by Holly Kerr
“What do you think, Charlie?”
I turn to Tenley. “I have no idea. I thought he’d be here.”
“Me too.”
A crackle comes through our earpieces. “Charlotte, get out,” Perry orders. “The city is overrun. Mission abort. Do you read me—mission abort. Get back to the plane.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Tenley says, heading for the door, Pippa right behind her. “Charlie?”
They glance at me standing in the middle of the bakery’s kitchen, Lance hovering beside me.
“Charlie, we have to go,” Pippa urges.
I’m torn—I’m lead on this mission and have a responsibility to acquire the target, whatever it takes. Whoever it may be.
But I also have a responsibility to get my team home safe.
Lucy’s face looms before me. I owe it to her to get her mom home. “Go,” I say curtly, disappointment mixing with anxiety.
It must have been easier when I worked alone.
We’re almost back to the mansion when I happen to glance over my shoulder at the street. A figure sprints away from the theatre.
Something tells me to follow.
“Get to Declan,” I shout as I turn, ready to give chase. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Charlotte, no!” Tenley cries after me.
I ignore her, chasing after the figure. “Bryton,” I scream. Is it my imagination or do his steps slow? “Bryton.” I’m twenty feet away from him when he turns. Stops.
I know him. Hooded dark eyes under too long curls.
I know him.
“Charlie.” Bryton’s face, filthy with ash and dirt, breaks into a relieved smile. “You’re here.”
And then a van careens around the corner, cutting me off from Bryton. Three men jump out.
I take off at a dead run as they disappear around the side of the vehicle. Before I can get to him, the men reappear with a struggling Bryton between them.
“No!”
I swerve when I see the gun in one of the kidnapper’s hands. I don’t hear the shot, but I feel it. An arrow of fire spears my arm, just below my shoulder, and knocks me down.
The van speeds away, leaving me covered in dust.
Chapter Six
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill
Lance gets to me first, but not quick enough to stop the van with Bryton inside. Tenley and Pippa are right behind him.
“Charlie, my God! Are you okay?” Tenley drops to her knees beside me.
“They bloody well shot you!” Pippa shouts.
“Yes, thank you.” I press my hand against my arm and it comes away covered in blood. “I figured that out.” I hold out my hand. “Help me up. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Lance grasped my wrist and hauls me to my feet. Despite my protests, he swings me up into his arms and with Pippa taking the lead with a steady jog, we start back to the van.
As we run, Tenley unslings her bag from over her shoulder and pulls out the first aid kit.
“It can wait until we’re back on the plane,” I say. “Keep your weapon at the ready.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’m okay. It’s not going to kill me.” If I had to guess, I’d say the bullet only grazed the side of my arm; at worst it will be a flesh wound with no organs or important body parts hit. I know, from reading the reports of my missions, and from what Ham has told me, that I’ve been shot before.
It hurts.
It hurts a lot.
But the pain brings flashes of memories back, so it’s like I’m recalling every injury I’ve ever had. I’ve never been so glad to be carried, not even when Ham hoisted me into his arms on our wedding night. Breathing is tough enough; running would be impossible. By the time we get back to the van, my head is pounding and I’m covered with a thin sheen of sweat.
Lance lays me gently in the back of the van, and Tenley jumps in after me. “You’re not okay, Charlie,” she shouts as Pippa guns the engine. Tenley pulls the back doors closed as Pippa takes off.
She helps me peel back my jumpsuit. “It went through,” I say through gritted teeth as she opens the triage kit. “It’s not bad.”
“You still got shot.” Without another word, she slaps a medicated gauze pad on my arm. “The last time I had to deal with a gunshot wound, I used my favourite sweater to stop the bleeding.”
I remember that story. “And Alessia never gave it back to you.”
“She probably threw it out.”
I shake my head. “Not Alessia. She’d wash it and wear it again. But it might not be her style.”
“Probably not.” Her gaze is steady but I notice her hands are shaking slightly as she wraps more gauze around my arm. “I can stitch you up but maybe we should wait until we’re back on the plane.”
“Maybe we should wait until we’re back at Head Office.”
“I’m pretty good with first aid.”
“You’re very good.” I glance down at the bandages. “Thanks.”
“You’d do the same for me.” She sits back on her heels and shakes her head with disbelief. “Was that Bryton?”
I gnaw on my bottom lip and nod.
“I can’t believe you found him at all. When you pointed to the theatre, I just knew he’d be there.”
“Me too. And then I saw him running.” The image of Bryton running away from me is going to haunt me for a long time, along with the one of me watching as he’s shoved into the van.
Tenley presses her hand on my good arm. “We’ll get him back.”
I nod again, even though I haven’t got the faintest idea of how that’s going to happen.
~
The sun is rising as we land back in Toronto, and I’m groggy from the pain meds Tenley made me take. I insisted she take the bedroom to crash in to get away from her checking on me every five minutes.
Declan eventually has Lance take the controls and comes back to check on me. “How’s it going?” he whispers, glancing at Pippa curled up on the nearby chair.
“I’m getting tired of telling everyone I’m fine.”
“But you’re not fine. You took a bullet, Lottie.”
“It went straight through, so I didn’t take anything.”
He smiles wryly. “All this for a guy you don’t even remember.”
I grab my brother’s hand. “Declan,” I plead. “Who is he? I mean, I know who he is but who is he to me?”
He meets my gaze reluctantly. “No memories of him?”
“It’s coming back but not enough.”
“You haven’t told Ham.”
“There was nothing to tell. This is all since Ham told me about him, mostly since we landed. My head feels like it’s going to explode with all these memories messing around. I don’t know what’s what.” I pause and shift my gaze away from Declan. “I don’t know how to tell Ham. It feels weird like I should keep this from him. What happened? I’d rather hear it from you than Tenley.”
“She finds it all very strange to have to tell you about things you’ve done,” Pippa says from the chair. Her eyes are now wide open.
“Faker.” Declan leans over to chuck her under her chin.
“Me? Never. Talk to Tenley. She’ll tell you anything. It’s not like you and tall, dark and sexy-pants were doing the dirty.”
“I haven’t done the dirty with anyone,” I protest.”
Declan clears his throat.
“What?” I tear my gaze back to him. “When? How?”
“If you don’t know that, Lottie, love, then you’re doing it wrong.”
“I know that.” I shake my head with frustration. Pippa and I may be the same age, but she’s great at making me feel like a kid. “I mean, how, with him? I thought Ham and I were together from the beginning.”
“You’ve never asked him about this?” Declan raises his eyebrows. “You and him, your past?”
“I thought my memories would come back,
” I say in a miserable voice. “And then I didn’t know how to ask. How do you ask about everything?”
“You can start with, so how’d we hook up?” Pippa suggests blithely. “And hey, what about—d’ya know if I fancied a shag with the Surinamian sexy-pants?”
“He has a name other than sexy-pants,” Declan says wryly.
“Yes, but did you see his ass?”
“It was a little difficult as he was being dragged away,” I shoot back.
“I was there when he was running. Unfortunately, Ham didn’t include any shots of his backside in the dossier, so I didn’t recognize him at first.” Pippa glances over at me. “But you did. Right away. I saw your face.”
“You were friends with Bryton.” The reluctance is clearly evident in Declan’s voice. “I really wish you’d ask Tenley about this.”
“I’m stuck here with you, so talk,” I demand.
“You were friends with him,” he repeats. “You must have been around nineteen. I don’t remember the details of the mission, but something went on with Brazil and Colombia, and Suriname asked for our help. You were sent in as a kind of a bodyguard for the First Lady, which happened to be Bryton’s mother. You were friends.”
“The more you say it like that, the more I reckon there were more than just friendly feelings going on between the two of them,” Pippa points out.
“Where was Ham?” My throat is dry and tight.
“You weren’t together,” Declan says quickly, guessing my thoughts. “You were just friends at that time.”
Pippa laughs. “You were certainly friendly with all the boys back in your younger years, weren’t you?”
“So it was before Siberia?” A few of those memories had come back to me—a warm fire and a pile of blankets to fight off the chill, Ham gently tending to my wound, running through the ice and snow to get to our transport.
“Yes. You were in Suriname for about six weeks. I don’t exactly know what happened, so you’re on your own for that. Talk to Tenley.”
“I don’t need to. I don’t need to know.”
“I think you might.” Declan looks worried as he stands up. Pippa follows him back to the cockpit, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
When we get back to Head Office, Ham meets us in the parking garage, with a similar worried expression to my brother.
“She’s okay,” Declan calls to him as Lance lifts me out of the van.
I can walk, but I’ve gotten used to Lance’s ministrations so I'm happy to let him carry me.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Ham mutters, sweeping to Lance’s side.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “They took very good care of me.”
“Let’s get you to the infirmary.”
Everyone troops down to the infirmary for debriefing as Scotty carefully cleans and stitches up my wound. I was right—it’s a clean shot that went through the muscle of my arm.
“You’ll be stiff and sore for a few days, but you’ll be fine,” Scotty says as she gently cradles my arm in a sling.
“See?” I say to the waiting, worried faces. “I’m fine.”
The debriefing is quick and relatively painless because there isn’t much to tell Ham. We failed. Evangelist’s men got to Bryton before we did. The sight of him being forced into the van plays on a repeating loop in my head.
I’m glad I don’t remember failing a mission because it’s not a good feeling.
Ham sends me home to sleep after the debriefing is finished, and for once I go along with it, catching a ride with Declan and Pippa.
I’m quiet on the drive home and I can’t stop thinking of my conversation with Declan on the plane. If he thinks there’s some reason I wouldn’t want to talk about Bryton Raak, then maybe I should get to the bottom of it.
But I don’t need to know about some mysterious past. I have Ham now, and I love him.
Then why do I have this horrible feeling that I may have loved Bryton too?
Chapter Seven
“Everybody thinks it’s glamorous and this spy versus spy stuff is so exciting, but working in that industry, and being a CIA operative, like a field officer, is tough. That’s a difficult job that dismantles their lives in some capacity.”
Ryan Reynolds
I sleep straight through the day, wake up feeling as stiff and sore as Scotty predicted, eat a quick meal with Ham and then go back to bed and sleep another ten hours.
When any of my memories come back, it’s usually in my dreams, creeping in like they’re afraid of the dark. No surprise then to have Bryton play a starring role as I sleep, and sleep, and sleep some more.
Nothing like a gunshot wound to kick the stuffing out of you.
When I finally wake up enough to recognize my surroundings, I swear I can still feel strong hands wrapped around my waist, gently stroking my back. Like a cat, I arch towards the touch so that our bodies press together.
It’s not an unpleasant sensation.
But it’s not Ham holding me, and that realization isn’t pleasant.
I lie in the darkened room and catch my breath, the song from my dream ringing in my head. It takes a moment for me to recognize the Lady Antebellum song that had been popular about ten years ago. The memory is so vivid that it takes a moment for me to hear the soft purring of Mister kneading the blankets beside me.
I roll over and curve around the kitten, stroking his soft fur. “Who was he to me?” I muse aloud. After the song is out of my head, when I can no longer smell the fires of Paramaribo burning, I get up.
Ham is in the kitchen, already fully dressed when I wander in. I take a moment to admire the way his rose-coloured shirt tucks into his navy dress pants and how it all works together into one yummy back view.
“Morning,” I say with a yawn, a sleepy Mister tagging after me.
“You need to use your sling,” Ham chides. “How’s the shoulder feeling?”
“As good as new,” I brag and roll my shoulder, my smile fading as the pain hits. “Almost as good as new.”
“Take it easy and don’t push. You need time to heal.”
“Do I have time to heal?” I sit at the table and Mister hops up on my lap. “What’s going on in Suriname?”
“Evangelist has control of the city. We lost contact with Raak,” Ham says bleakly as he pours me a cup of coffee. “The signal went dead late last night.”
“They shoved him into a van.” I push away the fear. Bryton Raak is the mission, nothing more. “You can assume they found the signal.”
“But they didn’t. It was hours before it went dead. We got word that he escaped from Evangelist’s men, but I have no idea where he went.”
“Send me back.”
Ham shakes his head. “Not until you heal. And even if you were a hundred percent, there’s no point. Until we get word from him, it would be a wild goose chase.”
“I’m good at wild goose chases.”
“Not this one,” he says grimly, turning away from me as the toast pops up.
It’s mornings like this when we act like a married couple sharing breakfast before work that I’m hit with the surreal realization about what we both do for a living. I’m a spy; Ham runs a covert intelligence organization. We both have top-secret clearance and know information that could bring down several countries, not to mention embarrass many others.
I’ve saved the world and here I am, letting my husband butter my toast.
“I remember him,” I say quietly. “Bryton.”
“I thought you might.” Ham hands me the plate of toast. “He was important to you.”
“How do you know that?”
“I wasn’t your handler at the time,” he admits. “But later, after the procedure, I went through your files. I didn’t want to lose you.”
“Reading about me and another guy is how you thought you wouldn’t lose me?” I ask skeptically.
Ham shrugs his wide shoulders. “That was because I was jealous and could never find a way to ask you about him.”
I sigh. “Did anyone ever tell you that you have too much time on your hands? And a little too much authority if you can snoop like that.”
“It wasn’t exactly snooping.” He shrugs as I raise my eyebrow. “Okay, maybe it was. But I needed to know.”
“Do I need to know?”
“What do you remember?” Ham counters.
I bite into my toast, chewing slowly as I rake through my memories. Flashes, pieces; not real, full-fledged recollections. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy with only flashes of things to examine; other times, I remember things I don’t want in my mind.
“I was laughing with him. There was another woman there. Or a girl.”
“His sister, Raylene. She was fifteen when you were posted in Paramaribo.”
“What happened to her?”
Ham brings his own plate of toast and sits at the tiny table across from me. We have a huge dining room—a huge apartment—but it’s too big for casual moments like this. “She died,” he says gently. “The bomb that killed the president—Bryton’s father—succeeded in killing his mother and sister as well.”
“Bomb? But I was guarding her!”
“It was after you’d been called home,” Ham says quickly. “We ascertained the threat was minimal; the First Lady was never comfortable with the extra security, and insisted she’d be fine.”
“So she wanted to get rid of me and then she died.” My toast is suddenly dry and tasteless, despite the butter and honey.
“It’s not your fault, Charlotte.”
“It kind of feels like it is.”
“Read the file,” he instructs in the no-nonsense way that tells me there’s no use arguing my blame. “Before this happened, you had developed a friendship with both Bryton and his sister.”
“So we were just friends.” The relief bubbles up like fizzy soda after it’s shaken.
“There were no details on the relationship,” Ham says, carefully not meeting my eyes. “You stated that you’d become friends; that was it. No one asked for more.”
“But you think there was more.”