A Gift of Time (Tassamara) Read Online Free PDF Page A

years had passed since she’d touched him, a decade without her blue eyes the first sight he saw as he woke. Yet opening his own to meet hers had felt like falling back into the world as it should be, as it was meant to be.
    “You know everything else,” he said. “I woke up. You were there.” The words sounded so simple. So easy.
    Nat was silent.
    “What do you think?” he asked her.
    “We don’t dream when we’re unconscious,” she said.
    “What does that mean?”
    “No idea.”
    They’d reached the gate barring the way into GD. The security booth was dark, no guard on duty, but Nat pulled to a stop and rolled down her window. She punched a code into the computer pad next to the gate.
    “She’s asleep, right?” Nat asked without looking back.
    “Yeah.”
    “So we’ll run some tests on you first. See what we find. Did you call DCF?”
    “Not yet. I’ve got dispatch checking missing persons and making some calls.”
    She frowned at him. “Child Protective Services will need to send a caseworker. They’ll probably want a psychologist present when you interview her.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” Colin agreed. “But it might not be that complicated. How does a kid wind up lost in the forest?”
    Nat’s brows drew down as she pulled the car forward. “Camping?” she offered. “Hiking?”
    “That’d be my guess. So maybe the rangers and some frantic parents are searching for her already.”
    “You’re thinking she just wandered off?” Nat asked.
    “Maybe, yeah.”
    Nat looked skeptical. “On Christmas Day?”
    Colin shrugged. “Big meal, maybe the parents took a nap afterwards. Kid gets bored, next thing you know…”
    “It’s a long walk from the nearest campground. I don’t think a child could cover that much distance in an afternoon.” Nat pulled into the parking space closest to the cobblestoned walkway leading to the front door. A lamppost shed a warm glow of golden light, while the bushes and shrubs that lined the path and bordered the building were sprinkled with the delicate white glimmers of hundreds of tiny holiday lights.
    “Next possibility then.” Colin glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping child, then gestured to indicate they should talk about it outside. Stepping out of the car, he turned, leaning on the roof. In a quiet voice, he suggested, “The parents could have been in a car accident on one of the back roads.”
    Nat winced. “Okay, that sounds more plausible. But still, to get to where we found her? It’s more likely she was on a trail. Maybe an ATV accident?”
    “Yeah.” Colin nodded in agreement, his face grim. “No helmet, though.”
    “And wearing a dress and sandals.” Nat shook her head, but not as if she were ruling out the possibility, more as if she were regretting the chances parents were willing to take. “It makes sense.”
    “With any luck a couple of phone calls will clear it up. We’ll get her home before morning.”
    Nat didn’t say anything, but then she frowned, blinking a few times as if perplexed.
    “What is it?” Colin asked immediately.
    She licked her lips. He felt an immediate and unsurprising surge of lust. Haloed by the light from the lamppost, Nat’s dark hair glinted with color, while the shadows made her blue eyes mysterious and smoky. She was beautiful. And he was alive.
    Alive.
    The smile felt like it started in his chest and built its way up until it reached his face. He knew he was grinning at her like an idiot, but he couldn’t stop himself.
    Alive.
    And with Nat.
    Sometimes it felt as if he’d loved Nat forever.
    He hadn’t, though.
    It had only been thirty years.
    He’d been a stubborn five-year-old, desperately trying to convince his mother—who already had seven children—that he needed a baby sister, one who would be all his. He would get to boss her around like his older brothers and sisters bossed him around, but he would never, ever hit her and he would play with her whenever she wanted. She could be