Page 9 of Deceit & Desire

Chapter4

What I Am Is a Reckoning

PLAYLIST: ”WHEN THE SUN TURNS BLACK” BY CANNON-GRAHAM

ROMAN

My chest squeezed sotight I had to step outside the hospital room so I could catch my breath. I leaned a shoulder against the wall and tipped my head back, staring up at the ceiling with unfocused, unseeing eyes.

Leave it to Zoe to respect her father’s wishes, and in her very next breath, hit him with the promise of hypothetical grandbabies.

I’d thought about having a family with Zoe more times than I could count, imagined what our kids might be like if we ever had any, but I forced myself to let those thoughts go when she moved to Miami.

In less than a minute and a single conversation, those thoughts came roaring back to life and threatened to overwhelm me.

Only problem is Zoe’s made it clear my ring is just business to her, nothing more than keeping both our asses out of jail... if I can even manage to do that.

Zoe’s voice carried out of the hospital room, clear and warm and full of love. “Why don’t you stay here tonight and get some rest, Daddy? Think things over after you’ve had some sleep, and call me in the morning, okay?”

I’d cut off my left arm to hear her talk to me like that, if I thought it’d do any good.

“Well, it’s not like I can be useful back at the ranch right now anyway, so I reckon I will get some rest tonight. I know Twisted Creek is in excellent hands between you and Roman. I can trust that everything will be taken care of.” Mr. Brandt coughed, and the violent, wet sound of it made me shudder from head to toe.

I stood there in the hall, reeling from everything I’d just heard, and shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation, wishing I could be a part of it. I didn’t belong in there with them, though, not really. After all, Zoe made it clear before she left that I’m the help and nothing more, and she’d done nothing to show me otherwise since she came back.

“I love you, daddy. I’ll be expecting a call from you first thing in the morning, okay?”

“I love you too, sweet pea. I’ll check in bright and early. You go ahead with Roman and get settled back in at the ranch. You just let him know if you need anything at all. He’ll take care of it.”

“I know he will, Daddy. Talk to you tomorrow morning.”

“Bye, sugar. Y’all drive safe.” Mr. Brandt hacked again, phlegm rattling in his throat and chest, leaving him panting for breath.

“We will, Daddy. I promise.”

The sound of Zoe kissing her father on the cheek, followed by the sure and steady click of her stilettos on the hospital’s polished tile floor, let me know she was on her way out of the hospital room.

I straightened up from where I’d been leaning against the wall and fell into step beside her as she marched toward the elevator.

Neither of us spoke until we were alone in the elevator and on our way back to the first floor.

“What the hell was that?” The words burst out of me unbidden, but I didn’t regret voicing them.

“What the hell was what?” Zoe sniffed and crossed her arms, staring down at the elevator floor as if she expected it to open and swallow her up at any second.

“Don’t give me that shit, Zoe. You know what. Letting your father believe you’re moving back home for good? Not telling him that our so-called engagement is all about protection and nothing more? Going so far as to say we’re getting married soon? I don’t enjoy lying to your father?—”

Zoe shrugged and gave me a palms-up gesture that made me want to shake her until her teeth rattled. “I’m not exactly thrilled by the prospect of living a lie, either, but I won’t hesitate to do it—and do a damn good job of it, at that—if that’s what it takes for my father to have peace of mind right now.”

I shifted from one foot to the other, my heart racing and my mind scrambling through a million possibilities at once, none of which made a whole lot of sense in the moment. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“You’re the one who wanted to play the fake engagement card, Roman, but you’re getting more than you bargained for this time.”

Zoe took a step closer to me, poking me in the chest and crowding my space like a woman who thought she was six feet tall and bulletproof. At five foot nothing she was far from tall, but that wild, wolfish look in her eyes had me half believing she might just be bulletproof.

Why does it suddenly feel like the tables have turned on me?

I cleared my throat and worked to pry my tongue loose from the roof of my desert-dry mouth. “You’re overwrought, and you’re not thinking straight, Zoe.”

---