The Protector (50 page)

“Well then, let me go downstairs and lockup. Do you want something, water, wine, whiskey?” 

I chuckled, “No thank you.” He left the room and I heard him moving around downstairs.  I took my time, but I finally got up off the bed and walked into the large open bathroom that was attached to the bedroom.  I slowly undressed and hopped in the shower. My intention was to make it a quick shower but the water felt wonderful and I stayed in there longer than I should. As I opened the door and stepped out, I caught sight of Lance standing in the bedroom doorway watching.  I felt my face grow even warmer in embarrassment.   I quickly grabbed my big white robe and put it on. Although I knew I looked embarrassed and I was, I didn’t want to scare him away by making a big deal out of him seeing me. 

He had turned away and had begun to change into the sweat shorts he kept at my house. I walked into my closet and grabbed a tank top and some shorts to throw on.  I quickly ran a brush through my wet hair and joined him in the bedroom. 

“Doesn’t matter what you are wearing, you are beautiful!”  His voice was thick as he walked over to where I had stopped. He hovered over me with his tall body.  He had turned on the baseball game, but the volume was turned down low. He lowered his head and I could feel his breath as it grazed my neck.  

“Thank you,” I whispered. 

He looked into my eyes and I couldn’t look away. I reached my hands up to gently pull his face to mine. I kissed his lips and as I had suspected, he began to kiss back with an extreme urgency. But as quickly as it started, he quickly pulled away. He took his hands and pulled mine away from his face.

“As much as I want this, Alison, I’m not going to pretend to be Jack for you.”   His words stung, but hearing Jack’s name aloud hurt even more. 

“I don’t expect you to be him,” I whispered.

He removed his hands from my wrists and moved swiftly to sweep me off my feet. The next thing I knew he was on top of me his lips traveling along my jawline down to my neck and down to my throat and back up to meet my lips.  I was taken aback by his actions and not sure how to respond. I had honestly thought it was what I wanted.  His arms traveled up and down my body and I reached to run my fingers through his dark hair.  I tried to return the kiss but, I couldn’t.   My head began to swim as I remembered my last night with Jack. 

I could feel Lance pull away and my eyes flew open in fear.  I was afraid he would be angry and hurt. But his eyes were filled with satisfaction as if he had proved his point. He shifted his body off of mine and brought one of his arms to rest his head on.  The last thing I expected was a smile to appear on his face.

“See,” he said quietly taking his finger and tracing my collar bone. 

“See what?” I barely managed to spit out.

“I won’t compete with a dead guy Alison.”  His finger was warm on my cool skin. The rain had stopped; the thunder was gone and there was a fresh smell of wetness that filled the air. 
             

“I’m sorry.” I seemed to be apologizing to him a lot lately and I felt guilty for leading him on.

“Don’t be. He was a lucky man to have won your heart. And well, I am going to have to face it, I will have to either work harder to win it or accept the fact it may never be mine.”  He once again leaned over and gave me a friendly peck on the lips.  “Funny, I should have asked you out before you went to Tel Aviv and I might have had a chance.”  He paused and looked into my eyes. “No, I never had a chance,” he reflected still with a smile on his face.

“Lance,” I wanted to tell him again I was sorry and how much I appreciated all he had done for me but he only nodded his head and I knew I needed to be quiet. 

“Do you still want me to stay with you tonight, here?”

“Yes and you can watch the game.” A smirk crossed my face as I turned to face him. 

He raised his eyebrows in a tease, “Quite generous of you.”  He propped himself up on a few pillows and I turned and laid my head on his chest.  I wasn’t as sad as I thought I was going to be.   I knew I had hurt him, but I felt better because he seemed to understand.

I drifted off to sleep once again snuggled close to Lance.  His warmth was comforting and the dream wasn’t as bad as the others I had experienced. I still woke up from with my heart racing and my head pounding, but I managed to stifle all screams.   I tossed and turned for a
while after the dream but knew if I wasn’t careful, I would wake Lance and that was the last thing I wanted to do. He was peaceful next to me and I was grateful for his presence. 

My mouth was dry and thirst occupied my mind as I managed to get out the bedroom door and downstairs without waking Lance or tripping over anything on my way out.

I quickly grabbed a glass of water and gulped it down. But it did nothing to calm my rapidly beating heart. I went to the couch and turned on the television.  The game had ended hours ago and there wasn’t much on.  I glanced around for my briefcase which held my laptop, but my eyes didn’t make it to where I thought I had laid it. Instead the white fed ex envelope from earlier caught my attention.

I didn’t recognize the address it came from but it was addressed to me. Curiosity got the best of me and I ripped it open careful not to rip the contents.   I pulled out several sheets of paper and an envelope. One paper in particular caught my eyes. It was a travel brochure for the Azores Islands.  My heart began to beat faster as I realized the significance of this place. I glanced briefly at the other items and focused my attention on the envelope. I carefully opened the flap and pulled out what looked to be an itinerary for a plane flight to Lisbon then on to the Azores.

My heart was racing at an abnormal pace and the tears were forming at the corners of my eyes. The horrible pain that had been slowly fading from my chest returned with a full vengeance as if someone was there.   I shook my head in disbelief and threw the papers down on the table. I pulled my legs to my chest and began to rock back and forth on the couch, slow painful sobs escaping with each breath I took.  Guilt for not going with him to this beautiful place when he asked filled my head and my heart once again.  He’d be alive right now and we would be together.

             
I didn’t hear Lance’s footsteps come down the stairs, nor did I notice as he slid next to me and wrap his arms around me. “Alison? It was a dream Princess, just a dream.”

I could only nod my head as the sobs became uncontrollable.  I buried my face in his chest and cried as I had cried a hundred times before with uncontrollable grief.  And Lance did as he always did, comforted me until the sobs turned into quiet tears. I tried to open my mouth and tell him why I was upset, but I couldn’t.  I wanted to know who was so cruel to send me something that would ultimately remind me of Jack.  But no one knew he had asked me to run away with him, no one but Lance and he would never do such a thing. And there was only itinerary for one person – me.

 
             
Finally I was able to control the sobs and open my mouth. The words would not come at first, they were only mumbles and half sentences. 

“Sh.. Alison, don’t worry about it.” Then Lance noticed the envelope open on the table and moved forward to grab the envelope.  He still managed to hold me as he looked at the itinerary.  “Is this what upset you?”

I couldn’t bring myself to answer him but he knew the answer to his question.  

“Who sent this to you?” he threw the papers back on the table much like I had. He pulled me closer to him and kissed my cheek. 

“I don’t know. And why now?”  Thoughts raced through my head.  The ache in my chest did not go away despite my closeness to Lance.  The tears still continued to fall as we sat there in silence.  Lance stared at the envelope on the table, deep in thought.

“Maybe you should have Seth or Noor check it out? Find out who sent it to you.”  What he said next shocked me most of all. “And if it turns out to be on the up and up, you should go. Get some closure. I am sure Noor would go with you.”

I sat there stunned by his words and looked into his eyes to see if he was truly serious. There was nothing in his expression to indicate otherwise.  “You’re serious?”  I managed to wipe the tears off of my cheeks and sit up.

“Yes, I am.  You need closure Alison. You didn’t get to say goodbye.  You said yourself he loved the place. Go see what made him so happy there. You won’t find him but you may find a piece of you something you lost.”

“I’m not sure. What about DC?” I had decided that I was going to go to DC and get a job.  My future was no longer in Albuquerque. I wasn’t entirely sure it was with Lance, but I knew it wasn’t here. I needed away from here, my home and what reminded me of Jack. “And I don’t need to go someplace that reminds me of him Lance. I need to get away from him.”

I tried to argue with him but my heart wasn’t in it. Maybe he was right and I needed to go and say my goodbyes Jack.  I lay in Lance’s arms and contemplated his words.  We both fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the sunlight peeked through the blinds.

Within an hour of waking up, Lance was on the phone with Noor discussing the plane ticket.  He argued his point of me going, but he did not want me going alone. Noor, on the other hand was dead set against me going without knowing who sent the tickets.  Although the danger to my life was gone, she wasn’t sure of the motive behind the mysterious ticket.  She told Lance she would check it out and get back to him.  She wouldn’t talk to me, knowing full well that if I had decided to go, nothing was going to make me change my mind. Not even her.

Lance would not leave my side that day.  He wanted to wait to hear from Noor before he committed to anything. And a part of me was eternally grateful for his presence.  I felt bad for taking him from the things wanted to do, things that made him happy. We spent the day working in my small backyard. He had convinced me I needed some kind of soothing fountain or pond and he had convinced me that he could install it.  And I had to admit, I enjoyed watching him dig the hole, shirtless for the fountain. I may not have been over Jack, but I was not blind. Lance was an incredibly attractive man.

As he dug, I worked on pulling weeds and mowing the small lawn I had put in when I first moved in.  The work made me forget the ticket that now sat on my
dining
room table.

The phone finally rang, and Lance and I jumped to pick it up.  It wasn’t Noor, it was Seth.

“I sent you the ticket,” he admitted to me.  Lance watched with wonder as the expression on my face changed.

“Why?”  The pain in my chest returned but not as bad as it had been earlier in the morning. “How did you know?”

“Jack.” He stopped there unsure if he should continue. He knew I was upset and he was cautious. ”Alison, you need some closure. Maybe there you can bury what happened and move on. It’s time. It’s killing him knowing ,” he stopped and corrected himself, “What I mean is, he would have hated to see you in so much pain” Seth’s voice was serious, almost too serious. I thought about his words for a second – ‘knowing’  “It’s time to get on with your life Alison.”

I closed my eyes and sat down at one of my dining room chairs. Lance stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders, slowly trying to rub the tension that was building away.  A line from one of my favorite books, drifted through my thoughts. It was Frederick Wentorth talking to Anne of love, and Captain Bennick’s profound love for Harry Harvil’s sister.
‘A man cannot recover from such a passion, from such a woman. He ought not, he does not.”  Ironically, I felt the line fit me at that exact moment. I could not recover from such a profound passion as my love for Jack. I could not and I would not.

“Please go Alison, he needs you.” 

I didn’t think much more about his words, his tone. He was right I needed to go and close the chapter in my life. I wasn’t able to bury him, but I needed to bury the pain.

31
Sao Miguel

What seemed like an eternity was only a month in reality. A plan was put in motion, and In that time, I gave notice, packed up my townhome and put it on the market along with my Honda.  I said goodbye to Lance, who was headed to Qunatico for training with the FBI.  I handed the keys to the BMW to Noor, who graciously drove it to DC for me.  It would be there for me when I returned from my trip. 

Once I was satisfied with my goodbye, I would not return to Albuquerque, but to DC.  I had agreed to use the money Jack had left me to live on until I was able to find a job. Lance would be there, as would Noor and well I would see where life took me. 

Seth had been in contact with me several times and it was decided much to Noor and Lance’s shagrin, I would fly alone and meet Seth there. A peaceful existence settled in me as I waited to leave for my trip.  I went through life happier than I had in a long time. Sure a piece of me was still missing, but I knew this trip was the right way to say my goodbye.

The plane ride to Lisbon was quiet and I slept and read Persuasion for the hundredth time. Its everlasting love story was a comfort to me that love never died. Although I knew Jack was no longer there, in my life, I knew he was in my heart.

When the second plane finally landed in Sao Miguel, my heart began to race. I touched the hat I wore on my head and smiled. It too had probably been here a time before and here it was returning.  It wasn’t a full plane, a few locals returning from the Portuguese coast and tourists excitedly talking the whole way about the beauty that awaited.