Sooner or Later

by Debbie Macomber

  Sitting down himself, he reached for a file. “You’re inquiring about Reverend Luke Madden and a mercenary by the name of Shaun Murphy.”

  “That’s correct.” She clasped her hands together and waited. Early on, she’d learned that the less information she volunteered, the better.

  “Reverend Madden is your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “A missionary in Zarcero?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What is the basis of your interest in Mr. Murphy?”

  “He’s the man I hired to find my brother,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  “I see.”

  His mouth thinned with evident disapproval. Letty said nothing. She made no excuses for hiring Murphy. The federal government had given her no choice. She’d done everything within her power to get some kind of government intervention. Her pleas had been ignored, so she’d had to take matters into her own hands.

  “Was hiring Mr. Murphy wise?”

  “What else was I to do?” she cried, losing her patience. “I begged and screamed for our government to help me find Luke.”

  “Surely you understand that would have been impossible.”

  “So I was repeatedly told. That’s the reason I hired Mr. Murphy.” She angled her chin proudly, refusing to give one inch.

  “Then you located your brother?”

  Letty’s throat was in danger of closing up on her. “I’m fairly confident he was killed.” Just saying the words was difficult. “I don’t have any solid proof of that, but nevertheless I’m afraid there’s no hope for Luke.”

  The agent lowered his gaze. “It’s our understanding as well that your brother was murdered.”

  She didn’t speak until the emotion dissolved in her throat. “Since you have information regarding my brother’s fate, then you must also know what’s happened to Mr. Murphy. You people have ways of learning the truth, of finding out what you want to know.” She tightened her jaw. “You have my word that if you don’t tell me, I’ll make the biggest pest of myself you’ve ever seen.”

  “Bigger than you have already this week?”

  “Yes,” she returned furiously. “I don’t know if you’re aware that I’m a federal postal employee.”

  “I believe that was in the letter you wrote.”

  Letty, who rarely raised her voice, did so now in frustration and anger. “Don’t you know it’s a dangerous thing to irritate a disgruntled postal employee?”

  “Ah…”

  “Tell me what you know about Murphy!” she shouted.

  A stark silence fell between them. “If you’ll excuse me a moment…”

  “No. Tell me.”

  He hesitated, then pushed a button on his intercom. “Send in Agent Moser.”

  Within five minutes a second agent arrived. He walked into the room, shook hands with Letty, and sat on the chair next to hers.

  “What we’re about to tell you can never leave this room,” Agent Kemper said in warning.

  “It would put innocent people’s lives in danger,” Agent Moser added. “Is that understood?”

  Letty nodded.

  The two men exchanged looks, as if they were deciding which one would deliver the information.

  “We had word about your mercenary friend.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. Her throat went dry with anticipation.

  “I’m afraid it isn’t good.” The second man pushed up the glasses that had scooted down the bridge of his nose.

  She hadn’t expected it would be. She would have heard from him otherwise. “Is he dead?” she asked starkly. “That’s all I want to know.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Letty closed her eyes, and it felt as though her heart had stopped completely.

  “We’re very sorry, Ms. Madden,” Kemper said gently.

  “Apparently he was captured on an airfield?” Agent Moser made the statement a question.

  She nodded. So that part had been real and not some fever-induced dream.

  “He was taken prisoner and executed the following day. I believe he was hanged.”

  39

  Letty sat in the cool evening shade on her porch and shelled peas, watching thick clouds drift effortlessly across the deep blue Texas sky. It had been a month since she’d returned from Washington, D.C. Longer since she’d contacted Jack Keller. She hadn’t heard from him, but she had the answer now. There was no reason to hope. Her brother was gone. And she’d lost Murphy as well.

  In time she’d be able to look at a sunset and not feel crippling emotional pain. In time she’d rebound. Time was the great healer, the great comforter.

  Because he was worried about her, and because in his own way he loved her, Slim had stopped off to visit every night for two weeks. Although she appreciated his concern and friendship, she’d finally, gently, asked him to stay away.

  She hadn’t returned to the post office yet. Hadn’t decided if she’d ever go back. She’d found a certain solace puttering around her garden, living from one day to the next without demands, without a schedule. This leave of absence from responsibility would aid the healing process, Letty decided. She needed it.

  Evenings were her favorite time, when she sat here and soaked in the beauty of the sunset and relived memories of the days spent with Murphy, traipsing through a Central American jungle. In years to come she fully expected to experience the joy of having loved him instead of the maiming sorrow of his death.

  A fragile peace had come regarding the loss of her brother. The pain cut deep, deeper than any grief she had yet to experience. She’d lost so many loved ones. For all intents and purposes, her mother had been out of her life when she was five; her grandmother had died when Letty was eleven; and her father’s death had come when she was a young adult. But her brother, her twin…that was by far the greatest loss.

  She accepted Luke’s passing. She’d done everything humanly possible to help him, to reach him in time. Even before she’d gone in search of Luke, she’d been warned to prepare herself for the worst. But she’d refused to give up hope.

  What others didn’t seem to realize was that no amount of mental preparedness would have equipped her to deal with the death of her twin.

  She believed Luke had asked God to take him for some greater purpose. His death, like so much of his life, had been a direct answer to prayer. Try as she might, she couldn’t begrudge her brother that.

  It was for Murphy she grieved. Murphy she would miss. Loving him had brought her such unexpected joy. It had been the surprise of her life.

  Falling in love had caught them both unaware. At first she’d found him vulgar and offensive. He’d gone out of his way to shock and incense her, but it had all been an act. Inside he was one of the most compassionate and thoughtful men she was ever likely to meet.

  She treasured the memories of him playing with the children in Questo. Her only regret was that he’d never have the opportunity to tease and laugh with their children.

  His gentle side had revealed itself when he’d held and comforted her after her near rape in Siguierres. Those moments in his arms were ones she’d hold in her heart through the years. She’d been so foolish and idiotic to have fired him after seeing him with the woman in the cantina. She recognized now that the real reason was that she’d been jealous. Her heart must have known even then.

  A smile played over her lips. Murphy had taught her so much about herself, lessons she wouldn’t soon forget.

  In the distance she saw an approaching plume of dust, and she sighed. Slim again, she suspected. Keeping a vigil over her wouldn’t help the way she felt about him, but the rancher hadn’t seemed to realize that.

  But it wasn’t Slim’s pickup that made its way down the long dirt driveway that stretched between her house and the road.

  Setting the bowl of peas aside, Letty stood and looped her arm around the porch column. She blinked, and her heart quickened as the silhouette of a man became visible. Soon the man, one lovingly famili
ar, became recognizable. A man she loved more than her own life.

  Murphy.

  Her heart refused to stop banging against her ribs, like sticks against a tin drum. He remained in her thoughts so much of the time, it was understandable for her mind to conjure him up. Perhaps she was hallucinating.

  The pickup pulled to a stop, and the dream continued. The driver’s door opened, and he climbed out of the cab.

  Letty’s arm around the post served as a desperately needed anchor.

  She didn’t know if she dared believe what her eyes were telling her. Greedy for the sight of him, her gaze roved from his dark, thick, military-style cut hair to his cowboy-booted feet.

  He stood at the bottom of the steps, and a slow, lazy smile eased up the edges of his mouth. His gaze slid longingly to hers, and the love she read there convinced her this was no dream, no aberration. This was Murphy, and he was real and alive.

  A strangled cry escaped her throat, and she literally sailed from the top porch step and into his arms.

  He caught her and threw back his head and released a deep-throated laugh. “For a minute there I was wondering if you remembered who I was.”

  “Murphy…oh, Murphy.” She directed her mouth to his, not giving him time to explain or respond while she roughly planted wet kisses over his face, not caring where her lips landed. All that mattered in those moments was holding him, kissing him, and glorying in the truth that he lived.

  “Letty, sweet Letty.” He growled her name and wrapped his arms about her waist, then lifted her several inches off the ground. He buried his head in the delicate curve of her neck and exhaled sharply.

  “I love you so much, so much, so much,” she chanted again and again, unable to say it enough times.

  “I love you,” he insisted. Cupping her face with his hands, he made love to her with his mouth and tongue until they both trembled and clung to each other.

  Letty felt the reluctance with which he ended the kiss, inching his lips from hers. He smiled down on her and brushed his thumbs across her cheeks, moist with tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed.

  “I was told you were dead,” she said when she could.

  Still clinging to each other, they sat on the top step. Tucked in his arms, Letty pressed her head against his shoulder.

  “Who told you that?” he demanded.

  “The CIA.”

  His soft laughter stirred the hair close to her temple. “One thing you need to learn, sweetheart, is never to believe the government.”

  “But I saw you shot down…at least I think I did.”

  “You were in no shape to remember much of anything.”

  “Were you…shot, that is?”

  He hesitated. “Yeah, a couple of times.”

  She gasped and would have anxiously investigated his injuries, but he stopped her.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Hey, I’m here, aren’t I? Thanks to Jack and a few other of my closest friends.”

  “Jack Keller did find you?” She would be forever grateful to Murphy’s friend. Somehow, all in good time, she’d come up with a way of repaying him personally for bringing Murphy home to her. “Tell me everything. I need to know it all. What did you learn about Luke? Don’t hide anything from me.”

  He kissed her, his mouth lingering over hers as if he needed to feel and taste her once more before he continued.

  “After you were shot they took you to Norte, didn’t they?”

  He tensed, then nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Did they…torture you?”

  “Let’s just say Norte was very pleased to see me, but furious that I’d been shot. You see, he’d been so eager to do the deed himself. Now it seemed I was to die and deny him the sadistic pleasure. He didn’t want to simply finish me off, he wanted me to suffer for the error of my ways first.”

  Letty tensed, knowing he must have been in terrible pain.

  “The two shoulder wounds quite possibly saved my life.”

  “How?”

  “I was thrown in prison.”

  “Without medical attention?” That was criminal, inhumane…but exactly what she would have expected from Norte.

  “A woman by the name of Rosita saved my life.”

  Luke’s friend, the woman she’d thought she’d seen in San Paulo.

  “Apparently she had someone on the inside willing to assist her on a limited basis. She came to me seeking information about you.” He hesitated and planted his hands on either side of her face as his gaze delved into hers. “You were right. Luke is dead. I’m sorry, honey, I would have done anything to spare you that.”

  “How?” The word had a difficult time making its way out of her throat.

  “She believed he went peaceably in his sleep, but she doesn’t know for sure.”

  Murphy’s arms tightened about her. “Apparently, before he died, he’d learned that the two of us were in Zarcero, and he asked her to do whatever she could to locate you and get you out of the country.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. Even with his own life about to end, Luke’s thoughts had been for her.

  “She loved your brother.”

  “I know.” Her voice came out frail and trembling. Although Luke had never mentioned his feelings for Rosita, Letty knew in her heart that he’d come to love her as well.

  Murphy gathered her close.

  “I probably would have died if Jack and company hadn’t arrived when they did. I don’t suppose you’ll feel any sadness when I tell you Norte’s dead. I would have taken a great deal of pleasure in doing him in myself, but Jack beat me to it. As it happened, I wasn’t in any condition to manage it.”

  Murphy was right, she didn’t feel the least bit of regret. The world was a better place without his hate.

  All these long, lonely weeks she’d been left in the dark, believing the worst, suffering. “Why did you wait so long to come to me?”

  “I couldn’t, love. I was in pretty bad shape by the time Deliverance Company got me out of San Paulo.” He brushed the hair aside from her neck and kissed her there. Raising his eyes to meet hers, he encountered the chain. “You’re still wearing the necklace.”

  “It’s my engagement ring, remember?”

  “Engagement? We’re engaged?”

  “You proposed,” she reminded him, not taking kindly to the fact that he’d apparently forgotten.

  “I proposed marriage? Me? You’ve got to be joking.” His look was skeptical. “I sincerely hope you didn’t take me seriously.”

  “I most certainly did. Listen here, Shaun Murphy, you may think you suffered in Zarcero, but that’s nothing compared to what I’ll do to you if you’ve changed your mind about us.”

  Laughing, he wove his fingers into her hair, his eyes smiling into hers. “Unlike certain people I know, I keep my word.”

  “Are you suggesting I don’t?” she grumbled, infuriated that he’d imply such a thing. She stopped abruptly. “Are…you’re talking about our agreement.”

  “I fully intend to collect my due.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, sighed deeply, and pressed her head to his chest. “And I intend to deliver.”

  Epilogue

  Letty stood on the porch with her hands braced against the wood railing. Her gaze traveled to the night sky, ablaze with a million blinking stars. A full moon stood guard over the earth.

  Letty would have liked to believe Luke was looking down on her and smiling from one of those stars. She hadn’t been able to sleep for thoughts of her brother.

  Out of the blue, Luke’s letter had arrived a month earlier. It had come as a shock to receive something penned almost a year ago. Rosita had enclosed it with a note to explain that the envelope had been found in Commander Faqueza’s office shortly after the legal government of Zarcero had been restored.

  Letty had read it countless times, so often she’d committed it to memory.

  My dearest Letty,

  It grieves me
to write and tell you that by the time you read this letter, I’ll be dead. A few days ago I stood trial and was condemned for crimes committed against the people of Zarcero. The trial and all that has befallen this country deeply distress me, but I can do nothing.

  Don’t weep for me, Letty. I leave this world confident that I’ve completed the work God set out for me, but I don’t go without regrets. There’s such irony in all this. You see, for the first time in my life I’m truly, deeply in love. My hopes for the future are but ashes now, for God has called me for a greater purpose.

  I know you, Letty, almost as well as I do myself. Please, don’t be bitter. Forgive my killers. I am leaving, but I promise that you will never be alone. My love will always be with you. In your darkest hours, and in your greatest joys, I’ll be there. The military can take my life and all that I have, but nothing could destroy the closeness we have always shared.

  Do you remember when we were kids and you sometimes claimed you could feel if something was wrong with me? I was never sure what to make of that “feeling” of yours. I’m ashamed to tell you I didn’t believe you. Now I understand, because I’ve felt it too. For you. God has such wonderful plans for you, Letty. Such grand adventures. I can leave you now, because in my heart I know that you’ll find happiness. I’m no prophet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you married within the next few months. How I wish I could see you as a wife and mother.

  You were always smarter than me. At least you liked to think so! For the first time I’ll know something before you do. Heaven. The next time you look up in a night sky, look for me, Letty. I’ll be up there smiling down on you.

  I remain…

  Your brother

  The child moved within her womb, and Letty pressed her hand against her abdomen and smiled softly to herself. She’d learned so much about herself this last year without Luke. She missed him dreadfully, but it was as he’d always said. God closed one door and quickly opened another. She was a wife now and soon to be a mother. The fears that had crippled her about her own mother had long been laid to rest. It was as Murphy had assured her in the jungle. She was nothing like her parent, but it had taken his love to prove what she should have recognized long before.