Love Remains (4 page)

A familiar jangle behind froze her in mid-motion. Of course. Bobby had driven her home; thus, he had her keys.

She turned and snatched them from between his thumb and forefinger. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I can’t just walk off and leave you without seeing you get safely inside.” Bobby leaned his shoulder against the brick porch pillar.

Patrick ambled toward them, hands in pockets, whistling. Zarah dropped her voice—not that she had much of one left. “You don’t understand. I don’t want you here. It was…we were…just one of those things. But that was then. This is now. I’ve moved on with my life.”

Bobby glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice as well. “I haven’t told anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about. People will only know as much as what you’ve told them.”

Patrick stepped up onto the porch, took Zarah’s keys from her hand, and proceeded to unlock her front door. When she didn’t move, he took her by the shoulders and steered her into the house. Once inside, he turned her around to face him. From this angle, she had a
clear view of Bobby, still leaning against the pillar as if he had not a care in the world.

“If I see you at church Sunday, I’m going to be very unhappy.” Patrick squeezed her shoulders until she looked up at him. “And if you won’t listen to me, I’ll call Trina Breitinger. Because I know you won’t ignore your grandmother the way you ignore me.”

“But what if I’m feeling better Sunday?” Zarah tried to give Patrick a flirtatious smile, but she wasn’t sure if she was successful.

Patrick heaved a dramatic sigh. “I suppose there’s nothing really I can do to stop you. But I’m serious: I will sic your grandmother on you if you look the least pale or feverish.”

Zarah was good with makeup, and she was pretty sure she could avoid letting Patrick feel her forehead in public. “Agreed.”

“Are you sure there’s nothing you need? I can fix you some…tea or something.” Patrick moved toward the kitchen, but Zarah stopped him with a weak hand to his chest.

“No, but thank you. You know how I feel about people hovering.”

She stole one last glance at Bobby then ushered Patrick out the door. Though speaking to Bobby was last thing she wanted to do, she had to be polite. “Thank you for driving me home. I’m sorry you had to leave the party, but I’m sure it’ll still be in full swing when you get back.”

Bobby gave her a tight-lipped smile and nodded his head. She’d forgotten how that expression emphasized his broad chin and large, square jaw. She closed her eyes, trying to stop the memories from flooding in.

She waited until they were both in Patrick’s car before closing and locking her front door. The questions, the memories, the pain brought on by Bobby’s sudden appearance tonight crashed down on her. The tremors, which they had attributed to her fever, increased tenfold as she allowed herself to experience a rush of emotions now that no one else was around to see it.

Her tired, aching, chill-wracked body wanted to melt into a
puddle right here on the living room floor. But she could not let that happen—she would not let Bobby’s presence make her lose everything she’d gained during the last fourteen years. She had worked far too long and far too hard to become a happy, independent, self-reliant person.

Chapter 3

I
n the kitchen, Zarah filled the kettle with water, put it on the stove, and turned the burner on high. Then she went back into the living room, found her purse on the floor where it had fallen off the sofa, and pulled out her cell phone. She glanced at the antique clock atop her entertainment center. Good. Barely eight thirty. She pressed the button to make the number pad show up on the touch screen, then pressed and held the two. C
ALLING
K
IKI
scrolled across the screen.

One ring, followed by, “Zarah, dear? Is everything all right?”

As if she didn’t know. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Her grandmother sounded genuinely surprised.

“Bobby Patterson. Why didn’t you tell me, first of all, that he was back in Nashville and, second of all, that he would be at the singles’ cookout tonight?” The kettle started whistling, and Zarah trudged into the kitchen to pull it off the burner. She grabbed a tea bag out of the jar of herbals, tossed it in a mug, and poured the steaming water over it.

“He’s at the party?”

“He will be as soon as he and Patrick get back there. I…started feeling bad, and Patrick insisted they drive me home.” Zarah carried the
blue ceramic mug into her bedroom, pulled a pair of flannel pajamas off the dresser, put her phone on speaker, and started changing.

“Are you okay? Do I need to come over and take you to the emergency room again?” From the tone of her voice, Kiki sounded like she was halfway to the car already.

Zarah’s head spun when she bent over to pick up her discarded capris from the floor. She staggered over to the cedar chest at the foot of her bed and sat to pull on her pajama bottoms. “No, I don’t need to go to the emergency room. They told me I might continue to run a low-grade fever over the next several days. And you’re avoiding my question.”

“I knew he was coming back to town, but I was not certain when. Lindy told me a few weeks ago that he accepted a job at the TCIU and would be moving back. I guess she didn’t think to mention he’d arrived when I saw her yesterday morning.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me he was moving back to town.” She donned a Vanderbilt University sweatshirt over her pajamas and pulled on a pair of thick wool socks she usually wore only in the winter and then only if it snowed.

“I thought, maybe if you just ran into him…”

“What? That it would be easier on me if I just ran into him out of the blue?” She turned the overhead light off and climbed into the bed. “Because believe me, it wasn’t easy all.”

“But if I had told you, if you had been forewarned that there was even the slightest chance he might show up at a singles’ event or church, you would have gone back to being a hermit, just like that first year you lived here.”

Zarah stopped fussing with pillows behind her and sank back into them. She picked the phone up off the nightstand, switched it back to normal mode, and pressed it to her ear. She wanted to deny what Kiki said, but a little voice in the back of her mind told her it was true. If Kiki had told her Bobby was coming to Nashville—moving here to live—Zarah would have done whatever she deemed necessary to avoid
him. Even if it meant locking herself in her house.

Her head, chest, and throat hurt too much to think about this tonight. “Does Lindy know? About Bobby and me, I mean.”

“No. She knows you two knew each other when he was stationed at White Sands, but she doesn’t know he’s the reason your father kicked you out of the house.”

“Thank you for that.” It was probably the only thing Kiki had never shared with Lindy Patterson since they first met in high school more than sixty-five years ago.

She snuggled into the featherbed mattress-topper and pulled the thick comforter around her. Moving the phone to her other ear, she reached for the mug of tea on the nightstand…and realized she’d left it on the dresser. The cold expanse of floor between the bed and the dresser, though just a few feet, looked like the miles Roald Amundsen had to trek across Antarctica to get to the South Pole. She glanced to her right. The water bottle still had enough left to take the heavy-duty decongestant that would knock her out for the next twelve or so hours. Thank goodness tomorrow was Saturday and she could work from home on her own schedule.

Reaching for the bottle apparently loosened something in her lungs, triggering another coughing jag.

“I really wish you would come stay here and let me take care of you.”

Zarah curled up in a ball on her side, covering her mouth with one tissue, dabbing her watering eyes with another, the phone lying on her ear and cheek. She took shallow breaths until the spasm eased. “Thanks, but I’d rather die alone. Besides, if whatever I have is still contagious, I don’t want to pass it on to you and Pops. Especially Pops. He hasn’t fully recovered from that staph infection he got after surgery.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that. You may not have noticed it, but he believes he’s a spring chicken again, now he’s got new knees.” Kiki hollered something at Pops in the background. “Are you certain you
don’t want me to come over and bring you home for the weekend? I’ll make your favorite: chicken and dumplings, with the dumplings baked separately and served on the side so that they aren’t the least little bit soggy.”

Zarah laugh-coughed. “Don’t make me laugh. I love your chicken and dumplings, but I’m afraid even that isn’t enough to entice me. You know how I feel about being babied.” It had taken her a couple of years to say anything to Kiki about how much it bothered her to have someone make a fuss over her whenever she was sick. A retired pediatric nurse, Kiki hadn’t taken the news very well.

“Well, you call me if you need me—even if it’s the middle of the night. I can be there in less than ten minutes.”

“I’ll do that.” Moisture escaped Zarah’s eyes again, only this time it wasn’t an involuntary reaction to her coughing. She didn’t deserve to have anyone love her the way Kiki and Pops did. Which made her all the more thankful for them and the way they’d taken her in when she’d had nowhere else to go.

“You try to get some sleep now. And don’t work too much this weekend.” How well Kiki knew her.

“The sleep, I’ll guarantee. The work…I missed almost a week at the office, and I have my meetings with the Metro Council and the state senate committee coming up. I have to be prepared.”

Kiki made a noise that came through the phone like an annoyed grunt. “There’s more to life than that job, Zarah.”

“I know. There’s teaching and the singles’ group.” And between the three, she had almost no seconds in her day left unaccounted for. “I’ll try to rest as much as I can. Patrick said if I show up for church Sunday, he’ll sic you on me.”

“Good for him. He’s such a nice boy. I don’t know why—”

“Don’t start, Kiki. Patrick and I are just friends.” She’d always thought it was because they were so different—but since Bobby had walked into her life, every decision she’d made since he chose his career over their relationship plagued her, forcing her to doubt every
attraction she’d downplayed, every man she’d rebuffed—there hadn’t been very many—every man she’d made walk away from her. Had it been because she didn’t like them or because of Bobby?

“Good night, Kiki.”

“Good night, Zarah. Sweet dreams.”

Zarah ended the call and tossed the phone onto the stack of books on the nightstand. She’d thought she was over Bobby, thought he was out of her system. So why did all those old feelings come back as soon as she saw him?

And now he knew where she lived. Maybe it was time to think about moving.

“Bobby? Is that you?”

Bobby came back down the two steps he’d taken up toward the guest bedroom on the back side of the house and went through the mudroom into the kitchen. “It’s me, Mamm.”

His grandmother, Melinda AnneMarie Mansfield Patterson—alias
Mamm
—sat at the kitchen table, a multicolored floral scarf tied around the blond hair she’d spent an hour at the beauty parlor this morning getting “set.” A delicate china teacup sat on its saucer near her right hand while she worked the newspaper crossword puzzle with her left. She watched him walk around and take the seat across the corner of the table from her.

“How was the party?”

He tipped the chair back on its hind legs and hooked his fingers together behind his head. “Fun. It’s a big group—you’re right.”

“Meet anyone interesting?” Mamm’s blue eyes took on an unusual glint.

Bobby let the front legs of the chair down slowly and crossed his arms. “Do you know someone named Zarah Mitchell?”

“Of course I know Zarah. She’s Katrina and Victor Breitinger’s granddaughter.” Mamm picked up her teacup and took a sip, then
made a face. She stood and crossed to the sink, where she dumped the contents. “Want some tea?”

“No thanks.” He turned sideways in the chair and hooked his arm over the back of it. “So…you know who Zarah is—she’s the granddaughter of one of your friends. But do you
really
know who she is?”