Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(62)

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.