Карен Кингсбери - A Distant Shore [calibre]

She hated them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

—Psalm 13:2

The one truth Jack could not admit to anyone, not even himself, was the thing Oliver Layton had so easily seen. He was falling for Eliza.

Jack didn’t want to care about the girl. He had made up his mind years ago never to fall in love. He would never marry and he wouldn’t have children. Rather, he would spend his days and months and years working for the bureau, putting his life in danger.

Again and again and again.

And if he died doing it, that was fine. This was the only life worth living.

But now, for the first time since he’d been sworn in, Jack cared about whether he came home at the end of the day. Because he wanted one more chance to see Eliza, to talk to her. To be near her. His feelings confused him and taunted him and mocked him when he tried to sleep at night.

It wasn’t that he cared for her the way an ordinary man might care for an ordinary woman. This wasn’t romance or love or butterflies. It was that one unbelievable truth, the single detail Jack couldn’t get past.

The fact that Eliza was the little girl he had saved.

Lately, Jack relived that single moment over and over, so that once again he was pushing through the current, swimming to the little girl. He had almost reached her when he could hear shouting from the beach behind him. And he was looking over his shoulder and seeing Shane, swimming toward him.

He’ll get back to shore, Jack would tell himself again. Someone will swim out to help . The little girl needed him. Who else is going to save her? And every time he replayed the moment, Jack chose the little girl. Every single time.

Her life… or his brother’s.

Jack had always wondered if rescuing the child had even mattered. Had she gone home from vacation and forgotten the ordeal ever took place? But now he knew the truth. So yes, he had feelings for her. Of course he did. He could still remember her clinging to his shoulders as he swam her to shore. Still feel her nearly dead body cradled against his chest as he ran up the beach. He handed her over and he could still see the way she lay limp in the woman’s arms.

Because of the constant memories, he found himself thinking about God in a way he hadn’t in years. Someone who had lost all that he had lost might not believe in God. Unless it was to believe God had singled him out for pain.

But now, Jack wasn’t sure. That blond little girl was back in his life, about to take a mission with him to the Bahamas. How could it not feel like some master plan that God had orchestrated?

Jack had his bag packed. A bureau black SUV looking very much like an Uber would pick him up in half an hour. Eliza was staying at a Marriott near the airport booked under her assumed name, so there would be no doubt about who she was—and who she wasn’t. From this morning on, she was not Eliza. He couldn’t call her that or think of her that way.

She was Masey. And he was Luke.

He looked around the room and spotted his father’s old leather Bible at the top of his bookcase. Of all things. Jack hadn’t read a Bible since before Shane died. He crossed the room and pulled it from its place. This was the Bible his dad would read aloud on Sunday evenings before the family readied for another week. Jack turned to his father’s favorite chapter. The man knew it by heart. Jack did, too. But right now he wanted to read the words for himself. The way he hadn’t in so many years.

The passage was from Psalm 23.

He started at the beginning and read the words silently.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely, goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Jack ran his thumb over the thin, worn page. “I miss you, Dad.” He whispered the words. “More than you know.”

Whether God was real or not, whether He was for him or against him, Jack needed help on this mission. Not because it was overtly dangerous. It wasn’t. Not compared with the raid in Belize.

But because of Eliza. If he couldn’t keep his heart from caring about her now, before the mission, how was he going to stay indifferent once they were overseas? Especially now that he knew the truth about her? A truth he didn’t dare tell her. He couldn’t risk her reaction, not at this point. With a mission just ahead of them.

Also, they’d had one bad interaction a few days ago. Oliver had brought them together in a meeting room and asked if either of them had doubts. For any reason.

Jack turned to Eliza. “I’m a little concerned about your age, Eliza. You’ve never dated or…” He didn’t state the obvious. “Are you sure you want to do this? Play a married woman?”

Eliza’s eyes had burned in response. “I grew up in a brothel. I think I can handle being married to you .”

“I was just trying to think of—”

“Jack.” Oliver shook his head. “She’ll be fine.”

In hindsight, Jack never should have asked her about any of it. But he still thought it was a valid point. In the end Oliver convinced him it was a nonissue. Eliza wouldn’t have to do more than stay at Jack’s side and hold his hand.

“Her counselor thinks she’s ready,” Oliver told him the other day. “She’s received training. I think she can handle it.”

The incident created an even greater divide between him and Eliza. He was surprised she hadn’t asked to work with a different agent. He understood now that she had probably been embarrassed by Jack’s concerns. Now she wouldn’t look at him, like she hated him. Jack understood. Even before the conversation with Oliver, Eliza hadn’t liked him, not even a little. She tolerated him, nothing more. She was using him to get what she wanted—the chance to put away traffickers.

It was the same thing Jack wanted. Nothing more.

Yesterday in their final briefing together, Jack had waited until they were the last people in the room. Then he had looked into her eyes. “I don’t doubt you can do this. But are you sure you want to? Pretend we’re married?”

“Yes.” She looked away and gathered her various folders. “With you… pretending will be easy. Right, Luke ?”

So she was upset with him for several things. Including, no doubt, the fact that he was a guy. He longed to know more about her, about her childhood and her family, about where she had grown up and whether she remembered anyone from her past. Had she ever been to Lower Barton Creek or Spanish Lookout like Lizzie James—the great-granddaughter of Ike Armstrong? Those questions would have to wait until she lowered her guard some.

If she ever did.

No, somehow he had to keep it all to himself. His questions, his feelings—and the knowledge about that terrible summer. All while pretending to be Eliza Lawrence’s husband on an island with beaches as beautiful as any in the world. Any other time, Jack wouldn’t have blinked. Wouldn’t have doubted for a moment that he could pull this off. He was a machine.

Undercover operations with a female agent were nothing new for him. He’d worked in tandem on covert missions in years past. Just never in a situation like this, with a girl he was trying not to fall for. The SUV pulled up in front of the hotel and Eliza walked out and toward the vehicle.