Chapter Twenty-Four
Leland’s composure in the face of me finally losing my shit made me so angry that for the first time in my life I didn’t trust myself.
I tossed him back against the driver’s side door and put as much space between us as I could. He kept me in the steady hold of his amber orbs, patiently waiting for my storm to pass.
It wasn’t passing and his watching me made it worse.
I covered my eyes with my fingers to block out the sight of him. Damn it. Even with the fury and frustration rocketing in my blood, there was also near chick-sobbing relief to see he was OK, and the sensation of him flooding my veins in potent reminder that after all the shit of the past two weeks I still loved him.
I was angry, at a level I’d never known before. But there I was, trapped in the Leland effect, half of me wanting to punch him and yet the greater half of me wanting to crush him to my chest and hold him.
“God damn you, Lee,” I groaned, my insides feeling like a machete was hacking through them.
My muscles grew taut as I waited for the mind-fuck or the spin of the day. “Nothing that happened could have been avoided, baby. You must know that if you’ve talked to Jena.”
My face snapped up from my hands. Were we there? At last? To the place he’d finally tell me what the hell had been going on in our lives? And did I want to hear it? From the little I’d gleaned on my own, and the strategic, abbreviated data dump from Jena, I’d pretty much worked it all out on my own.
“No. I don’t know if it was unavoidable or not. You’ve kept me in the dark about everything. Jena didn’t explain a fucking thing and I sure as hell won’t trust anything you say at this stage. Life with you is like living in a scrambled frequency. Static in my head. Static in my heart. Static in my life. Static in my—”
I clamped my mouth shut, because anything I added from that point would be merely to hurt him and I didn’t want that.
His finger idly traced the steering wheel. A careless gesture I recognized as one to give him time to collect his thoughts and plot his course. “Let’s get out of here, Graham. You need to decompress. Talking now isn’t going to get either of us anywhere. You’ve been in isolation for a long time. We can talk at the house. Later, if you want to.”
“Oh no, Lee. Not yet.” I stopped him from hitting the ignition and his features tightened from the harshness of my hold on his arm. “We’re not moving into your pretend everything’s normal between us drill just yet. We don’t get past this that way. Not this time.”
“I’m not suggesting we do that,” he answered flustered, shaking off my grip on him. “I know that’s not happening. Everything between us is different now. It all changes from here. I know that.”
The painful race of my heart came to a jolting stop. That easily he pulled the rug out from under me, and I was too mentally exhausted to apply neurons to try to figure out what that news blast meant or what it was I heard in his voice.
The worst possible conclusion rose in my mind.
It never once entered my thoughts post seeing Jana last night that with his Mexico activities done the logical next step might be for Lee to end us.
Oh fuck.
I didn’t know what part I played in this epic farce of cloak and dagger I’d lived with Lee for a year in Mexico. I only knew—or rather assumed—that I had some vital role for him and with the successful conclusion of the Bogotá operation and Leland back in the States things would change.
Did change mean we were over? Was that where this was going now that he’d gotten whatever he needed from me? Was that why he was so fucking calm sitting there, watching me unravel?
Oh Christ, that those concerns were center stage was proof positive having him close to me was scattering my senses as well as my brain.
I opened the car door.
“Graham, what are you doing?” he protested in alarm.
I ignored him and climbed out.
Lee leaned across my seat and shouted out the open door. “Get back in this car. I’m not leaving you here.”
“I’m getting away from you so I don’t kick your ass.”
He sprang from the driver’s side and hurried after me, raking his tumbled locks from his face. “This is not going how I planned it.”
That comment pushed me near to snapping. “New plan, Lee. You’ve got two minutes to convince me whether I keep on walking or not.”
He sank back to lean against the hood of the car and crossed his arms. “It’s not as bad as you think it is.”
“No, Leland, without a doubt it is worse than I think it is. You’re the fucker who had the CIA put me on ice for two weeks, aren’t you? You sent Jena in to smooth things over, but it was really you calling the shots over all of us.”
He had the nerve to shrug. “The Jena ploy, I admit, was weak. You’d figured out too much by then all on your own. But the agency picking you up at The Kettle, that was necessary. I couldn’t have you hop that transport to Colombia. It wasn’t part of my tactical plan. You, baby, had to stay put in California.”
My jaw dropped and I couldn’t fucking believe my ears. “Are you saying it was all a farce and a setup? Even me being in Newport Beach with Ella?”
He arched a brow, looking not the least bit apologetic. “I know my man. His hot buttons and what you’ll do when they’re pushed. Yes, I wanted you in Newport Beach with Ella”—his amber eyes simmered—“and angry enough not to come back to me in Mexico.”
“Would you care to tell me why? Isn’t it time to?”
His gaze faded into something opaque and intense. “I’d prefer to leave it at you had the most critical mission on the team and carried it out brilliantly. I knew the first night I met you that you were the one for me. That you wouldn’t let me down. Not in any way. When I say I can’t believe I’ve found you, it’s the truth, Graham. You own me and my heart. My perfect partner in everything, in more ways than we could ever find with any other man. Perfect in bed. Perfect in life. Perfect in everything.”
Was he fucking kidding me? Flowery speech blended with partial disclosures at this of all moments.
“Your perfect partner? You have a fucked-up perspective on things. How about I’m the guy you used and manipulated, and then when confronted, you don’t even have the decency to explain what for. How do I fit in with whatever the hell you did in Bogotá?”
His eyes locked on mine. “You made it possible for me to do the things I had to do. To get on that plane with your team, block out all thoughts but the mission, and get it done.”
He paused as if aware my thoughts were spinning, and I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t already shut this down and hotfooted it out of here. But my body was rooted in place, and both logical responses—fight or flight—were quickly ebbing inside me.
“Baby, we just prevented a dirty bomb from going off in the US. You and me, Graham. That’s how you fit into Bogotá.”
I sank my fingers in my hair and tightened them until it hurt. “I wasn’t in Bogotá. I was in a fucking isolation cell.”
One golden brow lifted. “The CIA picking you up was not part of my plan. That you did to yourself by deciding to come after me. And while it may seem boorish at this point to tell you this, I’ve never loved you more than when I realized you’d picked coming to my rescue over your doubts about me and what I was doing.”
“You don’t love at all, Lee. You play with people.”
His expression stiffened as if he’d be zapped by electricity, and I regretted the jibe. Exhaling, I took a moment to regroup. “What’s the TDA, Lee? I’ve never heard of it.”
His jaw set in that stubborn way he had. “If you know enough to ask me, you know enough to know I can’t tell you.”
Point taken without further argument. I’d worked for the CIA. I knew the drill. Still, I needed enough of my suspicions confirmed to come to grips with where Lee had left us and where I was going next.
“Then let me venture a guess,” I suggested stiffly. “It’s a unit deep in the black hole of the intelligence community. Beyond oversight and control of the elected officials in Washington. I knew it existed. It’s part of why I don’t work for the CIA anymore. It was time to cut ties before I went too deep and did things I was morally opposed to. That’s what the TDA is. The CIA’s new brain child: the Terrorism Defense Agency. No rules. No eyes watching. No accountability. How am I doing?”
His eyes did a slow roam of me. “From what I can see, you’re doing fucking fantastic. It makes it hard not to kiss you.”
The two poles inside me reared: my disdain for being manipulated into something I opposed being a part of and my love for him.
“How could you hijack my life this way and not tell me?” I hissed in disbelief.
“I did no such thing. I fell in love with a man and let him love me.”
We warred with our eyes and the air grew acute. Spin, spin, spin. Same old Lee. But it wasn’t same old me. Nope, wasn’t going to play this game anymore.
“I’m getting the hell out of here. I don’t want any part of this. Not for another day. Have a nice life, Lee.”
His composure snapped. “You make it sound like what I’m doing is wrong. I love my country as much as you do. It’s been my work since they recruited out of college Leland Jensen the third, bored, rich, do nothing worth doing for anyone. They asked and I chose to serve. To make a difference with my life. If anyone should be able to understand, it’s you, Graham. I serve and protect. In a different way, but it’s the same thing you do. And the rules and the secrecy makes it fucking impossible to have a life with someone worth having it with. Richard and I shared our work, but him being at my side got him killed and I didn’t want that again—”
He choked up and his face was wild with unleashed emotion in a way I’d never seen before. I was about to say something—I don’t know what—when he closed the space between us.
“I tried it the other way,” he continued feverishly. At my confusion, he quickly spat: “Jamie.”
Hearing that name was like blasting me with molten lava. “If you fucking take us there, Lee, I swear to God I’ll use my fist to stop it.”
“Damn it. Why do you have to be so touchy about my ex-husband? He’s my mistake. I’m trying to explain the parts I’m allowed to talk about to help you realize how we got here, to this place we’re in. And that it’s not as awful as you believe it is. In fact, it’s fucking wonderful in every way.”
“Jamie’s a turn you don’t want to make,” I warned, the tic in my cheek twitching.
“He was a fucking nightmare. I’m the one who should get angry when his name is mentioned, not you. Guys from the civilian world aren’t like us, Graham. He was nothing I needed. He was suspicious, and unfaithful when I had to travel for work, and not worth my time. I never wanted to make that mistake again. I figured I was going it alone forever and then I met you. Steadfast. Pragmatic. Loyal. Honest. Loving. A good man in all ways and I thought, yes, with him we’d have a shot of being what I needed with a man, and we became us.”
I didn’t have a clue what that one meant and frankly I didn’t care at that point. “There is no us, Lee.”
His eyes shot wide. “Don’t say that. There isn’t anything but us, baby.”
Held in his unrelenting, pleading eyes, I decided it was in my best interest to shut this down and take some time alone to sort through the debris. I wasn’t ready for more answers—it’d put me on overload status—and it was time to stop this.
I briskly moved toward the open car door.
“Wait,” Lee demanded, as discomposed as I’d never seen him. “You can’t just walk out on me. Not this time. Not again.”
I paused before climbing into the driver’s seat. “I’m not walking out on you. I’m getting in the car and heading for home. It’s a long drive to LA. Do us both a favor, Lee. Get your ass in the passenger seat and don’t talk to me again.”
I disappeared inside the car, shut my door, and waited. He’d follow, but the not talking to me part I was confident wasn’t going to happen.
Fuck, why was I letting him drive back to LA with me? It would be a smarter move to leave him here. The sudden heavy pressure in my chest told me why I couldn’t do that.
For a few moments, Leland didn’t move and studied me through the windshield. I punched the ignition and tapped the gas to make the engine roar. Finally, he sprinted around the car and dropped down heavily into the passenger seat.
“I love you, Graham.”
Damn him. I pulled off the gravel road, merged onto the highway, and kept my gaze locked forward. “And I told you not to speak to me.”
* * * *
After four hours of fighting clogged southern California freeways, we were on the street to Alan Manzone’s house.
We’d both lapsed into silence halfway through the trip to Pacific Palisades. Lee, I thought, from the unsatisfying exercise of flapping his gums to himself with a man who wouldn’t look at him. And me—correction—I started the drive in silence and hadn’t altered course since.
As we waited at the gate for one of my men to let us in, Lee asked, “Where do we go from here?”
My muscles turned to tightened lead. “I’m collecting my mother and my gear and going home. I don’t know where you go, Leland.”
Out of my peripheral vision, I watched how that one hit him and was shocked it didn’t seem to faze him. He sat calmly slouched in his seat, staring forward and waiting for us to drive again.
I parked in front of the house, opened my door, and was about to climb from the car when he said, “You don’t have a right to be angry, Graham. You nearly ruined everything with that stunt of taking pictures of my meeting and shuttling it off to the CIA. You could have gotten me killed. If they hadn’t landed on Jena’s desk, we’d all be fucked now. Mission terminated. Bomb detonated. But I know why you did it and I’m not angry. I’m still loving you and all in, baby.”
I wasn’t even close to forgiving Leland, but that one landed brutally anyway. My gray eyes bore into his amber. “Then it’s good we’re going our separate ways.”
His eyes flashed. “I trusted you with my life, and you can’t even trust me with your heart.”
“You trusted me with lies.”
“I trusted you to do the right thing and with Ella, you stubborn SOB.”
He left me sitting there, his car door open and me staring at his back as he rushed up the steps and disappeared into Alan’s house.
I leaned over, slammed shut his door, and rose from my seat. Lee was a last-word freak, even in a breakup.
My stomach formed into a knot.
We were really fucking over this time; I could feel the reality of that in my body. I’d no sooner gotten on the steps when the front door burst wide and Alan shot out, taking me in a firm hug.
“Thank God you’re all right, buddy.”
He patted me hard on the back. It was nice someone had worried about me in all this, though it wouldn’t be nice explaining I’d been out of the mix at the hot zone, riding a cot in the California desert instead, thanks to the CIA.
Drop-kicking those memories away, I gave him one hard pat and stepped back. “You get your car back?”
He laughed. “Fuck the car. It showed up one morning in the driveway.”
“Was your money still in it?”
“Yes, and that’s when I started to panic and wonder if something went wrong with you. What the hell happened?”
I was too drained to go into the weeds of this discussion.
“There was a second case in the trunk. Was my gear still there?”
His black brows shot up. “No. Just the money.”
Great, the fucking CIA took my grab bag and portable arsenal.
“Why don’t you come in and have a drink, Graham? You look exhausted, like you’re ready to drop.”
I nodded. “I am. But I think I should just grab my mother and head for home. She hasn’t been any trouble, has she?”
Alan looked amused by that. “Patty. No, she’s lovely. Chrissie and the kids have loved having her here. I think they voted to keep her.”
I laughed. “I owe you, Alan.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and guided me into the house. “You don’t owe me anything, ever, Graham. Remember? Let me go find Patty for you. It could take a while. She’s made herself at home here.”
We were both laughing as we parted ways in the foyer, but the scene in the living room caused me to pause mid-step. Leland was there, with Ella in his arms, and how he was lavishing her with kisses betrayed he hadn’t seen her since his return from Bogotá.
Jesus Christ. He’d come to me first.
Then it hit me between the eyes—this time when I leave, I would leave without Ella. Raging pain tore through my middle and I couldn’t comprehend not being with her. She’d become my daughter during that farce that was Leland and me.
My child.
Tears burned behind my lids. I slipped away before any of them saw me, and double-timed it to the bedroom Chrissie had put me in when I’d first arrived.
I grabbed my duffel and started shoving into it the junk I’d left here. There wasn’t much to pack up, just a few things I’d deliberately left behind to reassure Ella that my unexpected absence didn’t mean I wasn’t coming back.
A knock sounded against the door I’d stupidly left open. “Graham, are you all right?”
Patricia—and for once calm and not pushing at me.
I nodded but didn’t look at her. “I’m fine, Mom. Is everything OK with you?”
She made a short laugh. “I’m great. This place is better than Club Med. You don’t have to worry about me, son. Take care of you. I just wanted you to know I was here if you needed me.”
A lump lodged in my throat, making it damn near impossible to breathe. Fuck, why did it sound like she knew what had gone down the past two weeks? It wasn’t possible for Patricia to know anything. But the hairs on my arms standing up warned that she did.
“I’ll be out in a little while, Mom, to take you home. Can you shut the door and give me a couple minutes by myself?”
I felt something press against my back—her cheek—followed by a kiss. “No hurry. You take all the time you need, Graham.”
She left and closed the door behind her.
What the fuck was that about?
My insides were twirling, my limbs had no strength, and after the moments with Leland in the desert there was still that sensation that I was in the center of something not fully clear to me.
I sank down on the bed and my weight caused something to flutter beside me. What was this? I picked up the envelope, saw the writing, and my heart stopped.
In a neat, precise printing I knew well:
Patricia,
If you don’t hear from me by June first, please give this to Graham.
Love,
Leland.
Oh God. I told myself not to read it—I knew what it was without opening it—but I ripped it open anyway and something fell as I pulled out the sheets.
My eyes burned as I lifted the ring from my lap, and I made a fast swipe to clear my blurry gaze as I fixed on the paper.
Love of my life,
I know what you’re thinking as you read this. I’m a lying, manipulative bastard, but I’m a guy trying to love a guy in difficult circumstances. Am I different than any man with pieces of life that don’t fit well together? A partner I love. And a job that at times is too demanding and makes me do things I would rather not do. Be angry. Hate me. But do it for the right reasons.
I’m a man trying to love my man while protecting my country. But I couldn’t let you know who I really am or what I do for the TDA. That’s the deal you make when you sign on with the agency to serve our country this way. You live a double life, even with those you love the most. You tell me, how would you make that work?
First, let me touch on the issue of Patricia’s birthday party. What I’m sure you’ll think a trivial thing, but it’s anything but that for me, baby. What you thought of me was wrong: I didn’t go north just for a fast fuck with you. I went to the party to personally set “my letter” in Mom’s hands.
I know enough about Patricia to know nothing would get that letter from her or from her delivering it to my heart on this day. All men before going out on deployment write a letter to the people they love and have someone they trust to have their back holding it in safekeeping. You’re the man I love. And for me there was no one I’d more trust than Patty with both our hearts.
I also know my man well enough to know you’ve figured out a thing or two by now all on your own. I’m confident you have it all worked out by now. Who I am. What I do. And the things that have kept you from loving me completely.
My details are not necessary at this point. Your details very necessary, because I’m sure you don’t understand what this last year of loving you has been for both me and you.
See, if I were to guess, you’re feeling shut out, pissed off, betrayed, and lied to. I could see it in your eyes and it hurt like hell, baby, not to crack and tell you everything.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t risk you being determined to be in the hot zone protecting me, and that’s what you would have insisted on doing if I’d told you everything.
On a team, we’re each assigned a task. Mine was to infiltrate the cartels and stop bad shit from happening. Yours was more important. I assigned you the most critical mission of all my men.
Your job was to stay behind and keep safe my two hearts: you and Ella. I couldn’t have gotten on the plane to do what I had to do any other way. And I didn’t want you in the field with me because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you the way I’d lost Richard. And I couldn’t think of a better man to trust my daughter’s future to. I knew nothing would stop you from protecting her, and if I didn’t make it back, there was no one better to step into my shoes and love her than my man who is loved by us both.
If Patricia delivered this, I’m thinking things didn’t go well with me in Colombia. Please, let the answers in this letter be enough. Let go of whatever went down. Remember only the days of me loving you and you loving me.
Lastly, I know your inclination is to save this letter. You’re the more sentimental of the two of us, at times. But it does prove that the bigger the man, the softer they can be.
Laughter pushed through my tears and emotion clogged my throat. Even in this he had to include one of his terrible puns.
Keep the ring I bought to marry you with, but don’t save this letter, baby. There’s enough in here to get us both in trouble with the government. Have my back as you always have on the off-chance I’m not dead and merely late in getting home.
Burn it. And as you watch it disappear in the flames to ash, think about how we burn when we’re together.
With all my love, forever and always,
Lee
God damn him.
Carefully, I refolded the pages and slipped them back into the envelope. I stared straight forward, seeing nothing as I turned the ring over and over in my hand and my emotion drained from my body with my tears.
When at last I was steady enough, I did a fast stop in the bathroom to wash up and put on fresh clothes before I headed out onto the patio to light a fire pit and burn the letter.
The sheets curled up as the bright gas-fire flames of blue and yellow devoured the one and only letter Lee had ever written me.
Think about how we burn when we’re together.
I was burning from head to toe, and not sure what the fuck I should do now. The coolness of the ring clutched in my hand pulled me from my thoughts. I slipped it on. Fuck, a perfect fit. Lee never failed at anything.
I was about to turn back into the house when I heard laughter on the other side of the privacy fence that surrounded Alan’s back patio.
Then voices.
My men.
My team.
They were together at the house Dillon lived in on Alan’s property. I couldn’t bug out without checking in on my team.
Crossing the lawn at a brisk clip, I tried to ignore my roiling emotions and focused on my relief the guys were home and safe.
Dillon.
Jared.
Jamal.
Weston.
Clark.
And in the center of the circle, holding court over them all, was my lion, Leland.
They stood together in that way men did after surviving a battle, rapidly talking at each other, overly animated, and bodies restless from the pumping adrenaline still in their veins.
Seeing them did make me feel shut out of the action and like I’d failed them not being in the mix by their side.
Lee was right: if I’d known everything, nothing could have kept me from Bogotá.
When Jared noticed me, he held his hands, palms up, in front of him and scurried backward until the house stopped his escape. “Hey, Graham, it’s not my fault. I was just following orders. I did what I was told—”
Avoiding Lee’s amber stare, I clutched Jared’s jaw with a hard press of fingers. “Fuck you, Jared. Don’t you ever cut me out of the loop on anything or take my men out without me again.” Then, so he’d know I wasn’t irreparably pissed, I pulled him into a firm hug. “Glad you’re home and safe.”
I went next to Dillon. “Offer you the opportunity to command my team, and what do you do? You take it. And I couldn’t have done better, by the sounds of what went down.”
Laughing, we gave each other firm pats on the back. “You did the hard part single-handedly, Graham. You took out the cell that was going to carry out the attack. All we had was a few Hadji and a suitcase bomb. You were the hero. We were just the cleanup team for you.”
“Hmm, I can live with that version of events, wrong though it is.” All the men chuckled. “Outstanding work. Every one of you.”
I went from man to man, shaking hands, patting arms, and letting them know I was proud of them and reminding them I was still their team leader even if they did take a hop without me. It was what a leader did after combat that kept a team together and strong, and whatever yet-to-be-resolved issues I had with Leland wouldn’t prevent me doing that.
Finally, after shooting the shit with my men a quarter hour, there was no avoiding him.
I turned toward Lee, debating what direction to go.
Oh, fuck it.
I surrounded him with my arms, crushed him to my chest, and planted my lips on his mouth. He stiffened—not in the good way—and I wondered if it was shock I wasn’t hitting him or shock I was kissing him right there surrounded by my team.
I’d lived openly gay since the age of fourteen and my reluctance at public displays had nothing to do with junk with these men. It was part of my character. Perhaps having always lived a military life and having been an officer, I wasn’t a man who kissed and touched in public. But I trusted every one of these men with my life, and Lee was my life now.
Lee broke the kiss first and anxiously searched my face. “What happened? You’re not angry anymore.”
“Oh, I’m still pissed off. Well, maybe just a little. But nothing you can’t fix later.”
It was then he noted I was wearing his ring. His eyes flared wide. “Patricia gave you my letter. Fuck, I always forget one thing. I forgot to call her and tell her not to give it to you.”
I kissed him again. “I’m glad you forgot. Otherwise I wouldn’t be marrying you.”