Page 48 of Keeping Her Safe

Gathering together clothes and other items she would need, she slipped out of the bedroom, praying nobody was up yet to see her walk naked to the bathroom. Zephyr let out a sigh of relief—she’d made it without seeing anyone. A shower was what she needed to clear her head of that man in her room, that man that had completely taken up residence in her head.

Spending the time it took to get her hair straight, she knew this was probably the last day of hiding her curls. Today she’d leave her sisters behind, and she could let the curls take over again. It had only been a few days, and she knew she was going to miss it here.

Zephyr decided once she got home, she would give it a week and then call Zoey or Della and tell them. They did need to know, even if they didn’t want to know her anymore. At least they needed to know their mother was long dead.

Leaving the bathroom and slipping back into the bedroom, she grabbed her USB drive from above the picture hanging on the wall, remembering Zachary’s face when he realized she carried it in her bra was priceless. He was so cute.

Sneaking downstairs, she spent a few minutes looking for a pen and paper. She eventually found a stack of printer paper in the laundry room, took a dozen pages, and when to sit at the table. By the time the sun came up, she had written on five papers, front and back. Memories of her youth writing long-hand like this came into her mind. Moving to a new blank sheet, she started writing again, but it was stories of her mom before she had died. Stories of the girls they may not even know.

After getting up and grabbing more pages, she continued to write about the good times. Soon she was writing about the bad times too. The drinking and the drugs that had stolen her mother from her by the end. The last page contained the story of her death. She told it like Brian had told her, then she signed it: Zephyr Connor Hart. The name her mom had given her.

Looking around the room, she noticed a tissue box in the corner. Taking it, she removed the tissues and folded the papers until they lay flat on the bottom of the box. Zephyr glanced at her mother’s ring on her finger, then took it off and placed it on top of the papers, then added the tissues back into the box. You couldn’t tell anything was wrong with it, but one day soon, Evie would find it. Then they would know, even if she chickened out on calling them.

The sun was not yet up when she sat down and started to write the story she had started earlier. Within a few minutes, she heard footsteps on the stairs and quickly folded the pages she was working on and slid them into her pocket, just like when she was a kid.

If it seemed odd that Zephyr was sitting at the kitchen table in the wee hours of the morning with only a pen and blank paper, Evie didn’t say. Evie walked across the room and started to make coffee as she watched the sun come up.

“Do you want coffee?” Evie asked.

“No, I don’t drink it. Thank you, though.” Zephyr picked up the pen to start doodling on a blank piece of paper.

Evie took a sip of coffee. “Did you sleep well?” Her eyes were boring into Zephyr.

Trying not to blush, but failing, she said, “Yes.”

“You’re up pretty early. Couldn’t sleep with all the excitement?”

“No, it’s just that I can get by on less than some people,” Zephyr admitted.

“Della and Zoey are that way. I need a solid eight,” Evie said and sat down across from Zephyr.

“I didn’t know there were others like that,” Zephyr said, wondering where she was going with the conversation.

They sat in silence as Evie drank her coffee, and Zephyr doodled … or thought that she was. Looking down, she realized she had been writing. Just words strung together, making sentences. She folded the paper so Evie couldn’t see.

“You have very nice handwriting,” Evie commented, nodding at the paper she was folding.

“Thank you.” She was relieved when Jasper came down the stairs. He took over the conversation with his wife and left Zephyr alone with her thoughts. She should leave them alone, but she liked to listen to their conversations about nothing.

Evie got up to get Jasper coffee and walked past Zephyr’s chair. As the older woman walked past, she lightly touched Zephyr’s hair. At first, she thought she had imagined it, she but knew she hadn’t. Having not felt the light touch since she was twelve, she had forgotten her mom even did it. But just the touch had brought back so many images of days long gone. Biting back tears, she wondered if Evie even remembered that her mom did that.

Before the couple noticed Zephyr’s tears, Zoey and Gabe and their kids came over, and Zachary woke up. Soon, Della and her family showed up also. There were conversations about where Zachary would take her next, who could possibly be behind the break-in, and many others that Zephyr tuned out.

With the number of people and the noise level in the house, Zephyr needed to get away from it and slipped out the front door into the cold morning. Sitting on the front step, she let the cold wash over her like she usually let the warm ocean breeze in Florida, letting the breeze take away her anxiety.

She had to get out of there. They were doing nothing but deciding her future, and no one even thought of consulting her. It made her feel like she was twelve again, when nobody really wanted her. They were all just trying to find a place for her. Zephyr just needed to get away for a moment to clear her mind.

The door slammed open behind her as Zachary yelled, “What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Just getting away for a bit. Too many people,” she explained calmly.

“So, you thought you would just sit out here and let yourself be killed?” He came out and stood in front of her, hands on hips, looking sexy and mad.

Zephyr tried to control her temper. “Zachary, just leave me alone.”

“I can’t believe you would just leave. We are trying to figure out what to do next,” Zachary said.

“I know you were, but did you think to ask me? Did anyone?” she questioned, looking into his dark eyes.

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