by Sophie Oak
“I took your virginity.”
“I wasn’t doing anything interesting with it anyway.”
His eyes hardened as he stared down at her. “Damn it, Nell. This isn’t a joke.”
Her heart twisted in her chest. “I know. Trust me, I know. There is nothing funny about this, but you can’t feel guilty. I’m not some starry-eyed teen. I knew you would leave, and I still said yes. I would do it all over again. I didn’t sleep with you to make you stay. I slept with you because I love you, and that won’t change because you do what you said you would do all along. You never lied to me.”
He turned and picked up his bag. “I’ve taken care of the cleanup at your cabin, and I’ve taken care of your mother’s medical bills.”
Her jaw dropped open. Her mother’s bills were so expensive. “Henry, you can’t do that.”
“I can and I did. I need to know you’re safe, Nell. I need to know I did something to make your life better.”
“But, Henry, that’s so much money.”
A sad grin tugged his mouth up. “Yeah, it’s about everything I had. I wish I had more. I wish I could make your life easy. I know the writing thing takes time to pay off.”
“The writing thing is a bust, Henry. No one wants to read about sharecroppers and protests and how man is killing the earth.”
“They like to read love stories, Nell. They like happily ever afters because so often they don’t get one. Seth sent over a top-of-the-line computer. It’s got everything on it. You shouldn’t have to find work for a while. You could give the romance thing a try. Happy endings. I think you should give us one.” He turned and there was no hiding the tears in his eyes.
“I won’t leave Bliss,” Nell vowed. “I know I said I would, but I won’t ever leave here. I won’t leave because this is the last place I saw you. If you ever want to come home, I’ll be right here. There will be a place at the table for you and a place in my bed. I’ll be here waiting.”
“I can’t come back, Nell.” The words sounded strangled out of his throat.
“Then I’ll wait until the next lifetime.” She would wait forever if she had to.
He kissed her forehead. “I love you. You have a good life.”
The door closed with a shudder of finality.
He was gone. She was alone again.
Nell sat down on the bed, pulling the covers around her. She’d been warm before, but now she felt the chill. The shades were closed, but she knew if she looked outside the world would be a snowy, frozen white.
Tears started to fall. Winter wouldn’t last forever. Spring would come, and she would likely still be alone and Henry would be somewhere else. She would look for pictures of him, and one day she might find he’d moved on and had a family. And Nell would be here, alone, because she couldn’t love anyone else.
She cried, ignoring the knocks on her door. Callie came first and then her mother. They stood outside and finally the knocking stopped. She cried for the longest time, letting everything out.
The morning turned to afternoon, and when long shadows fell through the room, Nell got up. She washed her face and dried her eyes and sat down at the new computer.
Nell Finn believed. She believed in so many things, but most of all she believed in the power of love and kindness and positivity. She believed that if she put good and beautiful things into the universe, perhaps whoever was at the center, whoever looked down from that Nirvana or Heaven or whatever a person called it, perhaps that being would send it all back.
She was still a child, clapping her hands so that Tinker Bell could live.
She couldn’t have Henry, but she could hope. She could believe. She started to type. She had a whole world around her that needed something good. Max and Rye. Callie. Stef.
Maybe she should start there. She couldn’t write about Henry. Not yet. But she could give her friends a happily ever after even if it was only on paper.
Nell began to write, her hopes and dreams for all of them flowing like a comforting wave.
Chapter Thirteen
Six months later
Bolivia, South America
Bishop took a long breath and wondered why he was fucking bothering. He followed the sergeant into what had to be the shittiest bar he’d ever seen and wondered why he hadn’t just stayed in the jungle. And why the sergeant was walking into a tiny village watering hole. “Uhm, is there a problem? We need to get back to La Paz.”
The Delta Force operative simply walked up to the bar and ordered a beer in perfect Spanish. Sergeant Mark Dawson wasn’t someone he’d worked with before, though he remembered the dude’s brother from another mission. He’d worked with Drew Dawson in Chechnya the year before.
“You’re an odd duck, Bishop.” Dawson wiped off the top of the bottle of beer and took a long drink. For the last two days he’d been almost perfectly silent, simply playing the part of escort as Bishop did his recon on a suspected arms dealer who might have ties to a certain terrorist everyone was looking for. Bishop and Dawson had spent days in the jungle setting up surveillance on the group’s jungle compound. Jihadist groups were popping up all over South America and Mexico. Everyone was worried about the Middle East, but terrorist cells were closer than most people in the States could imagine.
Nell probably knew. She kept up with the news.
“How am I odd?” Bishop asked, not really caring about the answer. He leaned against the bar. Talking to Dawson would take his mind off Nell. He’d thought about calling her a thousand times a day. There wasn’t a minute that went by that something didn’t remind him of her. And at night, he always dreamed of her.
He was becoming utterly useless.
Dawson studied him with careful eyes. He was dressed casually, no uniforms for them this time around, but Bishop knew the guy was armed to the teeth. “I’m talking about the way you work. I’ve been working with guys like you for three years now, and if there’s one thing I’ve figured out, it’s that my life doesn’t mean shit to someone like you. Or it shouldn’t. You Agency guys are all about the op. The rest of us are just pawns in your game, and you don’t mind losing a couple of chess pieces, if you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, he did know what the sergeant was talking about. Bishop tried to make himself clear. “The operation is everything. If you know these things are more important than one soldier’s life, then you know it’s sure as fuck more important than mine. The Agency isn’t going to come in on a white horse to save me if everything goes wrong. They will leave me high and dry and expect me to take care of the situation.”
But he was questioning the status quo more and more these days. What did the operation really mean? How long was he supposed to simply follow orders? Who was he really saving?
The sergeant kept talking, his voice low. “Then why did you save that operative’s life last year? You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Chechnya. Don’t freak out. Drew didn’t tell me shit. I’m sure you were going by another name then, but I think it was you. I have another brother who’s pretty good with a computer. I read the reports on the mission. Yeah, yeah, I could get shoved into Leavenworth, but I had to know what happened. It would have been easier for you to leave him behind. It’s not the Agency’s job to save our asses. It’s pretty much your job to dump our asses at the first sign of trouble.”
Bishop sighed. He hadn’t been able to leave the young soldier behind. He’d ended up losing the man he was following because he couldn’t leave Drew Dawson to bleed out and he was still paying for his humanity. Yes, he’d gotten his ass chewed out for that. It was the exact op that had gotten him shipped to this hellhole. Saving Drew Dawson had gotten him demoted. Of course at the time he hadn’t realized Drew Dawson had a brother and liked to talk too much. “It was nothing, and we really shouldn’t talk about it.”
It was supposed to be freaking classified.
“That’s not how I heard it, Bishop. You see, that was my brother and the way I see it he’s alive and walking the earth and being a p
ain in my ass today because of you. So when I got word that I might be able to pay you back, that was an operation I was interested in.”
Bishop felt his eyebrows crease. “What the hell are you talking about?” What was going on?
“We guys in the service talk. Bill Hartman is real good friends with my CO.”
Suspicion crept up his spine. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Dawson nodded shortly, an arrogant smile on his face. “Sure you don’t. Look, I know how this works. You left the force when the Agency recruited you and now you have to pretend like that time didn’t exist. The Agency can cook the books any way they like, Bishop, but a soldier never forgets. A soldier never forgets who his family is even when they walk away. Bill Hartman sent you a message, and I am here to see that you listen.”
Bill was playing fast and loose with Bishop’s identity. “What’s the message?”
“He says choose again. He says you’ll know what that means.”
Bishop hated the way his eyes misted over. He shook his head, trying to banish the emotions that welled up. Choose again. If only he could. The Agency wouldn’t give him a do-over. “I can’t do that.”
Sergeant Dawson nodded and took another long swig of his beer. “Well, I guess that’s all I can do. Let’s head back to the meet point.”
Even though it was perverse, Bishop found himself arguing. “Really? That’s all I get?”
Dawson shrugged. “I delivered the message. What you do with the message is all on you, man. The way I see it, you must really like your life. I mean, what could be better than living completely alone and never being able to talk about anything you do? Man, there’s a whole lot of freedom in that. Talking about shit is overrated. And you don’t have to worry about women. One starts to give you trouble and the Agency moves you and gives you a whole new identity. I don’t see why you would have to choose again when you chose so well the first time.”
Oh, the fucker thought he knew everything? “Yeah, it’s awesome. I love being alone all the time. I love the shit holes I get sent to. They expect me to die, you know. If I get taken in, I’m supposed to kill myself, if I can. It’s a great fucking life, buddy. You might not be able to talk about the ops you work, but you’re respected because you’re a soldier. I can never talk about what I do, so don’t start telling me what I should love about my life. I adore the fact that I will never see her face again.”
He hadn’t meant to say that.
Dawson turned. “So this is about a girl?”
He should have kept his fucking mouth shut. They both should have. They were gossiping like two teenagers and that shit just didn’t fly. Even though they seemed to be alone, there were always ears listening in. “Just stay out of it, man.”
“I would fucking love to, but then we come to the whole ‘I owe you’ thing. I don’t like to owe people.” He stared for a moment. “You’re in love with a woman and you think you can’t be with her because you can’t get away from all this shit.”
“Lots of people want me dead.” If he walked, the Agency would likely want him dead, too. They didn’t tend to like for their operatives to go rogue.
“So, maybe you give them what they want,” Dawson said.
“What?”
Dawson rolled his eyes. “For a top agent, you’re a little slow on the uptake, brother.”
He pulled out a small device and pressed the button. A massive explosion shook the dingy bar.
The elderly bartender didn’t even look up from his magazine.
Bishop ran to the door. Sure enough, the jeep they had been using was now in pieces all up and down the street and blown back into the jungle. It was totally destroyed. He turned back and walked to Dawson, who was now working on his second beer.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Your untimely demise.” Dawson gave him hearty thumbs up. “I’ve been setting that shit up for days. Tomas here made sure no one was around to see anything.”
“Tomas doesn’t care enough to see anything,” the elderly man said in perfect, heavily accented English.
“Tomas likes cash and a lot of it,” Dawson assured him. “He’s going to disappear after assuring the local authorities that one man matching your description got into that car.”
“A couple of men from the cartel came and hauled the body away,” Tomas said, never looking up. “That’s all I know. I need to get to La Paz.” He finally brought his head up, a light in his eyes. “My granddaughter is having her surgery. We thought she would die, but I came into a little cash.”
Holy shit. He was dead. He could be dead. If he was dead, the world opened up to him.
Bliss opened up to him.
“Choose again, Bishop,” Sergeant Dawson said. “Bill is waiting for you. He said something about the kid keeping your cover up for you all these months.”
Seth. Seth had kept his identity up. He could be Henry Flanders. All he had to do was choose.
He would always choose Nell. Oh, god, he could choose again. He could choose for all the right reasons. He could choose who he wanted to be.
He shook his head, the enormity sinking in. Dawson would tell his CO about the explosion. The Agency would investigate, but they wouldn’t find a body. According to sources, the cartel took it.
He was free.
“Thank you.” Henry Flanders shook Dawson’s hand and staggered out into the bright light of the day. He had two cell phones. One for the Agency, and a backup. He always had a backup that no one knew about.
He clicked a button, and within seconds, a voice came on the line.
“Henry? Holy shitballs. Is this really you?” Seth Stark asked.
The little fucker had his private phone number. Oh, if he had a lick of sense, he would kill the kid, but Henry Flanders was nonviolent. He felt a brilliant smile cross his face as he walked down the dirt road. The jungle was lush and green overhead, but he could already smell the clean pine of Colorado. “Hey, Seth. I’m going to need a favor from you.”
He was trusting a twentysomething kid. It was stupid. It was ridiculous. It was right. Seth was family now. “Anything, man.”
“I want to come home.”
“That’s awesome. I can totally make that happen. I can make it look like anything you need.” Because Seth was a wizard. Or a really nerdy fairy godmother.
“I’m going to need a plane ticket, and you’re going to have to find me the best burger joint in La Paz because I get the feeling it’s going to be a while until I have another one.”
Henry walked, his boots turning up dirt. It would be a long walk home, but he didn’t mind. He was following his bliss.
* * * *
Nell turned her head up to the sun. The fairgrounds were filled with sunshine and friends and family.
“What a beautiful day,” her mother said.
Nell reached for her hand. Six months and still going. Her mother was still sick, but these months had been a blessing. She felt closer to her mother, closer to everyone.
The day after Henry had left, she’d gone home and found her cabin filled. Holly and Stella and Callie had baked and stuffed the freezer with vegan delights. Max and Rye had fixed her porch. Seth and Logan had installed a better router for her computer. There had been so many people who showed up to let the Finn women know that they were not alone.
Bliss had ceased being a way station. Bliss had become her home.
“It’s gorgeous.” She looked around. The whole town had turned out for the picnic. Even the Glens had shown up despite the fact that Noah had recently left with his new wife. James was still bitter, but he’d brought his dad out.
“Do you have room for a couple more?” Callie smiled at her. Bill and Pamela had come out. They were clothed, in deference to the new sheriff’s ordinances. Nell was sure Rye Harper was just trying to raise money for a new chair. Logan had just been named deputy, and he was busy filling out tickets right and left.
She planned to fully protest at the next t
own meeting. “Sure. There’s always room.”
She got up and helped Callie spread her blanket out. Pam and Bill started talking to Moira, and Nell sat down with Callie. They had been leaning on each other, holding each other’s hands when the loneliness seemed too much.
“I invited Holly to join us,” Callie said. “She’s bringing the new girl with her. I think her name is Laura. She just started working at the Stop ’n’ Shop. It’s weird. She’s been in town for half a year and I think she’s just been holed up in her cabin until now. Something’s up with that girl.”
Maybe she just needed a friend. Nell vowed to be Laura’s friend. She’d seen the pretty blonde. She looked haunted and so very alone. Nell had tried talking to her, but she’d been rebuffed.
Patience. Sometimes that was all it took. She wasn’t going to let the blonde’s obvious gruffness scare her away. Everyone needed a friend. Sometimes all it took was one person to not give up to turn someone’s whole life around.
Nell never gave up.
She let the sun warm her. It was the same sun that would shine down on Henry’s face. They were still connected. She could feel it. Distance didn’t mean a thing. She sent out a silent prayer for him.
To be safe. To know he was loved.
“Nell.” Callie grabbed her arm.
“Give me a minute.” It was a dumb ritual, but it was hers. She reminded herself of all the ways she and Henry were still connected. The sun and the moon and the stars. They were the same. The land they stood on was connected. Oceans might lie between them, but the earth was the same. The very air she breathed would someday find its way to him.
“Nell,” Callie insisted.
“Nell, dear, you really should open your eyes,” her mother’s voice said.
No one would let her dream, it seemed. She opened her eyes. “Fine. What do you need?”
Callie was smiling, tears in her eyes as she pointed toward the parking lot. “Look. Oh, Nell, I’m so happy for you.”
Nell turned, following Callie’s hand. Max was parking his Ford truck and another man was with him, his arm going to the bed of the truck and picking up a backpack and a suitcase.
