Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)

by Roxanne St Claire

  “How? Why?” Jocelyn turned, trying to force Zoe to look at her. “Have you made a list of all the possible reasons?”

  “I would get stuck in the waiting room with a life coach.”

  “Answer the question.”

  Zoe plucked at a chip in the fake wood armrest, reliving the incredible breakthrough she’d had in Oliver’s office. “Every time in my life that I ever got even close to an attachment, it blew up in my face. A family I liked or a new friend at school and, wham, I had to move. Then with Pasha, I’d get settled in a place and put down one little root and, bang, it was time to go to the next place. I fell in love and the same thing happened.” She looked at Jocelyn through blurry eyes. “Why would it be any different this time?”

  Jocelyn closed her hands over Zoe’s shaking ones. “You’ve kept us through all these years.”

  “You guys work at that. If the three of you didn’t hound me with phone calls and e-mails, I’d have probably lost touch.”

  “And you have had Pasha.”

  Yes, she had. And now…

  “Zoe.”

  She blinked, the light blocked by a large figure coming through the doorway, in scrubs. “Oliver.”

  He crouched in front of her, his face a wasteland of misery.

  “Is she…” Dead? Zoe couldn’t make the word form.

  He shook his head. “She’s stable, more or less.”

  “What does that mean?

  “It means you can see her now.”

  Zoe practically leaped out of the chair. “Is she in pain?”

  “No.” He stabbed a hand through his hair, exhaling pure exhaustion and frustration. “It was a massive attack, though, and her heart is weak. The real irony is that she isn’t rejecting the vectors. In fact, the very earliest indicators are that the gene therapy is working exactly as it should.”

  “Oliver, is she going to…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “I don’t know.”

  They walked down a long hall in silence, so fast the rooms and nurses and soft hospital colors blurred in Zoe’s vision. When they reached a room at the end of the ICU hallway, the nurse next to it looked up in greeting.

  “Any change?” Oliver asked.

  She gave her head a quick, negative shake.

  He nodded thanks to the nurse and reached for the door. “Go ahead in, Zoe.”

  But she stood, frozen in place, collecting the thoughts and feelings that ricocheted around her head and heart, unable to capture any of them long enough to know what she wanted to say to Pasha if this was their last time together.

  Could this be their last time together? Oh, Lord, not again. Not another…detachment. She couldn’t lose Pasha!

  “Zoe?”

  She gave him a sad smile. “For a change, I can’t move.”

  He didn’t smile. Instead, his eyes darkened as though they reflected the pain in her heart. “I’ve done everything possible, Zoe. Everything.”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t know if it’s enough.” He worked hard to swallow. “You better go in now.”

  In other words, say your good-byes.

  “Hey, Auntie.”

  From somewhere in the dark, quiet place where she slept, Pasha could hear Zoe’s voice.

  Zoe! Is that you, little love?

  But nothing came from her mouth and no muscle in her body moved. Even her eyelids were still. It was like she was trapped, able to hear, smell, think, and feel, but her body would not cooperate. And that low, slow, deep burn had started in her chest again.

  The touch on her shoulder was light and familiar, along with the scent of a girl who had, in so many ways, saved Pasha’s life.

  “Pasha?” Close enough that Pasha could feel Zoe’s warm kiss on her skin, and the contact gave her just enough energy to open her eyes.

  “Hi,” Zoe said on a whisper, taking Pasha’s hand.

  Pasha blinked once because it was easier than talking. For a long time, she soaked up the sight of Zoe’s sweet green eyes, which was always a little like walking barefoot in the grass. Cool and inviting and just plain fun.

  “At the risk of asking the obvious,” Zoe said with a smile, “how ya feelin’?”

  “My heart…” Hurts.

  “Yeah, apparently it’s on the attack. But you’re going to be fine.”

  Zoe didn’t sound so sure, and she’d be even less so if she could feel the pain in Pasha’s chest.

  “But I’m right here with you, and Oliver and the doctors are taking care of you.”

  Oliver. Oh, Oliver. “The moonbow.” She had to tell Zoe. “True love…returns.”

  Zoe kind of shook her head, not getting it. “Evan’s outside, too.”

  No, not Evan. He wasn’t the true love, though Pasha may have imagined that at first. It was—

  “And the girls, too. All gathered round because you’re a great great-aunt to all of us, Pasha.” She was keeping her voice bright and chirpy, like she did in the car when they were beelining out of yet another town and Pasha was scared, looking at the rearview mirror and expecting…him.

  He’d hunt her down and kill her, too.

  “I’m sorry…” Pasha eked out the words, and they sounded empty and useless. As they should.

  “Stop,” Zoe said.

  Pasha tried to take a breath to say more, but her chest felt like someone was stabbing her heart, using knives sharpened by guilt and self-loathing and fear, each strike worse than the one before.

  What seemed like an eternity passed, but it probably was just the time it took for Zoe to stroke Pasha’s arm and run her knuckles over Pasha’s old fingers. The loving touch broke her heart even more.

  “Pasha, I want you to listen to me.” She got right next to Pasha’s ear to whisper. “I know about Matthew.”

  Pasha closed her eyes. “I didn’t—”

  “I know.” Zoe put a hand over Pasha’s heart, the touch somehow soothing. “His father did it, didn’t he?”

  For a long time, Pasha didn’t move, then she nodded her head, no more than a centimeter.

  “I thought so,” Zoe said. “We’re going to prove that and you’re going to be cleared. And I’m getting a lawyer to fight anyone who charges you with kidnapping me. So everything is going to be fine. Better, in fact.”

  “I never hurt him. …” She had to know the truth.

  “God, I know, Pasha. I never imagined you did.”

  “No,” she croaked. “I was so scared of him. Of Matthew…Senior.”

  “Why?” Zoe asked. “If you knew he…did that, why not tell the police what he did? Surely not because of me? There were years between your trial and finding me.”

  “I had no proof, just my gut.” Her heart hammered and immediately one of the machines in the room started beeping.

  “No, no,” Zoe said with a touch of panic in her voice. “Please don’t get worked up, Pasha. We’ll talk about it later.”

  “Not later.” There might not be a later. “Now.”

  Zoe didn’t answer, and, in her eyes Pasha could see that there really might not be a later.

  Digging for every ounce of strength, Pasha whispered, “I didn’t see him do it, but he was in a rage. So angry at the boy for…nothing. They ran out and then…neither one came back. I waited and waited.”

  Old feelings welled up, making her rib cage feel like it would burst with the pain, but she had to get this story out. She’d tried to tell the police, but nobody believed her. Or they’d taken some of that mountain of Hobarth cash.

  “He got away, drove to some convention, paid people to say they’d been with him. People would do anything for that man. Anything for money.”

  “Did you tell your lawyer this? The judge and jury during your trial?”

  “Nobody believed me. He had an alibi and I was home with my son, had scratches on my arms. But a few of the people in that courtroom believed me. Enough.”

  “Enough for a hung jury,” Zoe said.

  Pasha forced a nod. �
��But he knew what I knew. First, for years, he gave me lots and lots of money and, God help me, I took it. I didn’t have any other way to live and…”

  “Shhh,” Zoe whispered. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me this now, Pasha.”

  “But I do.” She knew her body well enough by now. Time was running out and she couldn’t die with Zoe thinking anything bad of her. “He stopped giving me money,” she said. “When I was in Corpus Christi.”

  She remembered the call so well. His gruff voice, his dark threats. Times had changed since the murder. They had tests now, blood tests, and her ex-husband was scared. And scared people did terrible things.

  One word, Patricia, and I will find you and cut you to ribbons.

  “When you came to me that day, Zoe, I was already packing to leave. You were like…a sign.” And added protection. She’d done the research and knew how to change her identity, and he’d never be looking for a woman with a ten-year-old child in tow. “So I kidnapped you.”

  Zoe nearly choked on her reply. “Like hell you did.”

  The machine chirped a little faster and Zoe patted her arm some more, glancing at the monitor with worry in her eyes. “None of this matters, Pasha. He’s going to be caught, you’re going to be free, and—”

  “I’m going to die.”

  “No! The gene therapy is already working. This is a little setback.” Zoe leaned so close some of her hair brushed against Pasha’s cheek, the sweet smell of her lemony shampoo like a balm on Pasha’s pain. “Do you need a sign?” Zoe asked. “I can tell you a very happy secret about Oliver and me.”

  A fist squeezed at her heart. She had to finish her confession. “Zoe.”

  “Shhh. No more.”

  “Yes. More.” The letter. She’d been so shocked when it arrived a year after Oliver had mailed it. That was a sign—a very real one—that she wasn’t doing a bang-up job of covering up their trail from town to town. “It was wrong to keep it, but I was scared you’d go back to him and we’d get caught.”

  Zoe sighed softly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I want you to stop talking.”

  The fingers on her heart clutched a little tighter. “You didn’t find the letter?” She looked right into Zoe’s eyes and tried to hold on against the pain, that incessant beeping getting louder and faster.

  Zoe looked panicked by the sound, her worried gaze shifting to the flashing light. “Pasha, please, please. Don’t talk anymore. Your heart.”

  “Is breaking.” Cracking in two, bleeding out, exposed for the selfish choices it made. Was loving Zoe selfish? Was taking her selfish? Was keeping that letter selfish?

  Yes, yes it was. Everything she’d done was selfish and motivated by fear.

  Fire shot through her chest, worse than anything she’d ever felt and entirely different from the last time. This was sharper and deeper, somehow. Worse.

  “Don’t be afraid, Zoe.”

  But the look in her darling girl’s eyes was pure fear.

  “Don’t…let…fear…stop…you.”

  “Pasha!” Zoe backed up, her voice barely audible over the alarm.

  “I’m sorry.” She could only form the words, with no sound. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” Tears welled up in Zoe’s eyes. “You saved me from a very bad man.”

  “But kept you…from a good one.”

  Agonizing white sparks exploded behind her eyes and everything, every part of her body, felt numb and black and…distant.

  “Pasha!”

  “Step away, ma’am.”

  “What is it? What’s going on?” Zoe cried.

  And then the loudest noise she’d ever heard screamed in her head, one long, deafening, endless screech that blocked out everything but Zoe’s voice, rising in terror, calling her name, begging for help.

  “Code Blue! Code Blue!”

  Pasha didn’t know what a Code Blue was, but something told her that was one very bad sign.

  Zoe’s voice was distant now, a wild, desperate, shrill squeal…no, that was the alarm. The heart alarm. The death alarm.

  Her time had come.

  “Pasha, please, I love you. Don’t…”

  “You need to leave, ma’am. Now.”

  “No! Aunt Pasha!”

  One last time Pasha forced her eyes open, searching wildly until they landed on the child she’d loved like her own. Zoe. Zoe.

  “We’ll call you Zoe,” Pasha whispered. “It means ‘new life.’ ”

  But Zoe’s face faded into a soft white light and disappeared from Pasha’s sight.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Zoe ran as far and fast as she knew how, through a parking lot, down a street, into an alley, across a road, finally reaching a public beach somewhere in Naples.

  There, she hurried down a set of weatherworn stairs, her feet pounding on the wood until they finally hit sand. She curled up against a post under the boardwalk and let go of the sobs she’d been holding in.

  She cried until her eyes were dry and her breaths nothing but shuddering sighs. And still she didn’t move, watching the occasional passerby, listening to the splash of the surf, the sound of steps overhead, the mournful squawk of a seagull.

  Nice work, Zoe. You escaped. Now what?

  Guilt pressed on her, kicking her stomach and heart until they were black and blue. She should have stayed. She’d tried to, waiting with the others, shaking and crying. And then, just as Jocelyn had predicted, Oliver had come back through those doors to deliver the news.

  Only it wasn’t the news Jocelyn had promised.

  Anguish had mixed with anger, threatening to spew as Zoe tried to accept the unacceptable. She almost hurled words of blame—words Oliver didn’t deserve but that her grieving heart wanted to throw anyway. So she did the only thing she could. She hit the road.

  She couldn’t face life without Pasha, couldn’t imagine life without Pasha. They’d been a team for so long, the two of them against the world.

  And now the world had taken her away. Once more, Zoe was left in the cold, alone, unattached, unsure of where she’d go next.

  She kicked the sand so hard her flip-flop shot into the air, landing in the sunshine. No way was she moving to get that. No way was she coming out of this shadowy covering that protected her. No way was she—

  Oliver.

  She put her hand to her mouth as she stared at the man backlit by the sun, a silhouette she’d recognize anywhere. He still wore the same soft green scrubs he’d had on in the hospital. He held a phone to his ear as he strode down the beach, looking from one side to the other.

  “No sign of her.” His voice bounced over the sand and hit her right in the gut.

  Oh, God, they were all probably looking for her. She couldn’t hide here like…like she was trying to escape the pain. Because she couldn’t escape the pain.

  Clearing her throat, she pushed up and Oliver turned, dipping his head to squint into the shadows. She stepped out from under the boardwalk, the blast of the sun like fire on her skin.

  “I’ve got her,” he said into the phone, then he dropped it into his pocket and stared at her.

  Her heart, even broken and bruised and battered as it was, still managed to thump against her ribs as he took a few steps closer. Yes, she loved that man. Loved him wholly and completely…which was why she couldn’t bear the inevitable.

  “You left,” he said.

  “Shocker, huh?” She inched back, the sun too hot, the shadows behind her too tempting. She forced herself to stop moving.

  “Zoe, I’m…” He reached up, then let his hands fall to his sides. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

  “Not as sorry as I am.”

  He flinched at the direct hit, but the bullet hole gave her no satisfaction.

  “I swear to you that neither heart attack was related to the treatment, but even knowing that, I feel like a complete…failure.” His voice cracked enough to make her want to go to him.

  “I kno
w.” She did know that; it didn’t help alleviate the ache, but she didn’t want to add to the misery etched in his face by placing blame where it didn’t belong.

  “There was nothing we could do. We tried everything, but her heart simply wouldn’t…” His voice faded out with the next crash of the sea behind him. He looked up, over her shoulder, beyond the boardwalk. “Your friends are here for you.”

  She turned to see Jocelyn and Lacey marching across the road like a little cavalry coming to the rescue.

  Right behind them marched a man Zoe instantly recognized as the FBI agent. “And they bring company,” she said.

  “I already talked to him,” Oliver said. “The preliminary mitochondrial DNA test came back and she’s cleared. I guess he wants to tell you in person.”

  Zoe almost stumbled backwards. “Pasha missed this by—what, hours?”

  “She knew she wasn’t guilty, Zoe. She died with a clear conscience.”

  “She did…say she was sorry.” She squinted up at him, the sun so powerful it made her tear. Or something did. “She said she was sorry she kept me from a good man. She meant you.”

  His gaze flickered and he opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then stopped.

  “What?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “We can’t get past this, can we?”

  Her heart did a double dip. “I don’t know.” Would she ever forgive him for something that probably would have happened anyway? Could she hold his hand and not blame those healing fingers for not fixing what he’d promised to fix? Pasha…and her.

  Neither one of them was better off. Pasha was gone and Zoe had run. No one was fixed. “And I can’t seem to stick around and face reality, so we’re both to blame.”

  A gull screeched nearby and some kids came running down the boardwalk steps, laughing and tossing a football.

  Life went on for everyone else, Zoe thought bitterly. It would have to go on for her, too. Without Pasha. And without Oliver.

  “Zoe.” He was close enough that she could see the sheen of perspiration on his forehead and the abject misery in his eyes. “I don’t want to…” He tunneled his fingers in his hair, dragging it back, letting out a soft grunt of resignation.