His for the Taking by Julie Cohen Read Free Book Online Page B

Besides, even though you don’t seem to believe my father had anything to do with your great-aunt, you know how important this is to me, and though you might be grumpy in the mornings I don’t think you’re the kind of person who would wilfully get in the way of somebody else’s needs.’
    ‘What makes you think that? I haven’t exactly been overflowing with the milk of human kindness for you.’
    ‘I see how you deal with your great-aunt’s memory. You have respect. I think you respect my need to see my father.’
    His smile had gone now and she saw, incredibly, that he was serious.
    ‘Now that’s something new. I’ve never been accused of being respectful before. Loud-mouthed and a pain in the neck, yes. Respectful and trustworthy, no.’
    ‘There’s a first time for everything, I guess.’
    Zoe sat down and ran her hand through her tousled hair. ‘I’ll have a pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and an orange juice.’
    And his trust, apparently.
    Nick nodded and threw her a smile and Zoe couldn’t stop staring at the empty space he left after he was gone.
     
    Maybe she had been a little hungover because after the bagel and a shampoo Zoe felt a hundred per cent better. She pulled on her ugly skirt again and went into the living room, where Nick was sitting on the couch next to his backpack. He’d evidently packed away his sleeping bag and all of his other stuff. He was looking contemplatively at the chain-saw in the glass case.
    She took the armchair this time. He might trust her enough to leave the apartment, but she didn’t trust herself enough to be close to him.
    ‘So what’s your plan for the day? Some more obsessive waiting for your father, maybe?’
    ‘I’m wondering about the chain-saw and the bear trap,’ Nick said. ‘They don’t seem like something that fits in NewYork City.’
    ‘You think they could be connections to your dad?’
    ‘Well, he had a chain-saw, but that’s true of most people in Maine who burn wood for fuel. His wasn’t as nice as this one—I know, because I was using it while I was still in junior high school.’
    ‘He could have gone up in the world, I guess.’
    ‘He only sent my mother twenty or thirty bucks at a time.’ Nick’s jaw set. ‘But, yes, he could have.’
    ‘Xenia’s had the chain-saw for at least five years,’ Zoe said. ‘That would mean their connection wasn’t very new, if it’s his. But I wouldn’t count on it. For all I know Xenia might have taken up chain-saw juggling.’
    Nick’s tense look turned into a smile. ‘Your great-aunt would do that?’
    ‘She died while skateboarding. She was seventy-four years old and she’d just started lessons.’
    Nick laughed and, even though she’d been talking about Xenia’s death, Zoe laughed, too.
    ‘She’d have wanted to go that way,’ she said. ‘She fell and hit her head on the sidewalk when she was trying to ollie a four-set. Whatever that means. At the hospital they told me she never knew what hit her.’
    ‘We had a retired ranger like that. On the morning of his eightieth birthday he climbed Cadillac Mountain. Got to the top, had a heart attack just as the sun climbed over the horizon. He was the first person in North America to see the sun rise and it was the last thing he ever saw.’
    Nick stretched his long legs out in front of him and looked contemplatively at his boot-clad feet. ‘If I could choose where I’d die, I’d choose Isle au Haut off the coast of Maine on a summer twilight. The day animals going to sleep, the night animals coming alive, and the moon rising over the Atlantic Ocean.’
    The pleasure in his voice and on his face made Zoe able to picture the scene, even though he was describing it in a Manhattan apartment. It was about the third or fourth time he’d infected her with his thoughts and hopes, she realised.
    ‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘Where would you want to go?’
    In the middle of an orgasm with you buried deep inside me, panting my name