I simply close my eyes and everything in the world seems right again as I feel his lips on my shoulder.
Chapter Thirty
Reed
It’s been two days since our reunion. The first day was spent almost exclusively in our hotel room, and if I had thought the long journey wore me out, I had been in for a surprise. The second day, when we visited the orphanage, she had laughed at my groans as I crawled out of bed to get myself moving.
I love her. I love every little thing about her from that saucy smile to the freckles that seem to pour from her gorgeous face down her neck to her cleavage. Her ferocity and her willpower will probably always astound me as I can only hope to live up to being hers.
The women at the orphanage had treated me like a mythical figure, not really seeming convinced that the man Des had told them about was real, even though I was there in the flesh. The kids, on the other hand, treated me like a super hero and it didn’t take me long to realize the impact that the feisty redhead was having in their lives.
As we were preparing to leave for the day to return to the hotel, one timid girl was hanging back as Des gave hugs all around to the others. I crouched to my knees, smiling at her from where she was hiding in the doorway.
“And what’s your name?” I asked, my Spanish having improved significantly over the last few weeks.
“Keyrin.” She said, softly.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Señorita Des?” I asked.
I could see the tears welling in those dark brown eyes.
“What’s the matter, Kiery?” I asked, using the diminutive.
“If I say goodbye, you’ll take her away.” She said, burying her face in her hand.
“Never.” I said, trying to soften my face as much as I could. “I’d never do that.”
Des finally turned around just when I was about to fall over from the sudden embrace.
“I see you’ve met Keyrin.” She said, laughing.
“We’ve just come to an agreement.” I said.
Des looked at me questioningly, and I held my fist out towards the little girl, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand.
“Nunca.” I repeated. She looked at me, then bumped my fist.
Chapter Thirty-One
Des
Reed is there at the bow of the little boat we’re taking, crossing the lake on the little tourist excursion we’ve decided to take. It’s supposed to be freeing, and I guess that it is. I see him there, that blonde hair buffeted by the high winds, his smile reflecting the feelings in my own heart. The only thing that’s marring the experience is that the old Des is putting up her last fight, effectively asking me if this is what I want out of life. I know that it is, but the questions still remain and they bother me. Am I deliberately choosing to question my own happiness? Sounds like me. It’s been a pattern my whole life and I just don’t know how to escape from the feelings when they rear their ugly heads.
Reed is perfect. Well, he’s far from perfect, but the perfect part of him is that he is nothing other than what his soul projects. Kind, considerate and feeling; I just wish that those were words that I could use to describe myself. Why can’t I just accept this? I’ve been running the last few days over and over in my head, and while my heart can find no faults in him, my mind is playing the Devil’s advocate. It’s not fair.
He looks back at me over his shoulder, his grin that of a child, enthusiastically enjoying a new experience. I think of Keyrin, the little girl that has stolen my heart every bit as much as the man in front of me. He had singularly managed to allay her fears and win her heart with only a few words and I find myself wishing that my heart could be as in charge as hers is.
“Looks like we’ll be on shore in just a few minutes.” He says, coming down from the bow to the little bench I’m sitting on. He squeezes into the spot next to me and I can feel the warmth of him that my body seems to crave.
“That’s great.” I say, and I know that my enthusiasm is probably noticeably lacking. He notices.
“What’s up, Des?” He asks, his smile going down a notch.
“It’s nothing.” I say. It’s a lie. I can see the shoreline and the little dock rapidly approaching, women in brightly-colored dresses hovering on the shoreline, awaiting the visitors that help sustain their struggling community and their very existence.
“You know I know you, right?” Reed asks. The thought immediately punches at my own thoughts.
“We’ve only known each other, what, a couple of months, now?” I ask.
He looks up at a question from the boat’s pilot, giving him a few words in Spanish that I don’t entirely catch, before turning quickly back to me.
“Long enough.” He says, kissing me on the cheek.
“Long enough for what?” I ask.
“Long enough for me to know that whatever there is in you that I don’t know, the parts that I do know make it worth it for me to be with you.”
My heart is crying out, but my brain is still fighting. The old Des just won’t die.
“How is this going to work?” I ask. “What are we going to do?”
“Look at these people.” Reed say, gazing out to the shoreline as we approach. “What do they have?”
I look, seeing the ramshackle pallet houses, tin roofs and the women crowding the dock. “I don’t know, Reed.” I say, on the verge of tears.
Reed wraps one of his arms around me and I feel the warmth passing from his body.
“Look at her.” He says, pointing to one of the women.
“What about her?”
“Look at her smile.”
I look and see what he’s talking about. Her smile is a tired one, but it’s so perfectly etched in her weathered face that it strikes a nerve.
“So she’s happy we’re here.” I say. I know my negativity is an issue. It’s cause problems in my relationships in the past, but I’m powerless over it.
“Do you think she doesn’t struggle?” He asks.
“No.” I grudgingly admit.
“Do you think she’s got everything in her life figured out?”
“No.” I say, feeling him squeezing me tighter.
“I don’t have it all figured out, either, Des.” He says, then his eyes go to the woman once again. “But I have that. I have that because of you.”
I melt a little in his arms, but the doubts are still there. “I love you, Reed, but…” I start before he interrupts me.
“I understand, Des.” He says. “I honestly do.”
___
We’re in one of the little marketplace shops and Reed is holding up a little doll to me. “Do you think she’d like this?” He asks.
“Who?” I respond, taking it in my hands.
“Keyrin.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to the others.” I say, the logical part of my brain still in charge, despite my trying to suppress it.
“I know that.” He says, his smile fading a little. “But I thought…”
His voice trails off and it sparks something in me; an awakening of my heart. He doesn’t finish the sentence and I want to urge him on, my heart struggling for something that I can’t quite identify.
“Thought what?” I ask, simply.
“I thought that maybe…I could save it for later.” He says, and I can see his own heart struggling with something.
“What do you mean, later?” I ask, the old Des in me still prodding.
Reed sets the doll back down on the display rack.
“Nothing.” He says.
___
“I still have some connections down here. Maybe I can…” Reed starts as we’re just starting to eat at the little restaurant on the other side of the lake.
“What kind of connections?” I ask.
“From the old days.”
“Do you want to go back to the old days?” I ask. It’s the closest I can make myself come to the fear that I’ve been harboring.
“No, but I need to find some way to make a li
ving down here.” He says.
It brings the emotions to the surface and the words vomit from my mouth uncontrollably.
“We can’t even go back to the States because of that.” I say, trying to keep my voice down. “How could you ever even consider going back to that life after what’s happened?”
He looks at me, stunned and I can see his eyes distance himself.
“I just want to have this life work out for us.” He says, quietly.
“By fucking up this one, too?”
The rest of the meal is silent and the return trip to the other side of the lake is awkward, to say the least. I’m feeling bad about my outburst as I know where his heart lies, despite my disagreement with his methods.
___
When I wake up, he’s gone. The night was lonely, even with him by my side. As strong as I am, he is just that vulnerable. I hate that about him even as much as I love that about him. Dammit, Des, why can’t you let yourself be happy?
My brain defends my actions, though. I don’t want to have gone through all of this just to see it happen again, but if that’s Reed, is it fair for me to expect him to change? My heart tells me that it’s probably just the only thing he knows, but the old Des isn’t having it.
There’s a note on the nightstand that I only notice after a long time of brooding under the sheets.
Des,
I’m sorry about yesterday. I need some time to think, but I’ll meet you at the orphanage this afternoon.
It’s just a simple note, but it warms me nonetheless. I realize that I wasn’t really communicating with him yesterday as much as I was letting my thoughts just boil out on him without any warning whatsoever.
“I’m sorry, too, Reed.” I say to the empty room.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Reed
This time, I get to eat at my favorite little restaurant, with my favorite girl in the world. Des has changed a lot since the day she was first dropped in my lap, but the changes are definitely for the better. Gone is the girl who was so worried about being respected that she didn’t recognize it when it came, along with the girl who never wanted to count on anyone else for anything.
“Gallo.” I say as the server brings out the bottles. “It’s basically the Bud of Guatemala, but it’ll do.”
Des tips her bottle and we both smile as they clink together.
“You want to stay here, don’t you?” I ask after she winces a bit following her first taste.
She laughs as she sets the bottle down, eyeing it like a viper that’s about to strike. “I can see why you went on and on about it.”
The smile makes me happy and I can see the feeling is shared. “I wouldn’t say I went on and on about it.”
“And on and on and on.” She laughs.
“I checked the web when I first got here.” I tell her. “There’s lots of news about the attack on the FBI field office, but nothing about you.”
“They’re going to keep my name out of it to save bad press.” She says. “You didn’t check anything else, did you?”
I look down at the table. “Reed, we need to start fresh.” She says. I know she’s right. We did have a quarrel the night before, and it was mostly about me not continuing earning money in the only way I seem to know how anymore. Honestly, I really do want to change that.
“You’re right, Des.” I say, smiling. “Maybe I can be a coffee farmer.”
She laughs, and I can see the dimples that I love.
“Yeah, not seeing that.”
“You’re probably right. Banker?”
“Any experience?”
“Well…” I pause for effect. “No.”
She’s mentioning something else but a movement catches my eye in the street. It’s Duke. Under my breath, I whisper to Des.
“When I stand, turn around and run. Don’t look, just run.” I can see the terror in her eyes as they dart back and forth, but she nods slowly as I stand.
“Duke. I’ve been meaning to call you.” The gun comes out before I even finish my sentence. “I’ve got the money that I borrowed.”
I can see his eyes following Des as she hopefully makes her escape. “You don’t think I’d come all the way down here to this hellhole for that, do you, Calhoun?”
The server comes back out, but I whisk her away with my eyes. Seeing the gun, she scrambles back behind the counter. I just need to buy Des a little more time before I try my own escape, but I’m not sure how that’s going to work quite yet.
“I thought you’d love it down here.” I say, smiling. “You want a Gallo?”
“I hate that shit. You and Marisela liked it, not me. I’m glad to be done with the fucking place after this.”
“How is Marisela?” I ask.
“In federal custody with a bullet in her, but I probably don’t need to tell you that.”
“Well, that’s a shame. What about Gray?”
“Gray’s dead.”
I had read about it online. I guess he had taken the old ‘never take me alive’ bit seriously and had used his last few rounds in a suicide by cop blaze of glory. “Sorry to hear that, Duke.” I said.
A couple comes down the cobblestone street, momentarily distracting Duke. I use it to make a dash for the railing, and I am just clearing it when I feel the pain in my shoulder, a moment before I hear the shot. Adrenalin gets me to my feet, though, and I disappear into the overgrowth.
The last thing I hear are Duke’s curses.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Des
Not knowing who to turn to is the worst part. As I come out of the thick growth and back into the street, about a block up from the restaurant, my eyes search for anyone that I can find. The first person I recognize is Luz, and I hear the shot from down the street just as I’m struggling to make myself clear to her in my stilted Spanish. She looks down the street, just as I see the man Reed had called Duke turn to head my direction.
“Is that him?” Luz asks. I nod and she motions me away with her eyes. I immediately dart back the way I came, hoping to circle back to the restaurant to check on Reed.
I find him about halfway, staggering along the same path I had come down.
“Reed.” I say, as loudly as I dare. He looks up, then sinks to his knees on the ground in front of me. It is only then that I see the blood soaking through his shirt.
The FBI gives us a lot of drills on first-aid techniques, and the mindless repetition of them is probably the only thing that gets me through the pressure dressing to staunch the flow of blood that’s pouring out of him to the rich soil beneath.
“No, no, no.” I hear myself saying over and over again. “You don’t fucking die on me Reed, not now.”
I can see the weak smile on his lips, but his eyes are closing. A moment later, Luz comes through the brush with a pair of guys in tow; one of which I recognize as her husband, Paulo.
“We take hospital.” He says in broken English.
I just nod and watch as they carry him away.
“What about the man?” I ask, making a gun with my fingers to get my point across.
Ran off, or at least that’s what I get from her words, though I’ll admit my head isn’t really even clear enough for English at the moment. I can feel the tears pouring down my cheeks, and I don’t care what she thinks as she takes me in her enveloping arms. I feel like the whole world, at least this little world that I’ve managed to build for myself, crumbling to dust as I sit there, sobbing uncontrollably.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Des
I turn on the light, though it doesn’t do too much to illuminate the room. Reed is there, and the sheen of sweat on his sweet face has me terribly worried. The orphanage isn’t the best place for him, but it’s better than the hospital. The fear that Duke, who is still on the loose, would track him there is stronger than the fear that he’ll deteriorate here under my care, and that of the others. They are truly a family, and I feel like the two of us have been drawn into that, and it makes me hap
py, despite everything that has happened.
I rinse the washcloth out in the little basin, squeezing it tightly before wiping it gently across his brow, furrowed in whatever dream or nightmare he is going through at the moment. I have no way of knowing, though, because he has only been conscious a few minutes over the course of the last couple of days.
Keyrin has been my rock, tough. The little girl is tough as nails and assures me that he will be okay, that once Cadejo Blanco had spoken to him, he would continue to protect him from evil. I’m constantly amazed at how those who have so little can somehow have such a deeper well of hope than those who have more. She’s keeping me strong, for him.
Luz comes in just as I’m finishing dressing his wound, my eyes dry throughout, though this is actually the first time.
“Des.” She whispers, as if not wanting to disturb Reed’s sleep. I’d like nothing more, nothing more than for her words to wake him, to bring that smile and those eyes back into my life once again.
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