Abby pulled back and smiled. With Sean by her side, she would be able to face an army of a hundred soldiers. She nodded towards the lobby entrance and Sean took her arm.
“Thank you, officer,” he said. “But I think we’ll be fine.”
They stepped out into the flashing lights of police cars and cameras. Sean held her tight and they smiled politely as they walked along the sidewalk of the hospital, ignoring questions and allowing police to direct them through the crowd.
As they stepped around the corner, towards the parking lot, an officer motioned a local media van through the slew of onlookers. A flurry of hesitation halted Abby in mid-step, but before anxiety reared its ugly head, Sean leaned down and whispered into her ear. “I have you.” Then his lips reached for her own in a slow, lingering kiss while red and blue lights blended with the white of camera flashes. Abby closed her eyes, allowing the little piece of heaven to enter her heart and fill her with joy once again.
FOURTH WORLD
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
THEY didn’t speak in the car. Abby had little to no voice left and didn’t want to waste it. She simply watched as Sean drove.
The fingers attached to Sean’s right hand were a partial prosthetic, a very good one. The fingers could flex and stretch like regular muscles and joints, but Sean still had to do most of the driving with his left hand. She watched as he continued to glance at her out of the corner of his eye, constantly checking if she was still there - just as she was doing to him.
Abby would be willing to place a bet on the fact that he’d been in Florida all along. Watching and waiting, just like he had done in Kenya. In her heart, she’d known that he’d been in her home. He’d left the glass of scotch, he’d tucked Dad into bed. But why had it taken a stalker in a parking lot to bring him out? All questions she didn’t want to ask right now. She only wanted to see him, to know he was alive.
The gates to the estate opened as soon as the car pulled into the driveway. Dad and Mom were surely anxiously awaiting Abby’s return, yet Sean stopped halfway up the winding drive and placed the car in park. His hands dropped to his lap, thumbs hanging off the bottom of the steering wheel, while his head pressed back into the seat. The cloudy dark of night hid his expression from view, but dim lights of the car interior revealed that his eyes were closed.
“Are you okay?” she asked, but her voice no longer existed, only gravel and wind remained.
Sean must have understood, because he reached his hand over and took Abby’s into his own. “I’m more than okay.”
Abby squeezed the strange combination of skin and silicone. His fingers flexed around her hand, and she felt warmth encompass her palm. “I want to talk to you before we go in,” he explained. “I’m just having trouble finding the right words.”
Abby shifted her body and rested her head against the seat, eyes fully on the contours of Sean’s face as he continued his thought processing. There were more than a handful of subjects she wanted to delve into, so she would wait hours if necessary.
“First of all,” he started. “Know that everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you. In the hopes that it would benefit your health, your safety, your happiness.” She almost rolled her eyes. It sounded too much like the lines her parents had spouted to her while growing up. “I admit that I’ve gotten selfish several times, including the days at Oyana’s sister’s house. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that. You weren’t mine to take. Yet…”
The tremor of excitement that ran through Abby’s body indicated that her senses hadn’t forgotten their moments together in Kenya. She knew that in a perfect world, they would have done it differently. They would have followed society’s rules for joining their hearts together, in front of hundreds of people, with an ordained priest, flowers, and a three-tier cake with a plastic man and wife topper. But instead, they had done it with God as their officiant, Jesus as their family and friends, and the Holy Spirit as their witnesses.
After all, this wasn’t a perfect world. They’d both been damaged people back then, drifting in emotion like the winds through the Kenyan fields. At the time, it had been right. But did it still count? Were they healed enough now to accept the reality of their relationship in their new worlds? Only God knew.
“Would you open the glove compartment, please?”
Abby flipped open the panel to reveal a jumble of paperwork, fast-food napkins, straws, and a dark blue box etched in gold trim. It was the size of a ring box.
“Hand it to me.”
Abby knew that he wasn’t referring to the paperwork. She hoped that Sean couldn’t see her fingers trembling in the glow of the glove compartment, but her new excitement over what he wanted to talk to her about overruled any possibility of calm nerves. She handed the box over, wondering if he would pull her out of the car and get on one knee, but instead he placed the box on the center console.
“You know that I love you.”
Abby nodded. He’d literally followed her to the ends of the earth and back. So yes, she did know.
“I’m going to ask you this question, but there are a few things you need to know before I do.”
She watched as Sean’s profile mentally prepared himself for whatever he was going to say.
“Your parents care very much for you as well. Your father… well….” Sean cleared his throat. “Your father to the point of almost an obsession - as I’m sure you know. I already told you about when we first started dating, how your dad had paid me to watch over you.” He hesitated, waiting for a comment, but Abby remained mute, her voice not powerful enough to convey any emotion at this point.
“Well, it didn’t end there. After he shot me… we were both so angry. Of course, he realized that it hadn’t been me who’d attacked you, but then he carried all that guilt. I couldn’t be there for that; waiting for you to wake up from that damn trance, listening to your dad rationalize the shooting. He kept telling me that you weren’t going to wake up. The guilt over everything that had happened was killing both of us. It was a disaster.”
Sean ran his fingers through his hair and took another breath. “One of my military friends had an opportunity in Syria. The hospitals over there have been pretty much pulverized, and many of the doctors were targeted for assassination attempts. Over seven hundred surgical professionals have been killed. The medical community has been decimated. My buddy knew that I was going through a tough time. He’d even worried that I’d become suicidal.”
Abby pulled his hand a bit tighter and he squeezed back, the prosthetic fingers a bit too tight at first, then loosening as he adjusted his grip.
“I would never have considered suicide,” he explained. “Because I knew that you’d be coming back to us, I just didn’t know when, but I had to get away from you, I was poisoning your family with my presence. Your mom couldn’t look at me without crying, and your dad… you know about your dad.”
“Now that I think back, I guess my work in Syria was close enough to suicide though. I was stationed at an underground hospital. My hand was no good, but my mind was at the top of its game. Every day, people came in such a mutilated state that you didn’t know if you were looking at the front or the back. There were a lot of unskilled surgeons and I did what I could to guide them. I’d even found ways to assist with only one hand… I’ve already told you about the boy…”
Abby tilted her head in acknowledgement. She remembered Sean’s lapse into his memories as he’d explained being shot when trying to save the little boy. His face was indecipherable in the lack of illumination, but she could see his entire body tense as if waiting for gunfire to erupt around the corner at any moment.
“I’d been shot four times then dragged back down to the hospital,” he murmured, as if not really talking to her, only verifying to himself what had actually happened. “They did a crappy job patching me up, then sent me on the first transport back to Raqqah, after that, to the U.S. I don’t remember much, I was pretty doped up, but I do know that your dad
was responsible for bringing me back to the States and setting me up in an obscure hospital somewhere in North Dakota under an assumed name.”
“My dad?” Abby whispered.
Sean turned his head towards her. She was glad she couldn’t see his expression, knowing it would be full of concern about her lack of vocal ability, but he saved her from the pity party by continuing his story. “I didn’t stay at the hospital. I should have, but I didn’t want to be under your Dad’s thumb and make him feel responsible for me. You see, he’d made the mistake of telling me that you were able to communicate, but he refused to tell me where you were. Finding you was all I could think about, so I stayed with some friends in DC and we searched. Eventually, I came across your blog. Two days later, I booked a flight for Nairobi.”
Sean cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with his next statement. But Abby knew there could be nothing said that would challenge her love for him.
“A few of the Senator’s men caught up with me before my flight took off,” he said with a sigh. “He gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I know now that I should have, but… well, it’s no good to hang in the past. I was so messed up. The surgeries on my gut hadn’t been completed, I’d never done any sort of therapy for my hand, and my brain was a screwed-up mess. I never should have even gone out to Kenya. Doing work for your dad and his cronies while I was there was just a huge mistake.”
Abby started to ask, her nerves now on edge, but Sean continued.
“In exchange for information about your whereabouts, as well as enough money to get me through the next two years, he wanted me to protect you… which was easier said than done. You think you were safe there, but more than a few people were fully aware of your identity. Do you realize that you were almost kidnapped four times?”
A gasp jumped from Abby’s throat. That was impossible. She had gone by another name. Even her appearance had been strikingly different.
“My guys weren’t really there to fix the roof on the orphanage. We were there for reconnaissance. You were being stalked by a team of professionals out of Uganda. If they’d gotten their hands on you, it would have been a high price to get you back - if we could have gotten you back, that is. My guys didn’t mind following you around the busy market, pretending to go shopping. That was all right, but I remember the night you walked from your apartment to the hospital. It had just finished raining. We had a bitch of a time trying to keep you in our sights while trying to remain unseen. It was like being back in Afghanistan.”
Refusing to believe that her safe haven of the little hospital in Kenya was not what it appeared, Abby pulled her hand from Sean’s grip and turned to face the front window. He’d followed her that night after the rain? It didn’t make sense. She’d seen them shortly afterwards, all comfortably tucked into their sleeping bags, Nathan going to them and cuddling with Sean under the blanket.
They must have settled in once she’d made it securely back to the hospital. That could have been why Nathan had been awake. He had heard them come in.
She understood now why he thought she might change her mind about the proposal. He’d been lying to her for so long, about so many things, keeping the lies hidden from her. How could she believe anything he said or did? How would she ever be able to trust him?
“I know what you’re thinking, but just consider this; I wasn’t done healing yet, the anger and the pain were still so bad. I’d lost touch with God, didn’t even know myself anymore. I never should have let you see me that day in the orphanage. But… dammit Jamie, I used to watch you every day and wish I could talk to you. And I would wish I wasn’t half the man I had been. My soul had been destroyed when you were attacked, and then again in Syria, and I couldn’t figure out how to put it back together. I didn’t realize that God put you in front of me to help me heal. I was just trying to keep you away from my angst. It was my old military commander that had convinced me to go to the orphanage with them that day. The rest I left up to God.”
Abby continued to stare out the window as moments of silence filled the car.
“I want you to know that my entire goal, all my reasons for doing the things I did, they were all for you.”
But there was more, Abby knew it. There were too many unanswered questions. Not necessarily hidden by Sean, but perhaps even from him.
Sean leaned over and lifted the small box from the center console. “I’m going to ask you a question. I will understand if you say no, but I just want to let you know that no matter how many times you reject me, I’ll continue to love you, and anytime you need me, I’ll find a way back to you.”
He held the box with his right hand and lifted the top with his left. Inside was a dim sparkle of diamonds, barely visible in the reflection of the dashboard. “Abigail Ellwood… Jamie Poser. Will you marry me?”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
AS Abby walked through the front door of the estate house, she could feel the jarring nakedness of her ring finger. Her rejection had seemed so superficial, yet so deep. They’d become one in Africa, was this refusal a denial of the covenant they’d already committed to?
Sean had understood her hesitancy to make it real in this new world. She wasn’t ready; not in body, nor in spirit. Abby wanted to tell him that it wasn’t because of the lies, but the truth was - the deceit was a major contribution to her hesitation.
She still had yet to find out what James McCarrin had meant when he’d said that Sean was trained by the best. And where had Sean been the past several months?
There were too many questions.
The sounds of Dad’s wheelchair and Mom’s newly acquired authoritative voice greeted them in the living room as she entered. They were the comforting sounds of Abby’s next new world, the one with Sean back in her life.
Or was he?
Abby had rejected his proposal, but he’d only pocketed the ring and told her that he would be ready whenever she was. No frustration, no anger. None of the Sean that she’d met in Kenya. Once again, this was a different Sean, adding another reason why she shouldn’t accept his proposal. They needed to explore their changed worlds before pursuing anything permanent. They had once again been thrown into whirlwinds and spat out as different people. He needed to meet her again as well. Abby had found a medium between her shy, precocious childhood and the strong-willed personality she’d acquired in Kenya. She had become a mix of the two as she’d been doing her rotations. A new Abby. A new Jamie. A new person entirely.
During the hour-long debriefing with her parents, Abby and Dad listened, while Mom pounded Sean with questions. Dad didn’t say much of anything, but Abby could tell he knew more than he was letting on. Surely, he’d been aware of Sean’s whereabouts the past several months. James McCarrin would definitely be getting a call as soon as Sean went back to… Abby didn’t even know where he would be going back to. Did he live in the city? She shoved the question into the vat that held hundreds more and sealed the top shut for later reference.
Once Dad’s eyes began drifting into a half-sleep, they adjourned the interrogation and Abby walked Sean to the door.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.
“Apparently, you’ve been seeing me for a while, so I don’t think there’s anything I can do to stop you.”
Sean’s lips shifted into a grimace as Abby watched the pain of her whispered words sink in. She almost wanted to take them back, but just as much - she wanted them to sting the place in his heart, that place with the hole that she’d been experiencing since his disappearance in Kenya.
She should have said yes. She needed to ask him about the jail, about Dubai, about his other life. But now wasn’t the time.
“I have a meeting tomorrow morning,” she said quietly. “Maybe you could come over for dinner on Sunday.”
“I’d like that,” he said, then leaned forward as if to place his lips on her forehead, just like he’d done so many hundreds of times when they’d been dating - in the very distant past. But the force field that Abby
was emitting must have been too strong, because he hesitated before skin touched skin, and pulled back. His eyes searched her own with so many words left unspoken. “I’ll see you Sunday.”
Then he left.
The rest of the week became a hectic mess. Apparently, rumors of Sean’s arrival on the scene had created a whole myriad of news stories about Sean, Abby, and their missing love child. Abby refused to field any questions, not only because her voice was weak from the attack, but because she didn’t have it in her to deal with the press of inquiries. Security at the hospital had been beefed up, and Gary put on suspension.
Gina and several other nurses had become annoyingly giddy around Abby, and she wanted punch them silly every time they pretended to be her best friends. Fortunately, Dr. Bing wasn’t impressed by her celebrity status, nor her ability to bounce back quickly from a stalker attack, as he drowned her in paperwork, meetings, and emails on a daily basis.
On Sunday, Mom had arranged an elaborate four-course turkey dinner prepared for Sean’s visit. She would be in California next month for the Thanksgiving holiday and had decided to celebrate it a month early. By the time Sean arrived at five-thirty, the house was filled with the heavenly smells of roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. Even the scent of pumpkin pie had begun to circulate through the rooms as it had been pulled out of the oven fifteen minutes prior.
Just as Abby opened the door for Sean, he held his hand out and indicated another car pulling up behind his own. It was one of the government vehicles that Abby had become so familiar with during her life. Black tinted windows, pomp, and circumstance.
She stepped out onto the porch and watched as James McCarrin maneuvered around the vehicle and opened the door for his wife, Ellen.
“Sweet little Abigail!” she said, giving Abby a bear hug that was surprisingly strong for a woman standing at four-eight and skinny as a rail. “Look how pretty you’ve gotten. All those silly pictures on the internet don’t do you justice.”
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