Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)

chapter Twenty-six

For once, Zoe sat very, very still. Not that she could actually bounce off the walls of the waiting room, since Jocelyn held one hand, Tessa had the other, and Lacey stood behind the three of them with her hands on Zoe’s shoulders.

It was like they were, literally and symbolically, holding her in place. Was that what it took to keep Zoe still?

Or had Pasha’s heart attack paralyzed Zoe with fear?

“She’s going to be fine,” Lacey whispered.

“She’s too tough to die,” Jocelyn added.

“She’s in the best possible hands.” Tessa gave Zoe a little nudge. “You know that.”

A nod was the most she could muster. Closing her eyes, she imagined Oliver’s hands—not how they’d just been all over her, but healing with that competence and authority. Please, Oliver, heal her.

He’d been stunned by the news of a heart attack. This wasn’t a side effect of the treatment; there was no connection to her heart, and the pretreatment tests showed her heart to be strong and her arteries healthy.

Yet she’d suffered a massive myocardial infarction, with no warning or reason, and her life hung in the balance down the hall.

Across the room Evan stirred under a blanket a nurse had supplied.

“He can’t be comfortable,” Tessa said, eyeing the child. “Maybe I should see if they’d give us a pillow.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Lacey warned. When all three of them turned to give her a look of disbelief, she didn’t flinch. “Sorry, but you never move a sleeping child. That’s a law of nature.”

Zoe studied Evan’s profile and felt a totally unfamiliar flutter in her chest. Was falling for this kid a law of nature, too? Because she was, and fast.

“What?” Jocelyn asked, concern in her voice.

“I didn’t say anything,” Zoe replied.

“You groaned.”

“Of course she groaned,” Tessa jumped in, squeezing her hand. “We’re holding vigil in a hospital. She’s terrified.”

“A vigil?” Zoe choked on the word. “Isn’t that when you wait for someone to die?”

“It’s when you wait for someone, period,” Tessa said.

“Exactly.” Jocelyn added pressure to Zoe’s other hand. “We’re waiting for Oliver to walk through those doors with good news. We have to hold that positive thought.”

Zoe opened her mouth to say something about Jocelyn’s platitudes but closed it again. Sarcasm had no place in this waiting room, with these friends who had left a warm bed, a dear husband, a hot lover, or a newborn baby to sit with her.

The impact of that sacrifice exploded inside her. “God, I love you guys,” she said, the admission coming out on something embarrassingly close to a sob.

Well, that was easy to say.

“We love you, too,” Lacey assured her.

“And I kind of love him,” Zoe added, her gaze still on Evan. It was like Oliver had unlocked the dams and love was pouring out everywhere. “He didn’t even complain when I pulled him out of bed. All he cared about was Pasha.” Affection twisted through her, wrapping around her throat and making it tight.

“He’s a great kid,” Tessa agreed. “So smart and sweet. He’s insane about getting that dog—”

“The dog!” Zoe slapped a hand over her mouth and sat bolt upright. “If we don’t get that dog today, he might be given away to someone else.”

“I can take him to the pound,” Tessa assured her, but then added, “ ’Cept I’ll probably pick one up myself.”

“You should,” Jocelyn said. “It would be good for you to have a dog.”

They were all quiet for a moment, the obvious, unspoken, and uncomfortable truth hanging over them: A dog was no substitute for that baby Tessa wanted so much.

“I’m getting coffee,” Lacey said quickly. “There’s no sleep in my near future.”

Zoe dropped her head back and looked up at her friend. “And by near future, you mean the next seventeen years.”

“At least.” Lacey gave Tessa a tap. “Wanna come with me? I’m sure we can scare up some organic tea.”

“Sure.” She stood slowly. “What do you guys want?”

“Coffee for me,” Jocelyn said.

“Hot chocolate,” Zoe added.

Tessa screwed up her face. “Seriously?”

Zoe jutted her chin toward Evan. “For him. I don’t want anything, but he’s going to wake up soon.”

Jocelyn and Tessa shared a look and Lacey sort of tilted her head and smiled.

“What?” Zoe said. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“You got it bad,” Jocelyn said.

“The mommy bug bit,” Tessa agreed.

“Mommy bug?” Zoe almost choked. “Because I feel bad that I yanked the kid out of bed and threw him on a hospital waiting room sofa and want to give him some hot chocolate? This is now a cry for motherhood?”

“Yeah,” Tessa said.

Zoe pointed at her. “You’re projecting. Isn’t she projecting, Joss? You were the psych major.”

Tessa shook her head and walked off with Lacey, no doubt to gossip about Zoe’s detonating ovaries.

“Jeez,” Zoe mumbled, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. “She can piss me off faster than anyone else.”

“You’re tired, Zoe,” Jocelyn said.

“And scared. And miserable. And lonely. And…” She closed her eyes. “Doesn’t matter. She can piss me off after a good night’s sleep and multiple orgasms. Which…” She slid a look to Jocelyn. “I was about to have before Oliver got the call.”

“That’s the least of your problems.”

“No kidding.” Zoe sighed for what seemed like the three millionth time since they’d arrived at the hospital in North Naples. “How do you do this, Joss?” she asked, referring to the many trips she and Will had made to doctors for Jocelyn’s father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s.

“We haven’t had an ER or ICU incident…yet.”

“But…”

Jocelyn nodded. “We will, of course. There’s no way to avoid the inevitable of his disease.”

“How do you deal?” Zoe asked. “How do you keep from imagining life without him?”

Jocelyn snorted softly. “You may remember that not so long ago I preferred life without him. But now…”

“Now you don’t, so it’s got to hurt to worry about him.”

“It does, but it helps to have Will.” She gave an easy smile that lit her eyes. “It changes everything to have Will.”

“Because he shares the worry?”

“Like everything else in life.”

“Wow, that sounds good,” Zoe admitted.

“Something you want?”

As much as her next breath. “I don’t…yeah. Sure. Who doesn’t? But that’s not the question.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know if I can give that kind of unconditional love back,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I’m capable of it. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding it. But I think Oliver wants it. He wants everything from me—my heart and soul and trust.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“I’ve been stopping me.” Zoe turned away, the confession too raw and way too honest for this particular moment.

“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.