Chapter Seven
I t was, instead, a fully visible Connor who stepped forward to hold out his arms to the boy.
Nathan fell against him like a leaf finding the ground.
Connor set him down safely on his feet. The slow-motion sensation of the fall sped up in a blink as the boy stared up at Connor’s face and began to cry.
“Yer all right, then,” he told the boy. “Dinna fear.”
An instant later, Lannie was at the boy’s side, scooping him into her arms, profusely thanking the stranger who had saved her son.
Connor waved off her thanks but gave the boy a man-to-man look of such tenderness, it nearly broke Emma’s heart. In turn, Nathan sniffed and returned Connor’s look with all the seriousness a six-year-old could muster and a solemn nod.
After Connor left them, making his way into a stand of trees to become himself again, Lannie could hardly contain her emotions. She sat down with the boy, right there on the grass with tears wetting her cheeks.
“Nathan,” she cried, hugging him tightly. “When will you learn? What would I do if I lost you, too?”
“Who was that man?” Gabriella asked, kneeling down beside her. “He was just here a second ago. Where’d he go?”
“I didn’t even get his name,” Lannie told her, hugging Nathan against her.
Emma turned to find Henry standing beside her.
“Which is why Connor doesn’t do children,” he said. “He’s a softie. Lessons are sometimes painful.”
She wasn’t sure she liked this Henry character, but she was liking Connor more and more. “But aren’t you supposed to protect children?”
He nodded. “Sometimes the hard lessons are the most valuable ones. It would only have been a broken arm this time. And a lesson learned.” He looked her up and down. “So, who are you?”
“An in-betweener,” Connor answered for her, joining them. “Henry, Emma. Emma, Henry.”
Henry raised one brow in assessment. “Keeping your options open, eh? Can’t decide? Stay or go?”
“No,” she retorted. “I’m staying. I just need to wake up is all.”
“Coma,” Connor explained.
“Ah,” Henry said a bit indifferently before perking up. “Oh, wait. I heard about this one. Isn’t she your—”
“You’d better see to your boy there,” Connor said, cutting him off and gesturing at Nathan, who was walking away with his mother. “He seems a bit at loose ends.”
The twinkle in Henry’s eye reappeared. “Right. Well. Good to see you again, Connor. It’s been a while. Oh, did I forget to mention that Elspeth Aloysius asked after you?”
“She did?” Surprise lit his gray eyes.
“Last time I saw her in a little town called Leyton Grove, I believe. She seems quite happy there, all things considered. She and her mortal…can’t think of his name—?”
“Sam,” Connor supplied.
“Yes, Sam. Sam Wynter. Anyway, she said if I saw you to send her regards. So”—he clapped Connor on the shoulder—“regards. Also, to tell you she had something for you.”
“For me? Unlikely.”
“I couldn’t say what it is she has. Just passing along a message. But after hearing about her in action at the Council, you’d do well not to ignore her. She’s a force, that one. Not to be underestimated.”
“Aye, she is that. Thanks, Henry.”
“And, Connor, the next time you have the impulse to undo all my hard work with Nathan?” Henry said, starting after the boy and his mother. “Don’t.”
“No promises. But I think ye’ll find that Nathan learned a fine lesson on this tree.”
“Oh yeah? Exactly what did you tell him just then with that look?”
“That he’d do well to listen to his better angels. That would be you.”
Henry laughed, spread his wings and bowed like a courtier, then disappeared down the trail after the boy.
Emma slipped her fingers in between Connor’s, then smiled up at him. “Thank you. Lannie would have been lost if anything had happened to him.”
He tightened his fingers around hers. “He’s a good boy with a long life ahead of him. He’ll be fine.”
“And yet his guardian won’t protect him and can’t make him listen.”
“Dinna think that Henry isna watchin’ out for him. He is. ’Tis the bigger picture ye canna see. My interferin’ likely would’a cost Nathan precious time had he not heard my intent.”
“And did he? Hear you?”
“Oh, aye. He heard. Smart lad.”
He perplexed her, almost as much as this whole situation she was in did. “Why did you act like you didn’t care?”
He seemed surprised by that. “Ye dinna know me, Emma.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But…what if I said I…I wanted to?”
Her words hung in the air between them. The look he gave her made her wish she could take it back. But she could still almost feel his kiss on her lips as his gaze fell to her mouth.
“Not how this works,” he said a little too sharply, dismissing her question and tugging her along behind him across the grassy field.
In the next instant they were back at the hospital, hurrying down a corridor full of people.
“How does this work? All of this?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with his long-legged strides as she avoided gurneys in the hallway.
“And why are we paired up here in the in-between? Can you answer me that? I mean, I could have gotten someone…anyone else. Henry or…or anyone. But no. I got you. And you’re stuck here with me. Why?”
His jaw went ridged again. “I was assigned—”
“I know. But why?” She wasn’t sure why she needed to know this, but suddenly, it seemed important.
He turned back to her. “What does it matter? It just is.”
“It matters to me.”
“Dinna think too hard on it, Emma. ’Tis a temporary thing, and sooner or later, it will be over and done. If it means I can let ye go once and for all, then it’s all for the good.”
“Ah,” she said quietly, feeling his words with unexpected sharpness. “I wonder how that works, though? Since I’m not her, there’s nothing I can do to change your past with her.”
The answer to that question seemed as far away as she did right now from the life she’d lived only two days ago. The one where she’d been so caught up trying to fix everyone else’s life she’d forgotten about her own.
Connor let go of her hand as they reached her ICU room.
The glass doors were closed, but to Emma and Connor, they were no barrier.
There were nurses and doctors scurrying around between rooms. It wasn’t until they were inside hers that Emma gasped at the sight of her empty bed.
The sheets were turned down, all the machines were unhooked and silent.
That other Emma was… gone .
“Oh my…” She felt like she might faint. “Am I dead?”
*
Aubrey and Jacob had stopped at the impound lot to search Emma’s wrecked car, unsuccessfully, for her necklace before heading to the police station to speak to the detective in charge of Emma’s case.
Detective Charmbers had written down their information Emma’s neighbor, Clarissa, had given them about the SUV parked nearby the night of Emma’s accident. Now he was taking an unrelated call as they sat across from him. Aubrey slid a look at Jacob.
Charmbers had said he’d interviewed a half-dozen neighbors the day after the break-in, including Clarissa, who had failed to mention the SUV.
No one else had noticed the unfamiliar car, and with no license plate or other solid identifying factors, they had no way to track down the driver who might or might not have had anything to do with their break-in.
At this point, he’d said, that car’s involvement in the break-in was pure conjecture.
Aubrey bit her tongue, knowing she needed the police’s cooperation if nothing else. But she hadn’t spent her Friday nights pre-Jacob watching Dateline episodes for nothing. Investigations like this took months, sometimes years to uncover truths.
Detective Charmbers hung up the phone, folded his arms, and leaned back in his chair.
“We did speak to your aunt’s ex”—he checked his notes—“Drake Lasserman, Esquire. Turns out he has an airtight alibi for that night. We also checked out his car. No damage. We have managed to narrow down the focus from the debris found on the road. It came from a 2016 Explorer SUV. Black. Lasserman’s car was a Mercedes SUV. Silver.”
“I never thought Drake could have…would have…” Frustrated, she stood, pacing in the small office. “Can you at least check to see if the necklace I mentioned might be in your evidence room?” she asked. “Maybe it was collected at the scene?”
He’d checked. It wasn’t. Even if it was, it would be considered evidence and not accessible to her.
“You say you left it in the car the night of the incident?” he asked.
“I had an unexpected thing come up. Emma was covering for me. I went to the spa for a quick facial. Jacob picked me up from there. Emma went to the meeting. I specifically left the necklace in the console of her car so I wouldn’t lose it. It’s not valuable. It’s just sentimental.”
Charmbers rubbed his jaw. “So,” he said, “if not for this unexpected ‘thing’ you say had come up at the last minute—”
“Dinner with Jacob’s parents who’d surprised us by coming to town.”
“Right. But if not for that, it would have been you driving down that road that night. Not your aunt?”
“Well,” she answered. “Yes.” She’d been over this scenario in her head a hundred times but couldn’t make sense of it.
The detective absorbed that for a moment, steepling his fingers together. “This appointment. It would have been on the books for a while? At your office?”
“On the office calendar, where all our appointments land. So that everyone knows where we’re supposed to be at any given time.” If she looked right now, her name would still be written under that appointment, not Emma’s.
Her eyes suddenly stung with dampness. If it was supposed to be her, then whoever had driven Emma’s car off the road had mistaken her aunt for her.
Jacob took her hand. “Aubrey’s car’s been in the shop for a couple of days. She’s been sharing Emma’s car.”