Page 50 of The Devil's Scars

Chapter Ten

One week later

Zoe was at home after a long day of work, alone with Keira. The baby was in her high chair, enthusiastically eating Cheerios with her fingers, while Zoe stirred the pot of pasta on the stove, reheating the meal from the night before. She was hungry, she was exhausted, she was hours from sleep… and she was the happiest that she could recall being in years. Maybe forever.

When she’d driven from Fargo to Denver, she’d adamantly refused to get her hopes up about what Wolf might have been offering her. Zoe had learned the hard way that expecting anything in life was a grave error, and always led to disappointment. She’d been sure that Wolf was going to give her something, but she’d also been sure that although it would be an improvement on her life in North Dakota (because how could it not be, the way that things had been going?), it wasn’t going to lead to her bliss.

Well. She’d been wrong.

She’d been in Denver for three weeks, and she felt like she’d been there forever. Like she’d never left in the first place.

The work at Blue Dragon was excellent; the cute little house was snug; the guys were courteous and respectful; Keira was happy with Maria. Yesterday, they’d celebrated Keira’s first birthday, and it had been a joyous, heartwarming party, with just Wolf, Zoe, Willa, and Keira. Zoe and Willa had stayed up most of the night talking, making plans for the summer for visits, maybe planning a Christmas trip in Canada.

After the hours and hours of talking, Zoe had dropped Willa off at the airport stupid-early, and despite the eight a.m. flight departure time, she’d looked so thrilled to be getting back to Jimmy.

In short: all was right in the world, and Zoe knew now that she wasn’t a woman who needed wild dreams of glory or fame. At the end of the day, she just needed a pot of pasta, a happy baby eating Cheerios, a sweet little house, a job to go to in the morning.

She just needed a home. A family. A bank account that grew a bit every month. A backyard with a porch. A little life to call her own, where she could raise her daughter safe and warm.

And if there was a little lonely part of her heart longing for someone to come up behind her here at the stove and kiss her neck, or come in that door with a bottle of red wine to share after putting Keira to bed, or to scoop her up in his strong arms and fuck her against the bedroom wall until she collapsed on his body – well. Zoe could shout down that part of her heart, tell it to cut it the hell out. Remind it that she wasn’t looking for a man, or a relationship. She had other things to do.

Just then, the doorbell rang. Keira startled, gave a bit of a cry, and Zoe turned off the element, swooped across the kitchen floor and picked her up.

“Hey, little flower,” she murmured in Keira’s ear. “It’s OK. Just the doorbell. Wanna go see who it is? You think it’s Silver, coming over to hang some more pictures for us?”

Keira gripped Zoe’s shirt, gave her a gummy grin. She was teething again, and Maria had bought some plastic water rings and put them in the freezer for Keira to chew on. She’d told Zoe that the cold was soothing, and it helped numb the pain a bit, so Zoe grabbed a ring as she passed the freezers. Keira took it with a squeak, stuck it in her mouth, drooled all down Zoe’s chest.

“Yeah, nothing sexier than mommyhood, huh?” Zoe said as she went to the door. “I hope whoever’s standing out there likes wet t-shirt contests, because little flower, you’ve got me in first place.”

“Arrruuummmfff,” Keira muttered around the frozen plastic starfish. “Aaaaarrrrr…”

“Yeah, ‘aaaaarrrr’ to you too, cutie pie.” She got to the door, shifted the baby to her hip. “Silver? Is that you?”

“No, Zoe. It’s Scars.”

At that voice, that one that she heard in her dreams, that one that she thought of as a velvet growl, as a bit of wild with some tenderness, Zoe damn near dropped Keira. She also seriously contemplated hiding under the high chair.

“Scars?” Her own voice came out a little strangled, so she tried again. “What are you doing?”

“I’m standing on your front porch, talking to you through a door. What are you doing?”

“Uhhh.” God, the man always knew how to throw her off-balance, didn’t he? Damn him. “I’m – I’m just making dinner.”

“You can stop. I brought you dinner.”

“You what?”

“Hard to hear through the door, huh? Maybe open it up, so we can talk like normal people?”

“Uhhhh,” she repeated, desperately casting around for an excuse. “Well… the thing is –”

“There’s no ‘thing’, Zoe. I’m standing right here. I brought you something to eat. It’s getting cold. Open the door.”

“I don’t want to,” she said, fully aware that she sounded like a child, but going ahead and carrying on anyway. “I want you to leave me the hell alone. I’ve only said it a hundred times.”

“You’ll need to say it a hundred-and-one.”

“Leave me the hell alone.”

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