A Gift of Time (Tassamara) (12 page)

“Registered campers?” Nat recognized the caveat immediately.

“The squatters are tougher to find.”

Nat glanced over her shoulder before opening the screen door and stepping out onto the porch. The night was cool, but not cold, and she didn’t bother with a jacket. She looked up at him under the glow of her porch light.

He let his gaze drop to her mouth, wanting to taste her, wanting to tug her into his arms and feel her against him. She must have recognized the look, because her chin tilted up—unfortunately, not in the “kiss me, now, you fool,” way but with a narrowed eye expression that said, “touch me and I’ll smack you, jerk.”

“What next?” she asked.

“We’ve been trying to get her picture on the news,” he answered. “It may be our best chance of finding someone who recognizes her.”

Nat wrinkled her nose. “No one in Tassamara is going to like having reporters in town.”

“We’ve had no luck so far. Apparently a pop star got caught with a prostitute. The television stations don’t have time for anything else.

Nat’s scowl deepened. “You’d think a little girl lost in the woods on Christmas Day would be more important.”

“You’d think,” he agreed, his frustration adding an edge to his tone, before he changed the subject. “You’re sure she doesn’t speak Spanish?” He’d asked the question before. It was wishful thinking to hope the answer might be different.

“She doesn’t speak anything,” Nat responded with a snap. “She doesn’t speak at all.” He looked at her silently and she sighed, before adding, in a more reasonable tone. “My Spanish isn’t great, but she doesn’t show any indication of understanding it. English is no problem. Why?”

“Illegal immigrant parents might have an excuse for not searching for her.”

It was Nat’s turn to fall silent. For a moment, they stood together in shared worry, Nat looking up at him, and then her gaze fell. She stepped away and dropped down to sit on the porch steps. Absently, she swept the wood floor with her hand, grimacing at the dust before brushing her hands together to wipe it off. “I should sweep.”

Colin sat down next to her. Their shoulders brushed, but Nat made no move to scoot away.

“If nobody’s looking for her…” Nat said softly. “You’re thinking Hansel and Gretel?”

“No Hansel,” he answered. He looked over his shoulder at her neat cottage with its trim blue and white paint. “And your house lacks the requisite gingerbread.” He paused. Trying to make a joke of it didn’t help. “But yeah. Her parents might have abandoned her.”

“I still don’t think she’s autistic.” Nat stared out into the darkness as if she could see into the trees. “Or even truly emotionally disturbed. She’s been through a trauma, that’s clear, but when she thinks she’s alone, she relaxes. She seems like a perfectly normal child. She plays, she draws.”

The psychologist had been quick to give up on interviewing Kenzi, and as quick to decide the girl displayed symptoms of autism and should be placed in a residential facility. Colin was no expert, but he didn’t think a cursory non-interview with a lost child was the right basis for that diagnosis or that decision. Nat agreed. After a confrontation with the psychologist in which the woman stiffly asserted that she’d done what she could, the stalemate was resolved when Carla, the caseworker from the foster care agency, suggested Kenzi stay with Nat. For a little while longer, until her parents could be found.

“She watches television.” Nat pulled her hair over her shoulder and started twisting a lock around her finger, winding it tighter and tighter. “Too much television, probably. She watches it as if she’s hypnotized. It’s the Disney channel, but I’m not sure it’s good for her.”

“Is that what she’s doing now?” Colin asked.

Nat nodded. “I was cooking dinner.”

As if in response, his stomach rumbled. He put a hand on it. “Sorry. Long day, not much food.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment before letting the words slip out. “There’s plenty if you want to stay.”

Colin didn’t grin but his lips twitched. If he gauged her mood correctly, her ingrained southern hospitality had overridden her anger, and she was already regretting the words. Still, he would grab the opportunity with both hands. “I’d appreciate that, thank you.” A muscle flickered in her jaw as if she were gritting her teeth so he added easily, as if it were the only reason he was staying, “I’d like the chance to spend some more time with Kenzi.”

“Watching her watch television isn’t fascinating.” She’d wound her dark hair so tightly around her finger that the tip was turning red

“I want to ask her a few more questions.”

Nat tugged her finger free. “You think she’ll talk to you?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. He’d been too busy over the past few days for more than fleeting interactions with Nat and Kenzi, but he’d seen the girl’s body language when Nat returned to the sheriff’s office. Her muscles relaxed, her breathing slowed in relief and trust. When Kenzi talked, it would be to Nat, he was sure. Still, given that she hadn’t yet spoken, they couldn’t count on that. “But her reactions could give us some clues to her background.”

“I don’t want you scaring her.” Nat turned to face him. “She’s been scared enough.”

“Nothing like that.” He put up a hand, fingers spread wide.

“She frightens easily.” Nat’s mouth twisted. “Yesterday…”

“What?” Colin prompted when she fell silent.

“After I got off the phone with you, I couldn’t find her,” Nat said reluctantly. Their eyes met and Colin winced at the guilt in Nat’s gaze. “It took me a while to track her down. She was hiding in the bathroom closet, squeezed into a space that should have been way too small for her.”

Colin wished he could put a comforting arm around her shoulders and hug her close. The previous day, his sister Jenna, the one closest in age to him, had dropped by Nat’s house with an armload of hand-me-down clothes from her youngest daughter for Kenzi. It would have been a nice gesture, but she’d been bubbling over with delight about his survival and the future, a future she assumed would include Nat. Nat hadn’t been pleased. She’d let him know about it—at a higher than average decibel level—the moment Jenna left.

“I won’t say anything that would scare her,” Colin promised. “I’ll be careful.”

“Avoid asking about her parents. She shuts down when you bring them up.”

“Voice of experience?”

Nat spread her hands. “Just casual questions. Does your mom make you breakfast? Are your dad’s eyes blue like yours?”

Those were exactly the sorts of questions Colin hoped to ask. He should have known Nat would be trying the same thing.

“She’s locking her secrets up in silence. I’ve been looking for the key,” Nat continued. “It’s not parents, it’s not home, it’s not her own toys. It’s not favorite foods or television shows. I don’t know what it is yet.”

“We’ll find it,” Colin said. “Seven-year-olds aren’t noted for their ability to keep secrets.”

“She’s doing pretty well so far,” Nat answered, her voice dry. It softened as she added, “It’s too bad that Lucas isn’t here. He could tell us what she’s thinking.”

Nat’s brother, Lucas, was telepathic. Unlike his siblings, however, he didn’t spend much time in Tassamara. He’d been in town for a few weeks, but on Christmas Day he and his girlfriend, Sylvie, had flown to North Carolina to spend some time with her family.

“Could you call him?” Colin asked.

Nat tipped her head to the side, a movement part nod, part shake. “I did, but he and Zane got called in on some government case. They flew to Japan the day after Christmas. He said they’d try to get back to town as soon as possible, but they’re tracking some high-level security leaks and it might take a while. Kenzi’s not in any danger, so I can’t say it’s urgent.”

“Is there anyone else at GD who could help?” Colin suggested. The company Nat’s family owned had an eclectic staff, many of whom had unusual abilities.

“Maybe, but we’re closed until after New Year’s,” she answered. “We’re on our own until then.”

Colin rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble he needed to shave away. “Maybe we could pick up some clues about where she’s from based on her behavior.”

“Like what?”

“Table manners?” he suggested. “I don’t imagine squatters camping in the forest devote much attention to teaching their kids how to use silverware.”

Nat arched a brow, but her look was thoughtful, not doubting.

“I’d like to take a look at her drawings, too.”

“Hoping to find the deep psychological undercurrents hidden within them?”

“Well…” Put that way, it sounded stupid, but Nat shook her head.

“I’ve been looking, too,” she admitted. “Developmentally, they seem appropriate. Rounded human shapes, a step up from stick figures, with all the body parts one might expect, including facial expressions. She’s using colors, a baseline, traditional symbols. I’m no expert, but I’d say she’s a pretty good artist for her age.”

“A baseline? Traditional symbols? That sounds like expertise.”

“Well, art.” Nat gave a shrug, as if her words were a complete answer. She stood, brushing off the seat of her pants. “For psychological analysis, though, we’d need her to explain her drawings. To tell us who the people and places are, her feelings about what she’s creating.”

“Can’t you tell from looking at them?” Colin asked as he stood and followed Nat up the steps.

She glanced over her shoulder at him as she reached the door. “No, not really. Although… well, I’ll let you see for yourself.”

On that cryptic note, she opened the door and went inside.

Letting Colin stay for dinner was a terrible idea. Polite, maybe, but why had she let her mother’s manners overrule her common sense? The more time she spent with him, the more conversations they had, the easier it was to fall back into their old patterns.

She and Colin thought alike. In the old days, they could finish one another’s sentences. They’d never shared interests: he liked comic books and football, she preferred novels and art exhibits. But their companionship ran bone deep. It would be much too easy to get used to having him around again.

And she didn’t want him around. She didn’t want him in her space. She didn’t want to have to remember him here, to picture him sitting on her comfortable couch, his long legs outstretched. When he was gone, she didn’t want to hear the sound of his quiet chuckle in the silence or smell the scent of his laundry soap in the air.

So many of the memories of her past belonged to him. Her childhood, her adolescence, her college years—all were stamped Natalya plus Colin in the scrapbooks of her mind. She’d spent years missing him as if his absence was a hole carved out of her life, and now that her life was whole again, she didn’t want to give him any part of her present or future.

At the thought of the future, Natalya searched her mind, hoping to shake loose a premonition, any premonition. Nothing came to her. It was maddening, like not being able to remember her name or her birthday. She was clenching her teeth, she realized, and forced herself to relax.

Enough thinking. Exist in the now, she reminded herself. The past couldn’t hurt her and the future would be what it would be. Thoughts were just leaves on water, clouds in the sky, floating away.

Kenzi was still planted on the couch, watching television with hypnotized eyes, the doll Grace had given her tucked against her side. Natalya wasn’t sure whether she’d let it out of her sight once since it arrived. Behavior. What did it mean that Kenzi was so fascinated with television, so attached to her doll? It wouldn’t surprise Natalya to learn the doll was the nicest one Kenzi had ever owned. Grace hadn’t skimped on quality. But that would be true for most children, Natalya suspected.

The television, though—was it her usual babysitter? She certainly watched with the glazed concentration of an addict, but she’d never once moved to turn on the box herself or even change the channel.

“That’s beautiful.” Colin’s voice was hushed with awe. Natalya glanced at him in surprise, but he was looking past Kenzi, at the painting of her mother she’d hung over the couch.

Natalya had painted it from a mix of photograph and memory. The original photo had given her the shape of the nose and the cheekbones, the angle of the neck, the amber gold of the hair. But the stubbornness in the set of the chin and the light of laughter in the eyes—those had come from Natalya’s memories of her mother.

The curve of the mouth had taken forever. Natalya had wanted to capture a very specific smile. Not a single photograph—not that there were many, given that her mom was usually the one behind the camera, rarely in front of it—had the exact look of exasperated affection her mother had worn so well. It had taken weeks of trial-and-error, of scribbled-out sketches and consultations with her brothers and sister for Nat to get it right, but she had in the end.

It was probably the best piece of work she’d ever done.

“You painted it?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s incredible. That’s not watercolors, though.”

She should walk away, go finish dinner. Letting him into her house didn’t mean letting him into her life. But her art was a subject near to her heart and hard to resist. “No, it’s oil. I started using oil pastels in med school because I didn’t have a lot of time, and they were easy to carry around. And then I switched to oil paint a few years ago. I tried acrylic but it dries too fast.”

“Aren’t oil paints supposed to be difficult?”

Natalya made an equivocal gesture with one hand. “Slow to dry. But flexible. I love the translucency.”

“Is that what gives her skin that light?”

Damn it. Every member of her family and several friends had seen the portrait of her mother. Every single one had admired it. Her brother Zane had asked for one of her preliminary sketches and it was hanging, framed, in his office. But Colin was the first to express interest in how Natalya had done it.

“Yes.” She kept her answer short. “I should go finish dinner.”

She took three steps away and was almost at the door to the kitchen when Colin spoke again. “She wasn’t mad at me, you know.”

Natalya’s chin went up as she turned back. “She never got mad at you. You were the golden boy.”