“A couple of weeks.” I seriously almost couldn’t stand being that close to her. My mind and my body were both going crazy. There was utter chaos in my head. “Maybe you could let me know of some sights I should see while I’m here…” Did I just say that? Damn! I came here to tell her the truth, didn’t I? Why can’t I just say it? Because she’s going to hate me and I can’t stand that thought, that’s why.
She was looking thoughtful when she suddenly said, “My son is with my mother this weekend. Maybe I could show you around. I could use a night out.”
“Oh…um…hmm…” God I’m a moron!
“If you’d rather not, it’s okay. I’ve just been missing my army man like crazy and…I’m sorry, it was silly of me to ask.” She stood up, and so did I.
“No…no! I’d love for you to show me around. I just don’t want to bother you.”
“No bother at all,” she said. “I love ‘Nawlins. I’d love to show her off.”
“Oh…Okay…” Speak you idiot…say something… “Um…what time?”
“What kind of food do you like?”
Food? She wants to eat with me? I’m not sure I could actually eat anything with her in the room. God, I’m a mess. I finally stuttered out, “I like everything, ma’am.”
“Oh please stop calling me ma’am. I know I’m older than you…but I’m not that old yet. My name is Karli.” She’s was exactly five years and three months older than me. She was probably worlds wiser, too.
“I’m Bryant.” Bryant is my middle name. I panicked. Then I made it worse, “You’re not that old.” Oh yeah Leif, brilliant.
Laughing she said, “Thank you. How about we get some authentic Cajun food?”
“That sounds great.” I’ve never eaten Cajun food I my life.
“Good, I’ll make reservations at Café Amelie. It’s a little pricey but worth it. I’ll buy. It’s in the quarter on Royal Street. Do you have a cell phone?”
“Yeah.” I took my phone out of my pocket. “But I’ll buy.”
She giggled. “No, I invited you. I’m buying. Besides, it’s really close to my parent’s house, and they go there all the time so they always give me a discount when I turn up.” She took the phone from my hand and her fingers brushed mine. I almost dropped it. Electricity shot up my arm and straight down into my chest. I shook all over as I watched her put the name of the restaurant, the address, and her phone number into my phone. She handed the phone back to me and said, “Meet me there at seven?”
“Sure…” God, she probably thinks I’m some kind of weird half-mute.
She smiled at me one more time before she said good-bye and took off to finish her run. I felt like I was going to have an anxiety attack after she left. God, she’s too beautiful. I won’t be able to even talk to her. What will I talk about? I wanted to kick myself for being so honest in the letters because now I’d have to make things up, and I’m a horrible liar. I thought about that sentence, honest, right. I was honest about everything except the simple fact that I wasn’t who she thought I was. Jesus I’m in trouble.
********
PRESENT DAY
NEW ORLEANS
I was finally able to shake off those old memories just about the time I passed Café Amelie on my way to meet Blake. I forced myself to look away. I had to concentrate on my job today. I’ve been working for Blake for a while now. He found me that night on Bourbon Street, drinking myself half to death. I was discharged from the army and the first thing I’d done was pack my bags and move to New Orleans. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t know anyone but Karli, and she didn’t want to see me. I was completely lost and once again completely alone.
Once Blake had listened to me whine about my miserable life for God only knows how long, he took me back to his own place and let me crash on his couch. Most people think Blake is a cranky, mean S.O.B., but the truth is that he saved my life that night. When I woke up dry mouthed and with a pounding headache the next morning, he was gone, but there was a note telling me the coffee was brewed and if I wanted anything to eat to help myself. He’d also put the address of Blake Investigations on the note and told me if I was interested in a job to look him up. I did, and after I worked for him for a while I finally asked him, “Why did you do all of that for me?”
He looked at me with that cold, hard stare of his that intimidates the hell out of people and said, “Because in the army we never leave a man behind.” That was all that was ever said about any of it. He never asked me if I looked Karli up, or if I’d gotten over my obsession. He never told any of the other guys any of the things I’d told him. So in return, whenever he needs me, I’m there. Even if he stopped paying me, I’d still show up. The rest of the guys have become like brothers to me now, too. Ryder helped me come out of my shell a lot before he got married. We went out a lot, and he helped me learn how to talk to women. He liked to think of himself as a player, but women loved him because he was so good to them and so real. Abrahem was a different sort, but he was good to me, too. He taught me what I needed to know about electronics and surveillance. Tyler was like my brother almost from the moment I met him. He was the only one of the guys—besides Blake—who knew why I’d settled in New Orleans. He didn’t judge me, but he did help me keep myself from bothering Karli. I’d finally decided to simply let the idea of her and me go—and on those lonely nights, when I consider calling her, I call Tyler instead, and he sets me straight. Karli is, was, and always has been a fantasy, and Tyler helps me remember that. Like Blake, he’s not the warm and fuzzy type at all. He tells it like it is, and I need that. Tyler’s hard exterior was earned. He’d had a really hard time of it until he showed back up in town and hooked back up with the love of his life. Now he’s almost deliriously happy, but all that shit he went through to get here is still a part of him. I have a good life now, too—and although what happened with Karli will probably always haunt me, I had to let it go.
I pulled up in front of the address that Blake gave me. This house was really something. I’d passed it about a hundred times—and a few times, I wondered who lived in it. I knew it had to be someone with old money or a movie star or something. It’s four stories high and has this huge balcony that looks like it goes around the entire house. I knocked on the door, and it was pulled open by a woman in a maid’s uniform. I told her who I was, and she gave me a little nod and a shy smile and invited me inside. The foyer had marble flooring with what looked like gold running through the tiles. There was a curved staircase that disappeared into the ceiling and a chandelier that looked like it might have cost more than I made last year. I’d been in some fancy houses since I started working for the firm, but this one took the cake, I believed.
“Right this way, sir.” The maid led me through an arched doorway, and we stepped down into a sitting room with carpet so plush that even in my boots it almost felt like quicksand. We walked past a fireplace that took up one whole wall to a set of French doors that she pulled open. I followed her out…and it was as if we’d been transported into a fairy tale. There were rose bushes everywhere—and the roses were in every color I could ever imagine. The smell was great, but also slightly overwhelming. I was trying to cope with that when she turned the corner and my heart stopped.
Blake was already here, sitting at a little bistro table with an older man, a well-groomed and nicely dressed woman with silver hair who had a young boy on her lap…and Karli. Her brown eyes met mine, and I was suddenly back in 2012…
CHAPTER FOUR
NEW ORLEANS
2012
LEIF
As I got ready for dinner with Karli that night, I finally cleared the anxiety out of my head enough to think a little clearer. I knew that whether or not I ever saw Karli again would hinge on how I handled myself tonight. I dressed carefully in a brand new pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt that buttoned up the front. I’d asked the sales girl for help picking it out. Before I went into the army, I shopped at the thrift store…or went dumpster diving. After t
he army, I wore only army issue. I knew nothing about styles or fashion. I kind of liked the shirt—and you can’t really go wrong with jeans, but there was no way I was wearing the shoes she tried to sell me. I wore my black boots, I just shined them up a bit first. Then, I did my best with my hair. It was so short there wasn’t much I could do with it. I put on just a little bit of the cologne that the sales girl had talked me into, and then I stood back and looked at myself in the mirror. What I do or say tonight can’t be undone or unsaid…I had to remember that. How she saw me tonight would be how she remembered me forever if I never saw her again. At the very least I didn’t want her walking away thinking I was the big dork that I am.
I finally made it out of the hotel room. While I waited for the valet to bring my rental car around, I couldn’t stop imagining my life now without Karli’s letters to look forward to. I almost had a full-blown anxiety attack right there on the sidewalk. I felt my pulse pound in my temples, and I started sweating. Great, this black shirt will probably show the sweat stains. I took some deep breaths to calm down and tried to remind myself that I slept almost every night of the past three years miles away from some of the most dangerous and even crazy men in the world. I run over land mines for a living. None of that causes me anxiety any longer. But a tiny little woman has me about to pop a vein in my head. She’s not going to kill me. She might just never want to see me again. I can live with that…right? Damn it!
I somehow made it to the restaurant, and when I got there, she was already waiting for me in front. I saw her before she saw me—and I had a chance to really take her in. Her long silky hair spilled down across her shoulders, and the light brown color of it was highlighted with gold. Her skin was so pretty that my fingers actually itched to touch it, and those eyes made me want to cry…literally. I ran my own eyes down her body. She was wearing a tan dress that just came to the bottoms of her thighs and the rest of her silky legs were bare. They ended in a sexy pair of dark brown heels. Once again, I was having trouble breathing. Her pretty eyes finally landed on me, and she smiled that big, white toothy smile. She could have been a model.
“Bryant, hi! You made it.”
“Yes ma’am…I’m sorry, I mean Karli.”
She smiled again. “I’m glad. Our table is ready.”
We went inside and the hostess led us to a little table in the back and asked if we wanted anything to drink. Karli ordered a margarita and I got a beer. When the hostess left us with our menus, she said, “I haven’t drank in a really long time, so don’t let me have another.” She winked at me, and my stomach did a somersault.
“Sure.” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“How was the rest of the day after I saw you?”
“It was good,” I lied. It was torture. “I just did some shopping and walking around.”
“Have you walked around the quarter yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Good, I’ll take you on the tour after dinner.”
I was trying hard to remember how to be a regular human so I said, “What about your day? How was it?”
“It was good,” she said. “But too quiet when my little man is gone.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s six months old as of yesterday. I know that doesn’t seem old at all, but it seems like he was just born yesterday to me most of the time. He’s getting big way too fast. The man that I thought was you, is his father, and he hasn’t even got to meet him yet.”
The waiter interrupted with our drinks and took our orders. Karli suggested something for me to order, some kind of stew that started with an “E” and I couldn’t pronounce. None of it sounded like Oklahoma food, so I just agreed to it. I probably wouldn’t be able to get anything down. When the waiter was gone, I said, “He’s been on tour since you had him?”
“Since before actually. It’s been a little over fourteen months since I’ve seen him. We write, but he’s in a place where he can’t call, so I haven’t even heard his voice.” I felt a stab of guilt. I could call her, but I knew that she’d know it wasn’t his voice, so I made up a story.
“That has to be hard,” I said. God, I felt like a heel.
She nodded. “He keeps saying he’s supposed to get leave soon, but it hasn’t happened yet. You think they’d be ashamed of themselves making a man stay away from home for so long.”
“It all just depends on what your job is during war time. Sometimes it’s just impossible to let people go if they’re the only ones that can do a special job.”
She nodded. “That makes sense. I guess being here alone just makes me worry about silly things.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I told her. I hated myself as soon as that came out of my mouth—and I knew that I was going straight to hell.
“I’m sure it is,” she said. “I miss him.”
I nodded. The waiter came and sat our food down. When he was gone, I said, “At least you have Hunter to keep you company.”
She looked up at me sharply just as I realized my mistake. “How did you know my son’s name?”
I looked into her eyes and even then I tried to lie, “You said it earlier…”
“No. I know that I didn’t say it because I make a point of not saying it. There are a lot of predators in this world. Are you one of them?”
“No!” My chest was heaving, as I tried to suck in a breath. “Karli, please don’t hate me…”
She raised an eyebrow and said, “You’re off to a bad start.” My mouth and everything else inside of me was as dry as the desert in Afghanistan. I tried to take a drink of my water and she said, “Tell me how you know his name. Are you stalking me?”
I sat the water down and said, “I ended up with your letter.”
“What? What letter?”
“My name is not Bryant…well, it is, but that’s my middle name. My name is Leif Thompson.”
She’d still been holding her fork. She dropped it then, and the sound as it hit the plate seemed to echo off of the walls. “You got my letter because you have his name…and you read it and then came here to stalk me? Are you insane?”
“No, maybe. I read it. I’m sorry. It was addressed to me. I read it and realized it wasn’t for me and…” I stopped there. How do I tell her I’ve been lying all of these months?
“And then you gave it to him, right?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Oh my God!”
“At first I wasn’t sure how to find him…”
“Oh my God! It was you writing those letters and pretending to be him. And no way do I believe we just “happened” to bump into each other this morning at the river. Then you just sit here and let me go on about him thinking I’m a fool no doubt!”
She was loud and people were looking at us. I hate having any kind of audience. I felt my face go hot, and I was shaking again. “No Karli, I don’t think you’re a fool, not at all. And, I’m not stalking you, I promise. I just wanted to meet you…”
“So you tracked me down on my jog this morning because it was something I thought I was telling someone else I did…with my son! Oh my God, what if my baby was with me?”
“Karli, I would never hurt you or Hunter…”
“Stop it! Stop saying his name! Who do you think you are? Of course you’re stalking me. None of this was on accident. It was all by design. For months you’ve been lying to me.”
“No…I’m just…I was just…”
“You weren’t lying?” She hadn’t left yet. I think she was just trying so hard to make sense of what I’d done. I could have told her that the more she knew, the less sense it was going to make. Instead, I kept trying to explain it only making it worse as I did.
“Yes, kind of. I mean I was lying about who I was, sort of. But I was being myself as much as possible…”
“As much as possible?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure what he told you about himself…”
“You’re crazy.”
I hated the look in her eye. It was di
sgust. I disgusted her. “I’m sorry, Karli. I really am. I was lonely…and you seemed so nice.” The fire was still in her eyes, but something softened in her expression. I think she was beginning to realize that I was simply a loser and maybe not dangerous. In a tone any mother or teacher would be proud of she said, “That’s no excuse. You can’t lie and justify it by saying you felt a certain way…And to top it off Leif still doesn’t even know he has a son. God, no wonder he hasn’t come home. He has no idea how to get in touch with me.” She pushed back her chair and stood up.
I stood up too and said, “Karli, there’s something else.”
“I don’t want to hear it. You should be so ashamed of yourself.”
“I am, I really am, all the time. But Karli you need to hear this, he was never going to get that letter—even if I hadn’t kept it.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and said, “What do you mean?” I almost couldn’t do it. I almost waited too long. She got frustrated again and started to walk away before I said, “Because he’s dead. He was killed, Karli, eleven months ago.”
CHAPTER FIVE
PRESENT DAY
KARLI
Leif and I stared at each other while everyone else at the table stared at us. Finally my stepfather said, “Do you two know each other?”
“Yes,” Leif said.
At the exact same time, I said, “No.”
The truth was that I didn’t really know him. He’d lied to me so much. My best friend and Mack were the only two people I ever told about him. As far as my parents were concerned, Hunter was the product of an affair with a soldier who was killed in Iraq—and that’s the truth. This Leif was inconsequential.
Blake Donavan stood up then. He was kind of a big, scary guy. He gave Leif a hard look and then said, “This is my associate, Leif Thompson. He’s the man I’m going to leave to guard you.”
“Oh no! No way.” I stood up and held my arms out to my son. He was on my mother’s lap and he didn’t budge.
LEIF (Blake Security Book 3) Page 3