couldn't blame the guy for calling him out and 42

Gracie C. McKeever

wouldn't have blamed him if he just decided to drop him off at his father's doorstep and never looked back again.

He didn't know why he did it, picked and picked until he got on what his uncle called his "reserve nerves." It would be nothing more than he deserved if Uncle Zane had taken a belt or extension chord to his hide. But he never had, no matter how atrocious Ransom acted with him. The worst he’d done was that cuff upside the head at the police station, and Ran had deserved it. Heck, he might have done the same thing if faced with a nephew like him. Besides, he’d gotten much worse from his dad as a small child, and for way less serious offenses. His uncle had to know he didn't mean it when he said he wanted to go live with his father. No sane person would want that for himself, not in a million years.

Ran glanced at his uncle's profile now, admiring the strong lines as Zane quietly sat in his window seat and looked at the bird's-eye view of the Hudson River scenery flying by. Ran imagined his own hair stopping at the nape, neatly cut around the ears just so, instead of the long wild mane he favored. Even with the long hair, everyone who saw them together said he was the spitting image of his uncle.

He had looked for that same profile right after the first plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. How relieved he’d been when he spotted his uncle’s familiar dark head among the confusion of screaming students and teachers rushing out of the front entrance of the High School of Discipline and Civil Values. They’d pushed through the crowds to meet and Uncle Zane had grabbed him in a bear hug so tight, Ran had thought the man would squeeze the life out of him.

"Stay by my side!"

And he had, he and several dozen other students and teachers, all hungry for direction and a savior. They’d all followed Uncle Zane and Ransom's algebra teacher Mr. Spencer as they led the charge, as if with remote detection, away from the school and falling debris, and towards the Staten Island Ferry.

Ransom didn't know if that was when he’d first started acting out. The seeds of his insubordination had been planted during his mother's illness, or perhaps at her death a month before the bombings. He’d started to worry about a lot of things then and care about nothing, because nothing was worth caring about when it could so easily and quickly be snatched
Between Darkness and Daylight

43

away. His Aunt Sinny, his mother…When that first plane had hit and he hadn't been able to find his uncle in his office or anywhere on the school grounds, he’d thought it was happening again, that God was punishing him by taking away someone he cared about.

Uncle Zane turned to him now, as if he knew he was the subject of his thoughts, and gave him a disarming grin that made Ransom smile.

"What're you thinking about over there, sport?"

"Nothing." Ransom shrugged. He didn't dare say, wouldn't, but figured his disturbing contemplations must have shown pretty clearly on his face for his uncle to ask.

Zane reached over and ruffled his hair and Ransom whined, putting up the proper display of annoyance as he ducked his head and tried to avoid his uncle's public show of affection.

Zane just laughed, put him in a brief headlock before releasing him.

"Hey, you're mussing up my hair." Ransom smoothed his locks as he settled back in his seat to glare at his uncle.

"There's just so much of it to muss up, isn't there?"

"Oh boy, here we go."

"When are you going to get a haircut?"

"When I get some money." Ran gave Zane his most appealing grin.

"Not going to work, sport. I give you enough weekly allowance."

Ran wouldn't admit it, but his uncle gave him more than enough pocket change for a thirteen-year-old. "Yeah, but a haircut costs twelve bucks, plus the tip—"

"Twelve bucks? Who are you going to? Ben Affleck's barber?"

"They're not called barbers, they're called hair stylists."

"Well, whip-dee-do, and no way, sport."

"I could always go for the long-haired hippie look."

"You're almost there already."

"We can't all be as deft and skilled with the clippers as you."

"Speaking of…" Zane gave Ran's head the once-over and Ransom frowned.

"No way. I’d rather go to a barber."

"Hair stylist."

"Whatever."

"You said I was skilled. What's the matter? You don't trust me?"

44

Gracie C. McKeever

Ransom just rolled his eyes and gazed past his uncle out the window.

Saved by the train station. "We're here."

Zane looked out the window as the train slowed to a stop, chuckled, and mussed Ran's hair again. "So we are."

* * * *

Nova was already at the depot when they arrived at Beacon station, alighting from her silver Mercedes SUV with a golden retriever at her side. They made quite a pair. The animal's movements were as fluid and efficient as its owner's, its copper-gold coat as radiant and feathery as Nova's long jet-black hair was shiny and fluffy, cascading down her back in healthy waves beneath a straw cowboy hat. Nova’s long-sleeve pink top hugged her curves, revealing an expanse of smooth, toned belly and a gold navel ring between the lace-trimmed hem and the top of a pair of hip-hugging blue jeans. On her feet, she wore a pair of black motorcycle boots.

Zane wondered at her schizo outfit—what mode of transportation did she prefer between her legs: bike or horse? His cock hardened behind his jeans at the images.

God, that was incredibly rude, even if he only thought it. What was it about her that made him feel so outrageously lascivious?

"I was beginning to think you guys had changed your minds and weren't going to show up." She stopped just in front of them. The dog heeled obediently, tail wagging behind him as if he couldn't wait for the one word that would let him leap all over his owner's visitors.

"We ran into a little trouble on the way out. Didn't make the train we’d first planned to."