Key Of Valor by Nora Roberts Page B

right?”
    â€œYou bet. Hold on a minute, will you? I want your opinion on something.”
    Before Zoe realized his intent, Brad pulled her into his arms and kissed her. It was a restrained kiss, comparatively, and she froze like a statue, but it was still a kiss.
    Then he eased back, keeping one arm firm around her waist while he raised an eyebrow at Simon. “So?”
    The boy’s eyes were long like his mother’s, tawny like his mother’s, and held a world of speculation. After a long five seconds, he crossed those eyes, poked a finger in his mouth, and made gagging noises.
    â€œUh-huh,” Brad said. “Other than the gag reflex, do you have any problem with me kissing your mother?”
    â€œNot if you guys want to do something that gross. Chuck says his brother Nate likes to stick his tongue in girls’ mouths. That just can not be true. Can it?”
    With what he considered heroic control, Brad kept his face very sober. “It takes all kinds.”
    â€œI guess. I’m going to take Moe into my room so he doesn’t have to watch if you guys are going to do something gross again.”
    â€œSee you, kid.” As Simon and Moe padded off, Brad turned and grinned at Zoe. “Want to do something gross?”
    â€œI think we’ll just have coffee.”

Chapter Six
    M EETINGS , projections, and plans for expansion kept Brad tied to HomeMakers for a couple of days. He couldn’t complain, as it had been his idea to come back to Pleasant Valley, to make it his home base while overseeing the northeast quadrant of his family’s business, revamping the Valley store and expanding it by fifteen thousand square feet.
    That meant paperwork, conference calls, adjustments in staff and procedure, consultations with architects and contractors, haggling with or being wooed by suppliers.
    He could handle it. He’d been raised to handle it and had spent the last seven years in the New York offices learning the ins and outs of being a top executive of one of the country’s biggest retail chains.
    He was a Vane, the fourth generation of the HomeMakers Vanes. He had no intention of dropping the ball. In fact, he fully intended to slam-dunk that ball by making the first HomeMakers store the biggest, the most prestigious, and the most profitable in the national system.
    His father hadn’t been thrilled by his decision. B.C. Vane III considered it based on sentiment. And so it was, Brad thought. And why not? His grandfather had built the humble hardware store, then gambled everything to push it outward, had developed it into a successful, consumer-friendly outlet for home improvement needs, into a staple of the Laurel Highlands.
    And through guts, guile, and vision, had built a second store, then a third, then more, until he’d become a symbol of American enterprise with his face on Time magazine before his fiftieth birthday.
    So it was sentiment, Brad thought, but that was leavened with a good dose of the Vane guts, guile, and vision.
    He studied his hometown as he drove through the downtown area. The Valley was prospering in its quiet, steady way. The real estate market was strong in the county, and when people bought homes here, they tended to dig in and stay. Retail was up, and steadily above the national average. And tourist dollars maintained a nice healthy stream into the local economy.
    The Valley prized its small-town ambience, but being an hour from Pittsburgh lent that ambience a sheen of sophistication.
    For vacationers it offered hiking, skiing, boating, fishing, and charming inns, good restaurants. The flavor of country, all within an easy commute from the bustle of the city.
    It was a good place to live, and a good place to do business.
    Brad intended to do both.
    Maybe he hadn’t intended to be quite so pressed, but he hadn’t expected to come back and find himself spun into a search for mystical keys. And he hadn’t expected to fall for a