Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(63)

“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 know.” 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.

“Listen.” She took a slow breath in, knowing she had to tell him the truth. “I don’t want to make any more promises I can’t keep.”

His brows furrowed. “What are you saying?”

“I can’t,” she admitted on a soft cry. “I can’t…do…this.”

The agony on his face fell to something different, raw disappointment and disbelief. “You don’t trust me?”

She put her hands to her mouth as if she could hold back the words, but she couldn’t. They had to be said. “I don’t trust me. I don’t trust my history, my life.”

“Change history,” he insisted. “Fix your life.”

“It’s so much easier for you to—”

“No, it’s not, Zoe!” He closed the space between them, putting his hands on her shoulders as if he could cement her into the sand and force her to see it his way. “I’ve lost people, too. My mother, my marriage, and you. Twice, it seems,” he said with a dry laugh. “Nothing is inevitable. You don’t have to assume the worst will happen.”

She closed her eyes and all she could see was Pasha’s pale face, her fading eyes, her last words. We’ll call you Zoe. It means “new life.”

When the hell was she going to get one of those? “I thought you were going to fix me,” she whispered.

“I thought I was, too.” Very slowly, he opened his fingers and lifted his hands, his palms suspended over her shoulders, but not touching, as if he were letting go to see if she’d…run away. “Once, a long time ago, you took me up in a balloon. Do you remember?”