Butterfly Ops

by Jen Doyle

  So why was it, exactly, that no matter how happy she was to have him back in her life again, there was still this one niggling little thing eating away at her? Why did she still care so much now about how things had played out with Abby?

  It wouldn’t have changed anything; the mistakes they’d made would have been made regardless. And if Ian had come back to California without a wife, hat in one hand, engagement ring in the other, could Lyndsey honestly say they would have lived happily ever after? There wasn’t a soul on earth, herself included, who believed the answer was yes. No, the only reason they even had a chance now was that they’d each been through so much, and without everything they’d already lost, how would they know what they had to gain?

  But she needed to know. She needed to understand what he’d seen in Abby but not in Lyndsey all those years ago. Why he’d turned on her that Halloween night. The more time that passed, the more she realized the ache in her heart wouldn’t go away until she had those answers.

  Matt didn’t say anything as they arrived at the tarmac—neither of them was in the mood for small talk, and Lyndsey was still too caught up in her own thoughts to care about being good company. Besides, he had hated her for all this time, what was another few hours?

  As Matt was lifting her backpack out of the trunk, Lyndsey spotted Ian. He finished up the conversation he was having with some guy in a Hummer and came over to them. He obviously noticed she and Matt hadn’t ended on the best of terms, saying, “Well, you guys look like you had a great ride.”

  “Yeah, good times.” Matt slammed the trunk closed. “Is everyone here?”

  Even though she hadn’t looked up, she knew Ian’s eyes were on her as he answered, “We were just waiting on the two of you.”

  Matt nodded and walked towards the helicopter. Ian reached out for Lyndsey’s pack.

  She grabbed it and slung it over her shoulders. “I can carry it.”

  “O-kay,” Ian said, drawing the word out as she started walking in the direction Matt had gone. Since she hadn’t given him much of a choice, it was unsurprising that he followed, saying, “So, are you going to come out with it? Or would you rather let it stew until you’re really angry? Just so you know, I’ve tried that before. Doesn’t work out so—”

  She stopped and turned to face him. “How long did you know Abby before you married her?”

  The sparkle in his eyes died out; his whole face went blank. And yet he didn’t seem surprised by the question.

  Good. Then he should have an excellent answer. She looked up, waiting to hear it.

  His eyes went to the ground. “Six months,” he answered. “Why? Should I have waited?”

  Lyndsey recoiled at his tone—a cold, steel knife, cutting through the haze of her discontent. It was like he and Matt had planned the one-two punch; it made her heart hurt. “That’s not a fair question.”

  There was a heavy silence before he quietly said, “You were in love with Zachary.”

  “I wasn’t,” she said with maybe a little too much conviction. Because, yes, there had always been a connection between her and Zach. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t loved Ian. She had. So much.

  “Right,” Ian answered. “Which is why he was the first person you ran to.”

  “Because he knew me,” she said, exasperated. “He knew what I was.”

  “I knew what—” Ian started to say, but then he stopped himself, his eyes focused somewhere behind her, his mind stuck in the past. But rather than continue along those lines, he asked, “What do you want me to say? Sorry? Is that enough? If I had come back for you, would that really have been enough?” He ducked down his head, pure anguish in his voice as he repeated, “Tell me. Would that have been enough?”

  She bit her lip. “I… It’s not...”

  It wasn’t an apology she’d wanted, it was an explanation. And, no, she didn’t know if it was enough because she had no idea what it was. She’d need to hear it first.

  He mistook her silence for an answer. Not looking at her, he said, “Yeah, I didn’t think so either.”

  Before she could say anything, one of the soldiers came up alongside them. “Colonel…”

  “Not now,” Ian said.

  “But, Sir—”

  Ian went with the cold, commander route, warning, “Not. Now.”

  “Yes, sir.” The soldier retreated back towards the helicopter and the few men who hadn’t yet climbed in.

  “I’m sorry,” Lyndsey said when he was out of hearing distance. She knew her voice sounded too strong, that she didn’t quite sound contrite enough. “I thought I had gotten over all that a long time ago. I guess not.”

  “No, I guess not,” Ian said, looking down at her.

  Lyndsey was struck by the regret in his voice, the emotion in his eyes. “Six months, huh?”

  He nodded and looked away.

  Right.

  And even though she knew it would open up a door she couldn’t close—a door neither of them was ready to open—she found herself asking the question she’d managed to avoid for the last two weeks, the question that had been nagging at her for fifteen years: “Why was that enough with her and not with me?”

  She hated that her voice sounded so defensive and sad. Hated that it hurt so much even after all this time.

  Obviously pained, Ian looked at her and then down at the ground. “What makes you think it wasn’t enough?”

  Well, for one thing, he’d never asked her to marry him. That was the most obvious answer, of course. But not the only one; not by any means. “You left me.” She wanted to pound his chest and make him yell, to grab him and force him to look at her; but she was afraid of what she might see given the raw, honest emotions boiling over for the first time. “Wasn’t I worth fighting for?”

  His voice was quiet. “It wasn’t like that.”

  Self-doubt intermingled with anger as she spoke. “Then what was it like, exactly? I didn’t need you enough? I was too much for you? Or was it just that I’m—” A sudden flash of pain brought tears to her eyes so fast and hard it almost took her breath away.

  No, Lyndsey. Was. Keep it in the past.

  “That I was, so much of a… a freak show that you couldn’t bear to let your frien—”

  Eyes blazing, Ian took a step towards her—so close and sudden that she snapped her mouth shut as she took a step back. “I never said that,” he practically hissed. “I was trying to—”

  He cut himself off abruptly. One second he was fully engaged; then he flipped a switch and the fire went out. “You know as well as I do that we wouldn’t have lasted. I had nothing to offer you.”

  That’s what he was coming back with? “I didn’t want an offering, I just wanted you.”

  “Yeah,” he answered, defeated but without any obvious bitterness. “I was exactly what you wanted.”

  She wanted to touch him again, feel the way she’d felt for the last week and a half. “Ian…”

  “Could this conversation be over for now?” he asked, shaking her off. “There’s a lot that needs to get done today.” He started walking.

  Damn it.

  This was not how she’d hoped this talk would play out. Not that she’d expected to have it in the first place, of course, on a tarmac of all places. A tarmac with a helicopter full of soldiers waiting for this conversation to be over so they could take off. But right now, she couldn’t care less about making them wait. She couldn’t let things end this way.

  Gut operating at a speed her brain hadn’t caught up to yet, she reached out and caught him by the arm, blurting out, “I would have said yes.”

  His back to her and head down, he stopped short. Then he turned to her. As quietly as was possible given the low rumble as the helicopter’s engine started up, he said, “You… What?”

  Well, wasn’t that what he was talking about when he’d asked if he should have waited? As hard as it was to admit to herself how badly off-track things had gone, if she’d known then what she knew now—that by turni
ng her back on him she’d lose him for good… “If you’d asked me to marry you I would have said yes.”

  The answer clearly surprised him. In fact he seemed genuinely taken aback. Maybe as stunned as she was by the words that had come out of her mouth. The suddenly overwhelming—and horribly timed—noise from the helicopter made it impossible to say anything else. She looked down quickly, before she started crying again.

  “Wheels up!” she heard someone shout.

  Right. Because of course this was how they were destined to leave things. Worst. Timing. Ever.

  Wiping her eyes briskly, she handed her pack up to one of the soldiers, then reached for the hand Matt offered to pull her up. As she hoisted herself up, she felt Ian’s hand on her back, gently guiding her. Turning to him as he got in, she searched his eyes for the reassurance that things were okay, but the smile she got was a guarded one. Glad that the interior was dark enough that her bloodshot eyes weren’t quite so obvious, she got herself to her seat and prepared for the ride.

  11

  Ian settled back against the jump seat, deeply grateful for the sound of the rotors as they lifted the helicopter up into the sky.

  He looked over at Lyndsey as she shifted in her own seat, grappling with the straps. Wrestling with them until she got them where she wanted them and sat back in triumph. When she looked up and caught him watching, though, she immediately looked away.

  A ‘freak show’? After all this time? How could she seriously think he’d ever thought of her in that way?

  Then again, it explained a whole hell of a lot.

  Letting his head drop back to rest against the netting, he closed his eyes. He couldn’t say he was surprised at this turn of events—bringing up the fight; her question about Abby…

  It wasn’t entirely unexpected—he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop for the last two weeks. It had all been so…easy. Too easy. He’d expected the hard questions to be posed right away; had expected that she’d ask, take a whole minute or two to ponder the answer, and then walk away. Instead he’d been lulled into this false state of thinking they could maybe just put it all behind them. Let the past stay the past, just keep shooing the elephant out of the room.

  The problem was, he didn’t have a simple answer. Or, rather, it was a simple answer—too simple, in fact. It was all the dominoes stacked up behind it that made it hard. A shaky tower of dominoes on which he’d built his whole life since—and one false move would make it come tumbling down. Which was why he’d taken the easy way out this last week and a half, all the while knowing their foundation was so tenuous it was unlikely they’d make it through the first week. Month, maybe, if it included a trip out into the woods in the middle of nowhere—no combustible distractions, no ugly reality to butt its head.

  In Ian’s defense, the tactic had worked before—with Abby, although, the stakes hadn’t been that high to begin with. They’d eventually managed to build them up together—gradually. Higher and higher until they’d reached the point where it no longer mattered how far down the ground was—they’d grounded each other. But that wasn’t how it had been with Lyndsey. Lyndsey had always operated on a higher plane; she’d been up in her own world. Though sometimes she let you up there with her, you were always the one standing on the edge, always waiting for the fall. And when you fell in love with Lyndsey, you fell a long way down.

  He’d known that even before they ended. Things had begun to change as early as that fall—maybe when he’d realized what she was, maybe not until he’d realized what was happening with him. Regardless of when, though, he knew he was done the first time he told Lyndsey that he loved her. It wasn’t that she didn’t say it back, it was that she couldn’t. So he’d dialed it down and forced himself to be patient. Someday, he’d allowed himself to think, if he played it right.

  Or, at least, he’d allowed himself to think so up until the night he left. Every table had been turned that night. Everything after that was spent dealing with the hate; with the look she’d given him when she’d finally met his eyes... He’d known for years there was nothing he could say to get past that. Nothing would have been enough.

  So, yeah. Been there, done that. It wasn’t something he was interested in repeating. Love wasn’t part of the equation for her; not in the same way it was for him, no matter how often she said the words. Words that, yes, still sounded like heaven when they came out of her mouth but ones he’d taken with so many grains of salt that he’d be floating for some time. Because this time around he’d been hedging his bets; he’d established a perimeter, put the defenses in place and was good to go.

  Except, apparently, he’d been wrong—in a reality shifting, black is now white kind of way.

  I would have said yes.

  Christ.

  So now, if he was understanding her right, it seemed that the very thing he’d nearly died for all those years ago could actually have come to pass if they’d had one more day.

  Just one more hour, even.

  But for as much as she seemed to need an answer to her question about why he’d married Abby and not her, he was as equally sure he’d never be able to give it to her. It hurt almost too much to think about, was one of the few things in this life he could never forgive himself for—because if he were being perfectly honest—something he’d been trying desperately to avoid through this last week and a half—he’d have to admit that Matt had been right.

  If he’d known Lyndsey hadn’t been with Zachary for that whole year—if he’d known she had waited?

  If he’d had even an inkling this would be the conversation they’d have had if he’d actually spoken to her the night he’d come back to Sausalito?

  Well… He might have said yes, too, even though Abby was right there next to him. And that was what killed him. What made him want to not answer Lyndsey’s question. Ever.

  Why Abby and not Lyndsey?

  Because Lyndsey had broken his heart so badly he’d never wanted to feel that way again.

  Because when Abby had come to him, teasing and touching, tempting him with the slowest striptease ever while he was handcuffed to the bed, no less. When Abby had actually come out and asked…

  The God’s honest truth as to why six months was enough?

  Because he hadn’t loved Abby. And he hadn’t been able to imagine he ever would.

  So, get married? Sure. Why the hell not? If he didn’t love Abby the way he loved Lyndsey, then it wasn’t going to hurt so much when it all fell apart, too.

  Of course he hadn’t considered the fact that he would, in fact, fall in love with his wife before it fell apart, or that she’d go and die on him. But that was a different story entirely.

  Yeah. This was a conversation he’d been dreading on just about every front that existed. And the closer they got to Quetico, the more conflicted he became about what he was going to say. When they finally approached the landing site, he couldn’t help but think the minute they touched down and he and Lyndsey were able to talk again, everything they were slowly building up to again would be over.

  He was saved by Julianna Langdon, of all people.

  A few minutes before they were officially touching down, the pilot radioed back to Ian and Matt. “A problem with the papers,” he said. “They say the permits weren’t signed off on yet.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Matt snapped into his headset, with a look over at Ian. “On whose end?”

  “Park Administrator wants to have a word,” the pilot answered.

  With a smile on his face because it wasn’t his ass, Matt settled back into his seat again. “That one’s all you,” he said as the helicopter slowly descended. His hands forming a ‘T,’ he gave a time out to the group.

  Ian gave one last look at Lyndsey before he got to his feet. She looked away just as quickly.

  Great. However awful he’d made her feel for all these years was clearly going to be continued for at least another few hours. As much as he wanted to delay their talk, he didn’t want
it to be at her expense; there was something to be said about tearing off the band-aid. But short of broadcasting what would be some very private words to the entire squad, there was nothing he could do; not right now, at least. So he threw his headset to the seat with more force than he should have and jumped down to the ground.

  They’d landed at the Atikokan Municipal Airport, which was basically a runway in the middle of the woods. A jeep was sitting a couple hundred feet away; a man in a ranger’s uniform stood leaning against it, arms crossed in front of his chest. He straightened up and held out his hand as Ian approached, although his smile was anything but friendly.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Fox?” he said. “Frank. Frank Nichols.”

  Nichols was one of the rangers who had accompanied Langdon to the Boston meeting. Ian nodded his head as they shook hands. “I remember.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Nichols said.

  Ian figured the statement—and the frosty silence that followed—was mostly a response to pulling out the list tailored to Langdon, the one naming all her friends and associates who would vouch for the Task Force, at that very meeting. As well as the assumption—a correct one, as it turned out—that there’d been a list on nearly every person at that table, Nichols and his fellow ranger included. That was fine; it wasn’t the kind of thing Ian allowed to get to him. Recon and gathering intelligence were a part of the job; making people feel better about it wasn’t.

  Not in this kind of circumstance at least. “There’s a problem with the paperwork?”

  Nichols took off his hat and wiped the sweat off his brow. It was a lot stickier up here than it had been back in Ottawa, and Ian had to say he was pretty happy right now with the decision to stick with t-shirts, shorts and hiking boots for this op. If he’d had to wait in a dark green jeep on an asphalt tarmac, Ian would have been pretty uncomfortable too.