Nicole Edwards: Zane

♀♂

V’s phone rang as soon as she walked through her front door. Glancing down at the screen, she noticed it was Zoey, and she wondered if her friend had forgotten something. They’d just spent the better part of the day cleaning houses, so V couldn’t imagine what else they had to talk about that was noteworthy enough for her to call so soon.

“Hey!” V greeted Zoey when she answered the phone. “Miss me already?”

“I always miss you.” V could hear the smile in Zoey’s voice, but it didn’t help to explain what she was calling about.

“What’s up?”

“Kaleb just told me that Zane got released from the hospital today.”

Wow . V had to sit down for a second. “Already? The doctors think he’s ready?”

“It would seem so. He’s been officially released, and Travis is on his way to get him now.”

“That’s fantastic.” V knew her voice didn’t back up the words she muttered, but she was having difficulty breathing. It truly was terrific that Zane was finally coming home, but V had been dreading this day for too long to actually be excited about it.

“He wants Travis to take him to your house, V.”

The words out of Zoey’s mouth were like a punch to the solar plexus, leaving V feeling even more out of breath than she already was. And a little dizzy.

“No. He can’t come here.”

He couldn’t. Not after what had happened. Not after Jake Sanders and his friends had beaten the shit out of Zane right there in her front yard. V still couldn’t come and go through her front door without seeing the gruesome image playing through her mind, making her stomach churn and her heart ache. In fact, the overwhelming terror was beginning to wear on her.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to stop him.”

“You have to. Call Travis. Tell him not to bring him over here,” V rambled. “I’ll... I’ll meet Zane at his house.”

She might be able to handle that much. Seeing him was going to be hard enough, but she definitely wouldn’t be able to see him at her house.

“Today?” V barely heard Zoey’s question, her head still reeling from the memories flooding her.

V wasn’t sure when a good time to see Zane was, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to put it off much longer. Especially not if he was out of the hospital.

“You have to go see him today, V. I won’t be able to convince him otherwise.”

“Fine,” V huffed. “I’ll go see him in a couple of hours.”

V could hear Zoey’s muffled voice as she plainly told Kaleb what they were talking about.

V held her cell phone to her ear with one hand and her face in the other, her elbows propped on her knees as she sat on her couch. She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten to this point in her life, but for some reason, she couldn’t seem to dig out of the despair that had plagued her ever since that horrific day. The overwhelming sense of responsibility for what happened was almost debilitating in its intensity. All because of that jackass Jake and his big fucking mouth.

V had grown accustomed to being flirted with, she’d even gotten used to the assumptions that most men made because of whom her mother was, but it would appear Zane hadn’t been able to brush off the nasty comments the way V had. Instead, he’d confronted Jake in front of a large group of people. That was the day Jake made the threat, one no one paid much attention to because of his penchant for unsubstantiated threats.

Jake Sanders had grown up with most of them, although he was several years older than V and Zoey. Since he was held back a couple of years in school, they’d actually attended high school at the same time. He hadn’t been well liked back then, and his reputation hadn’t improved significantly over the years either. He was one of those men who liked to stir up trouble, spouting bullshit whenever anyone was close enough to listen. Most people had learned to tune him out, or flat out ignore him, which was what they had done the day he’d threatened Zane.

She remembered the day they’d been at Anderson Croft’s mother’s house, trying to clean out the house after the woman spent years hoarding everything she could get her hands on. That particular day had started out like many others; everyone talking, laughing and actually enjoying what they had set out to accomplish. That was until Jake’s unruly mouth got out of control like it tended to do.

Jake seemingly set his sights on her, and V tried to be as polite as she could be, ignoring his snide comments and even avoiding him for a good part of the day. At one point, he began saying nasty things about V’s mother, long after V had refused his numerous advances.

Although the things Jake said about her mother, then about her, had broken her heart, she’d learned long ago not to let the stones shatter the tough exterior she’d carefully erected.

It had taken her a long time to be able to stand up tall and ignore what others said about her mother, some of them true, others made up over the years through various versions of one story or another. Living in a small town like Coyote Ridge didn’t make it easy to avoid the various rumors and lies, but V had somehow managed to ignore them.

Mostly.

“V?”

Zoey’s voice broke through her thoughts, and she stood up, shaking off the despair that threatened to consume her all over again.

Taking a deep breath, she answered as strongly as she could, “I’m here.”

“There’s one more thing you need to know.”

Shit.

V wasn’t sure she could handle any more grim news, and Zoey’s tone didn’t sound like she was about to tell her that she won the lottery or something equally as exciting.

It seemed as though bad news was all she was getting these days, and it was certainly having an impact on her mood. How was she supposed to fake the happy-go-lucky girl when everything seemed to be crumbling around her?

“What?” she finally asked when she felt she could handle whatever Zoey was going to throw at her.

“Braydon told Zane about Jake harassing you.” Zoey didn’t sound happy, not that V expected her to.

“Dammit.” V knew she shouldn’t have said anything to Zoey.

“I’m sorry, V. I told Kaleb because I thought someone needed to know. This is serious. Look what he did to Zane.”

V didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t like she told Zoey not to say anything, although, looking back on it now, she should have.

“You need to be careful, V. About Jake. He’s crazy.”

The man was crazy all right. And homicidal. What he had done to Zane wasn’t just a warning. He and his friends had beaten Zane so badly, V was certain if she hadn’t been there to alert her neighbors, they probably would have killed him.

“And Zane’s changed,” Zoey continued. “He’s not the same man he was before. His brothers are keeping an eye on him.”

V sighed.

She had purposely stayed away from Zane for the last couple of months, choosing to find out how he was doing by asking Zoey or Beau. Zane’s reputation was more of a fighter than a lover, unlike most of his brothers. He had a short fuse to begin with and a protective streak a mile wide. V hadn’t wanted to provoke the first, and she didn’t deserve the second, so she had avoided him at all costs.

Zane wasn’t a man to mess with. He didn’t have the laidback country boy attitude that Kaleb and Sawyer did, and he wasn’t the fun loving, attention grabbers like the twins, Braydon and Brendon either. Zane Walker was edgy. He was hard, and what made it worse, he was infused with a passion so fierce, those he cared about risked the chance at getting burned from time to time

“I’ll go talk to him.” V could do that much.

With a quick goodbye, she hung up the phone and dropped it onto the couch cushion as she paced back and forth continuously.