A Gift of Time (Tassamara) (5 page)

Natalya ripped open the pouch, taking out the test stick. “She didn’t give him a budget. Instead of working his way down her checklist and updating our water and canned food supplies, which I’m sure is what Grace intended, Zane sent out an email to everyone in the company, asking what they thought we’d need in the event of the zombie apocalypse and promising a prize to the person who sent the most complete answer, quality of the prize to be determined by the quality of the answers.” Bending over the test, she carefully dripped blood into the test well, before looking at the clock on the wall to check the time. Almost one.

“And?” Colin prompted.

She yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “You know how people work here. The answers were in-depth. Thorough. A little crazy. We probably lost a solid couple of day’s work from every researcher on staff.”

“You’re kidding. How much detail is possible?”

“One person wrote a novel,” she told him. “I read it. It wasn’t half-bad.” She’d actually enjoyed the story of how Tassamara survived and thrived during the zombie apocalypse, although she had serious reservations about whether Max’s actions were at all plausible.

“What?” Colin’s laugh held disbelief.

“No, I’m not kidding. People got—well, they know Zane. Anyway, after he received all the answers, he had an admin compile the results, and order anything at least three people mentioned. We’ve got more than three doctors on staff, so—” She waved at the refrigerator. “In the event of an emergency, we’re stocked.”

“Don’t you mean in the event of the zombie apocalypse?”

“Not gonna happen,” she told him wryly. “Our next hurricane, however, is inevitable.” The words didn’t inspire foreknowledge and she frowned. But she’d seen it before: the tree branches, Millard Street, the window of the bistro shattering. With a shake of her head, she added, “As are our next tornadoes.”

“What did you see?”

Natalya turned away and picked up the plastic stick. “Nothing.”

“Nat.”

She glanced at him. “Nothing.”

“I’m the sheriff. My job is to keep the town safe. If you know something that could help me do that, I want to know what it is.”

Natalya stared down at the test stick in her hands, barely seeing it. “I don’t tell people what I know about the future anymore. It serves no purpose.”

Silence.

It dragged on, became pronounced. Natalya could hear the sound of the clock ticking on the wall, her own breath, even the tiny hum of the overhead light.

And then they both spoke at once.

“It isn’t because of you, because of what happened with us.”

“You’re not responsible for what you see.”

Natalya’s hand shook and she steadied it, consciously inhaling. Straight to the heart. Damn it. And then they both spoke, again talking over one another.

“I know that,” Natalya said.

“I’d be sorry if it was.”

Colin half-laughed and Natalya started to set the test back down on the counter, then blinked at it and paused. “Damn.”

“You go first,” Colin offered.

Natalya shook her head. “Not that.” She offered him the plastic stick. “Pink line. You have excess troponin in your blood. It’s an indicator of heart damage.”

“Ah.” Colin took the stick and looked at the line, his mouth twisting. “How bad is it?”

“It’s not.” She crumpled up the waste from the test kit and dropped it into the nearby trash can, then took the vial with his remaining blood and walked back toward the scanner monitoring room.

“What does that mean?” He followed her, of course.

“It means I’m a radiologist, not a cardiologist, and I don’t know what I’m doing.” She set the vial of blood down on her desk next to the first one and stared at her computer screen for a moment, not really seeing it. She tried to think, tried to remember any facts that could make sense of the contradictory data, but her brain kept returning to the moment when she rounded the back of his car and reality began deviating from her foreknowledge. Why was he alive? Why wasn’t he dead?

“Come on, Nat, that scan took forever. You must have lots of pretty pictures of my heart by now.”

“And a very pretty heart it is,” Nat answered, half-sarcastic, half-serious, before grabbing a pen and reaching for the sheet of labels she’d gotten out earlier. As she filled out the sticker with his name, the date, and the time she’d drawn the blood, she added, “But there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“So did I have a heart attack or didn’t I?”

“Your troponin levels say yes. But your heart shows no evidence of damage, which means no.” She set the pen down, and then placed the label neatly on the vial.

“I’m confused.”

“Join the crowd,” she muttered. She looked in his direction, trying not to notice his physicality. She’d gained at least fifteen pounds, probably closer to twenty, in the past decade, but he’d added muscle. The definition in his upper arms and chest was noticeable. And regrettably hot. “You weren’t exercising strenuously a couple of hours ago, were you?”

Colin grinned at her. “Not unless eating an extra slice of cake counts. All that chewing, you know.”

She didn’t smile back. “Elevated troponin levels indicate damage to muscle, usually cardiac. But your heart is fine.”

“That sounds like good news.”

“I suppose.” She pressed her lips together. “If you went to a hospital, they probably wouldn’t even keep you overnight for observation. Troponin tests can be wrong, but the scan should be conclusive.”

“So I’m going to live?” All humor had disappeared from Colin’s face. His grey eyes were intent on hers, his strong mouth set in an even line.

Natalya spread her hands. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Come on, Nat, you can do better than that. Tell me my future.” She could see he was making an effort to sound casual, but his eyes were anything but.

“I don’t do that anymore, remember?”

“Exigent circumstances,” he responded. “When am I going to die?”

She licked her lips, waiting. But his question didn’t spur anything in her mind, no flood of images, no quick fleeting glimpse of an unknown place that still seemed familiar. She shook her head in his direction.

“Will I die tomorrow?” he persisted. “This week? Next week?” He stepped closer to her until he was so close she could almost feel the warmth radiating from his skin and she had to tilt her head up to look into his face.

She shrugged. “No idea. I don’t see it.” He was in her space. She should step away from him or at least order him to back off, but she didn’t, torn by her own mind’s mixed messages. She didn’t want him to affect her. She didn’t want to show him he affected her. But part of her—maybe it was the girl who had taken his presence in her life for granted, believed they were for always—simply wanted to lean into him and exult for a moment that he was still living, still breathing.

A smile broke over his face, curving his lips, lifting his cheeks, crinkling his eyes. And then his hands were on her, tugging her close. Her mouth opened to protest, but he was kissing her before she could form the words.

His kiss earlier had been questioning, searching, but this kiss demanded and took. She kissed him back. It was impossible not to. Her eyes closed and she lost herself in the moment; familiar, yet different, the long-suppressed craving bursting into life, heat rushing through her and pooling in her core. Their lips parted and returned, tongues tangling, little gasping breaths escaping, until Colin began stroking his way along the line of Natalya’s cheek, lips teasing and nibbling.

She let her head fall back, giving him better access to her sensitive neck and ears. He knew just how to kiss her, just what she liked. That hadn’t changed.

He caught the lobe of her ear with gentle teeth. “Boy or girl?” he whispered.

She froze. The words ricocheted in her mind like bullets hitting the memories of the times he’d asked the same question, teasing, silly, a joke. Lying by the lake at sixteen, in their first shared bed at twenty, and then the last time, the very last time, the day before he told her good-bye.

She pushed herself off him, shoving with enough force that he took a couple of steps backward, and she reeled away and into the edge of her desk, almost onto her computer. The heat of passion was gone, lost in a wave of such searing anger that her tensed muscles quivered with it.

Fists clenched against the urge to hit him, to hurt him like he’d hurt her, she grated out the answer. “We are never having children. Because we are not a couple and never will be again.”

He put a hand on his chest. Maybe he was touching where she’d shoved him, maybe he was covering his heart. She didn’t know and she didn’t care. “Nat.”

She glared at him.

“I’m not going to die.”

“Apparently not. Congratulations.” She turned away, feeling tears well up in her eyes and not wanting him to see them. She’d told herself years ago that it was stupid to keep hating him. That she needed to let go. Maybe not forgive, maybe not forget, but move on with her life. But she’d always known this night was coming. She’d been waiting for it, even if it hadn’t ended the way she’d expected.

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, making a conscious effort to relax her muscles and clear her mind. 

“I’m not dying,” Colin repeated.

She turned back to him, in control again. “No, you’re not.” She managed a tight smile. “But that doesn’t change the past. It doesn’t change the fact that when you thought you would, when you thought you only had a little while to live, you chose not to spend that time with me.”

He opened his mouth as if to protest, but she raised a hand and snapped, her tone fast and furious. “Don’t. Don’t even start. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I don’t care what you have to say. I’m glad you’re alive but that doesn’t mean anything between us changes.”

He ran a hand through his hair, “Everything changes, Nat.”

“Not us. We don’t change. You dumped me. And I don’t forgive you.”

In the other room, a phone rang. His. It rested with the other items from his pockets on a small table next to the scanner. He glanced in that direction automatically, then looked back at her and started. “Nat—”

“You should get that,” she interrupted him, voice cold, expression colder. “It’s probably about the girl. Maybe they’ve found her parents or know who she is.”

He didn’t move.

A rustle behind her told Natalya the girl was sitting up. She tried to school her expression, to not let the anger seething under her surface show, but her hands were trembling as she turned toward the child, taking the two steps that put her next to the pile of cushions. She crouched down. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

The girl looked fearful, eyes wide.

“Don’t worry.” Natalya reached out and put a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. “You fell asleep in the car and we carried you down to my office. But you don’t need to be afraid. We’ll get you home.”

The phone was still ringing. With a muffled sound falling somewhere between a sigh of resignation and a growl of frustration, Colin went to answer it.

The child still looked scared and Natalya let her hand drop to her side. Poor kid. Natalya’s anger faded, lost in guilt and sympathy. Bad enough to be lost and alone without waking up to strange adults screaming. “Did I wake you up by yelling at him? I’m sorry.”

The girl blinked, but the stiffness in her body didn’t ease.

“I’ve known him for a long time, since I was a little girl. Littler than you.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed slightly, a tiny movement, but her skepticism was plain.

Natalya had to smile. “Really. He was a little boy then, of course.”

The girl’s head tipped back, away from Natalya. She looked toward the door where Colin had disappeared and then back at Natalya.

“I might get mad at him sometimes, but he’s a good guy. You don’t need to be afraid of him. Or of me,” Natalya said, still trying to reassure her.

The wariness remained, but the look of fear was gone. For a moment, Natalya debated questioning her—asking again for her name and the story of how she’d come to be lost in the forest—but she suspected from the girl’s silence, the tension in her shoulders and the closed-off way she was holding her arms tight to her sides that she’d be no more helpful than she’d been earlier.

From the other room, she could hear the rumble of Colin’s voice, but not what he was saying until he appeared in the doorway, phone in hand. “No luck, I’m afraid.”

“Nothing?”

“No reports of a missing child. There’s a ranger out looking for accident sites, but even knowing where she wound up, there’s a lot of ground to cover. We’ll get a real search started at first light.” Colin glanced at his watch.

“What now?” Natalya asked.

“The DCF call.” He grimaced. “I’ll start with the hotline. It’s probably going to take a while, though. Working my way through a state bureaucracy on Christmas Day won’t be easy.”

“You might be surprised,” Natalya answered. “Our local agency is very well-run.”

She didn’t say any more, but her mother had supported Florida’s shift to private, community-based foster care. When Natalya moved back to Tassamara, she’d taken over her mother’s former seat on the board of directors at the local agency, so she knew—and admired—the people who ran the non-profit. They had hard jobs, but they did them well.

“I’ll find out.” Colin turned away, punching the number into his phone without hesitation.

Natalya looked back at the girl. “Let’s get you cleaned up and put some band-aids on those blisters,” she suggested.

The girl didn’t argue, so Natalya stood. She held out a hand but the girl ignored it as she scrambled to her feet. Without comment, Natalya led the way to the exam room.

The blisters were bad and must have hurt, but Natalya saw no signs of infection. Natalya sprayed them with a topical numbing agent before cleaning them but even so, the girl was wincing, feet twitching away from Natalya’s fingers, before she was done. She still didn’t make a sound.

“Sorry about that.” Natalya dropped the used antiseptic wipes into the trash can. She pulled open the cupboard door and looked at the bandage options. A basic adhesive would be fine, but she wished she had a fun choice, instead of the plain brown. Zane’s zombie planning apparently hadn’t taken into account the need to cheer people up. “All of our band-aids are the boring kind, I’m afraid. I wish we had fun ones for you.”