by JJ Aughe
“I’ll tell you something else, too. From all I heard at MIT the project there was part of a larger project at the Pentagon that was your grandfather’s baby. He lived and breathed it for years. I heard that he was really disgusted when Congress cut the Defense Department’s funding in two-thousand. Even Professor Moreland said he thought Hough felt betrayed when the Department of Defense wouldn’t listen to him when he argued the project was of great importance to the security of the U.S.”
“He must have been so upset and disgusted with Bureaucratic machinations and red tape that he brought his equipment and designs up here. After he set up the equipment, saw what he had known all along would be a state of the art security system that was at least seventy percent better than what the agency decided to use, he probably sat back and laughed at the bureaucrats.”
“Like I said before, Melissa, in his own right, your grandfather was a genius. I was more sad than surprised when I heard that he had sold his company and retired.”
Melissa had been only half listening. Carol’s praise of her grandfather had sent her mind back in time, a time that was etched into her memory as the saddest of her life. Tears threatening, she closed her eyes to hold the tears back not realizing it did no good. The tears coursed down her cheeks anyway as she remembered that awful time.
Her grandfather had unexpectedly returned from one of his frequent trips to Baltimore, Maryland in the early spring of Two-thousand. He had been on the east coast for over two months working with the director of security at some large military installation and wasn’t scheduled to return for another week. Actually, he was so involved with the project he was working on that no one at his shop in South Seattle or even Melissa or her grandmother really expected him to return then. When he suddenly came home, though he tried to hide it, both Melissa and her grandmother could tell that something wasn’t right. He had been excited when he left. On his return he seemed withdrawn and moody.
Two weeks later he surprised everyone, even Melissa’s grandmother, by announcing that he was retiring and selling his company. A year and a half later, the week after nine/eleven, on September sixteenth, Melissa and her grandmother came home from a day of shopping in Seattle to find him sitting at his desk as if asleep, a mechanical drawing pen in hand and a set of his electronic blueprints of the eastern seaboard on the desk in front of him. Only he wasn’t asleep. He had died sometime earlier that afternoon.
The County Coroner listed his death as natural causes; a massive coronary. But Melissa was more inclined to believe his death was caused by a different kind of heart condition. The heartbreak kind!
Now, seeing all this equipment here at the cabin and the way he had set it up, she believed she had been right. He had loved his work so much, had put every ounce of his effort into it, that the Department of Defense’s decision to use only the least expensive, minimal sections of it and to terminate his contract had been emotionally devastating for him. The terrorist attack the week before and the horrific loss of life that he must have been positive his equipment could have averted, was just too much for his heart.
Melissa’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Carol. “Melissa? What’s wrong?” Realization dawned and she exclaimed, “Oh my God! How insensitive of me! I have upset you!”
“No,” Melissa denied as she wiped the tears away. “No, really, it is okay Carol. I thought I had gotten over Grandpa’s death. I guess with the man I love almost dying and being here for the first time in years, just seeing all this equipment, my Grandfather’s life’s work, and knowing how much it had all meant to him has affected me more than I realized it would. I loved him so much and I still miss him terribly.” She paused for a beat as her eyes again surveyed the equipment her grandfather had installed. “I think, though, that Gramps would be real upset with me if he knew I was standing here crying like this. He’d probably tell me to hush and get on with it. Knowing that, I think I’ll be alright now.”
Melissa’s words didn’t hold up though for she immediately broke down, threw her hands up to cover her face and turned toward the door. Bailey nodded knowingly to Jessie. Taking the hint, Jessie immediately went to Melissa, guiding her back downstairs to the kitchen.
Turning back to Carol, Bailey indicated the equipment. “I think you can manage this, Carol. So, I’ll leave you with it. While Jessie is dealing with Melissa I’ll see what other surprises her grandfather might have left behind.” With those words, he was gone, leaving Carol marveling at the equipment before her.
As he went by the kitchen Bailey peeked in on the women but found they weren’t there. Guessing they might be in the bedroom with Sean, he headed in that direction. He was almost to the bedroom door when Jessie stepped into the hall.
Placing a finger to her lips for him to be quiet she pointed toward the kitchen and quickly brushed past him. Shrugging his shoulders Bailey watched her enter the kitchen before he followed. He found her standing at the window staring out into the dark night with her hands to her cheeks.
“Jessie,” Bailey whispered as he stepped up behind her. “What’s wrong? Is Sean worse?”
Jessie slowly turned from the window, her heart breaking for Melissa who feared losing the man of her heart, and her own heart in turmoil over similar fears. She felt like she was going to break down and bawl her eyes out and stiffened her upper lip, as Maureen would have told her, to keep that from happening. Bailey knew how she felt about him and she felt she didn’t need to tell him what was bothering her. But when she gazed up into his eyes and shook her head no to his question, it was all she could do to keep her composure.
Their bodies were so close she could feel his body heat through his clothes. Desire, that baffling, almost painful, yet erotic emotion, almost overcame her. She was so terrified she was going to lose him! How, she asked herself. How can I not tell him what is troubling me! He deserves to know! Yet, how will he take it? Will he laugh it off as if I were exaggerating things? Or, thinking I don’t have confidence in his ability to take care of himself, will he be offended?
She didn’t have to worry for, though she had tried to hide it, Bailey immediately read the fear and turmoil in her eyes. He took her by the waist, crushed her against his chest and kissed her lovingly. “Jessie,” he murmured softly into her ear as he kissed her earlobe. “I love you, Jessie! I know you are afraid for me.” Leaning away, he gently rubbed noses with her before continuing. “Well, I’m just as afraid for you, my love. Almed is still out there. And until he is stopped we are all in jeopardy.”
The situation was about to get out of hand. He knew what would happen if he stayed so close to her. To cool his building passion he stepped away. “I have been thinking the situation over since we discovered that equipment upstairs. I may have come up with part of a solution to our problem. Let’s sit at the table and I’ll tell you about it. Then you can tell the others while I do some testing to see if what I have thought of is workable.”
Later, Jessie stood beside Carol and explained about the plan Bailey had thought up. So she would know what she was doing she had Carol go over the operation of the monitors and the routine Carol used. Satisfied she could handle the task, she relieved Carol a few minutes after eleven o’clock so the woman could get some extra rest before her next shift. All this so that Bailey would have the time he needed to install the precaution he had devised.
Bailey came in from outside to relieve Jessie a little over an hour later. She quietly sat with him for a little while, her mind going over the reasoning Bailey had for using the remaining fiber-optic cable to form a sort of ground level trip line just out of the view of the areas the surveillance cameras covered. Bailey had explained that he hoped that one of the three fragile fiber-optic filaments in the cable would break when the casing was stepped on as it had when he had tested it. If it broke as he hoped it would, the circuit of the low voltage power source he had attached to the line would be broken and a red LED light would come on in the control room alerting the duty person. Where Bail
ey had learned the knowledge to do something so technical she didn’t know and didn’t really want to find out. He had the knowledge to do it. That, she firmly reminded herself, was what was important.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Bailey reached over, took her hand and kissed the palm in such a loving way that she wanted to jump his bones right then and there. Instead, she leaned into him, chastely kissed him, surprising him when she impishly smiled and told him she would be in his bed when Carol relieved him at three a.m. and quickly left the control room.
Before Bailey made his discoveries in the storeroom Saturday evening, her desire to be held by the man she loved building to gigantic proportions, Jessie had made up her mind that she would sleep in Bailey’s bed that night. The events of the evening and Bailey’s storeroom discovery had stalled her intentions though. Then a little before midnight Melissa brought the news that Sean was fully awake and, though still hurting, was feeling better. The news lifted Jessie’s spirits and after leaving Bailey in the control room, should have made it easier for her to sleep. But sleep evaded her. Finally deciding that if she were to sleep at all she needed to be where she could at least see the man she loved, she got up and quietly returned to the control room to rest, if nothing else, on Melissa’s bed.
Many times during those long two and a half hours Jessie longed to have Bailey beside her in that bed. She was convinced that if she only made a gesture Bailey would be there beside her. But what he was doing was so much more important that she never made the gesture or uttered a syllable. She satisfied her longing by intently studying him as he concentrated on the monitors. Restlessness finally had her getting out of the bed and going to the window to gaze out at the star studded, ebony sky. She let her thoughts go where they would.
She understood that she loved Bailey with a love so deep that it scared her. It certainly wasn’t infatuation. But could she really believe what her heart was telling her? Just the night before she had met Bailey she had sworn never to give her heart to another man. Yet, if she were truthful with herself, the very next day Bailey had captured her heart and her soul. It had happened suddenly, without warning. That is what had her so scared. It had happened so quickly, the way the feeling of completeness, the love for him had come upon her. She knew it had to be real It couldn’t be anything else.
Every time she looked at Bailey she knew the kind of deep down love that she imagined her parents had enjoyed. To say she too enjoyed the feeling was an understatement! Every time he touched her she wanted him to pull her to his magnificent chest and kiss her! And that was not like her at all! Oh, she had known men who were exciting and masculine. Hadn’t every woman? As masculine and exciting as they had been she had never longed to give herself to any of them. With Bailey it was a whole different ballgame. She knew she wouldn’t hesitate! And it didn’t even bother her! No shame! No humiliation! Just plain primal longing, wanting to be one with him forever.
Standing there gazing out the window she asked herself if what she had been feeling for Bailey was really lust she had mistakenly taken for this loving feeling. No, she immediately answered. She knew it wasn’t lust. That was a feeling she had felt only once in her life, a feeling that had ultimately broken her heart. She had vowed she would never let that happen again! And no man had even come close to causing a feeling even remotely like lust until now.
Jessie was so engrossed in her thoughts she didn’t notice Carol come in to relieve Bailey. She must have softly sighed because Bailey was suddenly beside her. He gently turned her from the window, gazing intently into her eyes. Without a word he took her into his arms, his lips tenderly kissing hers. She placed her arms over his shoulders and clasped her hands behind his neck. Her action urged him to deepen the kiss and hold it for a long moment before breaking away. Then he kissed her softly on the tip of the nose, smiled and pulled her out into the hall and into his room.
“I need you beside me,” he whispered. Then in a husky voice he continued. “When you walked into this room awhile ago a feeling of calm and completeness came over me. Trust me in this, Jessie. When you are not beside me I feel like half of me had suddenly disappeared. Now, or any other time in the future, I don’t ever want to not have you beside me.”
“Right now, I need to sleep so I can relieve Carol at six. I’m asking you to stay Jessie. I want to go to sleep holding you. I promise you, my love, we won’t even get undressed. I just want you to lay there with me so I can go to sleep holding you.”
Minutes later Bailey, his arms wrapped tightly around Jessie’s waist, was sound asleep. Smiling contentedly, Jessie watched him sleep until, in a state of pure contented bliss, her eyelids closed and she slept too. Except for her reoccurring dream of the Native American Maiden, she slept so soundly that she didn’t even stir when Bailey got out of the bed just before six a.m.. He stood beside the bed for a minute just lovingly smiling at her sleeping form, then kissed her lightly on the forehead and quietly left to relieve Carol.
Sunday morning dawned cold and dismal with dark storm clouds threatening. The sun tried to break though for a while but Mother Nature had other ideas. Around seven a freak late spring snow began to lazily fall. Within a half an hour it was no longer a light snow but a full-blown snowstorm with a driving wind drifting the snow in great heaps against the cabin. The storm was short lived though and after a few hours finally calmed and only gray clouds remained, leaving the landscape surrounding the cabin resembling a Christmas-time postcard.
But this was not Christmas-time and, though there were no open hostilities here on American soil, Jessie knew the world was not at peace. Far from it! Under the auspices of their Gods, terrorists like Abdul Ahmed Amusel Almed roamed the world over and caused havoc against supposed enemies wherever they could.
Though that horrible thought still occupied the back of her mind, Jessie stood at the window in Bailey’s room and felt at peace as her gaze wandered over the picturesque morning landscape. Her time with Bailey after he had finished his shift at the monitors had been wonderful. True to his word, as he had Friday night at the safe house, he had only held her in his loving arms and slept until time for him to relieve Carol. When she awoke to find him gone she felt hurt and even anger that he had left without waking her. She immediately suppressed those emotions though so she could lay in his bed and imagine what their life together was going to be like when this situation with Almed was over and done with.
Their love was so new, so beautiful. Yet, so intense! She felt like she had known Bailey forever. She even imagined she knew his every mannerism and could almost believe she knew his very thoughts. It was a little scary for her when she thought about how a love between two people could be as strong as theirs. At those times she would remember that from the day her parents had met, her mother and father had loved each other in that same deep all encompassing way and their love and devotion had never wavered. Could it be the same for her and Bailey? She sure hoped and prayed that it would be.
The evening before:
Jessie held Melissa in a loving embrace until the woman’s inconsolable sobbing came to a hiccupping end and led her to the small dining table in the kitchen. Melissa’s agony over the death of her grandfather took Jessie back to the weeks after her world had crumbled when the plane her parents were in had went down. She had felt like there was nothing left to live for. She just wanted to die, end the pain and grief that wracked her mind and soul. One day, in her despondency while she wandered around in her parent’s bedroom she unconsciously picked up a novel her mother had left on the nightstand beside her bed. She burst into tears at the title, ‘Peace Found.’ Inspired by the fact that her mother had been reading the book, Jessie opened it to the bookmark her mother had left and found exactly what she needed. Words that helped her through her grief then and she hoped would now help Melissa through hers.
“I read something in a paperback novel by Kimberly Boswell that my mother had been reading before she died that helped me get past the anger and grief of my p
arent’s sudden death. I think it is appropriate in your situation, Melissa. So, though I don’t remember the author’s exact wording right now, I’ll share it with you, if you want me to.”
Brokenhearted, Melissa looked at her, sniffled, nodded. “You think it will help?”
“All I know, dear friend, is that it helped me. Maybe it will help you too.”
Melissa grabbed another tissue, wiped the tears from her eyes, blew her nose, said, “Please tell me, Jessie. The pain of losing him and then grandma is tearing me apart.”
Jessie leaned over, gave her friend a heartfelt embrace, straightened, stepped away. “I didn’t think anything would ever help relieve the pain I felt, but when I began to read where my mother had left her bookmark, I felt as though she were speaking to me. That I could actually hear her voice speaking the words in that passage of the novel. So listen with your heart, Melissa, not your mind.
Like I said, I can’t recall the author’s exact words but this is essentially the way the passage went;
‘In lives we will encounter trying times, ups and downs, successes and failures, beauty and ugliness, happiness and, yes, grief and heartaches, circumstances we cannot possibly control. The only way to deal with all the stress we feel in those encounters and save our sanity is to seek out the beauty around us and let that beauty, whether it is a flower, a sunset or the simple sweet smile of an innocent child, give us peace.’
“That passage touched me deep in my being, Melissa. As I thought about what that passage was saying to me, what I felt my mother wanted me to know, I happened to glance out mother’s bedroom window. A smile came to my lips, the first in the many weeks since word came of my parent’s death. Out there on the horizon was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen and I knew in my heart that my mother had just shown me that life is full of beauty if we will only look past the ugly, hurtful things in our lives.”
Melissa dried her eyes again, shook her head, stood and embraced Jessie. “Thank you, Jessie. I never thought I would ever have a friend as caring and thoughtful as you, Jessie. I have been in turmoil over the loss of my grandparents for years. The words you just shared are so helpful and the way you received them, so precious. I think I will be all right now.”