by Rose Beecham
Get a grip, Jude thought. This was rebound disease rearing its make-an-ass-of-yourself head. An attractive woman was in her home. Whoa! It was late in the evening, that lonely sad-sack time when desperate people flipped to adult cable and didn’t crack up over hilariously named programs like Lord of the G-Strings. Celibacy was not working out for her, and she’d had her feelings hurt by a heartless sex-goddess.
Naturally she was afflicted with futile lust.
“You might like Frangelico,” she suggested as casually as she could. “That’s an Italian hazelnut liqueur.”
Her next thought was how good it would taste on Chastity’s lips, not that she would get an opportunity to explore that sensation unless she was shopping for a black eye. She couldn’t resist another look at Chastity’s mouth. It was really beautiful, sweetly turned up in each corner like a smile was always a mere breath away. Her small, straight nose and neat but strong chin were very feminine, but also hinted at the stubborn streak in her Jude had seen firsthand. She smiled, picturing her petite companion hitching her skirt and marching up to the FBI swat team that day in Rapture, so she could tell them exactly where to get off.
“Is something wrong?” Chastity asked.
Jude wanted not to blush, but it was too late. Embarrassed by her hot cheeks, she said, “No. I’ll get that drink.” She didn’t even know if Chastity had said she wanted it.
Thankful to escape to the liquor cabinet, Jude spent an unnecessary amount of time pouring a shot of Frangelico, then sloshed some Talisker into a scotch glass with a dash of water. It was reprehensible to gulp a single malt down in one hit, but she gave in to her baser impulses, telling herself she would make up for it by sipping her second glass like the aficionado she was.
The scotch roared down her throat with a medicinal fire that made her temples burn and restored her thinking to that of a responsible adult. As she caught her breath and composed herself, she saw on Chastity’s face the kind of wholesome smile that spelled out Don’t even think about it.
“Can I ask you something?” Chastity inquired softly as she extended a hand for the Frangelico.
Jude passed the glass over and invited, “Shoot.”
“Do you think there’s such a thing as soul mates?”
A philosophical question; she could almost feel the headache sprouting. Jude quipped, “If there is, I’m in real trouble. I’ve never found one.”
“Me either. I had a husband but that was a train wreck. We tried marriage rejuvenation and so on. But that was never going to work. Then he started hitting me, and that was all she wrote.” Chastity sipped her drink, slowly licked her lips. “This is yummy. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” Jude didn’t want to think about Chastity with a husband. She preferred the self-torture of wanting to help lick away the Frangelico.
“I keep wondering why I never meet anyone,” Chastity said. “My friends try to fix me up but it’s a waste of time.”
Jude wanted to say Why are we having this conversation? But she figured they’d built up to it over dinner. Chastity and Adeline had asked all kinds of questions about Jude’s family and how she became a detective, and she’d answered fairly frankly. Chastity was probably the kind of person who thought it was only right to engage in turnabout disclosures. Hence the personal stuff now.
Jude took a slow sip of her Talisker, normally a religious experience with that fine malt’s memorable peat-and-salt-air character. But tonight she was having a hard time settling back in her chair to cherish the lingering notes of oak and pepper. Her mouth felt unpleasantly dry and she was weary. Talking was an effort.
Suppressing a yawn, she said, “My friends gave up on me a long time ago. My job makes it hard to have a long-term relationship, anyway.”
“Because work comes first?”
“Yes.”
“Same here. I run my own business. It’s not like you can just take a day off whenever you feel like it. I don’t think partners understand that very well.”
“Are you happy alone?” Jude asked.
Chastity frowned as if entangled by this thought. “I’m not unhappy. I suppose the word is…disappointed. I pictured myself settling down. Being with someone.”
“We all get sucked into thinking we’re failures if we don’t have that,” Jude said. “I don’t try anymore. If it happens, it happens.”
“I’d settle for a few really close friends,” Chastity said, compounding Jude’s discouragement. “I had a lot of friends when I was still going to the temple, but when I got divorced we kind of…lost touch.”
Jude detected unmistakable hurt in her tone and instantly wanted to hold her and tell her the world was full of assholes and not to take things so personally. She said, “People get threatened when someone leaves the fold. It happened to me when I left D.C. A lot of my old colleagues acted like I’d abandoned them. I get treated like an outsider these days.”
It was true. Even though her friends in the CACU knew she’d taken an undercover assignment in counterterrorism, a bunker mentality tended to prevail in the different divisions of the Bureau. When an agent moved sideways, some saw it as jumping ship.
Chastity sipped some more of her Frangelico and said, “I suppose you think I’m weird, being brought up Mormon.”
“Why should I?” Among the whackjob religions and cults Jude had examined, regular Mormons weren’t exactly vying for pole position. “You seem pretty normal.”
Chastity smiled. “Other than being unversed in cocktails.”
“I like your innocence.” The words were out before Jude had time to think about them. That’s what two glasses of Talisker did for a person.
Chastity’s cheeks went rosy and she concentrated on her drink. “I like your worldliness,” she said after a moment.
Jude wasn’t sure if it was a compliment, but she was happy Chastity could find something to like about her other than the fact that she’d shot the dirty old man who planned to “marry” Adeline. “More Frangelico?” she offered.
“I don’t think so. It’s making me a little light-headed.” Chastity set her glass aside. Tucking her feet beneath her, she sank farther into the deep cushions and regarded Jude with a dark, languid gaze. “I’m curious about something. What’s a woman like you doing working in a one-horse town like this? It can’t be for the career opportunities.”
“I wanted to get out of the city for a while,” Jude said. There was truth in her answer. She had needed a break from the life she was leading. “Living in a place like D.C. can wear you down. The traffic. The crime. The intensity. I suppose I was looking for a change of pace.”
“You picked the opposite extreme.”
“That was the general idea.”
“Were you a detective in Washington?”
“I was with the FBI, in the Crimes Against Children Unit.”
Chastity’s expression altered from friendly interest to dismay. “I can’t imagine how people do a job like that—how you stay sane. What made you go into that field?”
Jude hesitated. A plausible half-truth presented itself, as they did when the chitchat got personal. “An opening came up and I thought it would be a good career move.”
Chastity tilted her head to one side and slid a hand behind her head, an action that tightened her cardigan sweater across her breasts and made her neck look unfairly kissable. Jude forced her gaze elsewhere so she wouldn’t come across the way she felt—like a dog eyeballing a hamburger. She felt too hot in her clothes.
“A good career move,” Chastity repeated, plainly skeptical. “Why do I get the feeling that’s not the whole story.”
“Because it’s not?” Jude suggested.
“We’re strangers,” Chastity said. “It won’t leave these four walls.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Why is it so hard for you to answer?”
“I hate that,” Jude grumbled.
“Answering a question with a question?”
“Yes.”
> Chastity looked her in the eye. “Here’s what I think. You’re not going to let me know you past a certain point. You’ve already decided we’ll have pleasant, meaningless conversation tonight, and I am going to leave in a day or two, and then we won’t talk again until the next time I bring Adeline back here for some hiking.”
“You have a problem with that?” Jude asked.
“It may sound strange, but yes. I think you came into my life and I came into yours in extraordinary circumstances. I believe that means something—I just don’t know what.”
Unsettled because she’d entertained the same thought herself, Jude allowed herself a long look at her companion. Chastity stared right back. They sat motionless, intent on one another. Something passed between them, just as it had once before. The memory of that moment crowded Jude’s head—herself, like a raw thing bereft of its skin. Chastity, soothing her. Shielding her. No one ever did that.
“What are you thinking?” Chastity asked, adding as Jude groped for a socially acceptable answer, “The truth. Please.”
“The unvarnished truth?” Jude sighed. End of a beautiful friendship. “I’d like to sleep with you.”
The dark in Chastity’s eyes blossomed. Emotion played across her features. Faint shock. Happiness. Confusion.
Jude said dryly, “You asked.”
“So I did.” A small frown tugged her neatly shaped eyebrows together. She looked like a child struggling to fathom the rules of an adult game. “I’m trying to understand what you mean.”
Here it was: the chance to finesse this rebound-driven lapse in judgment with observations about loneliness and a craving for company once the lights were out. Grown-up sleepover. Platonic pillow talk. Naturally Jude bypassed the sensible escape option to plunge straight down the rat hole.
“I’m saying I’d like to make love to you.” She almost winced. By all means scare the bejesus out of a straight woman who probably thought homosexuality could be caught off toilet seats.
Chastity’s hand slipped from behind her head to mesh with its counterpart in front of her body. Color careened up her neck and stained her face hot pink. Something else happened, too. Beneath her sweater her chest rose and fell at double time, and her nipples made themselves known. This unexpected development struck Jude as promising.
“We’re strangers.”
“Not really,” Jude said.
“You’re a woman.”
Jude nodded. “Yep.”
“We’re both women.” Another stunning disclosure, and articulated with such breathless incomprehension Jude couldn’t help but smile.
“Is that a no I’m hearing?”
Chastity took a long time answering and managed to confound Jude when she said, “Not exactly.”
Jude waited, sensing there was more.
“I’d like to kiss you.” Mouth softly parted, she drew a nervous breath.
She would change her mind by the time they got there, Jude thought. All the same, she got up and went over to the couch and, taking Chastity’s hands, pulled her to her feet.
“Are you sure?” she asked her guest. It was always good to avoid the face slap straight women needed to deliver at times like this to prove they weren’t as curious as they might have seemed.
Chastity stepped into her arms and with a fetching shyness that made Jude want to carry her across the nearest threshold, she whispered, “Just a kiss.”
Jude didn’t spoil the moment by making an uncouth grab for her. Delicately she brushed her lips across Chastity’s, tasting sweet hazelnut and scary temptation. Releasing Chastity’s small, firm hands, she drew her into a lover’s embrace and kissed her again. This time it wasn’t delicate.
And this time Chastity kissed back.
*
Lone finished storing the C-4 in the underground bunker she’d built during the previous summer. She kept an assortment of provisions down here. It had crossed her mind to be prepared for trouble if necessary, so she’d stockpiled enough food and water to survive for three months. She also had body armor and a sensible collection of weaponry—an AK-47, an M-4, several spare .50 caliber assault rifles, an array of 12 gauges, and about ten thousand rounds of ammunition. It bothered her that some of her weapons were illegal, but she was a responsible gun owner and made sure her arsenal was secure. No child would ever find a way into her bunker and be able to do harm to himself or others.
She bolted the trapdoor and activated the shed alarm system, then carefully reviewed the tapes of her security cameras before returning to the cabin. When you undertook a mission like hers, you could not take any chances. The men who ran the evil alliance were smart. They had co-opted the major law enforcement agencies throughout the nation, systematically ridding them of independent thinkers and replacing competent leadership with yes-men.
Homeland Security. Lone almost choked over that oxymoron. The evil alliance didn’t want the homeland to be secure. They wanted fear and confusion so they could expand their powers without a nervous public noticing until it was too late. There was no question that they would come after her if they knew what she was planning, so Lone took no chances.
When she traveled to Texas to collect her purchase, she’d checked into the motel using Debbie’s name and paid for everything in cash. If anyone tried to trace her, the trail would lead to someone so obviously innocent the agents on the case would have egg on their faces and assume their information was flawed. She felt bad about doing that without Debbie’s permission, but keeping her in the dark was the best way Lone could think of to protect her. If Debbie knew absolutely nothing and had never been on Lone’s property, she could not be seen as an accessory.
Knowing Debbie as she did, knowing how pure of heart she was, and how honorable, Lone felt one hundred percent confident she would understand why this mission was essential once the time came to tell her. Debbie was very naive about politics but she had an open mind.
Lone locked the shed and strode across the walkway to her cabin, casting a quick glance around the strip of land that separated the two. This was fenced off because it was booby-trapped and she didn’t want someone innocently triggering a device. She made sure nobody ever came up here, but there was always the chance that a motorist would get lost on the back roads around this part of the valley and stumble on the cabin, seeking directions.
Collateral damage was an acceptable consequence if it were completely unavoidable and occurred in the execution of an operation. But Lone could control this environment to avoid needless risk to civilians. There was no excuse for laziness or behaving like a hothead, even when national security was under direct threat. She didn’t fool herself that she would be able to arrest the decline single-handed. But Operation Houseclean would be an important first step.
She went to her room, stripped off her clothes, and hung them in the closet. Her hand brushed the plastic storage bag that held Madeline’s favorite blue silk robe, and Lone lifted it down from its hanger. Unzipping it a few inches, she parted the plastic and lowered her face to the fabric, inhaling deeply.
She could still smell Madeline, and the sense memory triggered a rush of sorrow, mixed with guilt. That was about the recent changes. Lone hadn’t planned on becoming Debbie’s lover, even though she’d desired her nonstop almost since the day she saw her smacking that mountain lion over the head with a bike. However, she had a feeling Madeline would understand. It was hard to do what she was doing without a hand to hold in the dark, without the sound of another heart and the feel of a body accepting hers.
It wasn’t wrong to love Debbie just because she’d loved Madeline so deeply all of the years they were together. “I still love you,” she said as she zipped the bag closed on the scent of her past.
She owed Madeline so much for all she’d sacrificed: her marriage and financial security, the family and friends who’d disowned her when she divorced her husband for a woman, the life she’d left behind to live in foreign places so she could be near Lone.
Yet, in th
e most fundamental way, Lone had failed her. Madeline had not trusted her with the truth about how she felt, and Lone had not read between the lines. She should have known. She should have added the countless tiny clues together and seen the whole picture. But she’d seen what she wanted to see, just as America did. She’d kept her blinders on rather than be challenged by the truth.
Well, it was now time to resign from the ranks of the lemmings and confront the truth. The only way she could serve Madeline and truly serve her country was to take the fight to the enemy. A patriot was not silent in the face of power run amok; she was not complicit in the slow but sure erosion of everything her beloved land stood for at the hands of men who served only their own interests.
She refused to allow the death of Brandon Ewart to count for nothing. She refused to let her lover’s suffering and suicide go unanswered. She would complete her mission or die trying. There was no alternative.
Chapter Fifteen
Anasazi legend tells of a Spirit Horse that appears in dreams. Like a flashing beacon, it gallops ahead of the dreamer, then slows down, but not enough to be caught. The horse will stop only for a rider as untamed and honorable as he, so they can journey together through the unfathomable world of the unconscious.
Jude awoke with a thud, convinced she had shared her dreams with this elusive creature. She felt exhausted, almost stunned. Eyes closed against the remorseless tread of the sun, she rolled onto her side and let her mind slide back down toward the watery unconscious once more.
The rules of dreaming defied explanation. Wingless flight for humans was unremarkable. A fall from a great height broke no bones, but usually ejected the dreamer from her magical realm and she would find herself awake and staring at the dull walls of her bedroom, thankful for her survival but strangely disappointed. Jude often woke that way, wondering what she was chasing and why she leapt from buildings and cliffs.