A Gift of Time (Tassamara) Read Online Free PDF

Princess Leia when they played Star Wars . He needed someone to be Princess Leia. Unfortunately, his mother had remained resolutely unconvinced of the importance of his need.
    Then, on the first day of kindergarten, he’d met Lucas. Lucas didn’t just have a baby sister; he had a baby brother, too. He didn’t seem to be as convinced as Colin was of his incredible luck, though, and he’d generously offered to share. Colin distinctly remembered his first visit to the Latimer house. He hadn’t even seen baby Zane. One look at the wide blue eyes and round cheeks of Natalya’s three-year-old self and he’d decided. Mine.
    The arrangement had worked well for a long time. Through high school, through college, past graduation, up until the moment he got his first job as deputy and she had her premonition of his death—and then they’d hit a dead end. He’d let her go. Made her go, really, and not without hurting her.
    She’d gone to medical school and they didn’t speak for years. After the bitter words of their last fight, the first time he’d spoken to her had been at her mother’s funeral. He couldn’t remember what he’d said, but she’d said, “Thank you,” her voice calm, collected, but her eyes showing the depth of her pain. After completing her residency, she’d returned to Tassamara.
    He’d managed to draw her into a precarious almost-friendship—he could say hello to her on the street without her glaring at him—but it survived through a careful dance of manners and caution and patience on his part. He knew—or suspected—that if she had her choice, she’d never speak to him again. But Tassamara was a small town. That hadn’t been an option.
    And now—well, he was alive. Now everything changed.
    “I can’t—nothing,” she said abruptly, ignoring his grin. “Let me get the security guard to carry her in.”
    She turned away. Before she’d gone two steps, Colin called out. “I’ll get her.”
    She turned back. “Unconscious, remember?”
    “Not without warning.” He dismissed her concern as he reached for the car door. “If it happens again, I’ll have plenty of time to set her down.”
    The girl had fallen asleep slumped against the door. Her hand had crept up to her mouth, the thumb not quite inside but tucked next to her lips as if she would have been sucking it if she’d been a little younger. Carefully, Colin opened the door, slipping one hand in to catch her before she started to slide out. She stirred but didn’t open her eyes.
    As he unbuckled her seatbelt, he considered his approach before taking the most straightforward route. Sliding his hands under her arms, he tugged her out and up, lifting her high and drawing her close, before tucking one arm underneath her legs. She wasn’t light, but something about her weight balanced in a way that made carrying her totally unlike picking up a fifty-pound sack of mulch for the yard. As if automatically, she wrapped her legs and arms around him before dropping her head into the curve of his neck.
    “Da,” she muttered.
    Colin froze. The tiny voice, the weight of her head, the soft tickle of her hair against his skin, the smell of light soap and sandy dirt, no hint of the tang of sweat—it was a visceral punch to the gut. Somewhere out there, in the forest or not, a man, a father, had lost this child. He’d get her home to him, he swore silently. He’d find her da for her.
    “Colin?”
    He could hear the worry in Nat’s voice. He turned and started toward the door, before saying, his own voice hushed so as not to wake the girl, “She spoke.”
    “Oh, good,” Nat answered, hurrying to catch up with him. “Selective mutism from trauma isn’t uncommon, but maybe when she wakes up she’ll be willing to tell us what happened.”
    At the door, she pressed a keycard against an unobtrusive black pad, reaching for the handle at the sound of a loud click. As she opened the door, she looked back at Colin. “What did she