He followed, still brailling the cave. When he came to a rock formation, instead of climbing up, which felt logical, he reached out with his other hand, found the wall on the other side, and continued. The rock narrowed, and he aimed the light down to a small tunnel. He knelt before it, trying to imagine Lacey crawling through.
No. She would have sensed folly in that. He stood and continued tunneling through the darkness, his eyes half closed.
Please, Lord, give me vision beyond the obvious.
The fact that God had heard his prayers and unveiled John’s killer—the real killer—had sprouted something hot and alive in Micah. It only grew when he followed the tunnel left as it veered away from the entrance tunnel. He heard the faint trickle of water running over rock.
He whirled toward the sound. Lacey’s survival skills would have told her that water meant life. And possibly an outlet.
He stopped in a cavern and scanned his light across the room. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like giant drips, and a crystal-clear lake mirrored the jagged ceiling. On the other side, aragonitic bushes, magical in their whiteness and crystalline shape, bloomed like wildflowers in the eternal night. He took a deep breath, somehow feeling that she’d been here. “Lacey?”
He held his breath. Heard nothing.
Please, Lucky Penny, stay put. Let me find you!
Micah walked to the water’s edge. Something—mottled water near the edge and disturbed silt—caught his attention. As if the water had been stirred. He walked along the edge of the lake, then flicked his light into the tunnel where the water flowed … out?
He stepped into the water. The cold stabbed him, yanked out his breath. If she’d tried to follow the current, she wouldn’t last long, not in this water.
He waded forward, feeling common sense calling his name and warning him away. But something, perhaps the burning in his chest, tugged him toward the passageway. He called out, heard her name echo. The current seemed stronger, and his legs started to numb.
He moved into the darkness, noticing that the tunnel had begun to close. This was folly. Still … he disregarded his breath, his thundering heartbeat. Listened.
Splashing.
He drove forward, pushing his light ahead. “Lacey?”
The sound echoed. The splashing stopped. He waded forward. The water rose to his hips, his waist. The tunnel narrowed, and he ducked under a rough mouth of rock that made him dip at the waist. Scooping up a mouthful of water, he choked and coughed. The rock ate the sound in a single gulp.
Then the mouth abruptly opened, and Micah stopped, mesmerized. He’d entered a cavern the size of a baseball field, where the stream slushed out to a small lake. The surface mirrored the centuries-old stalactites and columns and the limestone boulders the size of Volkswagen Bugs dislodged from an ancient earthquake. The stillness of the cavern pressed his ears.
“Lacey?” His voice sounded tinny and small in the great expanse.
He heard the splatter of rock. He flicked his light in the direction. Lacey stood, sopping wet, gripping a fist-sized boulder. “Micah!”
“You gonna throw that at my head?”
She stared at her weapon, paled, and dropped it. “No. I—” Then she looked up at him. “Micah. You’re—” she shook her head and her face crumpled—“you’re alive.”
He gave a slow smile as he waded toward shore. “Yeah. But more importantly, so are you. What are you doing in here?”
“I remembered the map, that a waterfall exits in the caves. I was following it downstream.” She shivered.
His throat tightened. He had no idea how far the river traversed the cave, but in the pit of his stomach he knew she wouldn’t have surfaced alive.
He climbed out of the water, and in two steps had her in his arms.
She hung on tight, her arms around his waist. “You found me. I can’t believe you found me.” Her voice sounded shallow, rushed. So utterly not Lacey.
“Are you okay?” Relief betrayed him in his racing heartbeat.
She felt so small, so suddenly frail. Where was the trained agent he’d seen kick Roland Berg in the teeth? “Honey, you’re scaring me,” he said.
“I’m okay,” she whispered but tightened her embrace.
His light illuminated the crystals stacked in the stones behind her, and they shone like diamonds.
“What’s the matter, Lacey?”
“I just thought … I mean, I thought you were shot, and then I thought it might be easier to live in this cave for eternity than face … that …”
He closed his eyes, letting her words burrow deep into the crevasses and tunnels of his heart. “Oh, Lucky Penny, I knew I’d find you.” He cupped her jaw and ran a thumb along its edge. “Shh.”
“Micah, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I never trusted you. I’m sorry I married John. I’m sorry I spent so many years trying to make you pay for …”
“For not saying I loved you?”
She looked up, and her beautiful eyes glistened. “You didn’t have to say it. I knew it. I saw it so many times.”
“I
do
need to say it.” He searched her face, seeing in her expression everything he’d remembered and more. He leaned closer and touched her lips with his.
Her arms moved up around his neck; she clung to him and kissed him back.
Then he realized why he felt whole and alive and real when she was with him. Why he’d spent his life trying to free the oppressed and find the lost. Because it was only with her that he felt both freed and found. Felt alive and as if he’d come home. Lacey belonged in his arms—just like she had when she’d fallen off the bleachers so long ago. And he was supposed to be the man to catch her.
“Lacey—” he wove his fingers into her hair, pushing past his sandbagged emotions—“I love you so much that it makes me ache. I can’t find the words—”
“That works.” She looked up at him, smiled, and tears ran down her cheeks. “I know I don’t deserve your love, Micah, but I’m so thankful for it.”
He rubbed her tears away with his thumb. “Don’t deserve it? I’m the one who should be dropping to my knees in repentance and angst. I’ve spent the last fifteen years furious with you and the last seven promising to send you to prison, if it was the last thing I did.”
“It’s not about deserving though, is it?”
He searched her twinkling eyes. “What are you talking about?”
She shrugged. When she smiled, he saw something alive. Something that hadn’t been there three days ago. Something he remembered from long ago.
“You know, God just might be using you, Jim Micah, to bring prodigals home.”
He wanted to leap or maybe sing at the top of his lungs. Still, he could barely find his voice. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’m just sorry it took me so long to figure out that if I turned toward the light, I wasn’t going to get burned. But God showed me that His light was mercy and healing. Not horror.” Her quavering smile held the facets of grace. It made her … stunning.
Micah had always held an intellectual view of salvation. He knew he was saved because he applied Romans 10:9 to his life. But seeing redemption in Lacey’s eyes welled up a feeling so thick it made his eyes burn. It took on living color, sounds of hallelujah, made him want to dance. So this was how it felt to rejoice.
“I wish we’d been able to transmit Berg’s confession. He’s going to burn me the second he gets on the line to the NSA,” Lacey said.
Micah shook his head. “Oh, don’t worry about him. Conner popped him good, and he’s awaiting the NSA regulars in his pickup. I think that after I give my testimony and we dig up the North Korean lying at the bottom of the gorge, you’ll be a free woman.”
“Your testimony?”
He grinned. “Yeah, well, you forget I’m a decorated officer. I think they’ll put some stock into my statement.…”
“You’d do that for me?”
He frowned. “Do you not get it? I can’t wait to stand up for you. After the way I treated you I’m surprised you don’t slap me and run for the hills.”
“Oh, I’m hardly going to wallop the man who rescued me.” She ran her hand down his whiskered face.
“Hello? Not all these bruises are from Berg, you know.” He grinned.
Her smile dimmed. “We have a lot of ground to make up for, don’t we?”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “Yeah. But I like the sound of that.” Then he kissed her again, and this time he poured his emotions into the touch. She wove her hands into his hair and returned his kiss, completely obliterating any idea that John Montgomery still had her heart.
Micah backed away before she turned his knees weak and crumbled years of self-control and resolve. He was a healthy male, after all, and she had the power to turn his best intentions to cooked grits. The only time he planned to throw off his self-restraint was on their wedding night. Which, he hoped, wasn’t too far away.
“I’m in love with you, you know,” he said. “That feels so good to finally say.”
“Then say it again.”
“I’m madly, deeply, wildly in love with you, Lacey Galloway.”
She grinned and he saw in her eyes the mischief that had always made him feel just a little bit afraid and very, very alive. “It’s about time.”
Then she kissed him again, and he forgot all about being cold or the fact that they’d have to walk back through the murky water and the dank cave. He saw only the sunshine waiting at the end.
“Ready to go home?” he asked, breathing just a little harder than he should, as she pulled away.
She swallowed hard, and something like pain ranged across her face.
“What is it?”
She sighed, stepped away. His arms already felt cold and empty. “It’s Emily. She’s John’s daughter.”
“And?”
“Will that be a problem for you? I mean … I know you can’t have children. Will it hurt too much to have Em in your life?”
He blinked at her, his mouth opening. So that’s what Conner meant about giving away his secrets. Only this time hearing the truth didn’t rip open his heart. In fact …
Micah reached out and took her hand. “You know, God answers our prayers in mysterious ways. I guess He just knew that I needed to be Emily’s dad.”
Emily’s dad.
As they stared at each other, Micah’s throat grew thick and prickly.
“You’re going to be such a stellar father,” Lacey said, and tears crested down her grimy cheeks.
“I hope I’m an even better husband,” he said softly.
She smiled. “That, I’m looking forward to.”
He cupped her face in his hands, thumbed away her tears. “Me too.”
Slowly, she nodded, her eyes telling him everything he’d forced her to bury inside her heart for years. “Now, Jim Micah, please take me home.”
“LACEY, HURRY UP! The burgers are nearly finished!”
Lacey waved at Conner, who wore a crazy chef’s hat and apron over his turtleneck and jacket, as she cantered her horse through the yard. The smell of grilling hamburgers had her stomach doing cartwheels.
“Race ya!” Micah yelled from over her shoulder.
She turned, smiled at him, and shouted, “Yah!”
The cool late-autumn wind licked through her hair while she stood in the stirrups and galloped toward the barn. The sky smiled down on them today, a light blue with wispy cirrus, the smells of decaying loam and the last of the wildflowers in the air. “I’m winning!”
“Never!” Micah nudged up beside her. His shoulder had healed well, and even his leg seemed to be holding out. Then again, he could be bleeding from both ears and he’d still say he was fine.
She urged her horse forward, breathing hard, her thighs screaming. It felt like heaven to be riding again. She pulled the animal up just as they reached the trail to the paddock. She laughed, feeling full and alive. Whole. “I won.”
Micah rode up beside her. The wind had tousled his hair—now that he’d been discharged from military service, he’d let it grow out and it curled deliciously around his ears. His beautiful eyes took her in with one sweep, and the smile on his face did dangerous things to her heart. She wondered if the fact that she was going to marry this man as soon as she could put together a wedding would ever cause her
not
to gasp,
not
to feel overwhelmed.
God had brought her home. Back to Micah’s arms. Yes, there were times when she was wrapped in his embrace, beating him in Scrabble, or even debating him over theology, that she could hardly believe she was the same person.
Then again, she wasn’t. She’d been transformed. And this new Lacey, the one who could stay home and be a mom … well, the idea still knocked her off balance.
“Yeah, but I haven’t been on a horse for twenty years. Give me a month. You’ll owe me a chocolate malt.” Micah dismounted, grinning.
“I don’t know, old guy. I think you’re past your prime.” She giggled at his open-mouthed shock.
“Hardly. I’ll show you prime. C’mere.” He reached for her, hooked his hand around her neck, and kissed her.
It was all she could do not to step closer, wrap her arms around his waist, and forget that they were supposed to be attending their engagement party. She wanted to lose herself in the cool afternoon, the warm protection of his embrace, the sweetness of his touch.
He must have wrestled with his own temptation for he backed away, leaned his forehead against hers. “Okay, that’s enough.”
“Point taken, Soldier Boy.” She took a deep breath and forced herself away, started walking out Sugah. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Micah had spent more than a few hours wandering the hills of her brother, Sam’s, farm over the last month, and she had her suspicions that his hikes gave motion to his inner sortings.
“I dunno. I always thought I would be in the army. That the Green Berets were my calling. But maybe it’s not the calling that God changes. It’s the task.”
She glanced at him. The wind raked back his hair and lifted one corner of his jacket.
“Remember my life verse?”
“Micah 6:8, yeah. Something about doing justice and loving mercy.”
“And walking humbly with God. I thought by joining the commandos, I was living out that verse. And by resigning … well, I was failing God or something.”
Oh, Micah.
Sometimes his honor amazed her. Why, oh why, hadn’t she seen that years ago, instead of letting John sweep her into his adventures?