Love Remains (16 page)

Z
arah wandered through each room in her house one more time just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Though the gathering had been announced as beginning at six thirty, she didn’t expect anyone to show up much before seven—except Flannery of course.

At 6:25 on the nose, the front door opened, and Flannery let herself in. “So, I couldn’t decide between mini-quiches, mini-egg rolls, and crab rangoons, so I just brought all three.” Flannery slid a huge platter of the finger foods onto the kitchen table.

Zarah had to laugh. “Couldn’t be because they’re all your favorites, could it?”

Flannery shrugged. “I brought a bunch of movies, too.”

“Please tell me you brought more than just those old black-and-white murder mysteries you like so much.”

Flannery gave her an exaggerated glare. “It’s called film noir, as you well know. And no, after all the grief I got last time when I suggested one, I didn’t bring any. I brought all those romantic comedies
somebody
gives me for my birthday and Christmas every year.”

Though Flannery’s affected tone indicated dislike for the romantic comedies, Zarah took no offense over the reference to the DVDs she’d given Flannery over the years to augment her large library of classic
films. Most of what Zarah picked out for her were old and in black-and-white. They just weren’t mysteries.

“I think Stacy and Lyssa volunteered to bring games.” The oven timer beeped, and Zarah turned, grabbed an oven mitt, and pulled two pans of brownies out of the oven—her mouth immediately started watering. She set them on cork trivets on the counter to cool for a few minutes before cutting. “I just hope they don’t decide to play that charades game again. I hate that game.”

“You hate any game that makes you the center of attention or in which people are watching you.” Flannery crossed the kitchen and lowered her face to just over one of the pans of brownies. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Mmm. You know I can put some brownies away, but were two huge pans of them really necessary?”

“One pan has nuts; the other doesn’t. A few of the girls don’t like nuts in their brownies.”

“Right. But did you really need to make two boxes of each? You know you’re going to be eating these for days to come. And you’re the one who mentioned going back to the gym recently.”

Zarah waggled her finger at Flannery. “No, I have a plan. Whatever is left over gets put in sandwich bags and sent home with people. That way, I can enjoy one or two tonight, but I don’t have to deal with having them in the house or taking them to the office.”

Flannery lifted the edge of the aluminum foil from her tray and pulled out an egg roll. She hopped up to sit on the counter beside the refrigerator. “Isn’t your quarterly senate report coming up soon?”

“Thursday, as a matter of fact.”

Flannery seemed to struggle to swallow the bite of egg roll she had just taken. “And you volunteered to have girls’ night at your house this month, knowing that it was going to be the weekend before the senate report is due?”

Zarah nodded. “Yes. I’m actually ahead of schedule on it this time. Of course, I had a lot of extra time on my hands the last few weeks.”

“Extra time…? Zarah, you were in the hospital with pneumonia!”
Flannery shook her head and took the last bite of egg roll. “It’s no wonder it’s taking you so long to recover from this, if you’re not getting the rest you need.”

Zarah shrugged and pulled a table knife out of the silverware drawer. “It was either work on the preliminary draft of the report or go absolutely insane with nothing to do for weeks on end. You were the one extolling work the other night. I like my job, and I enjoy the time I spend doing it.”

“You make it sound like I don’t like my job, which you know is not true.”

“And you make it sound like I’m the only person in this room who brings work home.” Zarah looked pointedly at the smart phone clipped to Flannery’s belt.

Flannery covered the thing with her hand as if Zarah’s glare might harm it. “I turned the sound off, you’ll be pleased to know. Besides, in the publishing industry, pretty much everybody takes Friday night off.”

“Mmm-hmm. Unless you have a book signing event or a book-launch party or some other kind of appearance for one of your authors.” Zarah winked at her friend then turned and started cutting the brownies.

Flannery reached over and pulled one of the plain brownies out of its pan before Zarah had even finished cutting all of them. “Why doesn’t anybody ever show up on time for these things?”

“Because only complete dorks like me ever show up on time.” Zarah reached into the cabinet above and pulled down two stoneware plates, one light blue and one dark purple—stoneware Kiki had given her from her own collection. Zarah herself usually ate from paper plates. But she promised herself that as soon as she had a dishwasher that actually got the dishes clean, she would start using the stoneware for more than just when she had guests. She quickly arranged the brownies on each plate.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. You
are
a dork.” Flannery reached for another brownie, but Zarah twirled, whisking the plates out of
Flannery’s reach. “Hey! I wanted one of those!”

Zarah set the plates on the table. “Well, that’s what you get for calling me a dork.”

“You started it.”

The doorbell rang. Zarah glanced at the clock on the back of the stove—6:49. “Someone’s early. Why don’t you go see who that is while I put the plates and cups and stuff out?”

Flannery hopped off the counter, wiped her fingers on the dish towel hanging by the sink, and exited the kitchen muttering.

Even though someone else had signed up to bring plates, cups, plasticware, and napkins, Zarah always put some out just in case the person didn’t show up or forgot to bring them or didn’t bring enough.

She turned to greet the earliest late arriver. “Stacy, it’s good to see you. How was your week?”

The petite real estate agent tossed her abundant, silky, dark hair over her shoulders. “Fantastic. In less than twenty-four hours, I helped our new member buy a condo just off Hillsboro Village. We looked at two places last night—one in my building and one in the Village. He made an offer on the second one, and the seller accepted it today.”

Zarah hastily turned to pull the pitcher of iced tea she’d made earlier out of the refrigerator. She did not dare look at Flannery, afraid what her own expression might reveal to an outsider.

So Bobby had bought a condo. He was settling in a lot faster than she’d expected, although she shouldn’t be surprised. He had always been very decisive. He knew what he wanted, and he went after it wholeheartedly.

Over the next half hour, twenty other young women showed up. Zarah wasn’t sure she liked the fact that the monthly ladies’ night gave the appearance of excluding the single mothers; however, as they had excluded children from the gathering, that made it hard for the single moms to participate. But she worked with them to plan their own events as well. And for the monthly singles’ group gathering, Zarah
always found a few girls from the youth group who were willing to provide child care. She wished she could do it for this function as well, but it was hard to get them to do it once a month—twice a month had proved impossible.

The guests, who all came bearing food, didn’t have to be told to help themselves. And they were so familiar with Zarah’s house that she didn’t even try to direct traffic. Truthfully, they’d probably outgrown her house. But she was centrally located, and no one else would volunteer to have it at her house. She would have asked Flannery to help with the hosting responsibilities, but though Flannery called what she lived in a condo, Zarah called it a rabbit warren.

She really wanted to go look up the Web site for the condo complex that Stacy said Bobby had bought his condo in to see if they had descriptions—and, even better, floor plans—for their condos online. Had he become the kind of person who would pay through the nose for a prestigious address and little living space, or was he still the same laid-back guy with a taste for contemporary design?

And what had he thought of Stacy?

No. She was not going to do that to herself. His presence was bad enough; the last thing she needed to do was lead herself further into jealousy and insecurity by trying to imagine which girls he was attracted to and wondering if he ever compared them to her the way she had compared every man she met in the past fourteen years to him.

“Seriously, congrats, man.”

Bobby caught himself on the stair railing as Patrick’s huge paw slammed into his shoulder. “Thanks. I was really happy to learn that the sellers are willing to close in fifteen days instead of thirty.”

The door from the parking garage stairs led out directly onto Second Avenue. Bobby glanced up and down the main drag of Nashville’s entertainment scene. Though the names on several of the clubs,
restaurants, and honky-tonks had changed, it didn’t really look much different than it had last time he’d been down here, ten years ago when he’d attended the Air Assault School at Fort Campbell and had come down a couple of times and met Mom and Dad for supper here. It was cleaner—but the sun hadn’t finished setting yet, so that might change by the time the night was over.

Patrick grabbed his arm and started dragging him right across the middle of the street. Yep—the Old Spaghetti Factory was right where he remembered, smack in the middle along the main drag of Second Ave. Patrick gave his name at the front desk then led the way into the massive lobby and bar area to the left of the entrance. This early on a Friday evening, it wasn’t too crowded yet, and they found a grouping of old royal blue velvet armchairs and sofas where they could wait for the rest of the guys to arrive.

“So tell me.” Patrick lowered himself into his chair. “How long have you and Zarah known each other, and what did you do to her to make her not want to have anything to do with you?”

Bobby tried to get comfortable in the lower-than-standard wing chair while considering how to answer.

“I’d say she hates you, but I don’t think she’s capable of hate.” Patrick leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands in front of him. “But she sure is going out of her way to avoid you. I thought she was going to have a conniption-fit when she realized you were going to be in the group she was originally assigned to lead Wednesday night at Bible study.”

Bobby still couldn’t figure out exactly how to answer his friend without giving away more information than either he or Zarah would want anyone to have.

“Look, dude. You and I go back a ways. But you’ve been gone, and Zarah’s been here. I’ve known her since college. She helped me get through my history classes. I wouldn’t have been academically eligible to play my junior year if it wasn’t for her. So if there’s a choice to be made, I’m gonna have to choose her.”

Dread rummaged for a foothold in Bobby’s soul. “So I take it the two of you are more than just friends.”

“Yeah. I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.” Patrick cocked a grin at him, but his eyes remained serious. “Zarah is like my little sister. She’s had enough trouble in her life, so I’m drawing a line. If there’s something between the two of you that’s going to hurt her, you’re going to have me to answer to.”

A smile started to wedge itself between Bobby’s lips, but he clamped them together to stop it, wondering if Zarah knew she had such a ferocious defender in Patrick. “Zarah and I…knew each other years ago, in New Mexico, when I was stationed at White Sands under her father’s command. We…well, we were close, but then it ended and we went our separate ways.”

Movement caught his attention, and he looked around to see a few of the guys he’d already met arriving with a few he didn’t know. “We’ll discuss this later,” he murmured to Patrick as he leveraged himself out of the sinkhole of a chair to greet the new arrivals.

Shortly thereafter, their table was called, and they followed the hostess through the dining room, past the Pullman car—which was already full of diners—and to the back of the room where multiple tables had been pulled together.

Bobby chose a seat near the middle of the table, though he knew wherever he sat, he’d be limited to what he could hear and with whom he could talk due to the high ambient noise level in the restaurant already. Though he’d been cleared medically, his years on active duty—with guns, explosives, helicopters, Humvees, and other extreme sources of noise—had damaged his hearing to the point he noticed it, especially in public settings. He usually did well enough in large groups—but lower-pitched voices were harder to hear than higher.

With eighteen men at the table, several appetizers were ordered, but Bobby limited himself to one piece of the cheese bread—and very carefully passed on the dish of shrimp, spinach, and artichoke dip, careful not to come into contact with any of the drippings on the
sides. Having his hands break out in hives right before playing laser tag would be no fun.

“Not having any?” Ryan asked, taking the dish from him.

“Allergic to shrimp.”

“Really? Tough luck, man.” The former marine glopped some of the dip onto his small plate. “Is that all shellfish or just shrimp?”