A Gift of Time (Tassamara)

by Sarah Wynde

  “I’ll check,” Shelby answered. “Good idea. Except, of course…” She let the sentence trail off.

  “Yeah.” Colin didn’t need her to explain. If the girl had somehow survived a boating accident, but the adult who’d been with her had disappeared, chances were they were looking for a drowning victim. “Her clothes were dry, though.” He’d take another look at the dress she’d been wearing, see if he could detect any sign it had been in the water. He scribbled a quick note on his pad.

  “It was a warm day yesterday.” Shelby didn’t sound optimistic. “Only takes an hour or two to dry off.”

  “Yeah, but let’s not go there yet. Let’s find a kayak first.” Colin wasn’t ready to give up on the picture of joyful reunions his imagination had painted.

  “I’ll start making calls right away,” Shelby promised.

  “Damn it,” Colin muttered. He’d hoped this would be easy. He tilted back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “She didn’t get dropped off by aliens.”

  “You thinking flying saucer aliens? ET and friends?” Shelby’s tone held a smile.

  “Not seriously, no.”

  “Hmm. It could be the other kind of aliens, you know,” Shelby said, the humor gone.

  “Illegals?” Colin tipped forward again. Parents afraid to report a missing child. Now that was a scenario he hadn’t thought of.

  “You know we get squatters out here. It’s a big park. Policing almost four hundred thousand acres—well, there are corners we don’t get to so often.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, doubt replacing his first enthusiasm. “She understood English. Recognized automatic door locks.”

  “Did she look Hispanic?” Shelby asked.

  Colin picked up his pen and tapped it on the desk. “Not so much, no. Light brown hair, blue eyes.”

  “Central America’s got plenty of blue-eyed blondes. Guatemala, Argentina. Even Mexico’s got some.”

  His response was a noncommittal hmm. It didn’t feel right to him, but he’d keep an open mind. “Will you keep looking?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah, of course,” Shelby assured him. “And I’m spreading the word. It’ll take hours, maybe more, to make sure every family is accounted for at the campgrounds. I’ll check on the kayaks, and we’ll be watching for abandoned cars, too. Maybe they were out for a day hike and something happened.”

  Colin grimaced. Ocala was a wilderness and people sometimes underestimated its risks. Snakes, bears, and of course, other human beings. He hoped to God the girl’s family hadn’t fallen prey to a human predator. A bear would be bad enough.

  “We’ll put the word out to the volunteers and guests, too,” Shelby added.

  “Great. The more eyes looking, the better.” Colin thanked her and said good-bye before disconnecting.

  He pulled the pad closer to him, looking down at his notes. Where to start? A soft knock on the door interrupted. He looked up absently, still focused on his list, before starting to his feet, almost knocking his chair over.

  He’d been expecting them and yet somehow seeing Nat, here, in his office, was still a shock. If the sky looked bluer today and the trees greener, Nat looked more beautiful. The lightweight red sweater she wore over blue jeans wasn’t tight, but caressed her curves just enough to make him want to touch, while her dark hair was twisted down her back in one of those complicated braids she liked. For a fleeting second, he entertained a fantasy of pulling off the hair tie and running his hands through the silken strands as he spread them over her shoulders—and then he swiftly brought his recalcitrant brain back under his control and said hello.

  Nat returned the greeting, but the girl by her side just stared at him, her expressive face solemn. Clean, her hair brushed, dressed in pink leggings and a faded t-shirt, she should have looked less lost, more relaxed, but she held herself in a way that looked poised to run, as if wiry energy coiled its way down her legs.

  “This looks like you,” Nat said, glancing around his office.

  Colin raised an eyebrow. “Sterile and industrial? Sorta rundown?”

  His office was scrupulously neat, with all files tucked away into the racks of steel-grey cabinets lining one wall, but the building had been built in the 1970s and both the room and the furniture looked their age. Okay, so maybe the swamp green of the chairs wasn’t as ugly as he’d always thought, but that was about all he could say for it.

  “I think I’ve been insulted,” he added in a stage whisper to the child. She didn’t smile, so he winked at her to let her know he was kidding.

  “I was thinking orderly and practical,” said Nat. “No personal touches? No family pictures?”

  Colin rolled his eyes. “You know how my family is. The walls would be covered if I let them get started.”

  Nat’s lips quirked up. “How many nieces and nephews do you have now?”

  “Uh…” Colin squinted and started counting. His six siblings were all married, all with kids. He could probably add them up, except that because his sisters had started having babies when he was a kid himself, some of them felt more like cousins. And some of those cousin-types were now grown, having babies of their own who called him “Uncle Colin.” Did they count? He supposed technically they did. Wouldn’t he be like a great-uncle or something to them? And his sister Jenna was on her second marriage, this one to a man with three kids of his own. Should he include his step-nieces and nephew? They felt more like relatives than his brother Brian’s kids did, because Brian lived in California and Colin hadn’t even met his youngest yet, so yeah, he should probably include Jenna’s step-kids.

  “You don’t know the answer?” Nat interrupted his thoughts.

  “I’m a great-uncle,” he protested.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Nat said stiffly. “You always liked kids.”

  “No, no, I mean, I’m a great-uncle and a step-uncle and a regular old uncle. Cecily’s got two and Minerva’s pregnant and Mitch—” He waved a hand in the air. “You get the idea. There’s a lot of ‘em and they keep making more.” He pointed at the bottom drawer of the file cabinet closest to the front wall. “Filled with drawings made by visiting munchkins. If I let them put them on the walls, they’d go floor to ceiling. Kinda tough to take your local law enforcement seriously when the office looks like a kindergarten classroom.”

  A real smile crossed Nat’s face, humor lightening her eyes. “Well,” she said, her hand gently brushing the top of the head of the girl next to her, not a stroke but a butterfly caress, “maybe Kenzi can make you one more.”

  “Kenzi?” Relief leaped in Colin’s chest. They had a name. If it was her first name only, it wasn’t much, but it was a starting place. He could work with that.

  But Nat must have heard the excitement, because she was shaking her head. “No, sorry. I just needed something to call her.”

  “And you picked Kenzi?”

  Maybe his surprise sounded critical because Nat arched her eyebrows at him and said, frost tingeing her tone, “We like it.” The little girl looked up at her and gave a smile, her first sign of emotion.

  Colin spread a hand in defense. “Hey, works for me.” Changing the subject, he added, “The caseworker’s down the hall. If you want to go fill her in, Nat, I can set Kenzi up with some crayons and paper here while we wait for the psychologist.”

  Nat paused, before offering a reluctant nod. Her hand opened toward the little girl as if she wanted to touch her, but she pulled it back, turning the gesture into an encouraging wave into the room. Kenzi’s smile vanished, but obediently she took two steps forward, as Nat said, “All right. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  As Nat disappeared down the hallway, Colin opened his top desk drawer. He kept a box of crayons in it. But they weren’t the only personal item. His fingers brushed against a leather folder. He did have family photographs, but he kept them tucked away. A half dozen or more hid behind the closed cover: his parents, his grandmother, a family photo taken in his childhood with all of his siblin
gs, and then, of course, Nat. Their prom picture, a snapshot from their college graduation, a photo of her laughing from a summer day spent at the beach.

  For so long, he’d known death waited for him. And he’d been waiting for it. Sure, he’d kept his office professionally neat, but he also kept it easy to clean out. When it happened—when the day came that he would never show up to work again—it would have taken his deputy five minutes to drop everything that mattered to him in a cardboard box to deliver to his grandmother.

  His home was as clean as his office. When his parents died, it had taken weeks to empty their house. Hours of sorting, gallons of tears. Not so much his—he’d been a stoic fifteen-year-old—but his sisters, his aunts, his grandmother. So much stuff—what to do with the dishes, the clothes, the furniture, the knickknacks, the paintings hanging on the walls? The souvenirs from his parents’ twentieth anniversary trip to Paris, the letters home from summer camps, the carefully saved kindergarten artwork of seven children, the sports trophies and certificates of achievement and prizes earned in busy lifetimes cut much too short?

  He hadn’t wanted anyone to have to do that for him, and so he’d made it easy. Some clothes, a few books, electronics… and one potted plant. He hadn’t even been willing to have a pet. It wouldn’t have been fair.

  But he hadn’t died.

  He shook his head, trying to shake the thoughts away, and picked up the box of crayons. Kenzi hadn’t moved. She was still standing, stiff and silent, in the center of his office.

  “Ya want to sit at my desk?” he asked her, keeping his tone light. “Pretend you’re the sheriff?”

  He set the box of crayons down and picked up his notepad, closing it and tucking it into his pocket, before crossing to the filing cabinet he’d pointed out before. He had some recycled paper there, saved for just this purpose.

  As he turned back around, paper in hand, a sudden flash of memory stilled him. Kenzi, crouched above him in the whirling light from his car. She’d been scared, but she hadn’t run. She was a child, but she’d tried to help him. And she had, hadn’t she? Her hands on his chest, a golden light, an all-encompassing pain.

  “What happened?” His words were too abrupt. She stepped backward, moving away from him, body telegraphing wariness. “Last night, I mean.” He gentled his voice, but he could see it was not enough. “When you found me.”

  Her eyes flickered sideways, glancing at the door as if measuring the distance to run.

  Colin crouched, putting himself at her height. “I don’t remember what happened on the road very well. I remember my chest hurt. And I remember waking up.” He glanced at the doorway where Nat had disappeared. He remembered kissing Nat, the taste of her, the smell of her, the feeling of being absolutely present in his body, his heart pounding, his nerve endings sizzling. But between the pain and the joy, what had happened? “Between that, though, it feels like a dream. But you were there. In my dream, you were there. You did something, didn’t you?”

  Her lower lip trembled before she pressed it tight against the upper. For all that she was speechless, her face communicated worlds. Fear, defiance, a stubborn pride in the face of perceived danger.

  “I think you brought me back to life,” he said. “I think you healed me.”

  Her gaze didn’t flinch. She stared at him steadily. But it was the look of a prey animal trapped by a predator, afraid to even quiver.

  “I’m not complaining.”

  Her eyes looked as if they were filling with tears. Was it emotion or a physiological reaction to her fixed stare?

  Colin’s mouth twisted, a corner lifting in a wry smile. “If we were Wookies, I’d owe you a life debt,” he told her. “Do you know what that is?”

  He waited. She blinked, and then blinked several more times, incipient tears disappearing. And then, with the tiniest possible movement, she shook her head, barely an inch in either direction.

  Solemnly, Colin said to her, “A life debt means that because you saved my life, I have a sacred obligation to you. If we were Wookies, for the rest of my life, I would have to protect and serve you.”

  Her nose twitched. She couldn’t have expressed her skepticism better if she’d scowled.

  Colin couldn’t help chuckling. “All right, sweetheart. Paper, crayons, go wild.” He held the paper out to her. Still eying him with suspicion, she accepted it gingerly.

  Before she could take a seat, Joyce, the office manager, knocked on his doorjamb. Thrusting two slips of paper at him, she said briskly. “The hospital called. They want to know if you’ve made any progress finding next of kin for that drug dealer. They’re talking about removing life support. I told them to call the FBI, but if you know anything you haven’t told me, you should call them back.”

  Colin grimaced. That would make four dead from that fuck-up of a drug raid. The next time the Feds showed up in his town, he was confiscating all their weapons.

  “I also rescheduled your budget meeting with the accountant about the fiscal year close, but he wants you to call him about the overtime numbers,” Joyce continued. “And the psychologist has arrived. She’s setting up in the interview room.”

  Behind her, Nat and Carla, the caseworker from DCF, appeared. Nat looked troubled, her lips pursed, fine lines appearing between her brows. He shot her a questioning look, but she didn’t acknowledge it. Taking the phone messages from Joyce, he stuffed them into his pocket absently, trying to read Nat’s face.

  For a moment, he was tempted to ask Joyce to take Carla and the girl to the interview room so he could talk to Nat in private, but one glance at Kenzi and he let that idea slide away. If she’d looked poised to run before, now she looked ready to fly away, her eyes flitting rapidly from one face to the next. As the four of them walked down the hall, Nat talked to her in a low voice but Kenzi still hadn’t relaxed as they entered the interview room.

  Colin extended a hand to the psychologist, assessing her automatically as they exchanged greetings. Probably in her mid-forties, she had the type of trim figure that suggested a diet of yogurt and lettuce and a daily hour on the treadmill. She wore a plain, off-white button-down shirt paired with a straight brown skirt that extended beyond her knees. Tiny gold dots at her ears, a discreet cross dangling from a gold chain around her neck, and a gold wedding ring completed her professional look. Still, she had a faintly frazzled air about her, as if her day had started too early.

  She obviously had experience with children, though. She’d pushed the table and chairs to the walls of the room and spread out a colorful cloth on the floor. A selection of toys—stuffed animals, dolls, even a few toy cars—were arranged on the cloth.

  After introductions all around and a few moments of conversation, Colin, Nat, and the caseworker left Kenzi with the psychologist, retreating to watch the interview from the adjacent room.

  “She looks familiar,” Carla said, as the psychologist knelt on the floor across from Kenzi. The young caseworker was frowning, her brown eyes intent on the little girl.

  “You think you’ve seen her before?” Colin felt a surge of optimism. “Any idea where?”

  Carla shook her head. “I’m not sure. And I could be wrong. She’s definitely not one of ours, I’m positive about that.” She smiled at the sheriff apologetically.

  Colin’s optimism deflated like a flat tire.

  Carla excused herself to make some phone calls, so Nat and Colin were left to watch the interview alone.

  “You look worried,” Colin said immediately. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing,” Nat answered, but the fine lines between her brows deepened.

  “Tell me.”

  “Really. It’s not important.” Nat stared straight ahead into the room where the psychologist was trying to interest Kenzi in a stuffed bear.

  That might be true, but Colin still wanted to know what had put that look into her eyes. “Nat. Let me help.”

  She gave an exasperated sigh. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” But her to
ne held no anger, only resignation.

  He touched her upper arm, feeling the softness of her cotton sweater under his fingers. “Tell me.”

  She didn’t move away, but she shrugged off his hand as she spoke. “The psychologist. I’m not sure she’s the best person to work with Kenzi.”

  “How so?”

  Nat stepped closer to the glass that separated the observation room from the interview room. Putting a hand on the glass, she said, “She seemed… well, apparently she usually interviews clients in her office.” She shot him a quick glance and a twist of a grin. “And she made it very clear she prefers it that way.”

  Colin shrugged. “Yeah, I heard about that, too. But taking the kid into Gainesville when we might find her parents any minute didn’t make sense to me.”

  “No,” Nat agreed. “But she felt… I think… She might not be…” She looked away from him, back into the interview room.

  “Did you see something? A premonition?” he prompted after a moment of silence.

  “No.” Her voice was firm.

  He paused, but when she said nothing further, he made the suggestion. “Why don’t you try?” Nat’s views of the future were reliable. He would trust any information she was willing to give him. If, that is, she was willing to share it. She’d always been reluctant to use her gift, but last night she’d been adamant.

  She didn’t look at him but she pressed her lips together, before saying, “I don’t seem to be able to today.”

  “Able to?” He blinked, startled.

  “My foresight appears to be broken.”

  “Broken?” His eyebrows shot up. Her foresight was part of her, as much her as her eyesight or sense of smell. How could it break?

  She shook her head, dismissing the question. Turning away from the glass, she said, “It’s not important. I’m being silly. The psychologist’s a professional and I’m sure she’ll do her job well.”

  Colin shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. Message received. She didn’t want to talk about her foresight or her worries. Still, he’d take her concern to heart.