Point of No Return (6 page)

She said nothing, and he began to wonder if she were ever going to acknowledge his presence again when she
said, “Of course. I could no more stop flying than stop breathing. Except that sometimes I want to, given the fact I'm flying tourists who occasionally barf on me. Thanks for asking.”

She didn't look at him when she spoke, and he couldn't tell if she were kidding.

“They barf on you?”

“That's what happens when people don't follow the rules. Someone gets the brunt of it.”

He had the feeling that maybe she wasn't referring only to her passengers. But what rules had he broken?

“How's your sister—Josh's mom, right?”

“You remember I have a sister? Wow. I am impressed.”

“Hey, I remember everything you ever wrote to me,” he said. “You're the one with the selective amnesia.”

She whirled, pointing a finger dangerously close to his face. It shook. He waited. Then she put it down, breathing out deeply. “I remember, too.”

In the moonlight, her eyes glistened. Then she turned away. “Even if I wish I didn't.”

He watched her go for a moment.

Oh.

He followed without a word, measuring the sounds of the night, animals scampering through the grass, the wind in the trees. Smoke, from a fire somewhere, tinged the air.

“How's your business?” Her voice emerged flat and stone tired as it came out of the darkness. She could be talking to keep herself awake.

Terrible. I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I need you, and not just to fly.
“Fine.”

“How's Vicktor?”

Over-the-moon in love with his wife, who worries
about her former roommate, and doesn't leave well enough alone every time I have dinner with them. She can't understand why I don't hire you, either.
“He's good. So's Gracie.”

“She writes me. And calls occasionally. So, I know.”

You know? Do you know that I told Vicktor that I made a mistake? That I panicked and pushed the one good thing out of my life?
“That's nice.”

She stopped talking.

It was when she stumbled that he decided on a change of leadership. “We need some rest, Mae. We won't be able to find anything in the dark.”

“I'm not tired.”

“Well, I am.” So far they'd avoided the forests, but now he hooked her hand and pulled her toward a swath of trees, using his flashlight to locate shelter next to a downed oak. He pulled out the poncho, spreading it out in the cleft of the branches, then he sat and pulled the blanket over him. On top of that, he draped the second poncho for rain protection. He held up one side. “I know you don't like me much, but it'll be warmer if we stick together.” He patted the ground next to him, trying to keep it casual, hoping, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she might fall asleep again in his arms. Even if by accident.

She seemed to contemplate her options.

“I promise not to be a letch.”

His joke fell flat. Still, she sat down next to him and let him put the poncho over her. “What if someone finds us?”

“We're in the middle of the woods—”

She flashed her light against the folds of the
forest. “What was that about trigger-happy Russian soldiers?”

“Okay, fine. I'm sleeping. You stand watch. Wake me in four hours. Then I'll take a shift.”

He curled into a ball and tucked the blanket tighter around himself. Hopefully by tomorrow she'd be out of his life, his misery over. Hallelujah.

She stared out into the darkness, probably thinking the same thing.

 

Dear Chet,

I know you must be out of touch right now—you haven't answered my previous two emails—but I've decided to just keep writing, and when you get this you'll know that someone cares. I spent Thanksgiving weekend with my sister and her son, Josh. He's a senior in high school—I can hardly believe it. It seems like only yesterday he was just learning to walk, navigating from our old green sofa to the Formica table to the back bedroom which he shared with my sister.

I'm going to miss him. In a way, he's like my own son—before I went into the army, mine was the only consistent face he saw. My sister spent the first three years of his life trying to finish high school, and occasionally disappearing for long weekends, trying to forget that she became a mother at thirteen. My leaving for the army forced her to grow up, maybe, although it didn't help my mother, who still hasn't figured out that she doesn't need any of the deadbeats she brings home. Thankfully, she stopped letting them move in about the time I
turned twelve and her sodden boyfriend turned his attentions toward me.

I probably shouldn't have told you all that, but I felt it was only fair to tell you that I don't come from the stellar West Point family you do. You should have all the facts.

I don't suppose you managed a morsel of turkey or cranberry dressing over the weekend? I miss you, and am praying for you. Stay safe.

Yours,

Mae

 

Yours.
The word pulsed in his head, the memory of receiving her email fresh as if it had been yesterday. He hadn't had a Thanksgiving turkey—in fact, he'd spent the weekend holed up in surveillance, watching a Chinese mobster beat the stuffin' out of a fellow agent, helpless to intervene. He'd crawled back to his flat feeling raw and alone, only to discover her emails.

 

I am praying for you. Stay safe.

 

He outlined her now against the darkness, seeing her as a teenager, trying to keep her mother sober, her sister safe, her nephew in clean diapers, and food on the table. And yes, when he'd read the letter, an ugly part of him wanted to track down her mother's perverted boyfriend and take out his eyes, and maybe some other parts.

But most of all, he couldn't get past the fact that she'd trusted him with the broken parts of herself…

She had deserved more from him.

At the very least, with a rush of clarity, he understood why she'd trek halfway across the world after her lost
nephew. He could barely remember his own nephew's name—or maybe he had two of them. He hadn't talked to his sister for a number of years now, since the death of the General. His mother lived in a retirement community in Florida, he knew that much from the direct deposit address on his bank stubs.

But if any of them vanished in a foreign country? Well, he might find out on the news, or perhaps through one of his father's old chums. But drop everything, his career, even his life?

No, he hadn't deserved a friend like Mae. As she sat in the darkness, a silhouette of resolve, he knew that much.

He should have given back to her at least what she'd given him.

Trust.

Y
ou're the one with the selective amnesia.

She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, watching Chet in the dappled moonlight. He'd dropped off to sleep in roughly a millisecond.

She didn't have a prayer of sleeping. Not with his words ricocheting through her head.

Selective amnesia?

Hardly.

She had his letters practically memorized—every lying, deceitful word.
I was hoping we could build a life…
She'd looked it up when she returned from Moscow, after Gracie's wedding empty-handed, her future like a wind sock on a lifeless day, limp and dead. Yes, he'd written that. Twice, in fact.

The first time he'd written that, she'd attributed his words to heavy pain meds. After all, that particular letter had arrived shortly after David Curtiss had, under duress and to keep his cover, put a gun to Chet and shot him clear through his gut. But he'd written those words again after he'd emerged from deep cover.

When he decided to move to Prague.

So, what exactly had happened?

Priorities. His own company, on his terms. She'd
realized right after he'd told her she couldn't be on his team that she probably didn't know him at all.

And he'd proven that with his announcement in the truck. He wasn't here for Josh or her. He wanted to save the world, be some sort of international hero, whatever it took and whoever he ran over.

She leaned back against the trunk, her eyes to the heavens. Why, Lord, was it so hard for her to let go of this man? Clearly he wasn't the person she'd fallen for in Seattle, or even the man she'd met in his letters.

Folding her hands, she shivered as the night closed in around them. If only the spongy forest floor didn't offer such a compelling enticement to curl up in the loam and let fatigue wash over her. She exhaled a long breath…

“Stop! No!”

Mae jerked awake.

“No!” Beside her, Chet thrashed against his dreams.

Shoot. After all her bravado, she'd fallen asleep. The sky had just begun to wax gray, blotting out the stars, dawn just below the horizon.

He cried out again and she pressed her hand to his chest. “Chet, wake up.”

Something had a hold on him, something violent and agonizing, and it shook him underneath his blanket.

“Chet!”

He woke with a start, blue eyes wide, looking at her but not seeing.

“It's me, Mae. You were having a nightmare.”

He shuddered out a breath. He still didn't seem to see her.

“Chet.” She ran her hand down his face, over the stubble of whiskers. “Wake up.”

He curled his fingers around her wrist, turning his face into her hand.

She froze. “Chet, wake up.”

Perhaps her tone, rich with shock, and too much longing, brought him to himself. He blinked, and then his eyes found hers. “Mae?”

“You had a nightmare.” She gently pulled her wrist from his grasp, hoping he didn't remember that part.

He sat up, the blanket fell, and he shook, running his hands down his face.

Oh, Chet.
He fought wars even in his sleep. He lifted his face, and even in the wan light she made out fatigue, a press of sorrow in his eyes.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.

He didn't look at her. “Is it my watch?”

Okay, so they
weren't
going to talk about the demon that had him thrashing about, screaming in the leaves. His words swept fatigued tears into her eyes.

“I think it's time to go. It's almost light out, and we probably need to figure out where we are.”

He stared at her. “But what about you? You need sleep.”

“I'm fine.”

“Why didn't you wake me?”

“I— Oh,
fine.
I fell asleep, too. For a little while.”

A smile, not unkind, edged up his face. “I'll pretend you didn't tell me that.”

“That works for me.”

He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, sweaty despite the fact their breath puffed in the early morning air. And of course, while she probably had makeup smudged under her eyes—whatever remained of it—and smelled like a gopher, he looked devastating with his two-day shadow and forever-mussed dark hair. He even smelled good—woodsy, with a hint of masculine muskiness.

She had to give him props for managing to find them
a stellar hiding place, especially in the dead of night. He'd tucked them behind a fallen oak with webbed roots that sheltered their covey from the field just beyond. The murmuring of cattle stirred the morning air, carrying with it the earthy musk of a nearby farm.

Next to her, Chet plowed through his duffel bag. “How about something to eat?”

She glanced at him. “Are you sure you're okay? That seemed like a pretty vivid nightmare—”

“Found it.” He produced a piece of halvah in gray paper.

Sesame seeds in a honey paste for breakfast. She decided to consider it Russian granola. “I used to love halvah in college,” she said as she took the snack.

He chewed in silence beside her, clearly not wanting to discuss his nightmare. He finished the halvah, then pulled out an orange, peeled it and divided it with her.

“How many miles to Burmansk?” he finally asked.

The fruit splashed sweet and tangy in her mouth. She chased the breakfast with water and wiped her mouth with her grimy shirt. “I can't tell on this map—the legend is all off. I think maybe ten or fifteen, cross country?”

He took another bite. As he unscrewed his bottled water, she noticed his hands shaking.

She touched his forearm. “I'm sorry you got dragged into this, Chet.”

He glanced at her, a sideways look. “I'm not. I would only be back in Prague, pacing the floor, worried sick about you.”

He would? Her throat turned pasty. She took another sip of water. His eyes had fastened on her, as if reading her reaction.

“What?”

He got up, pulling out another orange from his bag. “Forget it. I shouldn't have said that.” Crunching away through the leaves, he stood staring out into the field.

“I get it, you know. I realize what it cost you to come back here. I saw it in your eyes. You're remembering your mission, aren't you? The person you lost that you cared about. This—” she gestured to the forest and fields, to Georgia “—is bringing it all back.”

He half turned to her, and she saw him wince, his jaw tight.

The cadence of the forest highlighted his silence.

“Sometimes I just feel like my mistakes could consume me whole.”

He said it so softly that if she hadn't been staring right at him, watching his lips, she wouldn't have heard it. But the mourning in his tone brought her to her feet.

By the time she reached him, he'd turned away from her again. “Her name was Carissa. She worked for a Georgian politician, and we were planning a coup. She could lay her hands on troop movements, get a hold of insider information we needed.”

“We, meaning Americans?”

He winced. “Let's just say that sometimes Western governments give a little nudge to fledgling revolutionary groups for the sake of freedom.”

She stayed silent.

“I was a soldier, following orders.”

She gave a small nod when he glanced over his shoulder at her.

“This is one of the reasons I struck out on my own. The lines just got too blurry.”

“And the costs too high?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

Yes. “So, what happened?”

A rush of sparrows scattered into the sky. He froze, listening. Then, quietly, “She got caught. Akif Bashim executed her.”

Executed her. “Chet—” She put her hand on his arm. He didn't shrug it away. Neither, however, did he look at her. A bird chirruped down at them. The wind nudged the fallen leaves at their feet. “I'm so sorry.”

He nodded.

Oh, Chet.
She heard her words, resonating from a place inside even as she spoke them, just above a whisper. “Sometimes there's a wound inside so deep, it can steal your breath with its completeness. At times, it feels as fresh as the day you were injured. And you wonder in that moment if God has turned away from you, horrified at your ugliness, and if it is ever possible to be whole again.”

Now, he looked at her, his eyes reddened. “How did you know that?”

“They're your words, Chet. You wrote them in a letter not long after you were shot. I remember wondering if they were about your injury, or something more.”

He stared at his palm, rubbing his thumb over it. “Something more.”

How she wanted to give him an answer, to tell him that yes, it was possible.

Yet she wasn't sure herself. Because sometimes just the intake of air over the shards of her mistakes could rake her over with pain. Sometimes she, too, wondered how God might put her together again.

If He even could.

“Did Bashim know you were involved?”

He kept rubbing his palm with his thumb. “Yeah. He was too busy beating me up to hear my team creep up
on him. There was a gun battle, a few of his men were killed, and we hotfooted it out of the country.”

Which meant he'd nearly been killed, too.

She didn't even bother to mask her horror as it trickled out in her taut voice. “And here you are again.”

He inhaled, then raised his eyes to hers, and nodded.

“This must be a nightmare for you.”

His jaw tightened.

Walking through this country probably felt like plowing through his own personal minefield. Mae's chest burned. “Why did you come back?”

His eyes caught hers, his voice so low it felt more like a breath whispered deep inside her chest. “You can't figure that out, Mae?”

And then just as she wanted to hurt him or hold him or do anything she could to calm the whir of panic inside, he reached out and wrapped his hand around her neck, pulled her to him, and kissed her.

It wasn't a gentle, tentative kiss, like it had been that night on the balcony, or even a sad kiss like the one he'd given her before he broke her heart in Moscow.

No, this kiss tasted of desperation and regret, of missing her, and needing her. His lips were sweet orange and spicy halvah, tasting of everything she'd remembered and more.

And for a second, she did nothing. Didn't move, didn't breathe. Just tried to get her bearings.

Then, it didn't matter. He wrapped his arms around her and she let herself kiss him with everything she wanted and everything she'd lost, forgetting how infuriating and bossy and overprotective and—

“I'm sorry.” He broke away and brought his hand to cradle her jaw, his blue eyes in hers. “I'm so sorry.”

Oh, no, not again…

She tried to move away but he held her, searching her eyes. “No, Mae, I'm not sorry for kissing you. I'm
sorry.
I'm sorry that I hurt you.”

Oh. That sorry.

“And I'm sorry that I'm going to hurt you again.”

She stepped away from him, breaking his hold on her. “What?”

“The minute I saw you in Tbilisi, I sort of just went crazy—”

“Crazy?”

“I can't even breathe without everything inside hurting right now. There's a giant knot in the center of my chest, and frankly, the sooner we find Josh and get you both out of the country, the better.”

She got it, really she did. But it didn't make his words hurt any less. Nothing had changed at all between them. She was still a liability.

At least, however, now she knew why.

Her lips still burned from his kiss and she hated how much she longed to simply pull him back into her embrace.

“I can't believe this, but for the first time, we agree on something. I'll find Josh and this girl, and then I'll be out of your life, no problem.”

She turned away, her eyes slicked with tears.

“Mae—”

She held up a hand. “Let's just get going.”

“Mae, it's not like that. I just don't want the same thing happening to you that happened to Carissa.”

She whirled hard. “I'm hardly spying for the government. I don't think this warlord guy is going to kill me just for hanging out with you.”

Something twitched in his jaw. “He might.” His eyes
narrowed just for a second. Then he turned and picked up his backpack.

But she'd seen it. A flicker of fear. Terror.

“What aren't you telling me, Chet?”

“We could sure use some wheels,” he said.

Oh, joy, the old Chet was back, the one who left her out of the loop, working on a need-to-know basis. Clearly, he was done with their discussion. Fine. She'd let him off the hook—for now. They
could
use some sort of transportation—a jeep or a motorcycle. In the field behind them, she heard a nickering. “Will four legs do?”

The dawn had just crested to the east when they found the farmer, rising to feed the scattering of chickens and goats that meandered around his fenced property. In the hills above his house, cattle lounged on the fertile table, untouched by Russian occupation. Mae held the reins of a haltered horse in her hand, having used a piece of halvah to entice the animal to come to her.

Chet did the negotiating with her dollars. It netted them a prime, fifteen-year-old black Kabardin gelding—a mountain horse—that stood politely as Mae climbed onto his bare back.

Chet stood five feet away. “Seriously? You're driving? I don't think so.”

“Suit yourself. See you at the ranch, cowboy.”

He shook his head, mounted a stump and got on behind her. “Don't tell me they taught you how to ride when you were in the army.”

“Nope. I have no idea what I'm doing, and I like it that way. Haw!”

 

Mae's moods changed so fast, Chet thought he might have whiplash. He did know that for one crystal-clear second, he had felt alive. Or maybe just…hopeful. He'd actually believed that something better awaited him if he could just break free of the clutter pinning him down.