by Taylor Hart
Sam reached for her, but she kept him back.
“I didn’t want to tell you because in order to survive, in order to get them to stop drugging me, I pretended I was in love with Marco.”
Sam swallowed, knowing that when someone had to survive they had to do crazy stuff, but he didn’t know if he could handle this. Watching her propositioning Marco had been hard enough.
“I never…” she trailed off for a moment. “I was never with him like that.”
All the angst rushed out of him. After all, with their past with Dave and everything he didn’t want her to think he didn’t want her because of that or anything she may have been forced to do.
She sighed and more tears filled her eyes. “But at one point, when I was pretending to love him, I doubted myself. I remembered what he was to me. What I’d used to think he was, and…” She stopped talking, sounding lost. She looked at her wrist. “He did this to me. He did this to me, and I still convinced myself that I loved him.”
Sam waited. He knew she had to get this out. He’d seen this in his FBI experience with people that had been taken and tortured. They had this weird connection to their captors they had to work through. “It’s okay, Lex.”
She pulled her hand away and shook her head. “You don’t understand—”
He cut her off. “It was like you could be in love with him. It was like you had played a part and locked away your real self for so long that you wondered who you really were anymore.”
Her eyes cleared, and she stared at him. “Exactly.”
He nodded. “It’s called deep cover. It’s a thing cops, FBI, people who go deep in any organization have to be conscious of because, at some point, all this pretending can catch up to them, and they start to wonder where their real loyalties are.”
Tears washed down her face. “Sam, I’ve always loved you. I never stopped, but there’s a part of me that loved Marco, and when I was pretending to be what I had to for him, there was a part of me that believed it.” She shook her head. “I slapped his sister.”
Sam frowned. “O-kay.”
Alexa took in a large breath. “Before I could escape, I knew I had to distract Marco. I knew that the best way to distract him would be to pretend that I wanted to be with him.”
Sam knew, from a lawman point of view, Alexa’s strategy was brilliant. He knew that she had to do whatever it took to get away from that psychotic killer. Even still, he also felt a twinge of anger when he thought of her doing those things with Marco.
“But before we were leaving his sister told me I was faking loving him. She said she could tell, and she thought Marco was a fool. So I slapped her the same way I’d seen Marco slap her.” Tears came down Alexa’s face. “And this poor woman, mind you, she drugged me and did terrible things to me in accordance with Marco’s wishes, but still I knew she was abused. I’d seen Marco smack her before to keep her in line, and I knew I was so close, and I couldn’t have her wrecking my plan, so I smacked her. And I felt nothing at that moment. I drew myself up and pretended to be the Columbian Cartel’s wife that Marco wanted me to be. I struck that poor woman and watched her cower and felt…satisfied.”
Sam knew all this was perfectly normal with victims. Sometimes they change into something else and hate themselves for it. He knew that Alexa needed his comfort and his strength. But, honestly, as he listened to her and discovered more and more of what she’d had to go through, his respect for her grew. Knowing she needed to get it all out, he stayed quiet and let her keep talking.
“After that, I rushed through the tunnel and told myself that these guards better get out of my way because I was Alexa Hernandez and they worked for me. When I finally got to Marco, I threw myself at him and whispered in his ear that I wanted to make our wedding bed now. I kissed him. I kissed him, and, inside me, something shifted. Something changed, and he felt it too. He said to me, ‘I worried before, but I don’t worry anymore. You love me.’” More tears went down her cheeks. Her hand shook.
Hearing her words, something inside of Sam shifted, too. The same feelings he’d had when he’d first opened her file assaulted him. She loved another man. All the jealousy and fear and resentment for her leaving him seven years ago gurgled inside of him, like rising ooze that would suffocate him.
She watched his face. “Sam?”
No matter how much Sam wanted to stay there, letting her talk, comforting her, all of his demons seemed to be unleashed. He squeezed her hand and squeezed back his own tears. “I love you, Lex. I do. I just…have to go right now.” He took off down the beach at a sprint and wondered how he would ever get Marco Hernandez and the vision of her licking his chest out of his mind.
Chapter 19
After Alexa showered and changed, she went downstairs. Her father had prepared lunch for her. A turkey sandwich and some chicken noodle soup, her favorite.
Her father sat at the table, looking out at the beach, a cup in his hand.
She sat and said a silent prayer over her food. Then she looked up at her father. “Thank you.”
He snorted, but kept his eyes on the beach. “Nice day. I think I’m going to retire here, never have winter.”
She took a bite and put her napkin on her lap. “Right, and leave the guys?”
After letting out a gruff laugh, he took another sip. “True, but it’s not as fun now with the government watching my every move.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Maybe I’ll reinvent myself and learn to surf.”
This made her laugh. The idea of her father on a surfboard would be like watching a baby deer learn how to ski. Never gonna happen.
Her father cocked an eyebrow. “Where’s Sam?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know.”
He kept his eyebrow cocked. “I heard the earlier conversation.”
She paused mid bite. “Of course you did.” She was slightly miffed, but unsurprised. This was her father after all. He liked to know what was going on during a mission, and right now she was his mission.
He inhaled and pushed back from the table, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. “How you felt is normal. Sam told you that, but I wanted to tell you that, too.”
She chewed and tried to push away the unsure feeling that it wasn’t normal. She took a drink of water.
He cleared his throat. “Alexa, I’ve killed men.” His face was sober.
Of course she knew that. He’d been in Vietnam; he’d served as police officer. He’d never talked about it, but she knew that. “Okay.”
He licked his lips and looked like he was trying to formulate an argument. “In Nam it wasn’t as personal. I mean, it was personal in the sense that we hunted.”
She hadn’t known this.
“We never slept. They kept us moving, searching for Charley. You didn’t know which step you’d make that would blow you apart. Every day you thought would be your last, and you quit being friends with everyone because you didn’t want to watch all your friends get themselves blown apart. So you’d pretend not to get close to people, but in the end they were the only people you had, so you’d get close to them, and you’d watch them get blown apart. We knew it was pointless. We heard the rumors of the political chaos back home. We couldn’t get a clear read on what we were fighting for. We didn’t know what was up or what was down. All we knew was that we had to kill the enemy.”
Her sandwich lay on the plate, only two bites taken out of it. She’d read books on Vietnam, but her dad never talked about it. Not with her. Her mother had always said her father preferred to forget that part of his life, yet here he was, sharing with her. Her palms felt sweaty, and she suddenly felt worried for him.
“I’m not going to lie to you. One night after I’d killed, I looked down at that young Vietnamese boy, roughly the same age as myself, and I lost it. I fell on him. I tried to dig that bullet out of him, and I cried. I wailed. My whole unit rushed to me, pulling me off of him, dragging me back to base camp. We were in the middle of a field, and who knew if
there were more booby-traps I could have set off. For about four days, I was useless. I couldn’t function. I thought about killing myself. Who was I? Why was I out here killing? For no reason. At least that’s what it felt like to me. Why was I becoming something I didn’t want to be?”
Alexa saw her father’s bloodshot eyes, the way his hands trembled as he held his mug and then plunked it down when he got tired of messing with it. Tears came to her eyes.
He shook his finger at her. “Don’t you cry.” He gave a half laugh and wiped his own eyes. “Don’t you cry. I’m not telling you this to make you cry. I’m telling you this to help you understand that crap happens. Life is tough and then you die. Sometimes none of it makes sense, and you can’t go around wondering, wondering, wondering, what all the purpose and sanity is. Sometimes there is no purpose and no sanity. It’s just how it is. And, I do believe that God gives us trials and helps us get out of them, but I also know that when I die and meet the big man Himself, I’m gonna want some answers.” He pounded the table with his fist.
Alexa laughed despite her tears and reached forward to take her father’s hand.
He sucked in a breath and held onto her. “Sam is a good man. He is a good man that has gone through hell, too. His own hell. I saw that boy when you were lost and there was nothing anyone was gonna do to stop him from finding you. I saw it in the look on his face. You are all he sees.” His voice got soft and he wiped his eyes, again. “It reminded me of how I felt about your mama. The reason why I decided that I was going to keep it together, push all my demons aside was because she was all that mattered.” He paused. “That’s how Sam feels about you.”
Alexa wiped at her tears. “I love you, Daddy.”
He gripped her hand tighter. “I love you, too. I know you love that man, but baby, he’s struggling, too. You’ve got to find a way to show him that Marco hasn’t ruined hope for a future with you two. You’ve got to redefine this mess for the both of you. I think the Lord has given you a second chance, and you need to take it. Sam loves you, but I saw the things you were doing with Marco in those woods, too. I get you were doing what you had to do, but that kinda stuff can get inside any man’s head, especially where it concerns the woman he loves.”
Chapter 20
Later that afternoon, Sam returned to the beach house exhausted, his breathing uneven.
Alexa stood outside. She wore the same halter-top white dress he’d seen her in that day with Marco, the one that curved in all the right places. She had on the same yellow wedge shoes that were too tall and made her legs look incredible. She only had a small bandage on her shoulder now. Her hair was long and down around her shoulders. The look on her face was unreadable.
The memory of that day pierced his heart. To be fair, logically he knew it had been an act. He knew that he’d also seen her pick up a gun and put it to Marco’s head.
But there was also that niggling question, that little part of him that wondered why she hadn’t pulled the trigger sooner.
She didn’t move for a second, as if she were testing him, dipping her toe in the water and waiting to see what he would do.
His heart beat at a rate that would probably guarantee him a heart attack.
“Sam, we need to talk.”
He sucked in a breath and then squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think of something else. Anything else. Of her at his parent’s house, when he’d kissed her and she’d tasted like spaghetti sauce, of the way she’d smelled like the shampoo his mother stocked in their guest room.
“Sam.” She was in front of him.
He opened his eyes and smelled that familiar light trace of lemon. Her make up looked perfect, and he was reminded, again, of seeing her for the first time in seven years at her PR firm. She was gorgeous. Alexa had the luxury of being gorgeous without even trying.
She grinned and softly took his hand. “Will you go on a date with me?”
A date. A date? He hadn’t expected this. His mind was on overload, her simple touch and smell intoxicating to him. “Gary won’t let us leave.”
Alexa looked down at the dress and touched the fabric with her fingers. “Today, the hospital had this dress sent over. It had been cleaned by a Laundromat, and they dropped it off.” Something sad moved across her face, and she blinked.
“Lex.”
She put up her hand to stop him. “Sam,” she said, her bottom lip trembling. “Clothes don’t mean anything.”
Moisture filled his eyes.
She blinked. “You are my life. You are the man I love. This outfit, these shoes.” She looked down at them and then back to him. “They are things. Things that mean nothing to me.” She hesitated. “C’mon, go on a date with me. Dad talked to Gary and they’ll send a guy to track our perimeter, but he thinks it’s okay to get a night out.”
Hope filled him. “Okay.”
She put her hand back up. “I’ve decided that from now on I get to decide what memories mean to me. I get to decide what things are seared into my brain.” She lightly touched her bandage. “I get to give meaning to my life, no one else. No one.” She stomped her foot, and, for the first time in a long, long time, Sam had hope.
“I would be honored to be your date.”
She grinned and pulled him toward the beach house. “Okay, silly, go get ready. I’m not taking you out like that.” She winked at him and then let his hand go.
Her father stood at the deck railing, watching both of them with a large smile on his face.
Chapter 21
Sam grinned at Alexa and held her hand as they walked into the Disney World boardwalk with shops and restaurants. She smiled and pulled him over to an unknown restaurant. She hadn’t spoken much on the twenty-minute drive, and he hadn’t either. They’d turned on the radio, and she’d left it on a soft jazz station.
He had never really cared for jazz, but at this moment, he knew he would never forget how he felt. Almost like it was new. They were new. Like this was a first date.
She stopped in front of a very classy-looking restaurant that had a guy in a tuxedo wearing a big smile standing by the door. The guy opened the door and nodded to them. “Welcome to the 1920’s.”
Big band music played softly in the background. To his left, Sam saw couples dancing on a huge dance floor. The waiter led them down a winding corridor, lit by candles with red, velvet carpet and servers that walked by wearing flapper suits.
Alexa grinned at him. “Just pretend we don’t have the FBI watching.”
He ignored the agent that circled and then stood against the wall, his gaze never leaving them. But Sam’s heart surged. If he didn’t know anything else about his life at the moment, he did know they were going to have fun.
After ordering salmon and salads, Alexa reached for his hand across the table. “Do you like this place?”
Sam loved the way her hand felt in his. For a second, he looked at her left hand and thought how wonderful it would feel to hold her hand and tinker with his ring on her finger. “I like it.”
She sipped some water and looked around.
He cleared his throat. “Alexa.”
She flicked her head back. “Yes.”
“I want to be clear about something. I’m glad we’re here. I really am. But, after this morning and everything I…”
“Shh.” She put her finger up to his lips and shook her head no. “Uh, uh, uh.”
He frowned. “What are you doing?”
She pulled her hand back. “Where are we, Sam?”
He didn’t answer.
“Where are we?” She prodded.
“Uh, a 1920’s restaurant.”
“Nope.” She shook her head back and forth, and Sam watched her expression beam with excitement. “Where ARE we?”
Sam thought about it. “You mean Disneyworld?”
She cocked her head to the side. “No, I mean the happiest place on earth.” She shrugged. “And at the happiest place on earth, we don’t talk about unhappy things. Do you know why?”
> He blinked.
She shook her finger at him. “Because we’ve had too much talking about unhappy things and too much running here and running there and bad guys, and frankly, I’m bored with that.”
The center of his chest filled with warmth. He nodded and picked up his water glass, holding it up and out to her.
She laughed and picked hers up, gently clinking them together.
“A toast.”
She laughed again. “A toast.”
“To the happiest place on earth.”
She repeated it loudly and giggled.
He held his glass out again.
She clinked it
“And another toast.”
“Another toast,” she echoed, still giggling.
“To the fairest woman in all the land.”
Alexa straightened and stuck her chin out. “Thank you, kind sir.”
He nodded and drank. “It’s true,” he said in a quieter tone. He took a roll from the basket on the table and took a bite. “Why, I’d say this is the best roll I’ve ever eaten.”
Alexa picked up a roll and took a bite before holding it out for clinking. “To the roll!”
Ceremoniously, he clinked it back. “To the roll!”
They grinned at each other, and he was sure, if anyone was watching, it looked as though they were a bunch of high school kids falling in love for the first time.
Sam squeezed her hand. The excitement still buzzed inside of him. At that moment he knew…this could be the moment. “Let’s go dance.”
Chapter 22
The dance floor didn’t have a lot of couples, but it was busy enough. At first she and Sam kind of stumbled around, not really knowing what to do, but both of them trying to dance in a nineteen twenties style. There was a live orchestra and a tall man at the front of the stage filling the room with beautiful music.
Sam spun her and picked her up, flinging her in different ways.
They both laughed so hard she actually felt her shoulder start to throb because they’d been a little rough.