He opened the front door and all was quiet. His mother and Leonard were still in bed. His first priority was to get the stink of cow shit off his skin. Turning on the water as hot as he could stand it, Zach scrubbed every particle of his body until it was raw. The pain in his body was numbed by the fury still fueling him.
Once he felt reasonably clean, he brushed his teeth, drank down a gallon of water, and then, with painful slowness, dressed. Since he was already packed, he had only one other item on his agenda. Shoving open his mother’s bedroom door, he felt a small amount of satisfaction when the noise startled her. She shot straight up from bed. Leonard lay beside her, still snoring. Apparently she had tired him out.
At first she smiled, as if thrilled he’d woken her. When he just stood and stared at her, she frowned and said, “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that? What happened to your face?”
“Who the fuck is my father?”
Even as he said the words, a small, still-decent part of him cringed. Never had he talked to a woman this way.
“What are you talking about, Zachie? You know who your daddy is. He was a war hero.”
He cocked a brow. “Not a piece-of-shit asshole named Ralph Henson?”
The instant he said the name, Francine’s expression revealed the truth. He turned and walked away. She caught him at the front door. “I’m sorry, baby. I had to lie to you. That bastard wanted me to get rid of you. I did it all for you.”
Giving her one last glare of disgust, he walked out the door. Though he had intended to drive to Fort Benning, he didn’t care about his car … he cared about nothing but getting away. He hitched a ride to the bus station and left Midnight and everything it stood for behind him. He refused to give thought to anything, including the innocent young girl he’d made promises to and whose heart would soon be broken.
And now she knew the truth. Savannah stared down at the now cold meal. Stupid to have spent so much time on dinner. She had known this wouldn’t be a pleasant social event. Her stomach roiled. What an idiot she had been. Of course she had suspected something traumatic had happened. Zach leaving without saying goodbye had made no sense. But she had been so very hurt and then so very afraid.
She cleared her throat, struggling not to reveal the tears she desperately wanted to shed. “Why didn’t you come to me, Zach? I would have taken care of you.”
He shook his head. “I was hurt and humiliated, Savannah. I had only one priority and that was to get as far away as possible. Having you see me like that would have killed me.”
Her eyes roaming over his face, she compared the Zach of today to the boy she had fallen in love with. The ruggedness was new, as were the lines around his mouth. His eyes probably told the biggest story. Years ago they had been a soft, beautiful gray. Now they were steely hard.
She remembered thinking when they were dating that a twenty-year-old Zach seemed so mature and manly. But he had been just a kid. A boy who’d been beaten and humiliated. One who’d learned the cruel truth about his parentage. Was it any wonder he’d left that night?
Swallowing past the sympathy she knew he wouldn’t want, she said softly, “Did you go to basic training as you’d planned?”
“I tried to. Only I was so banged up, they took one look at me and put me in the hospital instead. Had some broken ribs, a bruised kidney, a concussion, and a broken nose.”
Unable to not offer some kind of solace, Savannah reached across the table and touched his hand. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
His mouth twisted in a grimace. “And I’m sorry I did what I did.”
Now that she knew the truth, the hardest question of all had to be asked. “Why did you wait so long to contact me?”
He pulled his hand away from hers and pushed his fingers through his hair. “I was out of it for almost a week. When I woke up and could think more clearly, I still couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I knew you would have questions, and I didn’t want to give you the answers. Then, the