‘Zane, what on earth’s the matter? Why are you beating down my door in the middle of the night?’
‘It’s important.’ He strode past her into the house, deciding it was too late for guilt. ‘Is Iona here?’
‘Iona?’ She blinked sleepily following him into the small kitchen that always smelled of fresh herbs and home baking, and switched on the overhead light. ‘You mean the pretty Scottish girl you brought to Maricruz’s quinceañera?’
‘Don’t act dumb with me.’ He shouted at his mother, as all the frustration and panic of the last few hours—while he’d driven around trying to figure out where she might go, and prayed frantically that she hadn’t already caught a flight home—made his chest feel tight. ‘You know damn well who Iona is.’
The sharp slap cracked out, stunning him into silence and making his left cheek sting like a son-of-a-bitch.
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that.’ His mother propped her hands on her hips and glared at him. ‘You ignore my calls for weeks and now you turn up in the middle of the night and use profanity in my house.’
His temper cooled rapidly as he cradled his cheek—which was on fire.
‘That hurt—’ He bit off a curse, before he ended up with two sore cheeks.
‘That’s because it was meant to,’ she returned, not looking remotely apologetic. She gave a huge yawn, making the guilt return. ‘Now sit down and tell me what’s going on and what Iona has to do with it.’ She indicated the kitchen table, the moment of temper gone as quickly as it had come.
He hesitated. He didn’t want to stay and talk. He had to keep searching. But as the anger and desperation drained away, it was replaced with hurt and confusion. If Iona wasn’t here, where was she? Watching his mother placing home-made cookies onto a plate, he suddenly had the overwhelming urge to take the comfort she offered. He slumped into one of the dainty kitchen chairs, absently rubbing his flaming cheek.
His hand dropped to the table, the pain from the slap nothing to the tearing pain in his chest as exhaustion and hopelessness overwhelmed him.
He couldn’t keep looking, because there was nowhere else to look.
He waited for his mother to finish the tea-making ritual. Placing the freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies in front of him, she poured some tea into a china teacup and pushed it towards him. ‘Now what’s all this about?’
Steepling her fingers, she observed him with the firm but compassionate expression he remembered so well from his childhood and something broke open inside him.
He gazed at the cup of tea, the scent of fresh mint making his stomach leap into his throat and then become a huge brick that he couldn’t swallow down.
If only she could fix this, as she had when he was little. Back in the days when she’d been able to make nightmares go away. But that had all stopped when he was twelve and he’d first found out the truth about his father.
Her warm hand covered the one he had fisted on the table and she squeezed. ‘Talk to me, Zane. Don’t shut me out any more.’
He raised his eyes and Iona’s note came back to him:
You’re a good man, Zane. Go ask your mum, she’ll tell you.
‘I did something unforgivable.’ The words tumbled out. ‘And she left me. And I can’t find her.’
His mother nodded. ‘Is this Iona we’re talking about?’
‘Yes,’ he said, humiliated when his voice cracked.
‘So you’ve fallen in love with her.’
He stared blankly at her hand where it held his, noticed the solid gold wedding band Terry had put on her finger a decade ago, when Zane had given her away—and the abject panic he might have expected at her suggestion didn’t come. Instead it all felt a little unreal. ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What did you do to her that was so unforgivable?’
He shook his head, tried to swallow past the brick in his throat. He couldn’t tell her that, because then she’d know that despite all her efforts he was no better than the man who had sired him.
But then she cupped his chin in cool fingers and raised his face.
‘Does this have something to do with your father?’
He jerked his head out of her grasp, so stunned he forgot to mask the emotion. She’d always been intuitive—but now was she a damn mind-reader?
‘I don’t want to talk about him.’