Protective Measures

by Maggie K. Black

  “Your brother is going to be okay,” Leo said. “Nice clean through and through. No permanent damage.”

  Zoe nodded. “He’s tough.”

  “Like his sister,” Leo said. A peculiar warmth seemed to spread between them in the cold, dark garage. “Thankfully, Prometheus has been arrested. Now it’s up to police detectives to question him and find out what The Anemoi was after. But as the symposium is done, the informant never identified themselves and our opportunity to get the military data is lost, they shouldn’t have any reason to go after me.”

  She wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself. “Hopefully.”

  He took a step back, like he was about to back his way across the garage to his truck until he faded into the darkness.

  “Look,” she said quickly. “I don’t believe this was ever just about the smuggling intel.”

  “That’s not logical.” He frowned. “None of this happened until the informant contacted Admiral Jacobs and said he had military data to sell.”

  “Or none of this happened until your face was all over the media,” she said. “Look, I know you don’t agree with me. But if this is goodbye then I’m going to say my piece. Because if I don’t, and something ever happened to you and your amazing daughters, I’d never be able to forgive myself. I think whoever hired The Anemoi wanted to destroy you. I think they saw this strong, handsome, amazing father and hero flash across their media and decided they had to ruin your life. That’s why they vandalized the poster of you and went after me. That’s why I still believe they’re behind that letter from Marisa about your daughters.”

  Leo grabbed both her hands and held them. “But that goes against everything you’ve told me about The Anemoi. They’re thieves. They’re vigilantes. They don’t just torch lives.”

  “Unless they plan to steal something from the ashes.”

  “Zoe, I don’t have anything left to steal.” A long, heavy pause spread to the edges of the darkness. Sadness filled the space between them and everything in her ached to slide her arms around him. Then he took another step backward. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. It’s only a few hours until the sun comes up, and the cottage is four hours’ drive away.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’ll call Josh and Samantha and let them know you’re on your way. With your permission, I’ll also fill them in on the bombshell about to hit your life. Samantha will be able to find you a lawyer, a damage control consultant and someone who can do a discreet DNA test. She might even figure out a way to find out if Marisa really wrote that letter. It won’t stop the tsunami, but should be able to give you a bit of shelter as you figure out how to ride out the storm.”

  “I’d appreciate that. Thank you.” They stood there, their feet just inches away from each other. Then he pulled her into a hug. For one quick moment she felt his arms around her back and the smell of him filled her senses as she heard the sound of his heartbeat against hers. Then he pulled away. She let go. He turned around and walked through the parking garage without looking back. Every step he took seemed to echo around her, creating tiny fissures in the tissue of her heart.

  Lord, please help Leo. Give him what he needs. Protect his girls.

  He disappeared into the darkness. She turned, walked toward the ambulance and hopped up onto the back.

  Alex sat up and looked at her. “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you mean, what am I doing here?” She sat down on a seat in the back of the ambulance. The engine hummed gently. “I’m escorting my brother to the hospital. Because in case you missed it, you’ve just been shot.”

  She expected at least a smile from that. But instead Alex rolled his eyes.

  “Look, we really don’t have time for this,” Alex said. “Leo told me about that unbelievably horrible letter from his late wife. And I’m in way too much pain to argue coherently so why don’t we just skip ahead to the part where you realize you’re wrong, thank me for being awesome, jump out of the ambulance and go running after Leo.”

  A paramedic climbed into the back and reached to close the door.

  “Wait!” Alex held up his one good hand. His phone was clenched between his fingers and she realized he’d been texting. “Hold on. Just give me a second to convince my sister that coming with me would be the biggest mistake of her life.”

  “Are you insane?” Zoe asked. “You’ve been shot—”

  “Yep!” Alex said. “I’ve been shot. By a villainous bad guy. A nice clean shot through the shoulder that thankfully won’t cause any permanent damage, but will leave me with a very dashing scar. It hurts a whole lot. I really don’t recommend it.”

  Shot or not, he was the same old Alex.

  “And you need me.” She crossed her arms. “I’m coming to the hospital.”

  “Theresa is already on her way with Mom and Dad. They’ll get there by the time I’m in Recovery. I already texted Samantha and Josh everything on that list you just rattled off to Leo. They’re on it.” He dropped the phone and reached out toward her. “Don’t get me wrong, Zoe, you’re the absolute best. But Leo needs you more than I do. If you let him drive off into the night right now, to face what he’s going through alone, you’re never going to forgive yourself.”

  Something inside her bristled. “He doesn’t need me.”

  “Come on, Zoe!” Alex groaned. “I told you I don’t have time to argue about this! How many times has one of us run right into danger just because another one of us said go? When Josh found Samantha lying on a bomb on the Ash’s front porch, you and I didn’t stand around and debate what he told us to do. When a crook tried to kill Theresa at Cedar Lake, I didn’t doubt your ability to subdue a criminal so that I could go after her. This is what we do. We trust each other and leap into action.”

  “Not on things like this!”

  The paramedic was back again.

  “Hang on!” Alex called. “My sister needs one more minute to realize the obvious.”

  Zoe’s eyes shot daggers at him. The moment he was healed and back to being able to train with her, she was going to beat him so hard in a round on the boxing mats.

  “One question, sis, and then I won’t say another word.”

  “Fine.”

  “Why do Theresa and I work together?” Alex asked.

  Josh and Samantha are both analytical introverts...but Alex and Theresa’s relationship is gloriously messy. They’re definitely opposites.

  “She’s the brains,” Zoe said. “You’re the brawn.”

  “Yeah.” Alex nodded. “And with Leo, you’re the heart. Don’t you get that? You’re the passion. You’re the fire. He’s the ice. You’re the flames.”

  “I know! And that’s the problem!”

  “No, that’s the solution.” Alex squeezed her hand hard. “You think he’s going to survive the fight to save his children on logic alone? He needs emotion. He needs fire. He needs to fight for those girls. He’s not going to survive without you. He needs to be with you right now and you need to be with him.”

  * * *

  Leo gripped the steering wheel at exactly ten and two. He pulled his truck through the maze of emergency vehicles, up the ramp and out of the parking garage. Dark night air swamped around him. The street was lit in the eerie glow of streetlights. His phone buzzed. He paused at the entrance of the parking garage and checked his messages. There was only one, from Admiral Jacobs. The admiral was out of surgery, doing well and looking forward to hearing from Leo when he could check in.

  Thank You, God, for that! But what do I tell him? That I never met up with the informant? That I don’t have the intel? And that now I’m going to need to take a leave of absence while I sort out the mess my family is in?

  He pulled out onto the empty Ottawa street and started driving. The clock on his dash read quarter to two. He’d get there
before sunup, join the girls for breakfast, and then...

  Then what? How could he begin to explain to them what was going on? The sting of knowing his mission had been a failure was nothing compared to knowing what kind of pain this type of gossip could put his girls through.

  Help me, Lord. This storm I’m in is so strong and wild—and I feel like I’m in danger of being swept away.

  A stop sign loomed ahead, as a flash of red in the glare of his headlights. He tapped his brakes.

  “Stop!” A cry sounded in the darkness as a figure leaped in front of his truck. Two hands landed hard on the hood of his truck. He stared through the windshield. It was Zoe—wild, determined and bracing her hands on his hood as if she alone was capable of keeping his truck from moving. She ran around to the passenger door, he unlocked it and she tumbled inside. She buckled the seat belt but was panting so hard she could barely manage more than a single word. “Drive.”

  He drove, easing the truck through the downtown core toward the highway.

  “I was afraid I wouldn’t catch you,” Zoe said after a long moment. She gasped a breath. “I ran up three flights of stairs, came out the front door and raced down the side road, hoping to cut you off.”

  The exit for the highway loomed ahead.

  “Well, you caught me,” he said. “Now what?”

  “I’m coming with you to the cottage,” Zoe said. “Alex has briefed Josh and Samantha. They can arrange for me to get back home again.”

  “Okay.” He pulled onto the highway without argument. He didn’t know what to say. But he knew he was happy she was there. And that was all that mattered. They drove. Dark summer air rushed through the cracks in the windows. The river ran along the road, as black and smooth as velvet in the night. They turned north and drove through a seemingly endless wall of trees and rocks penning them in on either side.

  They drove in silence. Like old friends. Like family. Like “his” and “hers” pillows lying side by side on a headboard. Like a huge dog and a small cat curled up together on the porch in the sunshine. Like how Ivy and Eve would collapse into one chair in a tangle of limbs as if they were one creature with two heads.

  At some point, Leo looked down to realize Zoe’s hand was tucked safely inside his own. He didn’t know whose hand had reached for the other’s first, or for how long they’d been holding hands. He squeezed her fingers. She squeezed his back.

  A feeling swelled up inside his chest like an ancient beast waking up from a forgotten time, long ago. He felt joy. Joy in the midst of the pain and confusion. For so very long he’d forgotten what it was like to be happy. Now he knew. Sitting here in the darkness, with Zoe holding his hand, was the closest he’d come to perfect happiness in a very long time. If only Ivy and Eve were curled up right now in the back of the truck with them, and the nightmare they were facing as a family was over, his happiness would be complete.

  “Thank you for coming with me,” he said. “The girls will be so happy to see you. They miss you.”

  To his surprise her fingers stiffened in his grasp and she pulled away.

  “You told me that some people aren’t cut out to raise kids.” Her voice was quiet in the darkness. “It was pretty clear you meant I was one of them.”

  “I’m sorry.” He tried to grab her hand again, but she’d pulled it back out of his reach. “I was upset because my daughters were in danger.”

  “The truth is I’ve always thought you were right,” she said. “I wasn’t into girlie things like dolls when I was little. Then after the Killian incident, I was in a dark place emotionally and Mom took me for medical tests, and I discovered I’ll probably never have kids of my own. Not without a lot of medical procedures, which even then might not work. So I thought, maybe it was because I wasn’t a good person for children to be around. I mean, I like combat fighting. I’m a terrible cook. I lost my cool with Killian and fought back, instead of just politely holding my tongue. I told myself I didn’t even like children and they didn’t like me.” She swallowed hard. “Then I met Ivy and Eve.”

  He cleared his throat. She didn’t let him interject.

  “Your daughters are amazing,” she said. “They’re incredible, beautiful and strong. I love them, in this weird, new, fiercely protective way that I never knew was possible to care about another human being. I respect that you want me to stay out of their lives and not complicate what you’re all going to be going through. But I promise you, I will do everything in my power to protect them.”

  He grabbed her hand again. This time she let him hold it.

  “Listen to me,” he said firmly. “My girls adore you. They think you’re amazing. I know I tried to keep you away from them. But that wasn’t to protect them. That was to protect me from how I was starting to feel about you.”

  He took a deep breath and held her hand tighter. Was he really about to admit to Zoe that he was falling in love with her? Was he really about to admit it to himself, here and now, driving through the darkness in the middle of the night while his entire world was collapsing around him?

  No, she deserved better than a blurted admission of love that he wasn’t able to act on.

  “I don’t know what to say right now,” he said. “I’m just really thankful you’re here.”

  She squeezed him back. “I don’t know what to say, either.”

  He chuckled, a sad, soft sound in the back of his throat. “Then maybe that’s how it’s going to be.”

  They kept driving. After a while, Zoe’s head fell onto his shoulder and stayed there. Her eyes closed. Her breathing deepened. He bent down and brushed his lips over the top of her head. Eventually, he pulled off the highway and onto the small, private road that would take them to Cedar Lake. The truck slowed. Branches brushed up against the truck, scraping at the paint. Zoe’s head bounced lightly against his shoulder as she dozed. Cottage driveways passed his window in the gray of predawn light.

  “I don’t know what this is between us,” Leo whispered in her hair. “Let alone why you landed in my life at the worst possible time. But even though you’re asleep and even though this is goodbye, I’m never going to be able to forgive myself if I don’t admit, even just to myself, that I never believed it was possible to feel this way about someone until I met you. You’re the first. Just you, Zoe. You’re my one and only.”

  The cottage loomed ahead in the darkness. The lake was silent to one side. He cut the engine and slowly ran his hand over Zoe’s tousled hair until she roused.

  Josh strode down the driveway toward them.

  Leo opened the door. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “Ex-military, light sleeper, comes with the territory,” Josh said.

  “How are the girls?” Leo asked.

  “They’re good.” Josh yawned. “Stayed up late last night swimming and then a campfire. But they passed out quickly. Samantha’s been up ever since Alex called, trying to track down an original source of that letter. But a recent rainstorm is playing havoc on the cell signal and the internet is really slow. Now that you’re here, we’re thinking of heading across the lake to the Dean family cottage.”

  “Good idea,” Zoe said, hopping out the passenger side. “My parents have a small apartment in the top of their boathouse. After some excitement up here last winter, we set up a really good internet server there, and a small Ash office, so we can stay in better contact.”

  Leo checked his watch. Sunrise was less than an hour away.

  “Sounds good,” he said. He wasn’t likely to sleep before the girls woke. He wasn’t sure he was going to sleep again anytime soon.

  Samantha was waiting for them in the doorway of the cottage. He left Zoe to talk to her and Josh, and went upstairs to the second-floor landing. The door to the girls’ room was open a crack. He eased it all the way open and stood there in the doorway for a long moment watching his girls
sleeping. Eve was curled up on the bed under the skylight, swamped in a mound of blankets so high he could barely see the top of her head. Ivy had kicked her own blankets off and was stretched out on her stomach, in her usual sentry position by her sister’s feet, with Fluff the dog stretched out beside her.

  Leo sat down in the doorway, leaned back against the frame and watched them sleep. Ivy, why do you watch guard over your sister while you sleep? What are you afraid of? What can I do to make you ever feel safe again? His heart ached. The minutes ticked past. He heard Josh and Samantha leave and then the sound of Zoe stretching out on the living room couch. The sun rose slowly, inch by inch, minute by minute, as he kept watch over his children.

  After an hour there was a knock on the cottage door. He heard Zoe stir and the babble of voices. But he didn’t hear Zoe open the door. The knocking grew louder. He leaped to his feet and started for the stairs. “What’s going on? You’re going to wake the children.”

  Zoe stood in the living room, still in her party dress with what he guessed was a pair of Samantha’s rolled up yoga pants on underneath. “There’s a woman at the door. She says you invited her up but won’t produce identification.”

  “A woman?” He walked past her to the cottage door and looked out. A pair of huge blue eyes stared back. Wisps of blond hair fell around the stranger’s face. “Melody?”

  Zoe stepped back. “From Marisa’s letter?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We talked on the phone a couple of nights ago about arranging a playdate. I suggested that she and her sons come visit, but Ivy wasn’t crazy about the idea.”

  “Leo?” Worry filled Melody’s eyes. “Let me in, please. I saw the letter from Marisa online about the girls. Reporters have been calling me. I want to help.”

  He glanced past her. A tiny compact car sat in the driveway. There wasn’t another person in sight. He eased the door open. “How did you find us?”

  “You told me you were heading up to the cottage when we talked on the phone,” she said. “The reporter I talked to said this lake was where the cottage was and this was the only place with a light on.”