Coffee Cup Dreams (A Redpoint One Romance) (2 page)

He looked down at where she stood in the wide
arching entrance. "And our sick little tenant is back home. Where's
Walt?"

She made a half gesture towards the front of
the house. "He had to get back to work."

"He didn't walk you in? After you've been in
the hospital?" Neil demanded. As he continued to work on the wiring
where the chandelier attached to the ceiling he shook his head. "If
a man can't treat his girlfriend with respect while dating, how is
he going to act when it comes time for marriage?"

Tish nearly choked. "Who said anything about
marriage?"

He pulled pliers from his belt and pointed the
end at her. "Mark my words, he's no gentleman. Go find someone
worth your time and attentions."

"Not a problem. We broke up on the way here."
Tish clamped down on the tears and anger wanting to surge up.
Crying or yelling wouldn't help. Like usual it was her against the
world. "Problem with the light?"

"Dimmer isn't working, but I think I found the
problem. And don't change the subject." He reached up with the
pliers, moving one of the wires out of the way. "Why would you
break up on the way back from the hospital? I don't think much of a
man who would do such a thing."

Neil shifted while working at the wires and
the chair shifted under him, the back hitting the table. An edge of
the chandelier tilted off the edge of the table, causing the rest
of it to start to follow.

Tish moved forward as Neil gave a shout. She
grabbed the thin metal rim of the chandelier before the antique
hanging crystals could fall and shatter on the floor. The bag
slipped out of her hands to land hard on the table and several
bottles of medication rolled out across the surface.

Neil grabbed one as it went over the edge on
his side. He tossed it in the air and re-caught it, looked down to
read it while his other hand pushed the pliers into a slot on his
belt. "Nice catch. Maria would kill me if the chandelier
broke."

Tish felt her face go hot as she grabbed the
rest of the bottles and stuffed them back in the bag. She held out
a hand for the other bottle, but Neil ignored her.

"It's none of your business," she said
pointedly.

Just as pointedly his gray eyes leveled on
her. "Psipheron? You're a psi? You've never mentioned
this."

Tish gulped, feeling like her entire world was
about to careen out of control and crash around her ears. "No, it's
not what you think. I'm not a psi!"

She whirled at a soft gasp. Maria Getty, her
black hair pulled back into a loose bun, stood at the entry of the
dining room with a smaller toolbox in her hand.

"Oh dear," Maria muttered. She walked swiftly
to the table and set the toolbox down. With one more wide-eyed
survey of Tish from her feet to her head she rushed back out, again
muttering, "Oh dear."

None of which made sense. Or did
it?

She realized just what it could mean. It could
be used as an excuse to void her lease on the small bedroom she
called home if she were viewed as dangerous, especially with
children in the house. The Gettys depended on the extra income the
room rentals brought into the household. Her new status could keep
other renters away.

Oh, no, what would it mean for her job
hunt?

She turned to Neil. "I'll take another
evaluation test if it would make you feel better. I'm not crazy,
and I'm not a psi. I don't need this stuff, and I'll be throwing it
out. I took a test before leaving the hospital and I didn't show up
at all."

Neil let a small metal bracket fall to the
table top. Tish cringed. Maria would throw a fit if her table was
marred in any way. He took her upper arm and propelled her into the
back of the house and into a corner of the big kitchen.

"First, do not throw it out," Neil ground out,
letting her grab the bottle out of his hands. She stuffed it back
into the bag with the other bottles.

He stopped and took a deep breath, pushing a
hand through his hair. "The bottle has a tracker in it. They'll
know the moment you throw it out, and you don't want to give them
any reason to come for you and force you to take the
medication."

Tish couldn't help the physical cringe. Force
to take the pills and forced to endure the potentially massive
side-effects? "Fine, then I'll keep it and stuff it in a
drawer."

"And when it comes time for a new supply?" Mr.
Getty asked.

She looked down at the bag in her hand. "They
can tell if the pills are taken, can't they."

"The rumor is they can. So, figure you have
about thirty days to figure out what you are going to do, and then
you'll have big hard questions to answer to authorities who are not
kind to psis."

"I'm not a psi," she whispered. Good grief, a
simple procedure to fix a heart valve and it turned into this kind
of a disaster.

Maria pulled out a chair from the long kitchen
table, guiding her to it and pushing her down. "Tell us what
happened."

With the Gettys staring down at her, Tish
stuttered her way through what she knew. Of dying on the operating
table, and then waking up, but still with her body flat-lined. Of
all the psi measuring devices in the operating room going off the
charts for a few seconds. And then she'd come back to
life.

She couldn't look at them as she spoke. She
didn't want to see echoes of Walt's face in theirs. So, as she
spoke, her eyes ran across the room. From the polished warm wood of
the cabinet doors to the lacy and light curtains hanging over the
windows.

It sounded so bad to her ears. Like a big
whopper of a tail told by a pathological liar. She wished she could
go back, think about it, and explain it better. In a way where she
wouldn't come out of the story looking so strange and odd, and
potentially dangerous.

"The psi test before I left the hospital came
back negative," Tish added for good measure. "Every test I've taken
my whole life has come back negative."

Maria slipped into the chair on the other side
of the table, her face cringing and then relaxing. "Past tests can
mean nothing. We've all heard stories about a traumatic event
bringing it out."

"But I've tested absolutely negative on every
test they've thrown at me. I am not a psi," she
repeated.

"What is important is that the government
believes you are," Neil interjected settling into another chair at
the table. "And our government has not been kind to them since the
attack."

Her heart sunk even more.

He was right. More than right. The People's
Rights Brigade, led by a closet-psi and making use of other psi's,
had nearly toppled a local government. The regulations and laws
that came down after had been the stuff to make newsgroups and
lawyers salivate. Challenges were still working their way through
the court, but the government had successfully lobbied the courts
to allow them to continue with their control of all psis until a
legal decision was made.

And it meant something quite clear to
her.

She mentally pictured the three young sons of
the Gettys, all with Neil's gray eyes and Maria's thick dark hair.
What if she really was a danger to others? What if she really did
have suppressed mental abilities despite all the tests stating
otherwise? Could she be a danger to the entire Getty
family?

She gripped the bag even harder, shifting to
the edge of the chair to prepare to stand up. "I can't stay here. I
need to move."

CHAPTER TWO

NEIL NODDED. "YES, need to move."

"Oh dear, you've done pale. You need something
to drink." Maria patted her arm as she rose from her
chair.

A moment later Tish found a hot cup of coffee
slid in front of her. One of the children ran through, crying his
starvation, but a quick warning from Maria and a low command by
Neil had him scurrying back outside to his playmates.

Steam slowly rose off the surface of the
coffee. She slowly poured creamer into it, watching billowing
clouds of white emerge from the bottom. Her head spun in time with
the cloud of creamer. And just as the creamer dissipated into the
coffee, so did any answers to her fast-running
questions.

She picked up a spoon and stirred, making the
last of the clouds disappear.

Just like her life had just
disappeared.

She took a sip, enjoying the sharp taste and
almost too-hot temperature. She could sense the Gettys still
sitting quietly next to her. Her mind might be in turmoil, but her
heart warmed with their concern. They wanted her to move, but still
they stayed close. They were still friends.

A plate of cookies joined the coffee. Then a
plate of sliced bread.

Maria must have been cooking for hours.
Knowing her, she'd done it in celebration of Tish coming home. She
was always doing things like that.

And to protect the people who had become like
a second family to her, Tish would willingly move.

"I'll start packing right away," Tish finally
said, trying hard not to give in to the tears. "Don't worry, I
won't hurt anyone."

"Of course you won't. You could never hurt
anyone," Maria said in such a firm and surprised voice that Tish
looked up at her.

And in neither of their faces did Tish see
fear. Only concern, and it was all directed towards her. So, if
they weren't afraid of her, why did they agree with her
moving?

Even as she thought of the questions, she knew
the answer. She asked the question she dreaded. "I need to leave
Earth, don't I?"

Both slowly nodded. Neil added, "It's the only
choice if you want to stay drug free."

The prospect filled her with even more dread.
She'd been subsisting on savings for the last four months while
searching for a new job. With each month what few skills she could
list on a resume were becoming stale and rusty. What kind of a
living could she make off-planet when she could barely make one on
Earth?

She said out loud, "I'm not a pilot, and I
know nothing of trading protocol."

"You don't make beds well, either," Maria said
with a laugh.

Neil chuckled. "Or weed the
garden."

"That's what the yard robots are for," Tish
said. And if any robots had been working that particular day Maria
would still have marigolds along the front porch.

"Robot repair," Neil suddenly said. He reached
for his belt, pulling out his pocket computer.

"Don't you dare let her work on the robots,"
Maria said, snagging one of the cookies.

"Seriously, not robot repair," Tish said. "Is
there much call for filing clerks off-planet?"

"As a job."

Tish and Maria sighed at Neil at the same
time. Tish shook her head, "Nice thought, but you need
certification to work on engines, life-support, or anything else on
a ship. I'm pretty sure that includes robots."

"Not on a ship. I don't think you would do
well cooped up on one anyway." He thumbed through screens,
muttering to himself.

"Some planets have even worse regulations for
psis than Earth does," Tish said, wishing she could remember more
of what she'd read. "Moving to a colony world might not help me.
Or, maybe one of the further out colonies?"

But there must be some out there that would
just let her live and be herself. She needed to do some research,
and fast. How long did it take to move to a colony world, anyway?
Citizenship transfer, customs? She didn't really know. She'd never
had a reason to know.

"No, no. You can't move fast enough, and you
shouldn't be alone. Someone should look out for you," Neil
said.

Tish sat straight up and glared at him. "I've
been taking care of myself since I was fifteen. I don't need
someone to look out for me."

Maria's glare joined with Tish's. "Dear, you
aren't seriously thinking-"

"-Of course I am. He needs people, doesn't
he?" Neil interrupted. "Aha, here it is. This is where you should
go for now, until you get comfortable with off-world living.
Redpoint One."