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“A few days so don’t be planning any funeral arrangements. It won’t go that far.” Kane stroked his chin. “Although I have to admit, I wanted it to go that far. You would’ve been safer if we could’ve planned a staged funeral and we might have been able to lure your father back to Erwin.”
Drina rolled her eyes. “Tell me you don’t believe that. He hasn’t been here for the big moments in life. He won’t show up for the low ones. Jax Jackson told me that once and turns out, he’s right. Dad isn’t coming back. No matter what happens here or what happens to us. He isn’t about to show his cowardly face.”
“Drina, enough,” Coco said, giving a quick tilt of the head toward Zak and Kurt.
“You’re right, Coco. It is enough.” She turned to look at Zak and said, “Call me sometime. I’m in the book.”
Before he could stop her, she ran up the steps leading to the front porch and disappeared inside the house. Zak looked bewildered. “Did I miss something somewhere?”
Coco turned to Peyton. “Is it just me or does Kane mess up the ebb and flow wherever he goes?”
Peyton just smiled. She looked at Kane as if she positively loved him all the more.
“I don’t guess you brought Nory with you.” She stood to the side straightening out her club dress, the dress she feared probably carried the stench of cigarette smoke, liquor, and sex. Given the night she’d had, she should probably be grateful the material wasn’t stained with cum, blood and gunshot residue.
“She’d love to see you,” Peyton said quietly, pity in her voice.
“Don’t do that,” Coco said, bracing for regret but refusing to think in terms of remorse. She’d made a choice. Sending Nory to live with her cousins was the right thing to do. Right now, Nory wasn’t safe there. Their lives in Erwin weren’t safe thanks to the choices her father had made so many years ago.
“You’re welcome at our place anytime,” Kane said.
“How long will you be staying?” Coco asked coolly.
Thanks to Kane and his lack of tact, Drina would probably shut down for a few days. She couldn’t carry guilt. She couldn’t shoulder this sort of blame. And since Kane didn’t seem to be the slightest bit concerned with how he’d delivered the news of the woman’s death, Coco was ready for him to leave.
“Think it would be all right if I went in and tried to talk to Drina?” Zak asked, concern marring his brow.
“Probably not,” Kane and Coco said at the same time, staring at one another as if they felt like the other one had spoken out of turn.
“This isn’t something she’ll just sweep under a rug and forget. A woman lost her life because of Drina, because she looked like her and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Well I know something about being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m talking to her.” And with that, Zak turned around and marched straight inside the Baldini home.
* * * *
“There you are.” Zak hesitated before he entered. Then he thought about the night before, how they’d hit it off and seemingly been inseparable since their first introduction.
“I don’t want to talk right now, Zak.” She was sobbing. Her voice was broken, shattered. Her shoulders rose and fell rapidly and her soft cries were barely audible, but he heard them all the same.
“Well, that’s just too bad.” He entered her room, shut and locked the door and stood there another minute, trying to decide on the best approach.
Remembering the way his father had once described his love for his mother, he decided the best course of action was a lot of honesty and a direct approach. He sat down next to her, curving his arm over her waist and deciding then that this woman was his future. She had him believing in things he’d never thought about in his entire life—love, marriage, kids, family, sanity away from his family business, and a long list of other favorable possibilities.
He sat there for what seemed like an hour or longer before he finally brushed her hair down her back, loving that silken feeling under his fingertips. “Would you turn over here and look at me at least?”
“I asked you to leave.”
Zak, a stubborn man by trait, decided to quickly put aside a few obstacles and hurdles before he told her the straight of things. “Okay, let’s get one thing out of the way right away. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You don’t understand,” she wailed. “I’m ultimately responsible for that woman’s death.”
“That’s wrong and right,” he said. “You are not ultimately responsible for that woman’s death. From what I’ve gathered downstairs that blame is on your father’s shoulders, wherever they may be.” From what he had heard about her father, he’d spare a guess they were propped up between a whore’s legs but he didn’t want to mention that at the moment. Drina was upset enough. “You’re right by saying I don’t understand this particular situation, but you and I have more in common than you realize.”
She still didn’t look at him. Her soft cries were now more muffled, and still breaking his heart.
“For god’s sake, turn around here and look at me.” He flipped her over and stared into those gorgeous dark eyes. He wasn’t just lost then, he was shipwrecked on a private island, destined to spend his life in a predetermined fashion with one woman, one great love.
Her lips trembled. Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes.
