The Storm and the Darkness (20 page)

When he put the water down, she closed her eyes to get control of herself. She did this when the world would spin out of control around her, but it wasn’t helping this time. Her toes tried to curl, but her muscles rebelled. What was the last thing she remembered…dinner with Finn? No, it was after that, but her head hurt so bad…

“Easy,” Jon said tentatively, as if he were a visible witness to her internal struggle. “You’ve been asleep for over a week, you need to take it slowly.”

Ana watched him, unable to do anything else. He looked terrified.
What does he have to be so worked up about?
She wondered. It couldn’t be that he was frightened of her, could it? She was just a helpless girl who couldn’t even prop herself up in a civilized manner.

The familiar ache in her chest started, spreading throughout her body. Her dead limbs came to life at this new sensation, but the ache was overwhelming.
Nicolas, where is Nicolas
, she wanted to say; he had always been there when she had needed him. Where was he?

New Orleans
.
And I am in Maine. And I have been asleep for…what did he say
…
over a week?
Shit.

Ana wanted her own bed, her own surroundings. She needed to feel in control even to breathe, and had not gained her beloved sense of control since awakening.

She remembered that accident from her youth, that horrible accident.
I don’t understand how your daughter can sleep for a week and wake up perfectly fine,
the doctor kept saying.

Do you remember sleeping for a week, Ana?
Her father had asked, when they were home again.

No, daddy.
The doctor’s questions had terrified her.

Don’t be scared, darling. It’s how your body protects itself against bad things. You go to sleep, and when you wake up you’re all better. That’s not so scary, is it?

No, I guess not...

Jon was still staring at her, but when she started to take heavy breaths, he moved to sit on the edge of the bed and began examining her. He had his hand on her forehead, then he pulled a stethoscope out of the nightstand. His close proximity was worsening her physical reaction
. Go away, go away, go away
. “Go away!”

He sat back, blinking.
He is so strange
. “I have medical training,” he explained, his eyes pleading for understanding. “I’ve been taking care of you while you were…asleep.”

“You’re a
vet
,” Ana panted through her panic attack. Her toes were curling harder and her tongue was fixed to the roof of her mouth.
Breathe.

“I know people medicine too,” Jon insisted. “I trained for years with my father. It’s a long story.” He sat back further, allowing her space. “We didn’t know when you were going to wake up. He would have been here, but he went to get food. I’m sure if he had known you were going to wake up he would have waited-“

She cut off his rambling. Jon was just as terrible at small talk as she was, but that didn’t make it easier for her. “He?”

“Finn. My brother.” He looked concerned, as if he might need to ask if she knew her name and who was currently president.

“Oh.” Of course. Finn. Things were still fuzzy, but the connections were coming back to her. “I had been coming here to return his keys…”

“When you fell?”

Ana looked at the bed. “I guess that’s what I did.”

“You don’t remember?”

“It’s not that I don’t remember, it just happened so fast.” The rocks were slippery and the snow was whipping around her so furiously she couldn’t see her hands in front of her anymore. Her breathing was rapid again, and this time he didn’t ask for permission. He propped her head back up, offering her some more water, and then coaxed her: “You have to breathe.”

No shit.

Ana curled her toes tighter and slowed her breathing, forcing herself to calm down. She didn’t want to pass out again in this house.

“I should go,” she said, pushing herself up.

Jon laughed. It sounded unnatural coming from him. He was looking down, trying to hide it.

“Is that funny?” She asked, offended.

“No, it’s just…here, let me show you something.” He came to help her out of bed. She wanted to refuse, but was still shaky and didn’t want to humiliate herself by falling on her face in front of him. He walked her to the window and her breath caught in her throat as she looked outside.

“Holy…mother of…” She started to fall, and Jon’s arms quickly righted her again.

“Yeah,” Jon said. “Over two feet deep. Roads are closed, the ferries are shut down, and we ran out of food because the boathouse tanks spilled.” He helped her back to the bed. She hated it, but appreciated it. “That’s why Finn went to get food.”

“How is he out getting food if the roads are closed?” Ana asked, as he helped lower her back onto the bed. For as much as she had wanted out of the bed, she felt exhausted and relieved to be back in it now. Then Cocoa jumped on to the bed, startling her. She gasped as she saw, with relief, how nimble and healthy she looked. The cat rubbed up against her and purred loudly. Ana ran her hands over her soft fur, feeling a lump rise in her throat.
He did this, and he’s been caring for her ever since.

“He took the snowcat.” Jon frowned, and Ana could see this disconcerted him. “If he doesn’t make it back tonight, we can expect him tomorrow.”

She didn’t say anything. These guys knew their snow; certainly more than she had when she foolishly risked her neck to deliver some keys, of all things.

Jon pulled out a leather doctor bag and she resisted the urge to chuckle.
I didn’t know those existed outside the movies.

She tried to sit still while Jon checked her pulse, her eyesight, her reflexes, and what seemed like a hundred other things. He asked her a series of questions to test her memory. Growing in confidence that Jon was trying to help, she was patient with the, perhaps overly thorough, exam.

“You seem to be...okay,” he said, perplexed, as if he was expecting her to have no heartbeat, or be speaking in monosyllables. “I’ll have to monitor you, of course, but...” He was still touching the side of her head again, checking her neck, the base of her scalp. She wondered if maybe he
wanted
something to be wrong.

She noticed the large medical books lying open on the desk across the room.
Or maybe he’s realized that I’m doing a heck of a lot better than I should be.
Whether he had or not, Ana knew she needn’t explain it. He would never believe the truth even if she told him.
 

“I appreciate what you guys did,” she said.

Jon shrugged, and put his instruments back in the bag. “Are you hungry?”

“Not really,” she said. “And I thought I had to pee, but apparently I just did,” she said, pointing at the catheter bag dangling off to the side, attached to her waist by a belt. She cringed to think of him inserting it
. I know people medicine too.

His face flushed crimson. “It was either that or let you soil yourself. Sorry.” They shared another awkward moment as he leaned in and lifted the sheet to remove it. Turning his head to the side, he reached his hand toward the connected tube and pulled quickly, and she gasped in surprise as she felt a stinging pain.

“Sorry again,” he said, but was already placing the catheter into a sand-colored plastic bowl.

“I owe you. I probably would have died out there.” Cocoa purred in agreement.

Jon shrugged again. He didn’t take compliments any better than Ana did, which didn’t surprise her. “I’ll be back in a bit,” he said awkwardly, and was off before she could say anything else.

She hoped he meant it. Ana didn’t want to be alone, even if it meant the company of someone as sour as Jon St. Andrews.

Augustus still remembered the day that Ekatherina Vasilyeva showed up at the Deschanel Media Group. Back then, it was still called just Deschanel, and they were preparing to sign a deal expanding the magazine beyond New Orleans. It was 1972, and everything had been so much simpler.

Colin Sullivan, of Sullivan and Associates, had sent her over. An attorney friend of Colin’s, Joseph Connelly, came to Colin asking for help in placing her. Colin arranged the meeting between Joseph and Augustus.

“She came to us as an au pair, but she’s awful with children,” Joseph had said. “With people in general, actually.
 
I think she signed up for this because it’s what all her friends were doing, but it’s really not her thing.”

“Why should I take her?” Augustus had laughed. How did he get talked into relieving another man’s burden?

“Because she is good at something. Math. Accounting, specifically. I put her through business school.“

“You paid for this Russian immigrant to go to business school?” Augustus was incredulous.

“Well, yes,” Joseph had said, nonplussed. “It seemed like the right thing to do for a girl with such talent. Colin says you’re hiring for a junior accountant. I realize you have your reservations, but I can’t recommend her enough, Augustus. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

Augustus did not just simply take Connelly’s word for it. He called the business school and asked for her records. Back then, things like that were commonplace.
Our very best student
, they had said.
Very quiet girl. Never any trouble. We just hope she can find a company to sponsor her. Would be such a shame if she was sent back to the USSR.

Augustus was just twenty-two at the time. He was the head of his own, expanding, company. His ambitions stretched beyond anything his imagination could yet conjure. But he was still young, and it was this youth that Joseph’s words appealed to. Augustus knew what it was like to have obstacles to overcome on the way to the realization of a dream.
 

He had hired her without meeting her. When she showed up for her first day, he mistook her for a lost child. She was a tiny thing, with pale blonde hair and big blue eyes. She did not look a day over fifteen, but was nearing her twenty-second birthday, according to the new hire paperwork.

“Pleasure to meet you Ekatherina,” he said, taking her hand.

“Please, call me Catherine,” she replied in a tiny voice. Her accent was strong, but her English was crisp.
She’s been preparing for this for years
, Joseph had said.

He sent her off to work with the accounting department, and mentally moved on to more pressing matters. It was a pleasant surprise when, relatively soon into her employment, he caught wind of the uproar she was causing. Almost immediately, to the angst of his tenured accountants, she was making suggestions. Proposals that saved the company money, but also ideas on how to wisely expand, and where to invest.
 

The CFO came to Augustus, complaining. “She is impossible to work with! She has an idea, and expects us all to listen, but if someone else wants to present, she just zones out. You need to talk to her!”

But Augustus challenged, “You need to find a way to work with her, Stephen. Her ideas are better than yours, and that’s just the way it is.”

Catherine was the hardest worker at Deschanel, leaving as late as Augustus each night. He grew used to seeing her in the evenings, and often escorted her out well past dark. Though he asked about her personal life, she would say very little. She didn’t want to talk about her family, or her life back in the USSR.
 

But Augustus did not get this far by letting things go, so he did his own research.

Catherine had been born Ekatherina Aleksandrovna Vasilyeva, in the middle of the communist reign of the USSR. She applied to be an au pair on the pretense of creating a better life for herself, but her real goal was much larger: to make enough money to send for her family; her mother Elena, father Aleksandr, and her two younger siblings Aleksandr Aleksandrovich and Anasofiya.
 

Augustus was fascinated by this small, quiet girl who had bravely ventured across the sea, on her own accord, to start a new life. He appreciated and identified with her ambition, but could not penetrate beneath Catherine’s façade sufficiently to relate on a personal level. She was well-guarded, living in fear of being sent back; of being a failure.

I know that feeling as well. Everyone, even my brother Charles, expected me to fail. But I didn’t. You won’t either. He wanted to reassure her, but every time he worked up the courage, there were others around. While Augustus was most confident when in his business element, he respected that she would not want everyone to know her business.

One evening, after everyone else had left, he found her in the office she shared with the other junior accountants, alone and crying. She wiped her face when she saw Augustus standing in the door, but he had already seen it and was determined to fix whatever was amiss.
 

“What is wrong?” He asked her, several times, before she would answer.

She held up a tiny gold cross that was broken into two pieces. “It was a gift from my
Mammochka
. It’s all I have.”

He took it from her and studied it. The gold was of inferior quality, and the chain flimsy. He was not surprised it broke, only that it hadn’t sooner.

“I can fix it,” he said, and slipped it into his pocket. Her large blue eyes blinked in surprise at his kindness.
 

Several days later, he returned it to her. Her eyes marveled, a hint of moisture giving them a nearly luminescent quality. Augustus had not simply repaired the heirloom, he had improved it. In addition to augmenting with extra gold, in the center now sat several brilliant emeralds.

“Your birthstone,” he explained.

“This is too much,” she half-heartedly protested. Tears forged a wet path over her porcelain cheeks to her brilliant smile. She clutched the cross in her hand, the way a child would hold a beloved toy.

“I want to help you send for your family, Catherine.”

Her smile faded and her eyes narrowed. “I’m saving my money for it. I can do it.”

“But I can do it faster.” He didn’t know anything about romance; nothing about sensitivity, nor the subtle language of love. He only knew he was drawn to her. “Marry me, and I’ll do anything for you.”