“Wait, you’re already thinking about your next gig? I thought you’d still be beating yourself up.”
“I’ve licked my wounds. At least I hope I have gotten to them all. I may have been terribly wrong about Gomez’s loyalty, but my plan still had merit.”
“I was just telling Olivia the same thing.”
“And I’m hardly ready to retire. The best thing to do is to get back into my routine.”
“Fair enough, but I don’t want to hear it, Pierre. Not now. I just want to relax.”
“As you wish. I have a great opportunity to discuss with you, but we can speak of it later.”
Jake tried to imagine which area of the world Renard targeted for his next affair, but he let his mind go blank.
“Can you tell me where you are now?” he asked.
“Far away from Argentina,” Renard said. “I have aggravated enough people in that nation that I fear for my hide. I’m sure there are several new people on the long list of hunters who desire my pelt on their mantles.”
“When will I see you again?” Jake asked.
“When the time is right, I will find you.”
Four days later, news headlines opined that a negotiated enduring peace in the Falkland Islands appeared imminent, and Jake drove home to his wife.
The thought of her companionship struck him as the sole reason he had escaped a life of cursed loneliness. Her presence in the world marked fate’s first deviation from its pattern of delivering him constant trials. His relationship with her marked the first since childhood where he felt strengthened and whole by investing emotional energy into it, as opposed to working uphill against something that drained him.
Linda served as his reason to come home alive.
She ran down the driveway before he could stop his Ford Fusion, and she jumped on him as he stepped from the car.
“I missed you so much,” she said.
“I missed you too, honey.”
“I was so scared that you wouldn’t come back.”
“I got scared a bit there, too. But nothing to worry about. Just another day changing the course of history.”
“Were you involved in all that crap down in Argentina?”
“You know that part of my freedom involves me saying as little as possible about what I do.”
“Forget it. I don’t care. I’m just so glad you’re alive.”
“I’m glad you’re here to be glad that I’m alive.”
As she released him, he realized how much he had missed the touch of her soft skin and her perfume.
“Come in,” she said. “I started dinner when you called from the airport.”
“What’s cooking?”
“Dolma.”
“Stuffed grape leaves. My favorite!”
“And my best dish.”
In his kitchen, Jake poked at fork at a dark green leaf rolled into a tight cylinder. Steam billowed from it, and he smelled spiced meat and rice.
“It needs to cool off!” she said.
“Kiss me while I’m waiting.”
He drew her in and pressed his lips against hers, and then she leaned back in his arms and looked at him.
“I prayed for you every day,” she said.
“Thanks. I needed all the help I could get.”
“I’m serious. I begged God to bring you home alive. I had bad feelings about this, the worst ever.”
“Okay, I get it.”
Wearing a hemp shirt, Jake’s brother entered the kitchen.
“No you don’t,” Nick said.
Jake released Linda.
“Huh?”
“You know I can sense when you’re in danger,” Nick said. “Or maybe I can sense when you think you’re in danger. Maybe it’s a combination of your reality and your perception, but whatever it is, this was the worst feeling I ever felt for you.”
“You’re supposed to hide that from Linda.”
“He couldn’t,” Linda said. “He grabbed his chest and doubled over onto the floor while we were watching television. How’s he supposed to hide that?”
“I can’t help it if he’s mister psychic. That’s just what he is.”
“But you can help it if you run off looking for danger again. You can stop this crap for me. I want my husband to be here with me. I want to grow old with you.”
“I’m fine,” Jake said. “I haven’t died yet.”
“By the grace of God,” she said. “And I wish you’d stop testing Him.”
Jake questioned the existing of his wife’s god, but he allowed himself to wonder if some benevolent force beyond his comprehension had spared him from probable or deserved death multiple times.
And he was certain that since some benevolent force had brought her into his life, he should try to stick around to enjoy her.
“Okay, honey,” he said. “The next time Pierre calls for me, I’ll tell him to go to hell.”
About the Author
After graduating from the Naval Academy in 1991, John R. Monteith served on a nuclear ballistic missile submarine and then as a top-rated instructor of combat tactics at the U.S. Naval Submarine School. He now works as an engineer in the Detroit area. He writes the award-winning Rogue Submarine series.