Free Captured Again by L.L. Akers Page B

slip. Her hands started shaking and her breathing picked up. The room began to spin. She pulled her attention away from the calendar, giving up, and plopped down into her chair, dropping her bag at her feet and holding her head in her hands, trying to keep it together. Focus, Gabby... focus, she wordlessly repeated in her mind.
    She abruptly stood up and ripped down the calendar from her wall that hadn’t been flipped since the month of their accident, dumping it unceremoniously into her wastebasket, and put her attention to arranging the simple daisies and baby’s breath—her favorite—in a small vase she kept at the office, then poured a bottle of room-temperature water into the vase. She turned to toss the empty bottle in the trashcan and gasped, startled at the sight of the new guy, Tom, leaning in her doorway. She was still jumpy after René, probably always would be.
    Gabby had forgotten Tom’s new employee orientation was to have begun that morning. She rushed him in and got him started on his paperwork right away, apologizing for the delay. He smiled and said it wasn’t a problem, and he told her he’d enjoyed watching the camaraderie while he waited. He seemed sincere, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes, and his gaze seemed to penetrate inside her, as if telling her he could see she was doing this as much for the guys as she was herself, but he wouldn’t call her out on it.
    But something felt weird. She’d never met him—someone had just passed her the transfer form for processing—but it was almost like he knew something she didn’t... or maybe like he thought they had an unspoken secret. But if they did, she wasn’t aware of it. She tried to shake off the feeling, but still it remained, leaving her skittish with him.
    She nervously walked him through his paperwork and then stepped over to the copier in the corner, not liking having to turn her back to him to make copies of his identification. She could feel his eyes on her and fought the urge to snap at him to stop looking. Keep it together, Gabby. Relax and smile, she reminded herself.
    She finished the copies and stepped back behind her desk, keeping it between them. She felt silly at her reaction to this stranger; he’d been nothing but polite and business-like to her, but she was unable to find a smile for him.
    “Your benefits don’t change. Everything’s the same except for your location and who you report to, but I’ve included a handbook and benefits guide in this package anyway,” she said stiffly as she passed him a large manila envelope. “Any questions?”
    Tom raised his eyebrows. “I guess not.”
    “Follow me, then,” Gabby instructed and led him out the door. Since Tom was a transfer, coming directly in from another location to replace a shift supervisor, he basically just needed to learn the layout of this facility and the names of his crew. She hoped he hadn’t felt her rushing through his orientation. She breathed a sigh of relief when he was delivered to the floor manager and off of her hands.
    Finally, she was able to get back to her office—alone—and dive into the stacks of too-long neglected reports and mounds of paper in her to-do-later tray.

CHAPTER 12
    Gabby finished up what seemed like months of loose-end paperwork, happy with the productivity of her day. She neatened her desk and gathered her things, hoping to keep the momentum going long enough to hurry home and do some long-ignored chores there too. Before she left, she picked up her flower vase, checking to be sure there was enough water, hoping to keep the cheery flowers alive a few more days.
    That’s odd, Gabby thought. I didn’t see that before. In the middle of the bouquet of flowers was a decorative dragonfly. She attempted to pluck it out, but it wasn’t as easy as it seemed. It was held in place by a long, stiff wire and the greenery had tangled around the wire. In removing it, she pulled several daisies and a few little sprays of baby’s