I had to be honest with him, but I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I slid onto the floor, resting on my knees as I knelt beside his bed. I cupped his face in my hands and lowered my lips to his. I know he wasn’t expecting me to do this and all the while I was hoping I’d be able to stop, but I had to show him the emotions that were bottled up inside me. His arms encircled me, trying to pull me up onto the bed with him, but I couldn’t. I released him from the kiss. He tried to come back for another as I placed my fingers over his lips. “I love you so much, Ryan Faultz-but the last kiss can never happen. I guess you’ll just have to be happy with a piece of my heart.”
“I wish things weren’t so complicated between us.”
“Me too, but God has a purpose for everything.”
“I believe that too, but sometimes it’s really hard to accept.” He leaned toward me and kissed my forehead. “Sunrise isn’t far away; maybe we should try to get some sleep. I can be good, if you can,” he said sliding away from the edge of the bed and making enough room for me.
I told Candace I wouldn’t, but…
I lay down in the warm place he left when he moved over, turning my back to him and feeling the wonderful sensation of him holding me close, “Goodnight, Ryan.”
He kissed my shoulder and whispered, “Sleep tight.”
It was a good thing I wasn’t required to be in studio for the taping of the men’s show until four p.m. because it was after one in the afternoon before I finally stirred. It was the first time that Ryan actually woke before me. He was on his back staring at the ceiling when I rolled over.
“Good morning,” I yawned.
“Nope, baby girl, it’s afternoon.”
“What are you looking at?” I was trying to see what he was seeing in the ceiling tiles, because he seemed to be fixated.
He just kept looking up, ignoring my question.
“Okay,” I said, deciding to head for the shower, but just as my feet hit the floor he spoke.
“You scared me this morning,” came his simple statement.
I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about. I didn’t think it frightened him when I kissed him in the wee hours, nor when I finally told him how I really felt about him, so I was mystified, “About what?”
“You were talking in your sleep a little bit ago, but I thought you were awake.”
I knew I talked sometimes in my sleep, but I wondered what I could have said to scare him. “What did I say?”
“It was around eleven when I woke up because you were getting wiggly so I kissed your shoulder and you, very clearly said, ‘Make love to me.’” He swallowed, but continued, “It felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest, so I asked if you were sure.”
Now my heart was pounding with what I was obviously wanting in my sleep, “Go on.” Yet, I could tell he didn’t want to finish.
He took an unsteady breath. “You said, ‘Please, I need you so badly,’” he paused. “Then you were calling out his name, begging for him to take you and I realized you were still asleep.”
It was a strange sensation to be happy that Micah was still the man on my mind, and yet so sad to realize how it must have hurt Ryan to listen to me calling out for someone else.
I wanted to say I was sorry, but he’d known all along that I was deeply in love with Micah Gavarreen; I simply couldn’t apologize for that.
He stopped staring at the ceiling and got up and headed for the bathroom.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly as he walked away.
“You know I’ve only got one thing to say about this,” he turned and stared into my eyes.
I was a little concerned about the sharpness in his voice, but then I watched him wipe the corners of his eyes and I knew it wasn’t anger coming from him.
“He is one lucky son-of-a-bitch.”
Chapter Sixteen
“But I was told that the CIA wasn’t going to make an official presence in this latest skirmish,” the man said, studying the Americans with clear suspicion.
“We’re not,” David stated sternly, “but you can understand our concern about your success. You’ve managed to cut the flow of cocaine to the US dramatically, but when our operatives got a good lead about the latest effort to remove you from office, we decided to share the information. We are just here to offer you some suggestions.”
“Our informants tell us they are planning an attack on your personal residence in less than two hours,” Micah added. “I suggest you move your family to a safe house. We have a helicopter standing ready to take you there and you can order your forces to lay in wait for the attack. The first group will be small, just to see if you are trapped in the building. They are planning to send a second wave of five hundred men to surround the hillside by your home and they will cut down everyone who gets in their path.
“They aren’t planning on stopping this time until they have destroyed you or at least sent a clear message to the people that they are tired of you standing in the way of their business. If your men take out the first small contingent, and then move to an air attack, you’ll have the upper hand. The only ones who will be surprised will be their men,” Micah finished.
“My intelligence people say I should be more concerned about a pair of hit men from the states posing as CIA trying to lure me away from the safety of my guards.”
Micah’s fingers itched to go for his guns, but he knew he’d be sentencing both he and David to death if he did. “Your lead intelligence officer, Montoya, was caught trying to send correspondence to the other side; I know he wanted to make sure you didn’t listen to us.”
“You can call Langley and verify who we are and why we’re here-” David began.
“Better yet,” Micah interrupted, “if you’re thinking this is some kind of trick, we’ll take the waiting helicopter. You have plenty of resources at your fingertips, call for your own transportation. Do you have somewhere you can safely wait to find out if we’re telling the truth or not?”
“Of course I do, but I wouldn’t be foolish enough to tell you where it is,” he stated, causing the group of Uzi toting guards to laugh uneasily. The place he bunkered in when trouble arose was not known, and the only reason why he had lasted so long for someone who opposed the drug lords so vehemently.
“Fine,” David said, standing and stepping away from the table, “just don’t ignore the danger posed to your family. We want to see you to continue to succeed. We’ll be at the Habitel Hotel until tomorrow at noon and then we are on a flight to Venezuela.”
Micah stood slowly, “One more thing, when this is over with today, you may want to dig a little deeper into your intelligence people. Montoya wasn’t alone in his efforts to help the other side and-”
The gentleman stood up and offered his hand to Micah, “I appreciate what appears to be an honest effort here to convince me that there is trouble within my organization, but I’m not even convinced that Montoya is guilty.”
Micah accepted the offered hand, gripping it firmly in his right as he clasped the man’s jacketed forearm with his left, allowing his hand to slide and pause. “That’s the problem with a good liar,” Micah stated locking eyes with the man, “he’ll make you want to believe he’s telling the truth. In a few hours you’ll know he’s the leak, but when you find that out, I would be suspicious of anyone loyal to Montoya.”
“That would prove difficult, because that would be about half my staff.”
Micah hesitated, expecting David to shake the hand of the deputy chief, but he was making no effort to make contact. David turned and opened the door and they walked out to the lobby. An attractive Spanish woman who appeared to be in her early thirties rose from the sofa, “Joaquin, what is this about?”
“You must be Mrs. Martinez,” David said, extending his hand to her.
She accepted it cautiously, still looking toward her husband.