Secret Agent Minister (14 page)

“My heart,” she replied, getting up to pace and stomp through the wildflowers. “You’ve rescued me, saved me, kissed me, pushed me out of a plane and done just about everything in your power to keep me safe and alive. But you have yet to sit me down and have a real heart-to-heart talk with me—about us, I mean. About what’s happening between us.”

He turned away. She pulled him back around. “Don’t go all commando on me, either. Don’t shut me out. I just need to know. I trust you with my life, but can I trust you with my heart? Because, I don’t want to keep climbing mountains with you if I can’t.”

H
ere she was, traipsing up the mountain with him.

And he had yet to answer the burning question. The one about her heart.

Lydia huffed out a breath then turned to take in the spectacular vistas surrounding them. They were moving away from the stark orange-and-red canyon walls as they headed southeast. But there were plenty of hills and rocks ahead of them, literally and metaphorically. Lydia tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, instead of worrying about what was going on inside the head of the infuriating man beside her.

“You should know you can trust me,” he’d said, just like that. “You have to know by now….”

Then he’d simply grabbed her and turned her toward the foothills. “Let’s find some water.”

Lydia had been so shocked, so flabbergasted, that she wondered now how her head had managed to stay on. She wanted to scream, really loud. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything, except making her look childish and petty. Here she was, wanting a declaration of undying love from him, in the midst of running for their lives.

I am beyond help,
she thought, her gaze tracing the lone flight of what looked like a hawk up above them. Wishing, for a moment,
she
could just fly away, she remembered their emergency parachute jump and decided she’d had enough of flying for a while.

“This way,” he said, dragging her up a rock cluster.

Commando Dev. Intense, focused, confident, cool.

And scared to death of facing what his heart knew to be true. How could he not know? She’d told him she loved him. And she knew deep inside her own heart that he loved her back. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he protected her and watched over her. In the way he’d touched a kiss to her neck as they drifted to earth.

How am I supposed to convince him that his heart is safe with me, Lord?

Lydia didn’t have the answers to that question. She’d just have to tough it out. But once this was over—

He stopped, causing her to lose her footing. Pastor Dev caught her against him, straightening her as he pointed ahead. “See that little stream just beyond the ridge?”

Lydia pushed her hands through her hair then took a calming breath. “Yes, I could use some of that water.”

“We’re headed there right now.”

“Thanks for the update,” she retorted, fuming with a smile on her face.

He kept straight on. “I want to get that wound washed.”

“I want to get a bath.”

“That might be hard to do. We need to keep moving.”

“I was just wishing out loud.”

He wouldn’t look at her. He stared ahead as if his life depended on it, and Lydia reckoned it probably did. His love life anyway.

She didn’t get it. This man was fearless in the face of mortal danger, deliberate and thorough in preaching the word of God, but he was a real wimp when it came to baring his own soul and telling her the truth. Didn’t he know she’d take care of that part of things, that she’d nurture him, cherish him and love him enough to protect all of his carefully controlled defenses?

Apparently not.

“How much longer?” she asked, wondering if he’d get the hidden meaning of that question.

He didn’t. “Not too far now. We’ll stop and rest up at the stream, then one more ridge or two and I think we’ll be near Eli’s property. We should be somewhere between Four Mile Canyon and Dry Hollow. Eli’s place is way off the beaten path, but I think we’re on the right track.”

“That’s good.” He was
so
off the right track for getting in touch with his emotions, she thought. Maybe she should just tell him that, get him good and mad and talking. Talking in real words instead of tried-and-true clichés.

Off the beaten path. On the right track. “Whatever,” she said, then realized she’d actually spoken that word out loud.

He finally chanced a look at her. Lydia hoped her smirk would get him riled, but it didn’t. He just tugged her toward that welcoming body of cool water.

“Sit,” he ordered, nodding toward a fallen tree on the water’s edge.

Lydia sat, but not because he’d ordered her to do so. She was tired and thirsty and her arm was throbbing as if a woodpecker had chosen her arm instead of a tree. She pushed at her hair, wiped at the grime on her face then took another deep breath.

“Here.” He pulled her around. “Can you reach the water for a drink?”

Lydia fell to her knees, then cupped her hands in the clean water, grabbing a handful of the glistening liquid to bring it to her dry lips. She took a long gulp, then another, letting the extra stream down her face. “That is so good.”

Pastor Dev did the same, then washed his face and ran his wet hands over his hair. “Okay, let’s get your arm cleaned.”

Lydia didn’t argue. She sat still as he gently splashed water over the deep gash. The water burned its way down into the ugly injury. “I’ll have a scar,” she said, looking up at him as the wound was washed clean.

He stopped, his fingers tracing the pink welt of the deep nick. He didn’t speak. He just held his fingers there as if to heal her with the strength of his emotions.

And Lydia could feel the heat of those emotions, the warmth of his touch, pouring through her wound. She reached out a hand to his hair, pushing the short, damp strands back from his forehead. “It feels better.”

He looked up at her then, his blue eyes blinding her with a need that mirrored her own, his words low and rough. “I think you’ll have more than this one scar, Lydia.”

He moved away from her to sink back in the grass and dirt, his wet hands moving over the five-o’clock shadow on his face. “How could I let this happen?”

Lydia felt a tug in her heart. Was he gearing up for some soul-searching? She sank back beside him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He looked at her wound again. “Yes, it is my fault.”

“You sure do seem bent on taking all the blame for everything. Why is that?”

He glanced away, out toward the mountains in the distance. A gentle breeze played around them, and he held his face up to the wind. “Because all of this is my fault, from the very beginning. Isn’t it amazing, how one act can cause a whole ripple effect on so many people’s lives?”

Lydia wanted to know what that one act had been. He’d hinted enough. Maybe he was ready to confess what he thought was his greatest sin.

“Are you going to hold it all inside? Or can you talk to me about it?”

He dropped his hands over his bent knees, shaking his head. “You know, I need to practice what I preach. I need to remember that I, too, sometimes need spiritual counseling.”

Lydia glanced around. “Well, since I’m the only one available, you can talk to me. I’m not a trained counselor, but I am a good listener.”

He looked into her eyes then, branding her with a sweet longing. “Yes, you are, that’s for sure. You’ve always been my good listener. All those years we worked together, side by side—I can see it so clearly now. You were always the one I turned to, for advice, for guidance. You were my quiet strength, Lydia. My rock. I took you for granted, but no more. Never again.” He shrugged, looked down at his hands. “But this…it’s just so hard. I’ve held my secrets so close, for so long now—”

“We’re in this together, Pastor Dev.”

He touched a finger to the ugly tear in her arm. “Lydia, why don’t you just call me Dev?”

Lydia should have been thrilled that she’d managed to jump over another hurdle, or in this case, get up another hill. But his request only made her want to cry. Her words trembled and tripped over her lips. “You’ll always be Pastor Dev to me.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, things have changed. I’m no longer that man. And you’ve changed, too. It’ll hit you once we get home. You’ll be going along, everything fine, your life back to normal…and then, you’ll remember the gunshots, or the reaction you had to the pesticides in New Orleans, or how you almost died several times over and you’ll know that things will never be the same. You were right about normal, Lydia. There is no normal.” He got up to stare down at her, his finger hitting his chest. “And I did that to you.”

Not one to back off, Lydia lifted up toward him, grabbing him by the arms. “But you also did this to me.”

She kissed him, her efforts gentle and sweet, her aim to show him that he hadn’t ruined her innocence completely. He’d given her the strength to show him how much she wanted to love him. She kissed the lone tear that streaked down his face. She kissed the dirt smears on his jaw. She kissed the scrapes and scratches on his cheek and across his nose. Then she looked into his eyes, closed her own eyes and kissed him on the lips.

He resisted at first, but after a still, silent struggle she could feel with the intake of his breath, he finally gave in and returned her kiss. And for a brief moment, all the ugliness and bitterness was washed away, gone, forgotten. Forgiven.

Lydia pulled back to stare up at him, her hands cupping his face. “You did that, for me. You made me stronger. You made me follow my heart. And it brought me to you.”

He backed away, gulped air. “Don’t count on that.”

Lydia felt tears piercing her eyes, but she held them back. “Oh, but I am counting on that. I’m depending on you to do the right thing. Or rather to do the thing that you know is right—for both of us.”

He turned to stare at the mountains, his hands on his hips. “We need to go.”

Because she was bone-tired and highly alert to his denial, Lydia prepared to dig in her heels. “So you’ll just turn away, shut down, refuse to let me help you the way you’ve helped me. Why is that…Dev?”

He pivoted to face her, his expression full of torment. “You don’t need to know everything. I don’t want to tell you everything. I’d like to keep part of you the way you were.”

She didn’t doubt that. He wanted to keep her as meek, mild-mannered, plain little Lydia. He wanted to keep her at arm’s length, when they both knew she belonged in his arms. And he needed to be in her arms, too.

“Too late,” she retorted. “Way too late.”

That angered him. He stalked closer, his hand swinging through the air, slicing, chopping away at his frustrations. “You want to know and understand the real Devon Malone, Lydia? Well, here it is—the short version. I’ve betrayed my best friend to protect someone else I love. Eli was losing it down in South America. It had been a long, grueling mission, trying to find this girl who didn’t want to be found and bring her home safely to her worried parents. Eli wanted to get home to his wife. She was eight months pregnant with their first child. I became concerned about him—he talked about getting things done his way. Eli always was a hothead, always impatient and hard to restrain, but he was so worried about his wife and child, he became careless. He was about to compromise the whole mission by just going in with guns blazing. So I discussed it with some of our superiors. They tried to take him off the mission, and he blamed me for that.”

She held up a hand, shocked and confused, but determined to keep him talking. “What happened down there?”

“Too much happened,” he shouted, his words echoing off the nearby mountains. “Too much. Before I brought things to a halt, Eli had been undercover on his own, trying to get in with the powerful cult members. So instead of heeding my warnings and the orders from CHAIM to take a time-out, he went out on his own to keep things moving.

“We had to be so careful, we could only sit and wait. But Eli showed up again with the information we needed to go in and get the girl. We had to be very careful after that, and wait until we could find her. These people—they were part of a large drug cartel and they got suspicious. We think somebody tipped them off with the wrong information, because they thought we were undercover DEA.

“They followed us onto the river and ambushed the boat as we were bringing the girl out. The girl was killed. Eli and I got away, but he knew he was in trouble. And he blamed me for turning on him. He said some things—claimed I’d messed things up with my delays and worries. So now, he had our superiors on his case and these unscrupulous drug lords chasing him and threatening his family.”

He stopped, leaned down, his hands on his knees as he sucked in a deep breath. “When Eli got home to Louisiana, his wife was gone.”

Lydia gasped, her knees going weak. Sinking down on the fallen log, she looked across at him. “Dead?”

“Not at first. They took her, held her. We couldn’t find her for a long time. Eli went berserk and disappeared, trying to find her, searching all over Louisiana and then down in South America. But…in the end, it was too late, we thought, for Eli and for his family.” He stood then, tears streaming down his face. “We
thought
it was too late. We couldn’t find Eli, but we finally found her. We tried to save her.”

Lydia’s heart was thumping so loud, she could hear it racing like distant thunder. “What do you mean?”

“His wife was in a coma for weeks. Weeks. But he didn’t know. He never knew.”

“You mean…you never told him?”

“We couldn’t locate him. He was distraught and half-mad with grief. It was so bad that by the time CHAIM got to him…he had to be hospitalized. He was a threat to everyone, too dangerous and distraught to be out on his own. We had to get him some help, for his own sake. We sent him to a safe place to heal.”

“The retreat?” she asked, swiping at her tears. “And that’s why he blames you? Because you started this whole thing by trying to help him?”

Dev lifted his head. “In his mind, the time it took to delay the situation in South America, time used to control him and keep him from finishing the job, caused the problem. We could have been in and out, but I had to make sure he was up to it. So I held him back a few days, based on advice from CHAIM, and that gave this cartel time to get suspicious. Then we were compromised and we had to rush in after this girl and…everything just went crazy.”

Lydia tried to state it in terms he could understand. “You failed at your mission.”

“Yes, but worse, I failed my friend. I’ve failed him.”