She’d noticed the lines and whorls around the dagger before. Really, she had. But she’d never really looked. Seriously, how easily could she stare at Zach’s chest? More often than not, he’d been wearing a shirt . . . at least up until lately. As much as she loved his tattoos, it wasn’t like she could just blatantly stare.
But she was blatantly staring now.
And the lines and whirls around that blade settled into place, forming a very distinct image.
An A.
It was stylized, decorated, and worked to be part of the tattoo so it didn’t jump out and scream anything. But there it was. The letter A.
“Zane . . .”
She swallowed as she stroked the tip of her finger over that letter and then looked up at him.
He was watching her calmly. “It’s been there all the time, Abby. You just never saw it.”
Sucking in a ragged breath, she turned away.
Tears clogged her throat, but she couldn’t start to cry. Not right now.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said quietly. “Come on. Let’s get this done. I need to go have a talk with this man of mine.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The absolute last thing Abigale thought she could handle was that voice.
She didn’t know how her mother had tracked her cell phone number down this time. She didn’t know, and honestly, she didn’t care. All she knew was that the name glaring at her from the display was one she knew too well.
Blanche Levine.
Her mother. Working on her fourth marriage now.
And still trying to drag Abigale back into her life.
Sighing, she took the call because it was either that or . . . run.
He’s afraid you’ll run.
Zach was right about one thing. She ran away from things, too often. Too easily. It had to stop. With everything. Including this.
Just before the call would have ended, she hit the button and pushed it so that it rolled over to speaker. “Hello, Mother,” she said, keeping her gaze focused on the road in front of her. She still had a few hours before she’d reach her destination. Spending any of that time on the phone with Blanche wasn’t ideal, but getting it over with now was better than delaying it, she guessed.
There was a very brief pause but Abigale realized she’d surprised the other woman. “Abigale. Darling . . .”
“Stop it with the darling, mother. I’m not your darling anything. What do you want?”
“Can’t I call just to speak with you? I miss you, you know. It’s been such a long time since we’ve seen each other.”
Not long enough. But instead of saying that, Abigale just shot the phone a glare before focusing back on the road. “It has been a while, hasn’t it? Let me think . . . twelve years, if I remember right. That’s when the judge ruled against you in court.”
“Yes, well. Water under the bridge, of course. Listen, I was hoping that you and I could—”
“No.” Abigale gripped the steering wheel.
“Darling, I haven’t even managed to say the words yet . . .” Blanche laughed and the sound was just as grating, just as fake and empty as it had been back when she’d been a child.
“It doesn’t matter. Unless you’re calling to apologize for breaking my father’s heart, for destroying him . . . unless you’re calling to apologize for the misery that you made of my life, unless you’re calling to tell me that you’re sorry for the disaster that was my childhood, you and I can’t do anything.” She swallowed the scream trying to rise up inside her.
Her mother heaved out a terrible, put-upon sigh. “Abigale, I know your father’s suicide was hard on you. It was hard on me, too, but—”
“Hard.” She laughed. “Yeah. It was hard. I mean, it wasn’t exactly fun for me, either, when the two of us walked in on you and that little swinging party you had going on. But I’ve dealt with that, because you don’t matter to me that much anymore. My father did. And you destroyed him. You humiliated him and he left me.”
“He killed himself,” Blanche said, her voice flat and empty. “I didn’t force that on him.”
“No. You didn’t. That was completely on him and maybe one day, I’ll stop being angry at him. But I’m done with you. I’m not angry at you, but you’re not welcome in my life, either. Now . . . please stop calling me.”