Chapter 24
Chapter 24
L eo woke in the morning, Esther’s hair draped over his face like a sleep mask. Not that the darkness of the room needed any embellishments. The barest hint of dawn peeked through a crack in the curtain, illuminating them in its weak light. He lay perfectly still, letting the renewed peace of the morning wash over him. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that peace. Usually he woke in a mild panic, disoriented, tense, adrenaline pumping. Years and years of being on assignment, of waking in strange beds, motels, and countries had taught him to never fully trust those first few moments until he became oriented. He had started doing it in his apartment—waking in a sweat, wondering where he was, if he was in danger.
But now, even before he opened his eyes, he knew. Middle of Nowhere, New York. Amish cabin. Esther tucked safely beside him. His heart rate was steady, his breathing normal. No sweating or trembling. Everything was as it should be, and how long had it been since he could say that? Had he ever been able to say that? Even as a kid he’d woken up sick with dread, wondering if his dad would be angry and drunk or, worse, gone, wondering if his mom would cry, wondering if there would be enough food on the table. He thought when he grew up, became a man, and started making his own money and decisions, everything would be fixed.
For a few years in the marines, life was better. They were fully in charge of his destiny, always telling him where to go or what to do. Leo had taken to it like the proverbial duck to water. For a few grasping years, he had felt safe, even in the midst of war. And then The Colonel got hold of him and began to whisper in his ear. Talent like yours is wasted being a jarhead. Time for you to steer your own course, make your own way. You have the skills we’re looking for.
And so Leo had left the security of the marines for a chance to prove himself as a spy. It had its perks, for certain. He hadn’t been under anybody’s thumb, per se. The autonomy had been a relief after having so much of his life ordered by the military. But the weight of his past always caught up, both his family life and the incident. Men had died on his watch. Nothing was ever okay after that.
Enter Esther.
As if thinking about her made her wake, she opened her eyes and looked at him with her computer look. She was curious and about to ask him a question. One never knew what it might be. Once in the middle of the day at work she turned to him and asked if he thought black holes were a portal to heaven. He still puzzled over that one.
“Do people kiss in the mor…” she began, but the question was answered before it could be completed when he leaned forward and kissed her.
Last night they hadn’t resumed kissing after those first few gentle exchanges. Leo hadn’t wanted to push her and, if he was being honest, he hadn’t wanted to push himself. Being concerned about a partner’s wellbeing was so new he was afraid he would trample it, would collapse under the weight of temptation if he and Esther spent much more time engaged in physical contact. INNOCENT, INNOCENT, INNOCENT, his mind screamed at him all the time like a warning beacon. Until this moment when she woke in his embrace looking like spring’s first rosebud. Also, he was apparently the type of man who had thoughts about spring’s first rosebud now.
Right away this kissing was much more intent than last night’s had been, but Esther kept pace. She didn’t seem frightened or disgusted. Quite the contrary. One of her hands eased into his hair, her fingers scraping his scalp in her attempt to draw him impossibly closer. One of her legs hitched onto his hip and Leo rolled away from her, gobsmacked.
She sat up and peered down at him, annoyed. “Why did you stop kissing when I’ve decided once and for all I like it?”
His laughter worked to dispel a bit of the heavy tension, at least on his end. “Because you’re killing me.”
Now her eyes rounded with worry. She was far too literal. “Not really. Your, uh, leg migrated.” He tapped her knee, still pressed to his thigh.
Esther glanced down at it as if it belonged to someone else. “How did that get there?”
He laughed again. “I think biology began to take over,” he explained, reaching her hand and winding their fingers together.
“And that’s why you stopped? Because that upsets you?”
“Uh, no, far from it. I stopped because biology began to take over for me, too.” He pulled her down beside him, safely out of reach of his lips, and kissed the top of her head. She rested her cheek on his chest, pondering.
“There’s so much I don’t know, Leo. So much.”
“You’ll get there,” he assured her. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. She stared up at him with big eyes, and he froze. He knew her so well he could read the question in her eyes. With you? And she knew him so well she could likely read the answer in his. Don’t ask. For once, she found her internal filter and didn’t ask. Leo was both relieved and disappointed by that.
He’d been on assignment before, lots of times, enough to know the score. Things were intense. They’d been through a lot. But forced intimacy wasn’t real. He and Esther were friends, yes. Partners, true. But they were far too different for anything more than that. A lasting relationship between them would never work, mostly because Leo would find some way to screw it up. He could feel the panic making a return and worked to push it away. He cared about her far too much to inflict himself on her. Country Leo was an anomaly. If they could stay here, he would be fine. If real life wouldn’t intrude, he and Esther could be equals. Back at work, back in the city, he would revert to his normal self: unreliable, unstable, cruel, selfish, broken. Esther’s opposite in every way.
“Everything works with you,” Esther said, sounding awed. “I don’t like to touch people. It’s too much sensory overload, but you…” She picked up his hand and smoothed her fingers over his. “I thought I would hate kissing, but no, you make that good, too. You understand the way my brain works and allow it to do its thing. You give me hope, Leo. You make me feel like normal doesn’t matter because what we have is better than normal.” She kissed his palm, she who hated germs and hated kissing, had crossed the invisible barriers and made a tangible gesture, and what did Leo do in return? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He stared at the ceiling, fighting the panic that once again tried to climb up his throat. Even Esther, who wasn’t astute about matters of the heart, would have to notice his silence, his lack of response.
When she threw off the covers and darted out of the room, his heart sank. He would have to go to her, would have to somehow make amends for all he hadn’t said, hadn’t done, hadn’t promised. He would have to tell her the truth—that he was unable to do what she needed him to do in this instance, to be who she needed him to be.
Reluctantly, he pushed off the covers and padded to the kitchen, expecting to see Esther busying herself with the fire or with breakfast. It was her M/O when she was upset to fuss over him, to take care of him, even when she hurt. But the fire was still cold and there was no comforting smell of coffee or oatmeal. Esther sat at the table, pen aloft.
Not angry—working.
“What’s up, sweetheart?” Yes, stupid, throw endearments in there to confuse the situation. Good luck explaining to the ingénue how you kiss her and call her pet names and don’t want to be more than friends. Way to keep a cap on it.
“There’s something on the tip of my brain I can’t quite retrieve, a connection.”
“How can I help?”
“Sit on the other side of me,” she said, not bothering to look up. He sat on the side he usually sat on and stared longingly at the empty fireplace. He shivered and ran his hand up and down his arm. Esther’s arms also had goose bumps.
“I need to see to the fire,” he said. She didn’t respond. Maybe she had only needed him to sit in his regular spot to get in the zone. Now that she was in it, it was probably okay for him to move around.
He left her side, started the fire, and attempted to make coffee. Making coffee manually and without electricity was a whole different ballgame. His wasn’t as good as hers, but it was hot and caffeinated. He set a mug before Esther who, predictably, ignored it. He picked up her hand and wrapped it around the mug. She brought it to her lips on rote, took a sip, and set it back down again. He was about to tackle breakfast when one of the cousins from the main house knocked on the door and shyly presented some coffee cake and milk.
“Bless you, kid,” Leo said and the boy’s cheeks flushed crimson. Adorable, Leo thought, patting the boy’s head before he skittered off. Did I just pat an Amish kid’s head and bless him? Yes, yes I did. Country Leo might need beaten up soon to get things back in order. A few more days of pastoral life and he might become a pacifist himself. Maybe he’d convert and follow Aaron into carpentry. Those haircuts, though, he thought, shaking his head as he closed the door with his foot. Plus he’d never been able to grow a proper beard.
“Esther, should I convert and become Amish?” he said, knowing she would completely ignore him, which she did. He downed a piece of coffee cake, broke off a piece, and stuffed it in Esther’s mouth. When she swallowed, he nudged her hand toward the coffee mug again, and she downed that, too. “Like feeding a baby bird,” he mused. He sat down beside her, resuming his post as a creepy stalker. She didn’t have the kind of flashy features that would catch anyone’s attention from across a crowded room, wasn’t the sort who would make guys nudge each other when she walked in. But the beauty was there, for anyone patient enough to search for it. Her complexion was flawless, her delicate features perfectly arranged. Leo understood Amelia’s fascination with her because with a new hairstyle and some makeup, she could be a knockout. He didn’t want her to be a knockout, however, and not because he didn’t want other men to look at her, but because he found her perfect as she was. She was so…pure. He hated it when women took off their makeup and looked like a completely different person, but it was something more than that. It was that she never tried to be anything other than what she was. There was no pretense with Esther, and her sweet face and outlandishly long hair were evidence of that.
He rested his head on her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her throat, thoroughly expecting her to continue to ignore him, as was their custom. But she put down her pen and hugged him, clasping his head against her as she smoothed her hand over his hair. She kissed the top of his head. “My sweet Leo.”
If his eyes didn’t suddenly burn so badly, he would have laughed. In his whole life, no one had ever called him sweet, and certainly not a woman. “I didn’t think you noticed me when you worked.”
“I always notice you, but I’m finished working.”
He sat up and studied her. “You figured it out?”
“I figured it out.” She reached for the paper and pulled it closer. “The first day, the pictures Blue sent me. They were the same man, Aleksandr Nabokov, and that’s what’s been bothering me, because once we realized he was two people, we stopped looking for others.”
“I’m not sure I follow.” He broke off another piece of cake and stuffed it into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed before she answered.
“He’s more than one person. He’s a master of changing his appearance. You were right, he was following me.”
He blinked at her. “You saw his other disguises? You know he followed you?”
She nodded. “I did what Blue did that day. I went through everyone we’ve worked, everyone who was on the train that day and overlaid their faces. There were two more matches.”
“The guy who wants you dead, the guy who paid someone to have you shot, the terrorist and mass murderer whose alias you busted, this Aleksandr Nabokov, got close enough to be on the train with you?”
“Yes. And he’s also been pretending to work at my library.”
“Library guy is the one?”
She nodded and reached for more of the cake. “Also, you should definitely not convert and become Amish, Leo. You should be you, exactly as you are because you’re the best man I’ve ever known. And I hope it’s not like feeding a baby bird. Gross.” She grimaced, likely imagining him regurgitating her food.
He pressed the heel of his hand to his eye socket. “Esther, your range of experience is vastly limited. I am not the best man, I’m not even a good man.”
“I didn’t say you were the best man in the world; I said you were the best man I’ve ever known. Though, given your competition is Ruben Miller, it’s probably not much of a compliment,” she said, breaking off a piece of coffee cake and pushing it in her mouth to hide her smile.
Leo bit her neck, causing her to squeal and back away from him. “Stop teasing, go back to adoring,” he pled.
“Okay,” she agreed and slid herself into his lap. His hand eased up and down her spine and she sighed tiredly.
“Do you know who the mole is?”
“Not enough data for that,” she replied.
Now it was his turn to sigh. “Es, I’m going to have to call Ridge. He’s going to make us come in.”
“It was always going to happen eventually,” she said, but she sounded as sad and resigned as he did.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say these have been the best few days of my life,” he said. “And I say that as someone who was recently shot.”
“All my days are good with you, Leo.”
“Yes, but this was something special.”
“Being fake married agrees with us, I think,” she said.
He tensed, waiting for her to ask for promises about their future, for reassurances. When she didn’t, he felt the same curious mix of annoyance and relief from earlier. “How would your aunt and uncle feel if we borrowed some clothes?”
She peeled back to look at him. “You want to be Amish for a day?”
“I want to blend in. In this town, the English stand out. It’s safer if we play the part.” He felt antsy and alert, that gut sixth sense feeling that had been absent for days. Whether it was because they could now assign an identity to their assailant or because something was about to happen, he couldn’t say. “I wish I had more ammo.”
“I’m sure you could borrow one of my uncle’s hunting rifles or shotguns,” Esther said.
It was better than nothing, but it wasn’t as if he could carry one of those on his person. Still, having it on standby would make him feel more secure. “We need to teach you to shoot, Es.”
“I can’t. I’m a pacifist,” she said.
“I thought that was an Amish thing,” he said.
“Mennonite, too.”
“How can you reconcile being a pacifist with being a spy?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I like to think I’m stopping bad guys with guns from using them in a nonviolent way. Totally pacifist.”
“How can you be a pacifist and reconcile being with someone like me?” he asked.
She turned her face to his and gave him a sweet Esther smile of understanding, the kind that added more spackle to all the holes inside him. “My beliefs are my beliefs, Leo, not yours. I would never impose that on you. Each of us has to reconcile within ourselves.”
“What if you had to protect someone you care about?” he asked.
“I would try to do it without using violence,” she said.
“That’s never feasible,” he said, feeling frustrated for reasons he didn’t understand.
“Okay, Leo,” she said, nestling.
He hugged her, feeling like it was the end of everything. This morning he had felt such peace, and now it was all draining away. “Esther, Esther, Esther, what am I going to do with you?”
“I don’t think you actually want me to answer that question with a suggestion,” she said.
“No, probably not. We should get going.”
She started to ease away from him. He pulled her back. “Whatever happens after this, you are… This has been…”
“ Abditory , a hiding place.” She kissed him, an affectionately soft press of lips. “ Lodestone, something that attracts strongly.” She kissed him again. “ Skookum, excellent, first rate.” She kissed him again and pulled back, waiting for him to speak. Leo said the only thing that came to him.
“Wow.” He tipped her face and kissed her, and neither of them spoke again for a long time.