Lost Time

By Barb McIntyre

Despite a strong attraction, Greg and Fiona spend two years apart because of two wrong assumptions on Greg's part. During those two years, Greg renovates and moves into his grandmother's house, acquires a dog, becomes a Big Brother to six-year-old Tyler, and then adopts the boy after his mother dies. Fiona takes a sabbatical, sublets her apartment, moves in with her mother, and completes her Ph.D. Both Fiona and Greg try dating others without success and rely heavily on family and friends until a chance meeting in a park brings them together again, this time happily and without assumptions. After two eventful years of trying to forget each other, they discover that the only thing that hasn't changed about them is their love for each other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667874463

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

May 2011

For shit’s sake, Fiona, Cindy, a trim, thirty-one-year-old woman who often ran marathons, said in a voice that was an even mixture of irritation and pity. Her fine, straight, shoulder-length, light brown hair bounced as she walked toward a small table in the almost empty section of the college’s large dining room reserved for staff members. You’re not a character in a harlequin romance. This is real life. This isn’t housewife porn. There might be sizzling sex, but there won’t be a happy-together-forever ending if you sleep with that man tonight.

The two women reached their table. Fiona sat beside Louise, who had just taken her first bite of a spicy chicken wrap. Louise’s hair was almost the same colour and length as Cindy’s, but her tight curls bounced back no matter how often she attacked them with her straightening iron. Louise alternately won and lost an ongoing battle with her weight and spent her free time making silver jewelry that she sold at craft fairs.

Cindy took the chair opposite Louise and began arranging the items on her tray.

Cynical Cindy rides again! Fiona was on such a high that her friend’s warnings couldn’t reach her. Don’t you ever see the good side of things?

Cindy ignored Fiona’s comment and spoke to Louise. Tell her to be sensible. She’s met another Mr. Right. I don’t know about you, but I can’t go through that again. Tell her to take things slowly this time. Remind her of what happens when she jumps into bed on the first date. Remind her that she’s learned the hard way that Mr. Right has many first names.

Louise waved a hand to indicate that she couldn’t speak because her mouth was full.

Listing only your more polite inventory: Always, Maybe, and Never, Fiona chanted happily. You can’t pull me down today, Cindy. You just can’t. She jammed the straw she’d just unwrapped into her carton of milk.

Let me guess, Cindy said as she spread butter on her roll. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and has muscles where men should have muscles. He has hypnotic eyes, a drop-dead gorgeous smile, and his deep, manly voice makes you drool in two places.

You forgot his sparkling white teeth. Fiona grinned at Cindy before putting the straw in her mouth and taking a long drink of milk.

Wipe that mushy smile off your face. It’s too soon. You know it is. You’ve done this twice now. You’ve jumped in too fast, and look what happened. Cindy’s voice softened a little. I just don’t want you to get hurt again.

Louise added, She’s right, Fiona. We don’t like seeing you suffer.

But he’s It. Fiona insisted as she tore open the little package of pepper and sprinkled it over her soup. I can feel it. It’s different this time. It’s right. He’s right. She smiled dreamily. And his teeth are sparklingly white. His left cuspid, she opened her mouth and touched her own left cuspid, is a bit crooked, though. One edge points out; just a little. She picked up her spoon and dipped it into her soup.

Your problem, Louise looked over at Fiona as she stirred her coffee. Is that your grandmother got you hooked on early nineteenth-century romantic fiction at an impressionable age. You’re fixated on smouldering looks and lifelong unbridled passion.

The thing is, Fiona, if all you want from this guy is sex, go for it. Cindy’s voice was now softly serious. Enjoy yourself. But if you want this to last, you’ve got to wait. Get to know him first. Let him get to know you. Make sure your feelings are in sync. Make sure sex isn’t all he wants. She didn’t have to add, Like the last two times.

All three women knew she was thinking it.

Fiona only half listened to the rest of the noontime conversation. She contributed just enough to make her friends think she was paying attention. Louise’s comment about early romantic fiction got them started on Jane Austen’s contribution to literature, whether or not she was a Romantic, and whether or not she was gay.

Cindy thought Austen was a Mock-Romantic. She created romantic plots only to satirize them. She insisted that Austen’s characters gave up their romantic fantasies and settled into unspectacular, banal existences, that they had to learn how to be sensible, rational women in order to achieve happiness.

Louise talked about what one reviewer called Austen’s flirtatious manner toward her sister. She mentioned two different reviewers who insisted that the bond was more than sisterly.

Cindy said the only reason Austen didn’t marry was because she saw her destiny as a writer, not as a wife and mother. And they both agreed that the whole gay thing was based on the concept that the sisters slept in the same bed, a common practice back then.

Cindy looked at Louise and almost succeeded in maintaining a serious expression. After all, we sleep in the same bed, and you wouldn’t want anybody to think we’re gay.

They smiled happily at each other and didn’t notice Fiona’s lack of response.

During the last gay pride parade, in response to a rude, homophobic slur, Louise had turned to Cindy, pulled her into an embrace, and they’d shared a lengthy, passionate kiss. The episode, with bleeps over two of the words in the slur, had received 264,619 hits, 43,102 dislikes, and 29,202 likes during the first three weeks after it was posted on Facebook. The many comments posted on both sides of the issue had been quite clear. But whether the likes and dislikes were for the slur or for the kiss was left to the viewer’s imagination. The kiss itself had been shown on the local news at six and again at eleven that night.

Fiona envied her friends’ relationship. She wanted someone to care for her the way they cared for each other. Someone to lift her up when she was down. Someone to cuddle up to. Someone to feel secure with.

For the record, Fiona announced suddenly. I’m not willing to settle into an unspectacular, banal existence. And, despite how much you English majors dress it up, what Jane Austen wrote was chick-lit; pure and simple. If Jane were alive today, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy would have a … She looked questioningly at Cindy for a moment. How did you put it? Oh yeah, a sizzlingly sexy scene before their happy-together-forever ending. Several sizzlingly-sexy scenes, in fact. Fiona nodded happily. Just like I’m going to have. And I’m going to have the happy-together-forever ending too. I just know it. He is the one.

As Fiona raised her spoon toward her mouth, a few drops of tomato soup fell onto her name tag. As she wiped them away, she remembered her first day at the college, when she posed for the picture now splattered with pale, red liquid. She’d spent the night before her first day of teaching worrying instead of sleeping, and she thought the picture highlighted every unslept hour.

Louise Fraser and Cynthia Brodie had been teaching English at the college for two years before Fiona arrived. On her third day of teaching, Fiona was standing in the cafeteria line-up, looking back at the salads, and wondering if she should have picked a garden instead of a Caesar when she accidentally pushed her tray into Cindy’s. A few drops of cream of chicken soup splashed onto Cindy’s chocolate pudding. Fiona’s apologies led to their sharing a table, to Fiona’s meeting Louise, and to the three women becoming close friends. Since then, Cindy and Louise had watched Fiona get involved with two I-Was-So-Sures, and reject a few Maybes. She had regaled them with stories about other Maybes and a few Definitely-Nots in her past. They both hoped Fiona was right, that this time was different, that Detective Sergeant Greg Nolan was the man that would make Fiona as happy as they were.

Cindy was a cynic. She readily admitted it. But she insisted that, contrary to conventional wisdom, cynics didn’t always see the glass as half empty. A cynic is not a pessimist, she’d told Fiona the first time Fiona accused her of being cynical. A true cynic sees the glass for what it is. People are motivated chiefly by selfish concerns. Being skeptical of people’s motives is just common sense.

Fiona’s first class of the afternoon was her favourite. She enjoyed teaching Elementary Statistics and Number Theory, but Math 216, Combinatorics, was an hour of pure joy. Three times a week, Fiona could share her love of Stirling numbers, generating functions, sets, interpolation, and curve fitting with interested students.

Deciphering codes and unravelling the true meaning of secret messages involves a great deal of math, she informed each class during their first session. You need everything from simple addition and subtraction to data handling and logical thinking. In fact, some of the most famous code-breakers in history have been mathematicians. They’ve been able to use quite simple math to uncover plots, identify traitors, and influence battles.

Ever since her brother, Craig, and his friends had allowed Fiona to play spy games with them, she’d been hooked on writing and cracking codes. She’d found Craig lying on the living room floor one afternoon, frustrated at not being able to crack the latest code his friend, Joe, had invented. Fiona picked up the paper he’d crumpled and thrown under the coffee table, looked at it, and decoded it in minutes. It was a simple matter of sorting and shifting the numbers into groups until a pattern emerged. Craig had no idea she’d been finding the papers he threw away and figuring out their codes all along.

The boys made an exception to their no-girls rule, and Fiona started deciphering and making up codes with them. The boys lost interest in the game after a few weeks, probably, the adult Fiona had realized, because she was so much better at it than they were.

Fiona’s eyes were brown, and her long hair was almost black. She wore it in a neat French braid or arranged in an updo with a variety of clips, clamps, or combs. Her favourite, a big tortoiseshell clip, had been a sixteenth birthday gift from the man she’d called Dad from the time he moved in with them when she was six until he disappeared two weeks after giving her the clip. At first, she’d used the clip every day because it made her feel close to him. It reminded her of happiness and love, of hugs and laughter, of being a family. She knew it was stupid, but she couldn’t help thinking that wearing it might bring him back.

No matter how often Fiona asked, her mother wouldn’t say more than that Peter hadn’t wanted to leave them, that he loved them and always would, and that he had had no choice. But Fiona kept hoping that whatever had made him leave would change, and then he’d come back. She’d lie in bed and fantasize about the reunion. And in all the fantasies, she’d be wearing the clip, and that would make him so happy he’d never leave again. Fiona knew she was much too old for those thoughts. She was sixteen, after all. But she couldn’t help herself. It took a few years for the clip to become nothing more than a pretty, useful hair ornament.

But Fiona had been in a hurry this morning and had simply twisted her hair around one of her short, caramel-toned chopsticks, turned upside down, and slid it sideways through the hair at the base of her neck. Then she wove the matching stick through the twist of hair in the opposite direction, making sure that the four-leaf clovers engraved in gold were showing. The updo took her less than four seconds.

Years before, Fiona had ordered two pairs of engraved, personalized chopsticks as an anniversary gift for a friend. She’d had the couple’s initials and the date of their wedding engraved in gold on the finely polished brown wood. Fiona had liked the chopsticks so much she’d ordered a shorter pair for herself, and started using them as a quick hair fix instead of the pencil she’d been using since her last year of high school. It was her lucky pencil. She’d used it to check off the boxes on a multiple-choice exam. The exam had come back marked 100% despite the fact that she’d guessed at many of the answers.

Fiona managed to concentrate on her classes and student meetings all afternoon. As she walked home, though, her thoughts went back to where they’d been during most of the lunchtime conversation, to yesterday morning, the man in the navy-blue hoodie, Greg Nolan, and what would happen at six-thirty tonight.

CHAPTER TWO

Fiona had been standing in one of the three lines at the ATMs in the bank’s lobby when the small man ran out of the bank. He almost knocked her over as he ran through the second door and into the street. She’d been reviewing her first class in her head and hardly noticed the man. Before she knew what was happening, the small lobby was overrun with policemen, and all of the customers were being told that they couldn’t leave until they’d been interviewed. They were witnesses. Fiona took a small notebook out of the front pocket of her laptop bag and wrote down her name and her place of employment, as well as her cell, home, and office phone numbers. She tried to give the paper to one of the officers, explaining that she had a class she couldn’t miss. If they’d let her go and teach her class, she’d be more than willing to talk to them for as long as they wanted afterwards. But they weren’t listening. Fiona forced herself to calm down. She pulled her weekly Maclean‘s out of her bag and tried to concentrate on the editorial page. As long as this didn’t take more than twenty minutes, she’d be able to make it to her class on time. She overheard one of the policemen telling one of the other witnesses that the police had arrived so quickly because the bank’s silent alarm had sounded. They were only a few seconds too late.

Ten minutes later, she asked one of the policemen how much longer it would be, and started explaining, a little less calmly this time, that she was not going to be able to help them no matter how long they kept her and why she had to get to her class. The man started to repeat exactly what Fiona had been told earlier when he was interrupted.

I’ll handle this, Officer, a deep voice said from behind her.

Fiona turned and looked up into the bluest eyes she had ever seen.

So, what’s so important about this class? The tiny crinkles at the corners of his smiling mouth matched the ones at the corners of his eyes. His shirt was crisp and white, and his dark suit fitted him perfectly. He put the badge he’d held up to identify himself to the uniformed officer back into his inner breast pocket as he said, When I went to school, a teacher’s missing a class was a good thing. We could usually con the sub and get our homework done.

It’s the last class before the final exam, Fiona explained. Reviewing the basics and boosting a student’s self-confidence can make the difference between an A and a B; for a few of them, the difference between a scholarship and no scholarship. And, as I told the other officers, I promise I’ll come to the police station after my class and talk to you for as long as you want. Here’s my contact information. She held up the paper she’d tried to give the first officer. Please. These kids have worked hard. They deserve the best chance they can get.

His expression hadn’t changed, so Fiona couldn’t tell whether or not she was getting anywhere. She kept talking. Besides, I didn’t see anything. I felt something bump into me, and when I looked up, I saw the back of a short man run out the door and turn left. He was wearing a navy-blue hoodie. I can’t …

He took a card out of his coat pocket, handed it to her with his right hand, and took her paper with his left. I’ll see you in my office at five this afternoon.

She glanced at the card, which identified him as Detective Sergeant Greg Nolan and gave a street address, an email address, and two phone numbers.

Well, he said, smiling down at her. I thought you were in a hurry.

Thank you. She said as she rushed away.

Brian Fisher, Greg’s partner, a man who still carried himself like the soldier he’d been for ten years, put his phone back in his pocket, walked over to Greg, and said, They caught the perp. He confessed. We don’t need to interview any of the witnesses. We can get back to wasting time on Oh Henry.

Oh Henry was the name the papers had given to the person who’d set off the bombs at the Museum of Science, the main train station, and City Hall. All three bombs had been small and set in low-traffic areas. They made a lot of noise and left a terrible smell, but only a few people had required medical treatment. The injuries had been minor, mostly cuts and bruises caused by falls while running away from the smoke and the noise. There had also been one dislocated shoulder, one sprained ankle, and two asthma attacks.

The morning after the first bombing, an unmarked envelope containing a piece of plain white paper appeared on the reception desk of the daily newspaper. No one saw who’d left it. One side of the paper was unmarked. The other was almost filled with a picture of an Oh Henry bar wrapper inside gray clouds formed by an explosion. Both images were easily available online. No fingerprints had been found, and no one had come forward with even a scrap of information.

It might be a group, one of the many newspaper articles on the subject stated, but reliable sources at the police station reported that the money was on one deranged person. Terrorism was not, absolutely not, an issue here. The bomb had not been made to create damage but simply to disrupt. All of the articles written on the subject repeated the same information. The whole city was waiting for, and worrying about, the next bomb.

Brian and Greg were one of several teams working on the case. Both men felt they were running on the spot with the investigation, but every tip had to be checked out, no matter how insane the caller sounded. They had over a hundred calls to get through today, which meant that they’d be working overtime again tonight.

Greg watched Fiona vanish around the corner, turned to his partner, and said, Speak for yourself. I’m definitely going to interview one of those witnesses.

Brian smiled and shook his head as they walked to their car. She’s cute. Good luck.

I’m going to take those chopsticks out of that glossy black hair, Greg thought as he opened the passenger door. And I’m going to take them out very, very slowly.

Brian was paying attention to the road and didn’t notice the smile on Greg’s face as he decided that maybe slowly wasn’t the best way to dispose of those two little pieces of wood.

When Fiona returned to her office after her second-to-last class of the day, she had two messages on her machine. One was from her mother reminding her about her grandmother’s birthday. The other was from Detective Greg Nolan, telling her that he wouldn’t be available that afternoon and that he’d call her to reschedule. But several students had been talking about the robbery, and she knew that the man in the navy-blue hoodie had been caught red-handed. Detective Nolan didn’t need her statement. No matter how much she wanted to look into those blue eyes and hear that deep voice again, he wasn’t going to call and reschedule. She had to stop thinking like a giddy teenager. Just because her hormones had taken a reverse bungee jump when she first saw him, and were still bouncing, didn’t mean that he’d felt anything at all.

Fiona deleted the messages and sat staring morosely through the open window at a small patch of blue sky, the exact blue of his eyes. She took a deep breath, picked up the first exam from the pile on the edge of her desk, and started grading it. She worked until it was time for her five o’clock class.

Fiona gasped when she stepped back into her office at ten after six. Greg Nolan was sitting in the visitors’ chair.

He stood up. Sorry to startle you, but your door was open. I …

No. No, that’s fine. Fiona shook her head slightly and walked toward her desk. But didn’t the man confess?

He did, Greg said sheepishly. He shrugged before continuing. I was going to tell you that I still needed to get your statement, to be thorough. But while I was sitting here, I realized how lame that was, so I decided to man up. I just wanted to see you again. I only have an hour, but I wondered if you’d like to have a quick dinner. Maybe you know a place that’s close and has fast service. If you’re not busy, that is.

Fiona tried not to show how pleased she was to see him. Ed’s. It’s a five-minute walk, the food’s not bad, and they’re used to people who want to be out in less than an hour.

Fifty minutes later, they were standing on the sidewalk in front of Ed’s. His fish and chips, and her lasagna, had been better than not bad. She’d learned a lot about the life of a detective, and he’d learned as much about the work of a teacher.

Where’s your car? he asked.

I’m only a few blocks away. I walk.

He looked at his watch. I need a bit of exercise. Which way?

When they got to her door, he said, Are you busy tomorrow night?

I’m on the third floor. She pointed to the top of the three-storey stone building. There’ll be a shepherd’s pie coming out of the oven at six-thirty.

Any preference on the wine I’ll bring.

Not too dry.

Done. He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Six-thirty, he said with a smile and a nod. He turned to go, then turned back and kissed her again, much less lightly this time, on the lips. He pulled away, smiled down at her, nodded again, and walked away without looking back.