As the road stretched out in front of them, her mind raced back to the closet in the beach house. When he had opened the door to the closet, she had been in there for almost an hour. When she had woken in the middle of the night, she had been unable to sleep. Not because he was in the house, but because she never went back to sleep after waking in the night. Over the years, she had learned she works best in the middle of the silent night. With headphones on to block the quiet of the house, she was able to let the stories flow like water.
Not wanting to disturb him, she had gone into the closet. Brian had once told her Zachary was a light sleeper, so she went to the only place she could think to get away from him. He probably thought she was crazy.
It had only taken her seconds to realize he had a gun and was nearly naked in front of her. Her breath had gone even before he slammed his body into hers.
His hard muscles had pushed her into the back of the closet with more strength than she could deal with. It took all her will not to make noise as her breasts were crushed between their bodies. She had tried to get a little relief, but he just kept shifting and grinding her into the wall. Now she wished she had concentrated on his nearly naked body instead of the pain, but at the time, only the pain registered.
It wasn’t until they were in the car that she could think and notice him driving through town in his black boxers. His entire body was on display for her, almost every inch of it open to her gazing—if she had been bold enough to get more than a peak in.
“Are you saying the only job you have ever had was writing?” His voice pulled her back to now.
“Yes.” Her voiced sounded hoarse, even to her.
“I want the long answer,” Zachary said with a chuckle.
“Okay. Let’s see. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing. Once I knew how to make a sentence, I was putting them together to put the stories in my mind on paper. It was kind of a hobby I did when my mom was working. She was a waitress. She worked at a café during the day and at a bar on Friday and Saturday nights. Once I turned eight, she left me alone when she worked. I couldn’t leave the apartment. That’s when I started to write, turn on the radio, and put the stories on paper.”
“She left you alone when you were eight? The law is twelve.” He slowly let out a breath and said, “Go on.”
“By the time she died, I was pretty much on my own all the time. She had started working at the bar every day. Sometimes, I wouldn’t see her for days when she would start drinking. She didn’t always remember she had a kid when she drank by that time. Anyway, she died, and I was still just writing when I was bored. I had written a lot of stuff, but nothing important. When I ended up in the first foster home, it was bad. There were six kids from the system there, and the mom worked all the time. She had an office job but was able to put in a lot of overtime. The dad liked to drink and watch TV, but when the lights went out, he liked to get handsy with the kids—any of them. I tried to stay in my room and away from him, but he would come in anyway. I shared it with two other girls. I may have been twelve, but I knew that look. I took off and ran as far as I could. I spent the night on the beach and by morning, a cop had picked me up.” She stopped. “You don’t care about that.”
“Yes, Zephyr, I want to know.”
“The cop took me to the station and called the social worker. I asked for your dad since he had been good to me when Mom died. He made it to me before the social worker did. By the time the social worker got there, he had a family lined up to take me in. They were nice. It lasted for a while, but then I went to another. But if I felt uncomfortable, Brian would get me moved. If the foster dad leered at me, I left. My boobs were an issue sometimes.” Why did she have to keep bringing them into it?
“Men are pigs. You were talking about writing.” He laughed.
“Oh, yeah, so when I was in all those foster homes, I would go to my room and write to escape. Let my mind take me to better places and better lands. When I was fifteen, I don’t know why or how, but I started the traveler series. First, it started with one book…one journey. Then it turned into two, and so on. I would long-hand write at night and type it out in the computer lab at school during the day. Soon I wasn’t getting enough computer time, and the notebooks were piling up. Then in my junior year, I got two free hours in the computer lab a day. I was able to start whipping through the notebooks. Then in senior year, I could get four hours; half a day. I know Brian had something to do with it. He wanted to get me my own computer, but we both knew it would be stolen in a week.” She chuckled at her past predicament.
“When I was seventeen, I had three books complete and was working on another one and reviewing the fourth. I wanted to find a publisher and see if they would be interested or if I was wasting my time. Brian helped me find a few, and I submitted a sample. Within weeks, there were three companies that wanted me. Harry Potter was big then, so fantasy was hot. With your dad’s help, I picked one, but we stipulated that the contract would not go into effect until I was eighteen. So, the first book was released the week after my birthday, but I got the bonus check on it. I was a published writer the day I became an adult. I have never done anything else,” she finished, shrugging her shoulders.
“What did you do with the bonus?”
“I paid off Brian’s house and the beach house. He had fallen behind on the payments on the beach house and was losing it. I made sure he got to keep it until he died,” she said. She knew he hated that she had gotten the house in the will.
His eyebrows shot up. “That’s why he left it to you?”
“No, he left it to me because I lived there. He left you his house in Tampa because you work in Tampa. He left us what we needed, not what we wanted,” she replied, knowing his dad would have been upset with them fighting over the beach house.
During the story, she had dropped her computer onto her lap and he could see her nipples pressing against the fabric of her shirt. She lifted the computer back up against her again, hugging it to her. She knew Zachary had no idea about Brian’s finances. Brian would never have told him about it.
Silence filled the car again as the sign for Miami city limits came into view. At the first exit, he pulled the car off the highway for the first time all morning. They pulled into the parking lot of an all-night department store and stopped the car.
“What size do you want?”
“What?” she asked. What was he talking about?
“Shirt. What size, color?”
“I can go in,” she argued.
“No, you’re uncomfortable, so I’ll get you something. I don’t want to leave you out here, but I know you don’t want to go in there. So, what size?” he repeated.
“Large,” she whispered.
“Okay, see you in five. If you see something, go straight into that building, understand?” he said, his eyes locking with hers.
She nodded. His eyes were mesmerizing. Then he was gone. She watched him run across the parking lot and into the big box store. It wasn’t a jog; it was a sprint.