Happily Ever Ninja (Knitting in the City #5)

by Penny Reid

  He’d shaved. He looked thinner, tired. He also looked guilty.

  I reached for him.

  Let me amend that. I tried to reach for him, but couldn’t. And the reason I couldn’t—I quickly discovered—was because my wrists had been tied to the metal bars of the bed. I attempted to bend my knees and found my ankles had also been bound.

  I was now fully awake and glaring at my husband.

  And the goddamn fire ants were back in my brain, pouring scalding formic acid all over the place.

  “Christ, you’re scary sometimes.” He sat back suddenly, like he was afraid I might bite. This was intelligent of him because the thought had crossed my mind.

  “What did you do?” My tone was misleadingly calm.

  “You can’t come.” He frowned at his hands and cleared his throat. “You’re, uh, too much of a distraction.”

  “You have to be kidding me.”

  “For once, I am not kidding. I could barely sleep. I kept waking up to nightmares of you being captured.” His voice was gentle and sincere, and he was gazing at me with a haunted expression. “They are not kind to women who are captured.”

  I believed him about the dreams.

  But I was still pissed off he thought he could leave me behind. I was a CIA field agent. What the hell?

  “How is it my fault that I’m a distraction for you? Maybe you need to sort through your issues instead of tying me to a bed.”

  “Darling, you’ll always be a distraction. No amount of singing Kumbaya or bullshit getting in touch with my inner goddess is going to change that.” Now his tone was flat, considerably less gentle, and his dark eyes flashed with intensity.

  “Unbelievable,” I said to the ceiling, tempering my urge to scream at him by reminding myself where we were, and that I couldn’t afford to reprimand him loudly.

  He stood and turned, grabbing the weapons bag from the floor. “I’ve left you the SIG X-Five and,” he slapped a stack of hundred-dollar bills on a table by the door, “here is some cash if you need it.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I stole it from the house last night. I figured it might come in handy in case of an emergency, and they weren’t going to miss a measly ten thousand dollars. Listen, I’ll move the rest of the money, and if I’m not back by tomorrow morning, go to the US consulate in Lagos. Hitch a ride with Dr. Evans. Just, wait until it’s safe.”

  I tested the binding at my wrists. He’d used gauze and hadn’t made them tight. I would be able to escape the restraints in thirty minutes, thirty-five tops.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” He gave me a knowing look. “Don’t do it. Don’t follow me.”

  “This is you discounting me. Again. This is you being a bully and not respecting my contribution. Again.”

  “No. This is me overwhelmed with crippling panic at the idea of something happening to my wife.”

  “Thank you for proving my point. You think you have the right to make unilateral decisions for both of us, for our family, and then you wonder why I go around your irrational mandates. If you don’t want me to freeze you out, then you have to recognize that my opinion matters!”

  “Of course your opinion matters.” He lifted his hands and let them fall to his thighs, like he was exasperated at having to point out the obvious. The proceeding pause and reflection was almost cartoonish before he added, “Just not about this.”

  I growled, losing my cool, because he was still trying to put me off with humor. “I swear to God, Greg Archer, if you leave without me I will . . .” I stopped, wondering what I should threaten, what I was willing to deliver—because I refused to bluff.

  He stilled and stared at me, waiting for me to finish, as though sensing the seriousness of the moment.

  “What will you do?” he asked, not taunting but rather bracing for my ultimatum. “Because I would rather you hate me than watch you suffer or die.”

  “I won’t hate you. I will never hate you.” I never would. “But it would hurt me, deeply. And I don’t know how long it would take for me to forgive you.”

  Greg hesitated and I could see him warring with himself, which was progress. But I didn’t want him to make the right decision because he dreaded my threat. I wanted him to make the right decision because he respected me, saw me as his partner, and recognized the value of my contribution.

  I tried a different approach.

  “Remember when you found out I was a CIA field agent?”

  His eyes sliced to mine and he grimaced. He didn’t answer at first, but the flare of intensity behind his gaze told me everything I needed to know.

  At length he said, “I promised I would never bring it up. And I haven’t.”

  Despite his terse, caustic reply, I pushed. “Remember how angry you were?”

  Everything about him grew rigid.

  He didn’t respond, so I reminded him. “You felt betrayed. You trusted me and I had let you down. But when all was said and done, you understood. You didn’t demand that I quit. Rather, you made me promise I would never take chances with my life, knowingly put myself in a position beyond my abilities. You asked me to consider you, and your feelings in all of my decisions. To carry you with me.”

  “I remember.” He sounded significantly less cantankerous.

  “I did as you asked. And when situations escalated, approached my limits, I quit. I didn’t quit for me, for my safety. I quit for both of us. Because when we married, I gave you that power over me, I gave you the right to have an opinion about my life and my decisions. I’m sorry I’ve been freezing you out. I’m sorry.”

  He was teetering. I could tell because his dark eyes had kindled with anger, his mouth was clamped shut, and he was staring at the wall behind me. Indecision was a heavy cloak around his shoulders.

  “I told you then and I’m telling you now: your opinion matters,” I continued softly, meaning the words. “But we have to stop this cycle of shutting each other out. I can’t mandate that you untie me any more than you can mandate that Grace play soccer.”

  “She should play soccer.”

  “Then convince her with logic, with love, with sincerity. Not with threats and mandates. And not by punishing Jack in the process.”

  Swallowing thickly, his gaze pierced mine. We’d reached a staring stalemate. It was plain to see he was at war with himself. His desire to keep me safe in direct contradiction with what he knew to be right. I could read his thoughts clearly, as though he were speaking them aloud.

  And when he finally did speak, his voice was thick with emotion. “Please don’t ask me do this. Please don’t ask me to put you in harm’s way. I’d rather break my own arm.”

  My heart constricted, because I could see he was truly torn, tortured by the possibility. “You have to trust me.”

  “I trust you, I do.” He crossed back to me, holding my eyes; his were beseeching. “But you are the mother of my children. You are my wife. You are my better half—you are my better whole.”

  “I know what I’m doing. I’m good at this.”

  “You’re good at everything, darling. You’re extraordinary. I stood by for two years while you risked your extraordinary life. Every time you came home from an assignment I wanted to beg you to quit. I didn’t bind you in bubble wrap and I didn’t lock you in an ivory tower, but I wanted to.”

  This was all news to me. I stared at him with incredulous astonishment before I finally sputtered, “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you ask me to quit?”

  “Because I knew you loved your work and I didn’t want to take that from you. However,” he let the bag he was holding fall back to the floor and he knelt beside the bed, “I can’t go back there, to that as my reality. Just the thought of you . . .” He shook his head, his resolve firming. “I need you too much.”

  And I saw that I’d lost. He was going to leave me.

  He cleared his throat, his eyes moving over my face with meticulous care, as though memorizing
it. “Our children are extraordinary, and that’s because of you. One of us has to make it back home—for Grace and Jack—one of us has to leave here—”

  “Greg—”

  “And I don’t say that as a manipulation. It’s the truth. You are a phenomenal mother. You’ve been playing the role of parent for both of us—”

  Ice entered my veins and my brain was screaming Don’t do this! Please, please, please!

  “Greg, don’t do this.”

  “I can’t untie you. You might be upset and angry, and, God willing, if we both make it back to Chicago, I’ll understand.” He wove his fingers in my hair at my temples and kissed my forehead. “But at least you’ll be safe.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Dear R,

  Tell me you love me. I don't think I could ever hear that enough. I know you do, but I've never minded hearing it.

  -Ted

  Letter

  Serving in Iraq

  Married 7 years

  ~10 years ago~

  *Greg*

  I usually liked Fiona’s friends. Although, it took me a while to warm up to the concept of her having friends. After four years of marriage, but without her explicitly saying so, I realized community was as essential to Fiona as reading and running were to me.

  Therefore, wherever my job took us, Fiona surrounded herself with community. And I encouraged it.

  When I was stationed in Alaska, she acquainted herself with the local muskox producer’s co-op, infiltrated their knitting circle, and learned the exotic ways of qiviut-fiber harvesting. When I accepted an assignment in Iceland, she assimilated easily into the culture, deciphering the secrets of Fair Isle knitting, and taking me to all the top-secret geothermal sites and hot springs known only to natives.

  Her ability to observe and discover the most tightly held secrets of the locals, assimilate herself as a part of any culture, and gain the trust and friendship of anyone she chose should have been a red flag. Instead, I admired her for it.

  Maybe I had been blinded by my relief. We were finally together (most of the time). After a three-year long-distance relationship during our engagement, and an additional two years of separation after our hasty city hall marriage, the last twenty-four months had been the happiest of my life.

  So perhaps I ought to forgive myself for not realizing immediately that my wife was a spy.

  I knew she worked for the State Department. I thought she was a consulting engineer. It had been a natural progression of events after her prolonged internship with the Department of Defense throughout her undergrad and postgrad studies in Iowa. Her work seemed to consist of short, random business trips and pouring over engineering schematics.

  Seemed legit.

  The only friend of hers I didn’t like was one of her business associates at the “State Department,” Spenser Banks. He was, by all accounts, an insufferable twat.

  Admittedly, the fervor and depth of my dislike for Spenser Banks was built upon his being in lust with my wife. He made no secret about the fact that he wanted to fuck her. And that pissed me off.

  Obviously I’m not opposed to other men admiring Fiona. I’ve never been the jealous sort, and I trusted Fe. But having to witness his nauseating infatuation on more than one occasion, being subjected to his trailing, lingering looks of tortured longing made me want to remove his head from his neck, Marine Corps-style.

  The insufferable twat found every reason imaginable to visit wherever we were in the world. He was always popping up and swinging by during convenient business trips to backwoods Alaska or nowhere Iceland.

  But even if he’d been ambivalent to Fiona, I still would’ve detested the man. He’d drunk the “my government can do no wrong” Kool-Aid, as it were. Any and all discussions with him were excruciating and intolerable.

  I might say, “Lovely weather we’re having.”

  And he’d respond with, “You would never have this nice weather without The United States of America.”

  No arguing with that logic . . .

  Thankfully, I hadn’t been subjected to Spenser Banks in over three months.

  On the morning of the reveal, I’d made coffee and sat down to thumb through the newspaper. Ironically, an article about the Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame debacle—wherein Valerie Plame, aka Valerie Wilson, was outed as a CIA operative by the State Department—covered that morning’s front page of The New York Times.

  I skimmed the article, frowning, irritated by what I found. Disgusted, I turned to the arts and culture section. Nothing like a little art and culture to remedy reality.

  Fe drifted into the kitchen a short time later, having returned from her quick forty-eight-hour business trip late the night before. I didn’t look up, but I did smile. I never heard her footsteps, she moved without sound. But I knew she’d entered the room because, as inexplicable as it might be, I felt her.

  “Good morning, darling.”

  “Morning, handsome.” Her voice was rough, like she’d been shouting too much or had a cold.

  I glanced over my shoulder, finding her in a white tank top and panties, and nothing else. I sighed happily, already making plans to devour her before breakfast, but then my eyes caught on a large purple mark on one side of her lower back, only visible because she was reaching for a coffee cup.

  “What’s that?” I gestured to her back.

  She glanced at me, her short hair in sexy disarray, pillow creases still on her cheek, and then twisted to search her skin.

  She found the mark and stiffened. Straightened. Stilled. Stared forward, now apparently completely awake.

  “Fe?” I prompted when she remained silent.

  Her eyes cut to mine and I saw that her teeth were clenched. She swallowed thickly.

  I gave her a slight smile even as the hairs on the back of my neck rose with unease. “Did you get a tattoo?”

  I knew it wasn’t a tattoo. It was a bruise. My mind flicked through all possibilities as to the cause. Wherever we went, and whenever feasible, she trained in a mixed martial arts studio. She’d been a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jutsu and Kendo since finishing college. I decided the most likely reason for her bruise was an accident during class.

  But I couldn’t figure out why she was so tense about it.

  I tried to ease her discomfort. “Did you get hurt during a sparring session?”

  She shook her head, her eyes still on me. “Not really.”

  “Not really?”

  “Not precisely.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at her odd answer. “Then how, precisely, did you get that bruise?”

  She swallowed again and I recognized she was engaged in a weighty internal debate.

  I was just about to assure her that, no matter what, I wouldn’t be angry or upset, when she blurted, “I got it while extracting a high-level target in Mosul yesterday.”

  Frowning at her, the sunny kitchen fell into a confused, strained silence as I tried to untangle her words.

  When I wasn’t able to make any sense of her statement, I asked, “Pardon me?”

  “Greg, I have something to tell you.” Fe placed the cup she’d just retrieved on the counter and rushed over to me, taking the seat next to mine. “I’m CIA. I’m a CIA operative. I’m part of an elite extraction team. And I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I promised myself I would never overtly lie. I promised myself that, if you ever asked—about the trips or anything else—I would tell you the truth. So,” she swallowed again, leaning back in her chair as though exhausted, “I’m telling you now. I’m telling you the truth.”

  I continued to stare at her silently. Seconds became minutes while disbelief and acceptance warred within my psyche.

  In the end, it was the steady determination and sorrow so evident in her expression that convinced me.

  “You are CIA,” I repeated, as much to confirm as to try the words on for size. “You’re a spy.”

  “That’s right. I’m an operative, a field agent.”

  “And you’re als
o part of an elite team?”

  “Yes. An extraction team. We’re sent into sensitive areas and—”

  “Like war-torn Iraq?”

  She sighed, nodded, and I abruptly realized her eyes were rimmed red. She was close to tears.

  I experienced a jumble of odd thoughts just then.

  Pride.

  Anger.

  Fear.

  Concern.

  More pride.

  Fear again.

  Panic.

  I stood from the table, the feet of my chair scraping against the wooden floor, and paced to the coffee maker. I was intimately acquainted with the violence of war. I’d tried to cloak the darkest parts of my past because I didn’t want her to know the reality and brutality. Visions of her—mangled, burned, shot—played through my forebrain, a ghastly slideshow of horror.

  Dangerous. What she’s doing is dangerous. I can’t lose her . . .

  “Say something,” she spoke to my back. I didn’t miss the desperate edge to her voice.

  “I suppose I should apologize,” I said, the words sounding far away, as though someone else were speaking.

  “For what?”

  “Obviously, if I’d expressed more interest in your career prior to now, asked more pointed questions, then you might have told me the truth years ago. For that, I apologize.”

  She released a pained sigh. “Greg, no. No, this is not your fault. This is-”

  “I told you, before we were married, why I only served three years in the Marines.” Again, I heard my words as though from a distance.

  “Yes. Because you were injured. Because of. . .” she hesitated and her voice was low, near a whisper when she continued. “Because of the burns.”

  The burns. On my arm, chest, and neck. The infections, the skin grafts, the scars, the loss of muscle function. The area still hurt from time to time, mostly when I awoke from dreams that were equal part memory and nightmare.

  With enough practice, even near constant pain can be ignored.

  “I told you my best friend died, during a forgotten war in Africa. We joined the Marines together, as a way to pay for college, and as a way to make a difference in the world.”