WINDOW OF TIME

by DJ Erfert

  Sunny knocked his hand away. “Why would I get through swearing to you that I’d keep this secret only to spill it to Jim the first chance I got?”

  “Now, don’t get angry with me, Sunflower. I just don’t want to get shot.”

  Sunny let her shoulders slump, and she leaned into Dusty’s broad chest. “I can’t understand why Lucy won’t wake up.”

  “I was just in with Johnny. He’s rooming with Adam, but I couldn’t get any information on Lucy. Can you tell me about how she’s doing?”

  Sunny didn’t see any reason for not sharing the surgical details with one of the paramedics who’d saved Lucy’s life. He deserved to know. While she relaxed into his embrace, she told him what he needed to hear—from the beginning of the operation to when she was wheeled into the ICU.

  “So she does have pneumonia.” Dusty gently folded his arms around her.

  “Yes, but we were able to get all the shrapnel without damaging any major organs, or at least ones that she can’t live without.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sunny shifted to where her broken arm wasn’t touching his chest. “One of the pieces of metal had sliced into Lucy’s gallbladder. Dr. Stanton thought it better to remove that organ. I agreed. The other three pieces were easily extracted with minimal damage to surrounding tissue. Her scalp had a deep laceration that took a few staples to close. It’s her pneumonia that has us worried more than her wounds. She’s on oxygen and a full spectrum I.V. antibiotic. That’s all we can do. But she hasn’t come out of the anesthesia. It’s a waiting game at this point.”

  “When are you going back to LA?”

  “I’m staying until Lucy is able to be flown home, and I’ll go with her then.”

  “Well …” Dusty moved his warm lips along her forehead. “I still have the next three and a half weeks off.” He slowly kissed along her temple. “Nassau seems like the perfect place to spend my vacation.” Her bruised cheek then received several gentle kisses. “And we can get started on our, um, dating tonight.” He lowered his lips down to her mouth, holding the back of her head with his big hand, keeping her from moving away from him. His kiss seemed more intense than before, pulling at her lips, stirring an intense longing for him from deep within her. He didn’t need to try so hard. She was already falling in love with him.

  But while she may have lived through one of the most terrifying times of her life, at what expense? Lucy could still die, and it would be Sunny’s fault.

  Thirty-two

  “I’m sorry, sir. This is a restricted area.”

  Johnny held the flowers he bought a little higher and limped by the red-haired man leaning his elbow against the ICU nurses counter. The same SR initials were silk screened on the black polo shirt near the shoulder, but the guard was a new man. “I’m allowed to be here.” While not factual, Johnny needed to see Lucy, and he kept up the slow, awkward pace his injured leg would allow. He neared the door. “Ask Dr. Pettigrew.”

  “No, sir. Dr. Pettigrew isn’t on staff here.”

  Oh, crap! Sunny wasn’t official staff? What was her surgeon’s name? He couldn’t remember. He was tired and in pain, and Johnny couldn’t take any more red tape from the black-shirted security. He grabbed the door handle and ran inside. He made it through to Lucy’s room before his body seized in horrendous pain, and he fell to the floor, groaning loudly.

  “What are you doing?” Sunny screamed as she leaped toward Johnny’s jerking body. “Stop that!”

  Dusty grabbed the two lead-wires and yanked the Taser gun from the guard’s hand, stopping the influx of electricity.

  “He ran past the checkpoint, ma’am. He isn’t authorized to be here.”

  “He’s Johnny Cartwright, and he’s wounded!” Sunny kneeled on the floor and helped Johnny sit up. “He’s one of the paramedics who saved Agent James after she was wounded.” With her good arm protectively around his shoulder, she raised her voice, and asked, “Who briefed you?”

  “Cooper Steele, ma’am—”

  “I’m a doctor, not a ma’am,” Sunny shouted her contempt at the man.

  “What’s going on here?” Brockway asked from the open doorway. Junie and Kate stood peering around his shoulders.

  “A mistake,” Johnny said after he finally regained the use of his fine motor abilities. “It was my fault. I probably shouldn’t have run in here.” He lifted his shoulders, feeling the two barbs embedded in his back. “He couldn’t have known.” Johnny reached out his hand to the man. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know if the man would take him up on his concession, until he took Johnny’s hand and helped him to his feet.

  “No …”

  The voice was so low, if it had come from Lucy a minute earlier nobody would have heard it. Johnny rushed to her side, trailing two wires along with him.

  “She’s waking up,” Sunny said, moving up on the other side of the bed. She touched a button above the headboard, calling the nurse. The soft beep of the heart monitor had been muted by the commotion, but now it surfaced as it accelerated.

  Lucy seemed agitated.

  Johnny looked up at the monitor. It seemed as if she was panicking, yet she still wasn’t conscious. Her breathing sped up enough that Sunny took off the oxygen mask before Lucy could begin hyperventilating.

  “She must have heard me yelling,” Sunny said.

  Johnny sat on the edge of the bed and grasped Lucy’s sweaty hand. Then his world disappeared.

  Like the helpless feeling of getting tasered, Johnny felt trapped watching the horrific memory that filled his mind. A woman he could’ve sworn was Lucy with long, blonde hair was getting stabbed to death—and Johnny had to see every detail in surrealistic color. It ended with the man walking down a hallway toward him with a narrow knife dripping in shiny crimson blood. Lucy’s pathetic whimpering cries knocked him out of her dream and back to reality.

  “Dusty—” Sunny reached out, trying to lift Johnny up, but he clung to Lucy’s hand, his quickened breathing matched Lucy’s. “Help him—”

  “Are you okay, Johnny?” Dusty asked, holding him up off Lucy’s injured chest.

  “Let me go. She’s having a—a nightmare.” Johnny shrugged his friend away. “Lucy! Lucy, wake up!”

  “I think he’s right,” Sunny said to Dusty. “Lucy—Lucy, Johnny’s here. Please wake up!”

  Their coaxing didn’t stop her from getting more disturbed and frightened. Lucy moved her head from side to side in a jerking fashion, like she was trying to look away from something terrible. Johnny knew what that terrible thing was. He almost felt like he’d lived through it, too.

  Sunny shook Lucy’s hand and shouted, “Wake up!”

  Her eyes opened, just a slit. “Johnny …” Lucy whispered weakly.

  “I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here.” Johnny kissed her dried lips as he rested a gentle hand on her face.

  “I saw him; he—he wouldn’t stop …”

  “I know, I know. Lucy, was that your mother?” Lucy closed her eyes and nodded. “You look just like her.”

  “You saw what?” Sunny asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Lucy whispered, “I saw … my mother … killed.”

  “What?” Junie clutched her throat. “And you couldn’t stop—” She slapped her hand over her mouth as Jim pulled her tightly to his side.

  Johnny looked over his shoulder, his stare landing on each person crowding around the bed. “Lucy has had these nightmares”—he glanced at Sunny before staring down into Lucy’s wet eyes—“since she was a child, where she sees a man murder her mother. She told me all about it.” Johnny leaned closer, stroking her chin with his thumb. “I can see every detail like it was my own memory.” Lucy gasped in a breath. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you. You’re going to be fine.”

  Thirty-three

  “Take it easy, Lu,” Johnny said, helping her out of the passenger side of his truck with a firm hand around her arm.

  It was mid-September, and already the afternoon was
cold enough for a sweater. Coming from the Bahamas, Lucy’s wardrobe wasn’t anything more than light shirts and shorts. Johnny had done his best to see that she had everything she needed and wanted, but the unusually chilly weather was the one thing he hadn’t anticipated.

  “I’m fine.” Lucy studied the concrete steps of her LA bungalow. She noticed new paint on the eaves of her ninety-seven-year-old home. The dark green wicker rockers on the porch were still there. Part of the purchase included most of the former owner’s furniture. Vivian Haynes had moved to an assisted living home for retired movie stars and could only take her most valued things. Vivi had no living children, so she told Lucy she could keep everything she left behind. While Lucy felt sorry for the woman, she also knew she had lucked out.

  The concrete patio had a new coat of tan paint. Johnny had kept with the same neutral color schemes as Vivi. Everything about the old house called to the romantic in Lucy, from the tapered square columns holding up the low-pitched roof and wide, wood framed windows, to the cobblestone fireplace gracing the living room.

  After she woke in the Nassau hospital, Johnny had to return to LA and check in with his fire chief. He was immediately put on medical leave, but under their rules he had to stay in town while he recuperated. During that time he managed to save Lucy’s house sale from falling through, and then two weeks later, after he was medically cleared fit for duty, he took his vacation and flew back to Nassau until Lucy was cleared for release. She spent another week in the agency’s infirmary under Sunny’s care.

  They hadn’t taken more than three steps toward the front porch before Lucy had a new emotion flowing through her chest—one that she was positive wasn’t her own. It was a mixture of anxiety and tangible excitement, and while Lucy was more than happy to finally be home, the onset of the emotions physically pushed at her like an invisible blanket lined with lead had dropped over her.

  Over the past five weeks, Lucy hadn’t found the appropriate time to discuss her emotional transference theory, not with so many people standing around them all the time. Privacy had been sparse, and when they actually had time alone, conversation wasn’t the first thing on Johnny’s mind.

  “Johnny …” Lucy turned and faced him. “I need to talk with you before we go inside and—” Her heart raced faster with excitement. He didn’t need to touch her. Interesting. She smiled. “What are you planning?”

  His lips twitched. “What?” He shook his head and glanced at the front door. “I’m not … What makes …” He dropped his stare to the concrete driveway. “Aw, Lu! How did you know?”

  Lucy laughed softly, sliding her arms over his shoulders. “Because I can feel your emotions the way you can see into my windows.”

  Johnny squinted his eyes at her. “What do you mean?”

  She moved closer and pressed her body against his. “It took me a while to figure out, but when you have strong emotions like …”—Lucy licked her lips—“fear, anger, excitement, or passion, I can feel them, too, as if they were my own. Until I realized what was happening to me, they interfered with my own senses. I thought I was losing my edge.”

  Like so many times in the past, he believed her without question.

  Johnny wrapped his arms around her back. “I’m sorry.”

  “No—no!” Lucy hooked her arms around his neck and held him tight. “I’ve learned how to”—she brushed her lips in the tender area just below his ear and inhaled his woodsy fragrance deeper with every rapid breath—“block most of your feelings when I want to, but I let others pass through”—waves of desire pulsed inside her—“like now.”

  “Lu—” Johnny crushed her lips with his, kissing her, holding her tighter. His amorous sensations intensified, and Lucy’s sense of self began to dissolve. Before it disappeared completely, she concentrated on the texture of his hair beneath her fingers as she ran her hand up his neck. Lucy felt the cool wind on her skin. Every thought brought her further out of the trance-like reaction she had fallen into by something as simple as a kiss. But his wasn’t any kiss. His depth of emotion was given to her with love—she could feel it.

  “We probably should go inside,” Johnny said, his voice husky with passion.

  “I guess—if we don’t want to ruin any plans.” Lucy grinned and turned toward the steps.

  They stopped in front of the door. The framed window inset into the wooden door had been rehabilitated. The paint was fresh, and the poured glass panes sparkled like crystal in the setting sun. Johnny dangled a set of keys in front of her face.

  “Welcome home,” he said.

  Lucy took the keys from his fingers, true excitement building in her heart as she remembered the layout of the floor plan. The master bedroom had an old-fashioned sleigh bed that Lucy had no doubt was an antique. Vivian said she’d leave that, along with the matching dresser and chest of drawers, plus a dressing table with an attached mirror. Everything was in pristine condition, kept that way with tender loving care for sixty plus years by a woman who wore makeup even at ninety-six years old. Vivian didn’t build the house, but it was her first home.

  As soon as Johnny pushed the door open, Lucy knew she had been right.

  “Surprise!”

  Lucy was hugged and kissed by Jim and Junie Brockway, and Dusty and Sunny Rhodes. Every time Lucy thought about their names, she couldn’t help but smile. They’d gotten married on the beach the day after he proposed. Johnny attended, but Lucy had only seen the pictures taken at dusk. The sunset over the ocean was unforgettable.

  Rocky came, and Kate Laurence stood next to him. Captain Adam Sanderson hugged Lucy tightly before he introduced his date—a petite, blonde flight attendant based out of LAX. No surprise there.

  “Is this Humphrey Bogart?” Jim asked pointing to a framed black and white photograph hanging on the long wall filled with pictures.

  Lucy knew which photo Jim was looking at, and it made her smile. “Yes. Vivian Haynes, the woman I bought the house from, is in the background, just to his right. That was taken in 1942.”

  “Oh, wow. She was in Casablanca?”

  “It was a, uh, a bit part as she called it.” Lucy made her way over to the bragging wall. “I was hoping she’d leave these.” Pointing to the next picture, she said, “Vivi was in three of his pictures. Besides Casablanca, she was in The Big Sleep with Lauren Bacall in ’46, and Key Largo in ’48, also with the gorgeous Bacall. I loved those movies.”

  “Holy crap,” Dusty said softly. “This is Gary Cooper.”

  “Uh, huh. And she worked with James Cagney, and Betty Davis, and …” Lucy moved around Dusty and Sunny. “Here she is with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, with Dorothy Lamour standing in between them.”

  “I don’t recognize her name,” the flight attendant said as she studied the picture of Vivian with Katherine Hepburn.

  “Most people wouldn’t. She never wanted the spotlight. She was always in the background. But she earned a good enough living to buy her own house before she was thirty, and she always drove a new car. She also put her two kids through college. I’d say she did a pretty good job taking care of herself. We had quite a long conversation when I came back to give her house another look through.”

  Johnny said, “She sounded very independent.”

  “But she was married,” Lucy said, as Johnny slid his arm around her waist. “She lost her husband over twenty years ago.”

  “How’d he die?” Sunny asked.

  “She doesn’t know.”

  “What?” Jim asked.

  Lucy grinned at Vivi’s picture with Barbara Stanwyck. “She woke up one morning, and Fred was gone. She figured he took off with that hot blonde from the senior’s center.” Smiling widely, she added, “That young hussy couldn’t have been more than sixty.” Everyone laughed at Fred’s expense.

  Lucy’s nose noticed the delicious smell of meat floating throughout the house. She went to the door leading to the huge back yard, and gazing out the window, she found why her new neighborhood smelled so good. A giga
ntic barbeque grill dominated the corner of her patio. The smoke rising into the evening air drifted into the citrus trees. As she reached for the doorknob, she heard Sunny scold her.

  “No, you don’t, Lucy,” Sunny said.

  Johnny took her by the elbow and redirected her toward a new, L-shaped couch positioned in front of the lit fireplace. Leave it to a fireman to start a fire when the opportunity arose. “I’ll get you something to drink, and when Dusty has the steaks done,” he said as he helped her sit down, “I’ll bring you your dinner.”

  “Honestly, Johnny, I’m not helpless.”

  “I know you’re not—”

  Sunny cut in. “But I told him to make sure you listened to my orders, which includes plenty of rest.”

  Lucy sighed. “For how much longer? I’ve been in bed for five weeks already.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  Junie chimed in. “So, stop complaining about a little more time off from work.”

  “What do you do for a living, Lucy?” the flight attendant asked as she sat down at the end of the couch.

  “I, uh, I’m looking into a store front for my … my flower shop, The Flower Petal Florist.” She glanced over at Johnny’s amused eyes and added, “I’m hoping to make an intelligent decision and find a good central location.”

  ~*~

  The antique mantel clock chimed midnight, and Lucy’s housewarming party was winding down. Adam and his date had disappeared before ten, and Rocky left to go check on his plane. Kate had to make an important phone call and had left around the same time.

  With her feet tucked up underneath her, Lucy sat on the couch and watched the flames of the fire with her head resting on Johnny’s shoulder while covered in an old quilt off her sleigh bed. Dusty had his arms wrapped around Sunny a little further over, while Jim sat on the floor leaning against the plush chair Junie sat in.

  “Did you find out what exactly they were cooking up in the compound Lucy took out?” Sunny asked.

  Jim set down his glass of melting ice next to his knee and glanced at Lucy. “Yes, finally, but you know it’s classified.”