each other, cleaning and wiping and checking on Nana.
“I’m tired,” Nana said, her voice frayed and worn like an old housedress washed too many times.
Zoe’s pulse leaped. “I’ll take you to your room, Nana.” She wrapped her arm around her grandmother’s narrow waist and let her lean her nearly waiflike body against her own.
Zora’s bedroom was on the first floor in the back of the house overlooking the garden. Zoe opened the bedroom door and led her grandmother across the room with the intention of putting her in bed.
“No, I want to sit by the window.” With surprising strength she shook loose of Zoe’s hold and walked unaided to the chair by the window. “Come sit near me,” Nana said, patting the window seat next to her. “Close the door first. Don’t want those nosy daughters of mine listening to what I need to tell you.”
Zoe crossed the room, which always smelled of baby powder, and closed the door. She came back and sat down on the window seat.
“Your birthday is soon.”
“Yes. Three months.”
“Seventy-eight days.”
Zoe lowered her head and laughed. Only her grandmother knew exactly how many days until her thirtieth birthday. “Okay, seventy-eight days.” She tucked her feet under her and let her gaze travel slowly over the history of her grandmother’s face—from the thick silvery hair that hung in two braids down her back, her high forehead, thin arching brows, her wide, almond-shaped, all-knowing eyes, to the aquiline nose, high cheekbones and full lips. Zora Beaumont was still a stunning woman.
“You don’t have much time. He’s already here.”
Zoe’s pulse began to race.
“Isn’t he?” Zora leaned forward.
“I…”
“You’ve seen him in your dreams.” She smiled and looked off toward the garden. “It’s how it begins you know. It happened with my mother and with me. It skipped right over my girls. But not you,” she said, her voice taking on an air of storytelling. “You are the one. The one, Zoe.”
Zoe leaned forward and clasped her grandmother’s hands. “The one to do what, Nana?”
“Fulfill the legacy, Zoe. Bring happiness back to the Beaumont women. He’s been searching for you, too.”
A shiver ran through her and the fine hairs on her arms tingled. “What do you mean he’s been searching for me?” Her breath quickened.
Zora smiled. “I want you to open your mind and listen to me.”
Zoe slowly nodded her head.
Zoe gently closed the bedroom door so as not to disturb her grandmother. She had been numbed by everything she’d heard. Although the story of the Beaumont women and the family legacy was something that had been talked about while she was growing up, she’d never really heard the story. She had listened to the tales of love between her great-great-grandparents who’d been torn apart and swore to find each other again. Zoe had always dismissed the stories as simply a romantic tragedy, one of many that happened during slavery. But she’d heard it this time, saw it in her mind, understood it and felt it in her heart in a way that changed her.
She felt light-headed and tired as if she’d been on a long journey. Maybe she had, she thought as she walked past her aunts in a daze. Her mother’s and Sharlene’s curious gazes followed her as she walked out the front door and sat on the porch steps.
She looked off, above the treetops that stood guard at the entrance to the house where her family lived.
The rational, analytic side of her, the part of her brain that dealt with facts and science, still struggled with the Beaumont part of her—the side that wanted to embrace the possibility of something spiritual. And maybe if she did, love would finally fill her life.
“Hey, you okay?”
Zoe glanced behind her. Sharlene stood in the doorway.
She gave a short mirthless laugh. “I don’t know. I guess so.”
Sharlene stepped out and sat beside Zoe. She put her arm around her friend’s shoulder. “Did you at least have a good talk with Nana?”
“Nana did all the talking and she told me to go home and get ready.” She twisted the end of her hair between her fingers. “This time I listened.” She sighed. “I want to believe that there is someone out there that’s just for me. But at the same time, I don’t want to be the one responsible for my family’s happiness. I don’t want to have their future in my hands. I’ve seen what relationships have done to my family. Every one of them has loved and lost, tragically. Knowing that and witnessing their pain, I don’t want it to be me.” She looked at Sharlene, hoping to find understanding in her eyes.
Sharlene rested her head against Zoe’s. “It won’t be you, girl,” she softly assured.
“Promise.”
Sharlene pursed her lips and wished that she could promise happiness for her friend.
Chapter 6
Jackson strode out of Dean McRae’s office more annoyed than when he’d walked in. The dean was a hundred years old if he was a day. He was hard of hearing and always wanted to talk about everything that was completely unrelated to the issue at hand. Jackson had spent the past half hour listening to Dean MacRae ramble on about growing up in Mississippi instead of what he’d come to discuss—getting a new teaching assistant.
“Hey, Jackson. What’s up, man?”
Jackson slowed as Levi caught up with him in the hallway. “Hey. Just left McRae’s office.”
“Don’t tell me. He told you the story of how he walked five miles to school each way, up a hill and barefoot,” Levi said, chuckling.
Jackson grumbled. “Might as well have for all the good the conversation did me.”
Levi clapped him on the shoulder. “Go talk to his assistant, Frank Miller. He’s really the man behind the dean with the real power. McRae is a relic steeped in the college’s past who they refuse to get rid of.” He paused a moment. “Victoria ever say why she had to leave?”
“No. Just that it was personal.”
“You did say she was making you a little nervous,” Levi said as they walked into the teacher’s lounge. “Probably the best thing that could’ve happened.”
“Yeah,” he muttered and poured a cup of coffee.
“You okay, man? You seem a little out of it.” Levi reached for the milk.
“Mmm. A little tired. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Levi muttered knowingly. “Oh, I see.”
Jackson gave him a look. “It’s not what you think.”
“You trying to tell me that you didn’t sleep last night and it wasn’t because a beautiful, sexy woman was keeping you up?”
“Right.” Jackson started pouring sugar in his coffee. It was only partially true, he thought as he took a sip. It was a woman that kept him up—the woman from the day of the fire. Since he’d seen her and lost sight of her, he’d been driving himself crazy imagining that he saw her on every corner and in the faces of every woman who crossed his path in Atlanta. It had been a week and she was nowhere to be found.
“Got any plans for the weekend?” Levi leaned against the counter and sipped his coffee.
“I’m taking two of my classes to the opening at the High Museum tonight. Remember?”
Levi snapped his fingers. “Yeah, right. I’ve been so bogged down with this dissertation that I totally forgot. Mind if I tag along?”
Jackson