Flee the Night

by Susan May Warren

  He held his breath. Heard nothing. Please, Lucky Penny, stay put. Let me find you!

  Micah walked to the water’s edge. Something—mottled water near the edge and disturbed silt—caught his attention. As if the water had been stirred. He walked along the edge of the lake, then flicked his light into the tunnel where the water flowed … out?

  He stepped into the water. The cold stabbed him, yanked out his breath. If she’d tried to follow the current, she wouldn’t last long, not in this water.

  He waded forward, feeling common sense calling his name and warning him away. But something, perhaps the burning in his chest, tugged him toward the passageway. He called out, heard her name echo. The current seemed stronger, and his legs started to numb.

  He moved into the darkness, noticing that the tunnel had begun to close. This was folly. Still … he disregarded his breath, his thundering heartbeat. Listened.

  Splashing.

  He drove forward, pushing his light ahead. “Lacey?”

  The sound echoed. The splashing stopped. He waded forward. The water rose to his hips, his waist. The tunnel narrowed, and he ducked under a rough mouth of rock that made him dip at the waist. Scooping up a mouthful of water, he choked and coughed. The rock ate the sound in a single gulp.

  Then the mouth abruptly opened, and Micah stopped, mesmerized. He’d entered a cavern the size of a baseball field, where the stream slushed out to a small lake. The surface mirrored the centuries-old stalactites and columns and the limestone boulders the size of Volkswagen Bugs dislodged from an ancient earthquake. The stillness of the cavern pressed his ears.

  “Lacey?” His voice sounded tinny and small in the great expanse.

  He heard the splatter of rock. He flicked his light in the direction. Lacey stood, sopping wet, gripping a fist-sized boulder. “Micah!”

  “You gonna throw that at my head?”

  She stared at her weapon, paled, and dropped it. “No. I—” Then she looked up at him. “Micah. You’re—” she shook her head and her face crumpled—“you’re alive.”

  He gave a slow smile as he waded toward shore. “Yeah. But more importantly, so are you. What are you doing in here?”

  “I remembered the map, that a waterfall exits in the caves. I was following it downstream.” She shivered.

  His throat tightened. He had no idea how far the river traversed the cave, but in the pit of his stomach he knew she wouldn’t have surfaced alive.

  He climbed out of the water, and in two steps had her in his arms.

  She hung on tight, her arms around his waist. “You found me. I can’t believe you found me.” Her voice sounded shallow, rushed. So utterly not Lacey.

  “Are you okay?” Relief betrayed him in his racing heartbeat.

  She felt so small, so suddenly frail. Where was the trained agent he’d seen kick Roland Berg in the teeth? “Honey, you’re scaring me,” he said.

  “I’m okay,” she whispered but tightened her embrace.

  His light illuminated the crystals stacked in the stones behind her, and they shone like diamonds.

  “What’s the matter, Lacey?”

  “I just thought … I mean, I thought you were shot, and then I thought it might be easier to live in this cave for eternity than face … that …”

  He closed his eyes, letting her words burrow deep into the crevasses and tunnels of his heart. “Oh, Lucky Penny, I knew I’d find you.” He cupped her jaw and ran a thumb along its edge. “Shh.”

  “Micah, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I never trusted you. I’m sorry I married John. I’m sorry I spent so many years trying to make you pay for …”

  “For not saying I loved you?”

  She looked up, and her beautiful eyes glistened. “You didn’t have to say it. I knew it. I saw it so many times.”

  “I do need to say it.” He searched her face, seeing in her expression everything he’d remembered and more. He leaned closer and touched her lips with his.

  Her arms moved up around his neck; she clung to him and kissed him back.

  Then he realized why he felt whole and alive and real when she was with him. Why he’d spent his life trying to free the oppressed and find the lost. Because it was only with her that he felt both freed and found. Felt alive and as if he’d come home. Lacey belonged in his arms—just like she had when she’d fallen off the bleachers so long ago. And he was supposed to be the man to catch her.

  “Lacey—” he wove his fingers into her hair, pushing past his sandbagged emotions—“I love you so much that it makes me ache. I can’t find the words—”

  “That works.” She looked up at him, smiled, and tears ran down her cheeks. “I know I don’t deserve your love, Micah, but I’m so thankful for it.”

  He rubbed her tears away with his thumb. “Don’t deserve it? I’m the one who should be dropping to my knees in repentance and angst. I’ve spent the last fifteen years furious with you and the last seven promising to send you to prison, if it was the last thing I did.”

  “It’s not about deserving though, is it?”

  He searched her twinkling eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  She shrugged. When she smiled, he saw something alive. Something that hadn’t been there three days ago. Something he remembered from long ago.

  “You know, God just might be using you, Jim Micah, to bring prodigals home.”

  He wanted to leap or maybe sing at the top of his lungs. Still, he could barely find his voice. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’m just sorry it took me so long to figure out that if I turned toward the light, I wasn’t going to get burned. But God showed me that His light was mercy and healing. Not horror.” Her quavering smile held the facets of grace. It made her … stunning.

  Micah had always held an intellectual view of salvation. He knew he was saved because he applied Romans 10:9 to his life. But seeing redemption in Lacey’s eyes welled up a feeling so thick it made his eyes burn. It took on living color, sounds of hallelujah, made him want to dance. So this was how it felt to rejoice.

  “I wish we’d been able to transmit Berg’s confession. He’s going to burn me the second he gets on the line to the NSA,” Lacey said.

  Micah shook his head. “Oh, don’t worry about him. Conner popped him good, and he’s awaiting the NSA regulars in his pickup. I think that after I give my testimony and we dig up the North Korean lying at the bottom of the gorge, you’ll be a free woman.”

  “Your testimony?”

  He grinned. “Yeah, well, you forget I’m a decorated officer. I think they’ll put some stock into my statement.…”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  He frowned. “Do you not get it? I can’t wait to stand up for you. After the way I treated you I’m surprised you don’t slap me and run for the hills.”

  “Oh, I’m hardly going to wallop the man who rescued me.” She ran her hand down his whiskered face.

  “Hello? Not all these bruises are from Berg, you know.” He grinned.

  Her smile dimmed. “We have a lot of ground to make up for, don’t we?”

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “Yeah. But I like the sound of that.” Then he kissed her again, and this time he poured his emotions into the touch. She wove her hands into his hair and returned his kiss, completely obliterating any idea that John Montgomery still had her heart.

  Micah backed away before she turned his knees weak and crumbled years of self-control and resolve. He was a healthy male, after all, and she had the power to turn his best intentions to cooked grits. The only time he planned to throw off his self-restraint was on their wedding night. Which, he hoped, wasn’t too far away.

  “I’m in love with you, you know,” he said. “That feels so good to finally say.”

  “Then say it again.”

  “I’m madly, deeply, wildly in love with you, Lacey Galloway.”

  She grinned and he saw in her eyes the mischief that had always made him feel just a little bit afraid and very, very alive.
“It’s about time.”

  Then she kissed him again, and he forgot all about being cold or the fact that they’d have to walk back through the murky water and the dank cave. He saw only the sunshine waiting at the end.

  “Ready to go home?” he asked, breathing just a little harder than he should, as she pulled away.

  She swallowed hard, and something like pain ranged across her face.

  “What is it?”

  She sighed, stepped away. His arms already felt cold and empty. “It’s Emily. She’s John’s daughter.”

  “And?”

  “Will that be a problem for you? I mean … I know you can’t have children. Will it hurt too much to have Em in your life?”

  He blinked at her, his mouth opening. So that’s what Conner meant about giving away his secrets. Only this time hearing the truth didn’t rip open his heart. In fact …

  Micah reached out and took her hand. “You know, God answers our prayers in mysterious ways. I guess He just knew that I needed to be Emily’s dad.”

  Emily’s dad.

  As they stared at each other, Micah’s throat grew thick and prickly.

  “You’re going to be such a stellar father,” Lacey said, and tears crested down her grimy cheeks.

  “I hope I’m an even better husband,” he said softly.

  She smiled. “That, I’m looking forward to.”

  He cupped her face in his hands, thumbed away her tears. “Me too.”

  Slowly, she nodded, her eyes telling him everything he’d forced her to bury inside her heart for years. “Now, Jim Micah, please take me home.”

  Epilogue

  “LACEY, HURRY UP! The burgers are nearly finished!”

  Lacey waved at Conner, who wore a crazy chef’s hat and apron over his turtleneck and jacket, as she cantered her horse through the yard. The smell of grilling hamburgers had her stomach doing cartwheels.

  “Race ya!” Micah yelled from over her shoulder.

  She turned, smiled at him, and shouted, “Yah!”

  The cool late-autumn wind licked through her hair while she stood in the stirrups and galloped toward the barn. The sky smiled down on them today, a light blue with wispy cirrus, the smells of decaying loam and the last of the wildflowers in the air. “I’m winning!”

  “Never!” Micah nudged up beside her. His shoulder had healed well, and even his leg seemed to be holding out. Then again, he could be bleeding from both ears and he’d still say he was fine.

  She urged her horse forward, breathing hard, her thighs screaming. It felt like heaven to be riding again. She pulled the animal up just as they reached the trail to the paddock. She laughed, feeling full and alive. Whole. “I won.”

  Micah rode up beside her. The wind had tousled his hair—now that he’d been discharged from military service, he’d let it grow out and it curled deliciously around his ears. His beautiful eyes took her in with one sweep, and the smile on his face did dangerous things to her heart. She wondered if the fact that she was going to marry this man as soon as she could put together a wedding would ever cause her not to gasp, not to feel overwhelmed.

  God had brought her home. Back to Micah’s arms. Yes, there were times when she was wrapped in his embrace, beating him in Scrabble, or even debating him over theology, that she could hardly believe she was the same person.

  Then again, she wasn’t. She’d been transformed. And this new Lacey, the one who could stay home and be a mom … well, the idea still knocked her off balance.

  “Yeah, but I haven’t been on a horse for twenty years. Give me a month. You’ll owe me a chocolate malt.” Micah dismounted, grinning.

  “I don’t know, old guy. I think you’re past your prime.” She giggled at his open-mouthed shock.

  “Hardly. I’ll show you prime. C’mere.” He reached for her, hooked his hand around her neck, and kissed her.

  It was all she could do not to step closer, wrap her arms around his waist, and forget that they were supposed to be attending their engagement party. She wanted to lose herself in the cool afternoon, the warm protection of his embrace, the sweetness of his touch.

  He must have wrestled with his own temptation for he backed away, leaned his forehead against hers. “Okay, that’s enough.”

  “Point taken, Soldier Boy.” She took a deep breath and forced herself away, started walking out Sugah. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Micah had spent more than a few hours wandering the hills of her brother, Sam’s, farm over the last month, and she had her suspicions that his hikes gave motion to his inner sortings.

  “I dunno. I always thought I would be in the army. That the Green Berets were my calling. But maybe it’s not the calling that God changes. It’s the task.”

  She glanced at him. The wind raked back his hair and lifted one corner of his jacket.

  “Remember my life verse?”

  “Micah 6:8, yeah. Something about doing justice and loving mercy.”

  “And walking humbly with God. I thought by joining the commandos, I was living out that verse. And by resigning … well, I was failing God or something.”

  Oh, Micah. Sometimes his honor amazed her. Why, oh why, hadn’t she seen that years ago, instead of letting John sweep her into his adventures?

  Except maybe Micah wasn’t ready for her then. Maybe God had His own work to do in him. And in her. Neither, perhaps, had been ready for the life God wanted for them.

  This life. That thought quickened her heart as they unlocked the paddock and loosed the horses. Sugah ran in a circle, her age betrayed in her gait.

  “I was thinking, however, that God hasn’t changed my calling. I am still supposed to live out Micah 6:8. Only maybe He’s changed the how.” Micah braced his arms against the rail, watching the horses. “I’m thinking about asking the others if they want to make our rescue team official. Perhaps go freelance.”

  Lacey studied him. He wore such vulnerability on his face; she realized he’d just opened up his heart for her to get a good look at his dreams. Just like he had on that hot Saturday so many summers ago. “I love that idea,” she said. Nearly as much as I love you.

  He smiled slowly, and like warm honey it filled her every pore. He held out his hand. “I think we have a party to attend?”

  Sarah was sitting on a lounge chair on the flagstone patio, Emily on her lap, waging a thumb war, when they climbed up the steps. “Mommy!” Emily bounced off Sarah and ran to Lacey. Lacey swung her up, and Emily wrapped her legs and arms around her.

  This 200 percent sold-out affection her daughter gave her with nary a blink still took some getting used to. Lacey tucked her head against Emily’s downy hair and inhaled.

  “Andee’s helping your brother set the table,” Conner said, gesturing with his spatula. “Dannette just called. Said she was sorry she couldn’t make it. But she sent her congratulations and says for you to e-mail her with a full description of your ring.” He rolled his eyes before he turned back to the burgers, which spit and sizzled.

  Lacey put Emily down, who turned and took Micah’s hand. He glanced at her and at Lacey, a smile tipping his mouth.

  Lacey smiled back, then lifted her hand and stared again at the carat diamond-and-ruby setting Micah had taken from her old engagement ring and turned into his own creation. It seemed somehow fitting that John be in the symbol of her new life. Not only would Emily always have her father’s blood running through her veins, even if she took the name Micah, but God had used John to show Lacey the meaning of mercy. John had been a part of her life that she’d had to live in order to discover the fullness of God’s love. At least she decided to look at it that way.

  “Oh,” Conner said, turning the burgers, “that guy Hillman called.”

  Lacey frowned, looked at Conner, then back to Micah. “What did he want?”

  “Dunno. Said to call him back. He left a number.”

  Lacey swallowed hard. She’d blamed Frank Hillman for murdering her husband, for tracking her for years, for kidnapping
Emily. And he’d been innocent. In fact, the NSA had analyzed Micah’s statement, then detained, question, and locked up Roland Berg. NSA Director Morgenstern had pulled her aside and revealed the extent of Berg’s terrorism. Evidently, she hadn’t been the only one stalked by Roland Berg. He’d killed CIA agents, sold industrial secrets he’d been sworn to protect, and extorted money from expats working around the globe. The CIA had strong suspicions that Berg might even be linked to the upper levels of Hayata, Shavik’s terrorist group.

  She’d also been correct about Hillman’s daughter’s death being a revenge killing. She had no doubt that Micah had saved Emily’s life by tackling Berg and his North Korean accomplice. Nor did she doubt for a millisecond that Berg would have killed Micah and her as soon as he grabbed Ex-6. Once she pieced together time and circumstance, it hadn’t been hard to realize that Berg’s motivation in keeping Micah away wasn’t to stop him from interfering … but rather because Berg knew if Micah aligned with Lacey he might use his stubbornness and high-level political relationships to dig to the truth. Micah might, in fact, have discovered that Berg had engineered the double cross in Kazakhstan and covered it up by calling in Micah’s commando team.

  Micah had saved her life in so many ways, but most of all he refused to let her flee the secrets of her dark night.

  He had looked downright resplendent the day of Berg’s hearing, dressed for the last time in his dress blues. She’d waited for him outside Morgenstern’s office at Langley. As Micah pulled her into his arms and kissed her right there in front of everyone who had heard the stories of the spy who murdered her husband, he swept from her heart the last vestiges of doubt and fear that they couldn’t start over.

  Micah may have thought he was supposed to bring her to justice … but God had sent Micah to set her free.

  That fact came fully to breast a week later when Janie brought Emily to the farm. Home. Forever.

  “I’ll call Hillman,” Lacey said and started for the kitchen. Micah touched her arm, gave her a sympathetic look. “It’s the least I can do,” she said.

  She stole a French fry from the pan on the stove, picked up the number, and greeted Andee as she passed through to her bedroom. Sam had graciously allowed her to move into the house until her wedding. She closed the door behind her and sat on her bed, still amazed that she could walk into a room without looking over her shoulder and jumping at every sound.