Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series) (28 page)

“I have to tell you a couple of things, first,” John said, and clasped my hand. “And I don’t think you’re going to be too happy with me.”

“John, I have to tell you something, too.”
And you’re going to fucking freak.
“Coffee?” I asked. Pleaded. Begged.

John held up one finger:
Wait.
I waited.

“I had two of my men following Ray up in Canada. He was in Toronto. He was staying with someone. I needed the guys to come back to get ready for Brazil, so I hired someone I know up there. Ray had been quiet, so I didn’t have him watched full time.” I turned to look at him but he kept staring straight ahead. “Liberty, we lost him,” he said. “The guy I hired said he must’ve left in the middle of the night. I’m having him check bus stations, trains, car rentals, but he hasn’t found anything. I completely fucked up.”

I didn’t see it that way. In fact, if this was what he was so worried to tell me, I was relieved.
“John, it’s okay,” I said, reaching up and rubbing his shoulder. “I didn’t know you were still having him followed. You can’t do that forever. He’s going to live another twenty years.”
What was John planning to do, hire someone to babysit him full-time for the rest of his life?

He finally turned and looked at me. “I hate that fucker,” he said. “You know that, right?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“I don’t want him coming near you ever again.”

“Ray?” I asked, feeling incredulous. “He won’t try to come anywhere near me. He’s a coward. He’s petrified of you. He’s going to stay as far away from us as he possibly can. I’m not afraid of him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried about that,” he said, and his voice trailed off.

“Then what
are
you worried about?” I asked.

“I just don’t like him being out there, not knowing exactly what he’s doing. He’s low-level, but he’s scum,” he said, and he sounded tired. “And he violated you. I hate
him — do you get it? I’d really just like to take him out. Then I wouldn’t have to think about him ever again.”

“John!” I said. He just shook his head and laughed, but his laugh was flat, totally devoid of humor.

“I’m kidding. Actually, I’m not, but I know you’d never let me. But, if he did try, if he did ever come near you again,” he said, looking at me very seriously. “I would like your permission to shoot him.”

I patted his hand. “You have it,” I said and smiled sweetly. He looked at me for a beat, his mouth gaping open. “In the foot, John,” I said, and patted his hand again. “You can shoot him in the foot.”

He just sighed and ran his hands through his tousled, unruly morning hair. “If it ever happens, I might need to renegotiate.”

“It’ll never happen,” I said. “He’s a coward, and you’re too much man for him. He won’t come near us.”

“Okay,” John said, lacing his fingers through mine once again.

“Okay,” I said, and I exhaled heavily. Suddenly, my temples were pounding. That box was still between us, but now it was my turn to spring a skeleton out of the closet.

“Next item,” John said, squeezing my hand.

“I’m next,” I said, and I could feel my palm start sweating. I pulled my hand away.

John held up his hand again:
Stop.
“I still have the floor, and I gotta get this off my chest first.” He took a deep breath and went on. “You know that your biological father, Eric, had other children.”

“Yes,” I said, totally taken by surprise. I hadn’t thought about my father or his family at all, not with everything else going on. “Four kids, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” John said, moving his hand back over and putting it over the top of mine. “Well, one of the girls called Ian recently. She wants to meet you. She’s spoken with the attorney for the estate and she wants to bring him as well, to disburse your inheritance. They sent a test you need to take to prove that Eric was your father. It’s just a swab test, no big deal.”

“Yes,” I said, remembering. “The lawyer said I had to do that.” Then I was silent, my mind reeling. I knew that I had four half-siblings, but I hadn’t been able to wrap my brain around thinking of them as real people. Real people who were related to me. It was too weird to think about; it had always just been me and Sasha and my mother. I couldn’t even picture Eric, though surely Ian had a picture in a file somewhere. I hadn’t asked about it. I’d been dealing with so many other crazy things since I found out about all of them, I’d pretty much blocked it out.

“Uh,” I said. Nothing else would come out of my mouth.

John patted my hand again. “I know it’s a lot. It’s a lot on top of a lot. I wanted to tell you as soon as I heard, about both things, but I also wanted to put it off. At least until we were somewhat settled.”

“I’m okay with meeting her, I guess,” I said. I didn’t know if that was true, but I really didn’t have a choice. My family existed; I had to deal with the reality at some point.

He leaned down and grabbed the box. “But I couldn’t give you this,” he said, placing it on my lap, “unless I’d been totally honest with you first.”

“John,” I said, and I took a shaky breath.

“Liberty,” he said, looking into my face earnestly. “I’ve thought this through. Any doubt you have, any insecurity —”

“John, stop!” I said, my voice rising to the point of yelling. He looked pained and I slapped my hands over my eyes, as if to block the image of him out. “I’m not upset about what’s in the box. I still don’t
know
what’s in the box.”

He was silent for a beat.

“I’m
upset
about the fact that I have to tell you something. Something that’s going to make
you
upset.”
Understatement.

“Something that’s going to make you unhappy.”
HUGE understatement.

“Something I’ve been keeping from you, to save your sanity for as long as possible.”
And you’re going to freak out. And maybe you’ll NEVER want to give me wonderful things that come in turquoise boxes EVER AGAIN.

Oh no
, I thought.
What have I done?

I peeked out through my hands and John, who was looking at me intently but calmly. You had to have been in high-level military situations, where life and death were at stake, to maintain a sense of calm when your girlfriend freaked out like me right now. A lesser man would have ripped my hands from my eyes and demanded that I tell him what was wrong. A lesser man would have taken that box and hidden it, acted like he’d never put it out there, near such a crazy girl.

But John was more of a man than that. He was brave —
to a fault,
I thought.

But this was my fault.

I sat up and took my hands off my face. This wasn’t about me, after all. I was scared for myself, true, for keeping something of this magnitude from him; but what mattered was John. Poor John, who just wanted his daughter back, to have her safe and happy.

“John,” I said, and reached for his hand, “Catherine told me something I wish she hadn’t. She said she,” I let my voice trail off. He was still staring at me, trying to maintain the calm, but I could see the tension ripple underneath the surface. This was when, if you were his enemy, his target —
and
you had half a brain — you would run like hell. Because he was the nicest guy on the surface, but right underneath, his lethalness dwelled. It was palpable; I could feel it rolling off of him. It was as if, whatever I was going to tell him, he was ready to pounce on it and tear it apart. If it was bad for his daughter, he was going to eradicate it, once and for all.

What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.
I shivered at that thought. And then I made myself say it.
“John, she told me she’s
married
to Angel Morales. She didn’t tell me when. She just said that he was her husband.”

John sat there for a moment, looking shocked. “What?” he asked.

“That’s what she said,” I said.

He sat back heavily against the headboard and turned to look at me. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked. He was spitting, he was so mad.

“No,” I said, and shook my head. “I wish I was.”

He got up off the bed and stalked around the room. He was opening and closing his fists, like he was going to hit something. Hard. I watched him, worrying.
I knew he was going to freak,
I thought.
I just hope he forgives me.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said.

He laughed shortly, and it was completely without humor. “I wish you’d never told me,” he said, and sat down tensely on the edge of the bed. “Because I wish it wasn’t true.” I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I went down towards the edge of the bed and put my hand gently on his shoulder. He tensed, but he didn’t push me away.

“It may not be legal, or binding,” he said, putting his face still in his hands. “She would’ve needed her birth certificate. She never would have gotten it in the past six years without me knowing.”

“So, that’s good, right?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the problem.” He stood up and started pacing again, hands opening and closing into fists. “The
real
problem is that she wants to be with him. If she thinks of Angel as her husband, it means she’s bought into him, his lifestyle, everything, and she wasn’t planning on looking back, ever.”

“It’s what she already told us,” I said, looking at him hopelessly. “She was so angry at me in Mexico. She was so angry that I’d found her. She pleaded with me to leave her alone.”

“She was horrible to you,” John said, his gaze searching my forearms. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten it.”

I folded my arms across my chest; those marks were the last thing he needed to see right now. “John, you said yourself that she was sick,” I said now, trying to reason with him, to give him hope.

“She did this, all of it, her relationship with Angel, the stuff she did to me, while she was under his influence. Maybe the doctors here can help her,” I said, pleading now. “If her marriage wasn’t legal, and she gets away from him for a while, maybe there’s a chance she can just move on, John.” I looked at him imploringly.

“We found her. She’s alive, and she’s here with us,” I said to him. “And if everything happens for a reason, like you said, than there’s a reason for that. A reason she came back to you.”

I stood up and went to him. I put my hands on his chest so he’d stop walking and I looked him in the eye. “She has a chance to break free,” I said, holding his eyes with mine. “I stumbled onto her for a reason, John.”

We looked at each other for a long moment. My eyes were pleading, begging him to not lose all hope. His eyes were burning. I could still feel the tension rolling off him; he would would probably really enjoy smashing our room apart like an angry, drunk rockstar in a hotel room. But his eyes held mine, and for the first time, I truly felt my power over him. He’d listened to what I’d said, and I could see it working on him. His natural anger and frustration flowed through his taut body, making him ready to strike. But my words were sinking in; he took a deep breath and exhaled, his body relaxing a bit.

“Let’s just give the doctor a chance,” I said.

He walked back over to the bed and sat back down, motioning for me to follow him. I sat next to him and gratefully clasped his hand when he put his over mine. We sat like that for a minute, quietly. I could feel him gaining his composure back. He looked at the clock. “We need to get going,” John said. “We have to meet the guys for breakfast. We have a meeting set up, then a run. Eva and I are supposed to take Catherine to Boston at eleven.”

“Do you want me to come?” I asked.

“Yes, but you’re not,” he said. “Matthew has material for you on Brazil. You’re going to review that, and then there’s munitions training and a whole bunch of other stuff. I don’t want you to miss it. We’re going to have meetings with her new doctors all afternoon. You don’t need to be there.”

“I’ll be with you here,” I said, placing my hand over his heart. “I love you, John. I’m so sorry you have to go through this. I hope it’ll help her.” I leaned up and kissed him briefly on the lips.

“I love you, too,” he said, and kissed me so deeply chills rippled through my whole body, down to my toes.

He grabbed the box, which I’d managed to forget about, and held it out to me.

“What’s that,” I said, casually, not even able to make it come out like a question. All of a sudden my heart was in my throat, making me unable to breathe.

“It’s something I needed to give you,” John said, staring at me intently. “I know we’ve talked about what we’ve been through. And we’ve talked about what we’re doing. We’ve both said we don’t want to be apart ever again.”

I looked at him, unable to breathe. “Did you mean it?” John asked. His voice was quiet, like he was holding his breath, too.

I nodded. “You know I did.”

“Well, I thought that we needed something to show our promise to each other,” John said, and opened the box. It was an enormous round diamond ring.

My mouth fell open as I gaped at it. “Is that —”

John got down on one knee. “Liberty Davis, I know it’s only six o’clock in the morning, and I know you haven’t had any coffee yet, but…will you marry me? Someday? I just want you to have this now, so you know that I mean it. I will always mean it.”

I started crying, hard, my face screwing up in a way that I was sure was really unattractive. “Do you mean it?” I spluttered, unable to contain my wild reaction. My heart was beating crazily and my vision was blurry with shock.

John laughed. “I just said:
I mean it.
Of course I do, babe,” he said, pulling me into his arms, where I felt safe, warm and protected. “Nothing made sense for so long, nothing mattered to me, and then you came into my life.” He crushed me to him.

“I wanted you to know that I meant it. I didn’t want you to worry that it wasn’t going to last. It’s always going to be you, for me. It’s never been anybody but you.”

Tears were streaming down my face now. I was crying, hard.
I wasn’t going to have to be alone again,
I thought.
I wasn’t ever going to have to say goodbye.
And lastly:
My heart had been right. I’d trusted myself and I’d been right.