LEIF (Blake Security Book 3) Page 5

  “It’s hotter than hell out here,” Gonzo said, as if maybe I hadn’t noticed. We may not be expecting an attack, but—out here—we were always ready for it. My helmet was on and so were my goggles. I had on my body armor underneath my fatigues and fire retardant gloves. There was a radio hanging off my hip with a wire that ran up and connected to the speaker on my shoulder. My M4 Carbine was resting against the dash in front of me, and the M9 pistol was locked and loaded and on my hip. It was hotter than hell—and all of that equipment only added to the level of discomfort.

  “Yep.” Gonzo didn’t need any more response than that. It took him about a second to think of something else to talk about, and for the next ten minutes, he droned on about his girl back home. I strongly considered ordering him to shut up, but just because I hated my life, it didn’t seem like a good enough excuse to take it out on him. He didn’t mean to be annoying. Some people just can’t help it.

  When we got into the partially destroyed and deserted town, I stopped thinking about Karli long enough to focus all of my attention on the buildings coming into view. My job at that moment was to spot a sniper on top of one of the buildings before he spotted us. I also had to watch out for abandoned vehicles, or worse yet, quick moving vehicles that might be on a suicide mission. We passed through the torn up village without incident, and Gonzo pressed down on the accelerator as soon as we got to the dirt road that led toward camp. We were a few miles out when I spotted a dust cloud on the road that led up to the one we were on. It was a little white pick-up…and it was coming in fast.

  “Keep an eye on this guy,” I told Gonzo as my radio crackled to life.

  “Senior Sergeant First Class Thompson…”

  “Thompson here.”

  “What’s going on up there?” The little truck pulled onto the road in front of us and slowed down to a crawl. I heard Gonzo curse and hit the brake. We fishtailed slightly before he got us going straight on the road again. I couldn’t see who was driving the truck from where I sat because of all of the dust between us.

  “Just Granny out for a drive I hope,” I said into my radio to the escort behind us.

  “You gonna pass her, or are we escorting her to Sunday meetin’?”

  I chuckled. “We’re gonna see if she is in a Christian mood before we decide what to do,” I told him.

  “Copy that, sir. I’m just getting a little hungry and I forgot to pack my MRE.”

  “You’ll live, Fat Boy.” Fat Boy is my staff sergeant. His initials are F.B.—and that’s what he tried to go by when he got here. Once the team saw him eat, everyone started calling him Fat Boy. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him, but the boy could put away the groceries.

  We followed Granny for miles, and every so often Gonzo would have to almost come to a complete stop to keep from rear-ending the truck. He’d cuss each time—and more than once he asked me, “Can we pass her yet? I really think they might just be out for a Sunday drive.”

  “I might buy that if it wasn’t Tuesday.”

  “Yes, sir. It is, but I was just using a figure of speech.”

  “Yeah, I got that Gonzo. I also got a bad feeling in my gut. You see that turn-out up there…about twenty yards on the right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Swing off the road when we get there.”

  “Copy that, sir.”

  “Gonzo?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You don’t have to copy me when I’m sitting right next to you.”

  “Roger, sir.” I rolled my eyes and gave up.

  I watched the truck continue to move slowly, as Gonzo began to pull off the road. After that things began to happen quickly. The little pick-up hit the brakes…and the back-up lights came on. I remember grabbing my rifle and yelling at Gonzo to reverse. That was all I remember before there was a blinding flash, and I was consumed by searing hot pain. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever felt, and I was sure it had burned me all the way down into my bones. I remember Gonzo’s face. It was melting, and he was screaming. I tried to get my seat belt off so that I could get to the fire extinguisher. My fire retardant gloves were on fire, and the flames were licking their way up my arms. I couldn’t save Gonzo, and I was sure his melted face would be the last sight I ever saw.

  I woke up two weeks later in a hospital in Landstuhl, Germany with a tube in my throat and bandages everywhere else. Each breath forced into me by the machine burned like fire. The pain told me I was still alive. If I could have laughed, I would have. Death didn’t want me anymore than anyone else did.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  NEW ORLEANS

  PRESENT DAY

  KARLI

  I was dumbfounded. I’d never believed in fate or any of that superstitious crap but damn it if this man didn’t keep popping up in my life. Of all the places in the world he could have settled, I wasn’t surprised that he chose New Orleans. In as many ways as he could over the years, he let me know that he hadn’t forgotten me—and for whatever reason, he hadn’t given up. I was more surprised to know he was here and I hadn’t run into him already. Maybe he is crazy, I don’t know. Sometimes I worry that I’m crazy too—because every time I think he’s completely out of my head, I let him sneak back in. I wish he was ugly, or that I had someone in my life that I was interested in. But he’s not, and I don’t, so this ridiculous obsession on both our parts goes on and on. Now I was being forced to live in my mother and stepfather’s house and the object of my obsession will be sleeping right down the hall. Fate hates me, I think.

  I sat on my bed and pouted as my thoughts drifted back to the day Mack told me about his wife, Marilyn’s medical problems…

  NEW ORLEANS

  2014

  It was almost time for Hunter’s third birthday party and Sylvie was helping me set up. The rest of my family including Mack and his wife, Marilyn, were due any time—and Hunter was down for a much needed nap. Sylvie was married now to a guy that I really liked named Joe and they had a six-month-old daughter. I was so happy that she finally had everything she wanted and shamelessly a little jealous sometimes. I felt guilty for feeling envious of her, but I just wanted so badly for Hunter to have a father in his life someday. Even so, I wasn’t willing to settle for just anyone. Every man that I went out with had to pass the Hunter test. He had really good instincts about people, and so far none of them had passed the test. Hunter had hated them all. My mother and Sylvie told me more than once that they thought I was using his “instincts” to sabotage my own relationships. I told them both to come back to me with that when they got their psychology degrees. They just laughed as if I was kidding.

  “Why is this card in the waste can?” I turned to look at my friend, and she was holding up a card that had Lightning McQueen and a big number three on the front of it.

  “Because it’s trash. Put it back.” Of course she ignored me and opened it up.

  “It’s from him, isn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me he was still sending these?” I broke down and told her about Leif a few weeks after he left, and the truth that I’d found out about my original one, too. She was supportive, but still has some silly romantic notion that mine and the second Leif’s lives intertwined because of a nudge from fate or some kind of cosmic conspiracy. She thought that he was my soul mate and the one the universe intended for me all along.

  “Yes, it’s from him, two and a half years later. The man is crazy.”

  “Crazy in love with you,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes. “He doesn’t even know me.”

  “Answer a question for me Karli, have you ever poured your heart out the way you did in those letters to anyone else?”

  “Yes, you,” I told her, as I sat out plates and cups.

  She laughed. “I know you love me, but I’m taken. Now back to this gorgeous and persistent man….”

  “Will you stop it? It doesn’t matter if he is or he isn’t in love with me. It’s not my problem. He knows I don’t want his cards or his money. It’s crazy
for him to keep sending them for every holiday.”

  “You’re raising that baby on your own while you work full time and go to law school, which I know is very expensive because you never have money to go shopping with me anymore. You never did anything with the information the new Leif gave you on the old one so that baby could get benefits. You won’t take any help from your unbelievably rich stepfather—even though I know he generously offers it to you. Why do you want to torture yourself when you have all of this help at your fingertips?”

  I laughed. “I’m not torturing myself. Hunter and I do fine on what I make.”

  She slid the check that was in the card out and held it up in front of me. “You’d do a lot finer with an extra grand in cash.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not taking his guilt money. Now rip it up and put it back in the can.” She sat it down on the table instead, took me by the shoulders, and turned me to face her.

  “Why are you single?”

  I furrowed my brow at her. “What kind of question is that?”

  “A legitimate one, considering that you’re young and gorgeous and not crazy.”

  “I don’t need a man to complicate my life right now. I’m too busy to deal with anyone else’s drama.”

  “Karli…?”

  “Enough Sylvie. Everyone will be here soon. We need to get this done.” I slid out of her grasp and went into the kitchen to get the fruit platter. I cursed Sylvie under my breath. I’d put the card in the trash this morning, and I’d honestly put Leif out of my mind. He and his haunted green eyes were back now…and it was all her fault. As I grabbed the platter out of the refrigerator and turned, I saw her standing near the door with her arms folded. She wasn’t finished with me yet.

  “What Sylvie?”

  “Did he really do anything that bad?”

  “Are you kidding? You know what he did. He lied about who he was. He read my private mail, my personal thoughts, and he let me believe that a man I cared for was writing back…”

  “A married man that would have never written those sweet letters. Baby, that first Leif was out for a good time behind his wife’s back. This one…he was put in your life for a reason.”

  “The first Leif was, too. The reason is the little boy with the birthday today. Come on now, let’s get this party going, please.”

  “Okay, let me say one more thing and I’ll let it go.”

  “Right…”

  “He didn’t really lie.”

  “What?”

  “He is Leif Thompson. He told you that the things he told you in those letters were actually about his own life…”

  “And I’d be an idiot to believe anything he said. I’m done talking about Leif today, Sylvie.” She smiled as if she’d won and exasperated I said, “What are you smiling about?”

  “You said today.”

  “Oh my God…you’re crazy. Get the punch out of the fridge.”

  She laughed again as she pulled open the refrigerator, and as I went back into the dining room, I heard her say, “When was the last time you had sex?”

  “Sylvie! Hush!”

  “Why? Hunter’s asleep; we’re alone.”

  “What if my mother walks in?”

  She cracked up at that. “Your mother has probably had sex more in the last few years with that hot judge of hers than you’ve had in your entire adult life.”

  I made a face at the thought of Mom and Frank having sex. “Drop it, Sylvie.”

  I finally left her there, but she had me thinking about two things I didn’t want to think about: Leif and sex. Thankfully, not long after, I was saved from my own thoughts by the sound of the doorbell. It woke Hunter up and suddenly my house was filled with friends and family and an infant and a wild, spoiled, sugared-up toddler. Later that day, while I cut Hunter’s cake, I told myself once again that Sylvie was wrong. I didn’t need a man in my life to make it complete. I had my family and my friends, a better job than most women my age, a four-point-five grade point average in school…financially things get tough sometimes, but not devastating. I’m happy…for the most part…and a man would just add a complication I didn’t need. And what I especially didn’t need was a man with issues with telling the truth. While I liked to refer to his letters and his flowery words, for all I know, he copied those words out of a book. I don’t know him, and when I’m being honest, I have to admit that I didn’t know Hunter’s father either. I don’t trust my ability to pick a man who won’t hurt me, so I’d rather just not have one. She is right about one thing though; it has been a really long time since I’ve had sex. That, I miss.

  *******

  “Karli, will you come in here?” That Monday morning when Mack came in he looked really distracted and unhappy. I left him alone, thinking he was probably just focused on his closing that he had to give this afternoon in court. Now he was yelling instead of using the intercom. Something was definitely up. I picked up my tablet and went into his office.

  “Good morning, boss.”

  “Mm hmm…” He looked like he was on the verge of tears. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if he actually cried. Mack was a rock. Nothing ruffled him. This must be bad.

  “Mack, what’s wrong?”

  “Marilyn is sick.”

  “Sick? How?”

  “She has breast cancer.”

  “Oh my God!” I went over and bent over his chair and pulled him into a hug. He did cry then, sobbing into my shoulder for a long time.

  When he finally got hold of himself, he pulled back, looked at me, and said, “I’m sorry. It’s just…God, Karli, what will I do without her? I’ll be lost and miserable. She’s my whole life. She’s been my whole life for over thirty years.”

  It was next to impossible for me to wrap my head around a love that would last three decades and still be so strong. If I had one wish, having that for myself would be it. “Is it that bad?”

  I handed him a tissue, and he wiped his face and blew his nose. With an embarrassed look, he said, “We don’t know yet. I’m sorry, Karli. I’m getting all worked up over something before I have all the facts. It usually annoys the hell out of me when people do that.”

  I smiled at him. I’ve heard him rant about his clients working themselves up over an “imaginary” guilty verdict before. It more than annoys him. “Don’t be sorry, Mack. I’m sorry you and Marilyn are going through this. What have they told you?”

  “The cancer is stage four, but it’s operable and they’re optimistic they can get it…”

  “That sounds promising.”

  “I hope so; I pray so,” he said with a forced little smile. “Oh, Karli, I’m sorry. I really didn’t call you in here to sob all over your shoulder.”

  “You can sob on my shoulder anytime. Lord knows I’ve done it to you more times than I can count.”

  He smiled again; this one looked more genuine. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you either. But I need to ask you a favor and I want you to know that it’s absolutely okay to say ‘no.’”

  “I’ll do whatever I can for you and for Marilyn.”

  “I know. It’s one of the reasons I love you. But this is work and it would involve you being separated from your son for a few days, so please say no if it’s too much…”

  “Okay Mack, what is it?”

  “I called you in to ask you a huge favor…if it’s too much you can say ‘no.’”

  “I can’t fly to Texas on Thursday and leave her all weekend…right after her finding out about this.”

  “Of course. I can rearrange things for you…”

  “I want you to go for me, if it’s okay?”

  “Go to the funeral?” Mack had a client who had been with him since the day he opened his office. She lived in New Orleans with her husband, who was extremely wealthy, for over twenty years. His children, who were grown when she met him, never treated her well. When he died, he left everything to her and his kids were furious. One son was arrested for making threats to her life, and a dau
ghter filed a lawsuit before he was even in the ground. The woman was overwrought with grief at the loss of her husband already, and then she was being accused of being a gold digger in a very public arena. She packed up one suitcase and went home to Texas to hide out from the media and get away from her hateful stepchildren. She’d planned on giving them as much of what her husband had left her as she could. If they’d only been patient. She died last week while the civil case was still waiting to be heard, and she actually left everything to what Mack termed “the ungrateful little bastards.” He’d been afraid they wouldn’t give her the respectful funeral she deserved, so he’d been working with her attorney in Texas. Because she’d been in the military, he’d been working with the people at Fort Hood Army Base, too, in order to arrange a sendoff he believed that she deserved.

  “I can go.”

  “Are you sure? I’d hate for one of us not to be there, but if it’s too much for you to leave Hunter, I promise I’ll understand.”

  “No, I’m sure it will be fine. Mom was probably going to have him for the weekend anyways. She won’t mind taking him an extra day. He loves staying over there and getting spoiled, and I could use a trip out of town, so it’s a win-win.”

  “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you…”

  “You show me all the time. Keep a positive outlook, okay? Your sweet wife is also one of the strongest ladies I’ve ever known.”

  He smiled. “I will do my best.”

  Little did I know that when I agreed to go to Texas it would send me right back into Leif’s life once again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT