02 Unforgivable - Untouchable (35 page)

It almost worked. He could still feel the pricking of his skin when Martinez exposed his suspicions. His training taught him if all was lost, make your target and accept your fate. It had been fated for him to draw his guns in that room and kill Martinez, but he overcame the urge and outwitted the death sentence. He had other plans to attend to when he returned to the States, but he would find out the answers he needed to this riddle one way or another.

Chapter Seventeen

We made it through the taping of the men’s show without Carrie giving me any trouble. I think she was still considering that I met her challenge in a most ‘un-princess’ like manner on our last go-round. I knew I’d face more problems with her, but the next time she’d calculate her attack a little more carefully.

Sadarius, as I hoped, turned out to be one of the best male singers in the group, and I knew he’d go far in this competition. A couple of the others were good, but he made them look amateurish.

As soon as the taping ended, I found Ryan and got out of there before Carrie could catch up to us. I really didn’t feel like a fight tonight, and besides, I wanted to get back to Colorado, back home to our place, a place I’d come to crave as a shelter from the rest of the world. Ryan appeared equally anxious.

Saturday morning I called my realtor, Jan Blakemoore only to discover someone put in an offer to buy the house I planned on leasing.

“
It’s not a full priced offer,” she stated matter-of-factly, “I know you’d been trying to decide between buying or leasing, so if you are really interested in the house we could put in an offer to purchase it.”

I wasn’t concerned about the price, but more so the commitment I wasn’t quite ready to make. “Is there anything else in that general area for lease? I don’t think I’m ready to own just yet.”

“
I’ll do a little research and call you back later.”

Within thirty minutes my phone was ringing with an excited realtor on the other end. “I found something even better, same neighborhood, but just came on the market this morning—and this one is fully furnished and has a pool.”

Ah, magic words to my ears. This time Ryan knew what was going on, so I invited him to come along. He was still against the idea of my moving out, but I could tell he liked the house.

“
I’ll be over here all the time in your pool anyway,” he playfully threatened. “I don’t see why you’re even moving.”

I shot him an annoyed glance. We’d been through this already.

“
I love it,” I told Jan. “How soon can we take care of the paperwork?”

“
The owners will be completely out by next Tuesday, so you’re looking at Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest.”

“
That works for me. I don’t have to be in L.A. for another ten days, so I’ll have time to get settled in before I’m out of here.”

Tuesday, I packed my stuff and was ready to make the move when I got a panicked call from Don.

“
We caught up to Bryan Adams. He’s in Vancouver and will be flying back to London Thursday night. We’ve got a plane coming to get you. I need you in Canada by tomorrow morning.”

I sighed; moving would have to wait a little bit longer. I could tell Ryan’s feelings were a little bruised that he wasn’t coming with me to Canada, but I had to start applying the brakes between us. I told him I thought I’d be back sometime Friday evening.

It was a good thing I had gotten a chance to get to know Pete and Jason a little better on the return flight from Tennessee because now at least I didn’t feel totally alone. Vancouver was absolutely breath-taking. Once again, I was terrified to meet a legend in the music industry, but, although much quieter and subdued than I thought he’d be, Bryan Adams turned out to be a very inspiring artist.

The song was more difficult than I imagined, but mostly because I wanted to throw all my emotion so hard into it that I was overstressing it. He explained I needed less raw emotion and more control. He said I needed to open my heart without spilling the contents on to the stage.

It took practice to find that balance of control and emotion, but eventually he began to smile as I sang, and I knew I had finally attained what he had been explaining. We sang it as a duet, to each other, just to see if I could hold that control with his accompaniment. That proved to be a real lesson in digging down into the soul. It was as much a lesson on focused emotion as it was in singing, and I was awestruck by the power of the knowledge.

I got to spend a little more time with him just discussing music, the little bit about the show that I was allowed to tell, and what kinds of song choices I was thinking about for future shows, if I made it that far.

He assured me, if I could stay open to suggestions and be willing to stretch myself, I would end up in the finals.

It was five p.m. and I had the choice of staying for the night in Canada or flying home early. I decided to get a night’s rest and head back to Colorado in the morning. Pete and Jason followed me around Vancouver for a little while filming me as I did a little shopping (drawing a crowd as they did), when I finally convinced them to turn it off and have dinner with me.

When morning came, I was ready to head home, but the plane wasn’t. They had run into a problem with the hydraulics and I was told it would either be charter another plane or give them a day to make the necessary repairs.

“
I’ve got a great idea,” Pete had a big smile spread across his bearded face, “Whistler’s.”

“
Yeah, now that would be cool to film, just like we did for the Bachelorette,” Jason agreed.

I had no clue what they were talking about, but by the smiles on their faces I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know. “What’s Whistler’s?” I asked, taking another bite of my breakfast.

“
It’s a town about 75 miles north of here. The Canadian Outback Adventure company does tours out of there. Have you ever traveled on a zip-line or bungee jumped?” Jason asked.

I smiled. They weren’t things I had done, but they certainly sounded like something I’d love to try, “No, but I’m game.”

Pete laughed, “Somehow I had a feeling you would be.”

“
Is that good or bad?”

“
It’s good,” Jason answered for Pete, reaching over and giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Pete and I were discussing you not long after we got back from Tennessee, and we decided you’re someone who loves life and never backs down from a challenge.”

“
Well, I’m only going around this world once, so why not live a little while I’m here.”

Of course, that statement was a little harder to follow through with when I was standing on a platform a hundred and sixty feet in the air and ready to plunge through a forest down a mountainside on a thin metal cable. They had rigged it so that Pete would be following a hundred feet or so behind me on the cable filming my experience through the trees as Jason stood at the landing area with another camera to capture my arrival. This would have been something Ryan would have dearly loved to do, and just before I stepped off into air, I wished I had brought him along.

It felt like I was literally flying through the trees, with the only sound (besides my initial scream) being the sound of the equipment sliding over the metal cable. Pete told me to feel free to ham-it-up on the zip-line, so seconds after launching I went arabesque and then (praying the whole time the guy who hooked me up was telling me the truth about what I could do) I flipped upside down, flying head first over the river. I righted myself as I neared the landing, I could hear the cable brakes being applied and my 50 mile-per-hour flight was coming to an end.

“
That was freaking awesome!” I yelled to Jason as they were unhooking me. Just then Pete arrived, laughing about my reaction to the adventure.

“
Okay, Leese, are you ready to go bungee jumping?”

I nodded enthusiastically, my throat at the moment too dry for words.

We made it to the bungee jumping site and I had to admit this was a hundred times more frightening than flying down a cable. This was like suicide with a safety net, “I honestly don’t know if I can do this,” I admitted, trying to worm my way out of diving off the bridge.

“
Come on, Leese, you’ll love it. Give it a try.”

“
Oh, really? Have you ever jumped, Jason?”

“
As a matter of fact, yes, I have.”

“
Great. You do it first and then I’ll do it.”

“
I’ll go you one better, I’ll do it with you.”

Worry shot through my mind. If I wasn’t sure that I trusted (basically) a giant rubber band to save me from a smashing death, did I really trust it to hold two of us from diving to our demise?

“
You’re always in the palm of God’s hand, Leese, no matter where you are,” Pete added.

He was right, and my confidence re-bloomed.

Jason and I were tethered to a giant bungee line as we moved cautiously out onto the tiny platform. I was shivering uncontrollably, not so much from the cool air, but from terror. Jason wrapped me in his arms and asked if I was ready. It was at that moment I realized he might have ulterior motives for volunteering. He wasn’t much older than me and he certainly seemed to enjoy an opportunity to body-hug me.

“
Okay?” Jason asked.

Before I could open my mouth, he had pushed off from the platform and we were swan-diving to the shallow river below. I know my scream was piercing, but I didn’t close my eyes as the earth rushed up to greet us. Suddenly I felt the tension in the line and our decent slowed as we neared the water. I stretched my arms over my head to try to reach it, but we were a couple feet shy of being close enough to get wet. The line pulled us back skyward and then sent us, once more gently toward the river.

I was laughing and crying at the same time. What an adventure Canada was turning out to be.

Jason was only laughing, but still holding me tightly as we dangled upside down. “Want to do it alone now?”

“
No. Once was enough of a thrill. You guys are just going to have to show this with you in it. I’m done.”

I could tell at that moment he wasn’t going to mind being in the clip.

The plane was repaired by night fall, but they wanted to run a couple more tests and said we would take off about four a.m. We landed in Colorado at around eight in the morning as I told the guys goodbye and jumped into my Aero and headed home. I couldn’t wait to pounce on the bed and wake Ryan and tell him what I had done.

I pulled up to the house and didn’t bother to grab my bag. I was going to be loading the car for the new house in a few hours anyway, but I had to tell my adventure to him before I exploded.

I unlocked the door and headed straight for his bedroom, surprised that his door was nearly closed. He never closed his door. I could see his arm hanging off the side of the bed in what appeared to be in an unnatural position. Panic gripped me. I had the sudden feeling something was horribly wrong. My heart was lunging against my breastbone as I softly called his name and gave the door a gentle push.

The sight that greeted me froze me to the earth. It was not at all what I had feared to find—and for a jealous split second it was almost worse. He was asleep in the tangled bedding—with Candace.

The air caught in my throat as his sleepy face raised my direction. He tried to right himself in the bed, but she had crowded him too close to the edge and he fell out onto the floor—stark naked.

“
Ah, shit!” I exclaimed, turning swiftly and then clamping my hand on my mouth over the remark. I jerked his door closed and headed for the front door.

“
Leese, don’t go,” I heard his voice as I gripped the door knob.

“
I’ll—I’ll be—back—I just can’t…” I went out the door and jumped into my car; I was so dumbfounded I just simply drove without thinking.

I wanted him to find someone, someone who could mean to him what Micah meant to me, but why did it hit me so hard? If I could have Micah back right at this very moment, would I turn and leave Ryan without a second thought? I knew I would.

How could I be so selfish? He needed someone who could give him everything I couldn’t, and I should be happy for them both. Then there was the embarrassing moment of seeing him nude. I was trying to stop seeing it inside my head and suddenly the humor of the whole thing hit me and I began to laugh. I was flying in there to tell him about my ‘great’ adventure and instead stumbled on to what had been his great adventure.

I turned the car around and drove to the bistro and bought breakfast for three and then drove the two blocks back to the house. My hands were shaking so badly I hoped I wouldn’t spill the coffee before I got it inside to the table.

Just as I reached the door, he opened it for me. His face was deep red and I had to do my best not to look at him at the moment. Candace was sitting on the sofa in his tee-shirt and a pair of underwear. I didn’t particularly care to see her dressed that way. She was taking a little too much liberty in what was, at least until I took my bags out of the house today, still me and Ryan’s place. I ignored her attire and asked if they were hungry.