Disclaimers and other information: See Part 1.
********
THE WOODSHED -- PART 3 OF 3
Billy sighed and stood up slowly. He had spotted Amanda's weapon under a chair near the far corner of the stage, and he walked over to retrieve it, concerned that the safety was still disengaged. He knelt to pick it up, checked it, and stuck it in his belt. He rose to his feet, looking sorrowfully at Lee and the motionless figure he held in his arms. As he stood, however, Billy noticed something that he knew he wouldn't have seen from anywhere else in the room. He held his breath as he stepped closer, praying that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. The low light and the color of Amanda's coat made it difficult to tell for sure, but looking again, he knew he was right. "Francine," he said softly. "Come here. Look at this." As Francine joined him, she saw immediately what held his attention. Billy was pointing at the back of Amanda's coat. There weren't any exit wounds. There wasn't any blood on the floor underneath her.
Francine became insistent. "Lee, you need to let me look. Right now." She tried to pull Amanda from his grasp, but he wouldn't let go. Francine didn't know what to do. Where were those medics? "Lee, please. I might be able to help her."
Suddenly, Lee felt a slight movement in his arms, as a muffled voice came from against his chest. "Lee, let go. You're squishing me."
Visibly startled, Lee raised his head, but instead of letting go, he only held on tighter.
Amanda began pushing against him. "Lee, I can't breathe. Let go!"
This time, he did, dumping her unceremoniously onto the hardwood floor. "Ow!" she said, sitting up and rubbing the back of her head.
In his surprise, Lee lost his balance when he let go of Amanda. He rocked back onto his heels for a split second, then kept going over until he landed on his backside, cracking his scalp on the leg of the grand piano. "Ow!" he said, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head.
Billy looked at the pair in disbelief. It was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud, and he probably would have, if things hadn't seemed so grim only moments before. These were two of the Agency's top operatives? They looked more like Laurel and Hardy.
Francine managed to keep a level head and gently pushed Amanda back down onto the floor. "Hold still, Amanda," she said. "Let me see." She opened Amanda's coat and immediately found what she was looking for. A telltale layer of thick white material was visible just above the collar of her sweatshirt. "She's wearing a vest," Francine informed the two men, confirming what had already become obvious.
Overwhelmed with relief, Lee pulled in a huge breath and expelled it through puffed cheeks. He leaned back against the piano and closed his eyes, trying to convince his heart to return to its normal rhythm.
"Amanda, are you all right?" Billy asked.
"I don't know," she replied honestly. "It really hurts."
"She wasn't hit," Francine told them, finishing her cursory examination. "I guess she just had the wind knocked out of her. Don't worry, Amanda, you're going to be fine," she said, helping her sit up again.
"I didn't know you'd been using a vest," Billy said, his relief evident in his voice. "But I'm certainly glad you were."
"Leatherneck gave it to me," she confessed. "I've been wearing it in the field since I . . . well, since California. I was too embarrassed to say anything."
"You shouldn't be. It wouldn't be a bad idea if we all started wearing them, at least in situations like this," Billy observed. He went behind the bar and found a bottle of whiskey and four clean glasses. Hell, he thought as he poured, he'd been working here all night. They all had. If the club owner had a problem with it, he could put it on Billy's tab. Or the Agency's. After downing his own shot, Billy distributed the others.
Lee was still badly shaken. He sat back against the piano, breathing heavily and unable to speak, as Billy handed him a glass. As he sipped the strong liquid, he finally found his voice. "Amanda," he rasped. "You need to not do that to me."
"Tell me about it," she replied shakily. "I need to not do that to me, either."
The door behind them burst open suddenly, as four more agents ran in with weapons drawn. An Agency medical team followed them. "Who's down?" one of the medics asked as he looked around in confusion.
"These two." Billy indicated Lee and Amanda. "Check them out."
"Oh, man!" the other medic exclaimed, as he noticed the front of Amanda's coat and sweatshirt. It looked like someone had played a perverse game of tic-tac-toe across her chest and torso.
"I'm okay," she insisted, as one of the medics checked her vital signs and prodded her ribs.
"You need to get your ribs x-rayed," he informed her, before turning to Billy. "Other than that, she's going to be fine, Mr. Melrose."
Billy nodded. "What about Stetson?"
The other medic had turned his attention toward Lee, who was still rubbing the back of his head. "He's got a nasty bump back here. It's cut a little, but I don't think it's deep enough for stitches." The medic frowned. "His pulse is pretty rapid, though."
"Do you think?" Lee snapped at him.
"Yeah, I do think. You need to settle down." The medic continued monitoring Lee's vital signs. "Okay, that's better," he said after a minute.
"Okay," Billy said. "Can you two walk out of here?"
As Billy gave clean-up instructions to the other agents, the medics helped Lee and Amanda to their feet. Unsteadily, they stepped down from the stage as they held onto one another. For the first time, Amanda noticed the prone body of the KGB agent sprawled among several overturned chairs. She was surprised that it hadn't occurred to her to ask what had happened to him, but she realized that she had known instinctively that the man was no longer a threat. "Did I kill him?" she asked tentatively.
"No," Lee replied thickly. "I did. Come on. Let's get out of here."
********
Three hours later, Lee unlocked the door to his apartment and held it open for Amanda to enter. She took off her ruined coat and led the way to the sofa, where she sat down gingerly. She was still wearing the vest, simply for the sake of modesty, as the front of her sweatshirt had been almost completely destroyed. The x-rays had shown no damage to her ribs, but the emergency room doctor had told her she'd be sore for several days. Her sternum and ribcage had caught most of the impact, so fortunately, other than bruising, there had been no damage to any of her soft tissues, or to her previous scar. Lee locked the door behind them, and without bothering to shed his coat, followed Amanda to the sofa and plopped down next to her. "Oh, sorry!" he said quickly, realizing that his weight must have jostled her.
"That's okay." Amanda settled against the back of the sofa and reached up to play with the small shaved spot on the back of his head. "So much for your perfect hair," she began, but she realized instantly that neither of them was in a teasing mood. She leaned against her husband and slipped both arms inside his coat and around his waist.
"I guess it'll grow back," Lee replied, as he fingered the surgical tape the doctor had placed on his scalp. Gently, he put both his arms around Amanda's shoulders and held her protectively. "Are you hurting very much?" he wanted to know.
"It's really not bad as long as I'm staying still."
He nodded his understanding. He'd been injured similarly before, and he knew what it felt like. "It's late," he said after a minute. "I thought the debriefing was going to last all night. Do you want me to take you home?"
"No. I'd rather stay with you. Mother's not expecting me till morning, anyway."
"Okay."
They sat quietly for a while, then Lee spoke again. "Amanda, about what happened tonight . . . If you hadn't been wearing that vest . . ." He touched the thick material, clearly visible through her tattered sweatshirt. His voice cracked a little, as he spoke again. "Thank God you were."
"Lee, we don't have to talk about this . . ." she began.
"Yes, we do. Amanda, I want you to make me a promise."
Remembering their discussion from the past Monday morning, Amanda thought she knew what was coming, and she was immediately ready to argue with him. "Lee, I'm not coming in from the field. I wasn't even on duty when I got hurt in California, and I didn't get hurt this time. I've worked too long and too hard for this, and I'm not going to let you take it away from me. Of course what we're doing is dangerous, but so is walking down the street or driving to the grocery store. I want to keep working! I want to keep working with you!"
Lee shook his head. "No, Amanda. Listen to me. I wasn't going to ask to you come in. I know you couldn't do that now, any more than I could. What I want you to promise me, is that . . . well, I want you to keep wearing a vest. Any time you're in the field. On any assignment, no matter how routine it seems. I know it's not foolproof, but at least you'd have a little protection. That vest saved your life tonight, just as surely as you saved all of ours." He kissed her forehead. "Have I thanked you for that, by the way?"
Amanda regretted having spoken so quickly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried to put words in your mouth. I just . . ."
"Amanda, listen. I would never ask you to come in from the field. It's taken me a long time to be able to say this, but I have too much professional respect for you, to make a suggestion like that. Maybe not too long ago, I would have felt differently, but not now. Not after what you did for us tonight."
A little surprised at his admission, she started to reply, but Lee interrupted her.
"Please, Amanda, let me finish." He shifted his position, so he could look directly into her eyes. "I love you, Amanda Stetson. I want you to be safe. I want you to be around, so that we can spend forever together. All I'm asking is that you take every precaution you can, to make sure that happens. Will you do that for me? For us?"
"Okay," she agreed, her eyes shining at the love she felt for him at that moment. "I promise. But on one condition. If I have to wear a vest, I want you to wear one, too. Every time you're in the field. Every assignment. No matter how routine it seems. Will you do that?"
"Yes," he said quietly. "I will."
"So it's settled, then," she said. "We both wear a vest in the field, all the time."
"It's settled," he replied, kissing her forehead again. Lee was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, but he had one more issue to resolve. "Umm . . . Amanda?"
"Hmmm?"
"Could I ask you to do one more thing?"
"I guess. What?"
"Could you change out of those clothes? I don't think I can stand to look at those bullet holes for one more minute."
********
Late the following morning, Lee sat at the kitchen table in Amanda's house, sipping coffee and trying to read the classifieds. Normally he would have enjoyed the Saturday paper's automotive section, but he found himself unable to concentrate. He was exhausted, having had little sleep. He had been unable to close his eyes without reliving those terrible few moments when he had held Amanda's limp body in his arms. The image of her lying there, pale and still, her coat riddled with bullet holes, had haunted him incessantly. He had reached across the bed for her frequently, to assure himself that she was still there, but every time he had touched her bruised ribcage, she had gasped in pain. She was generally uncomfortable lying down, and the pain medication they had given her at the emergency room hadn't helped.
After a couple of hours, they had given up on trying to sleep. Lee had made a pot of coffee, and they showered together before heading back to Arlington. Even the gentle pressure from the hot water was uncomfortable on Amanda's bruised body. They had arrived at Amanda's house before the boys and Dotty had gotten up, and Amanda had headed upstairs to change out of her borrowed clothes before anyone noticed the shirt and jacket she wore were several sizes too big. She came back down just as the rest of the family was waking up.
After the boys had eaten breakfast, Phillip left the house to shoot baskets with his friends. The air was still cool, but the rain had stopped, and the sun was out. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful spring day. Dotty had breezed through the kitchen on her way out the door to do some shopping, and Lee assumed that Jamie was holed up in his room. He knew that none of them had any idea how close they had come to losing Amanda the night before, and he was grateful for the normalcy they were all, albeit unknowingly, able to provide.
Lee was toying with the idea of an afternoon nap, but he was almost afraid to try to sleep; he was afraid the horrible images from the night before would return to trouble him. Billy had told them both to take a few days off, but Lee wondered if he shouldn't go in on Monday morning anyway. He thought it might not be a bad idea to schedule some time with Dr. Pfaff.
Lee looked at his watch. The phone had rung about half an hour before, and Amanda had mouthed to Lee that it was Francine, who evidently felt like she had some talking to do. Amanda had gone upstairs to take the call. Lee smiled to himself. He had always hoped Amanda and Francine would become friends someday, even though they were as different as night and day. Francine had occasionally shown a grudging respect for Amanda's abilities, but after last night, Lee knew that Francine's assessment of Amanda's talents would have escalated drastically. Amanda's quick action had saved Francine's life, and Lee knew his old friend was grateful. He thought she probably wanted to do a little more than say thanks, though. By his calculation, Francine had about three and a half years' worth of nastiness to make up for, and that might take some time. He couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. No wonder they'd been on the phone for half an hour. His mood sobered again quickly, though, as he silently said a prayer of thanks that Amanda was still around to take the call.
********
Lee looked up from his newspaper when Jamie came into the kitchen a few minutes later. After going to the refrigerator and helping himself to a glass of milk, Jamie sat at the kitchen table, opposite from Lee. He looked as if he were trying to decide whether or not to say something.
"Your mom still on the phone?" Lee asked, trying to make conversation.
"Yeah. I think she's going to be a while."
Lee nodded, and went back to his paper.
"Mr. Stetson," Jamie said, finishing his milk. "Could you do me a favor?"
"Sure, I guess. What do you need?" Lee suddenly forgot how tired he was. He was pleasantly surprised that Jamie was even speaking to him in complete sentences, much less asking him for a favor. "And, Jamie, you know you can call me Lee."
"Yeah, I know. I guess I forgot."
"That's okay. So what's the favor?"
"I need to go to the library. I've got to get a book for my book report. They close at noon, and I'm afraid Mom's not going to be off the phone in time."
"Your book report?"
"Yeah. I . . . I wasn't exactly working on it before," Jamie confessed. "I was reading Stephen King, and Mom caught me. She thinks I'm not old enough." He stared at his empty glass. "I . . . uh . . . Mom said I should tell you I'm sorry I lied."
Lee supposed that a forced apology was better than no apology at all, and he was amused at the thought of Amanda finding her younger son with inappropriate reading material. He didn't know which Stephen King novel Jamie had been reading, and he wasn't going to ask, but he agreed with Amanda that the kid probably was too young for that stuff. He made a mental note to check his apartment for anything Amanda wouldn't want the boys to find, and he reddened a little as he remembered a couple of old magazines he still had around somewhere that he wouldn't want Amanda to know about, either.
"What?" Jamie asked, noticing the color in his face.
"Uh . . . nothing. Come on. We'd better get going if we're going to make it to the library by noon."
********
As Jamie perused the classic novels with the help of a librarian, Lee sat in a comfortable chair with the current week's issue of Time. He was dozing just a little, when Jamie came up with a book in either hand. "Lee? Have you ever read these?"
Lee looked at his selections, Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island. He was a little surprised Jamie hadn't read them before. The kid had always struck him as a bit of a bookworm. Lee couldn't remember for sure about Treasure Island, but he knew he'd been a lot younger than Jamie the first time he'd read TomSawyer. "They're both good," Lee told him. "They're both adventures, and they're both about guys not too far from your age."
"Well . . . which one would you pick?"
"Why don't you get both of them? Spend a little time with each one, and figure out which one you'd rather do your book report on. When you're done, you can read the other one just for kicks."
"Yeah, I guess I could do that."
As he waited while Jamie checked out his books, Lee wondered if he should take his stepson directly home. They seemed to be getting along pretty well, and Lee thought it might do some good to spend some more time with the boy, especially without Phillip around. Even from his unlikely position on the outside looking in, Lee knew that the brothers had been good friends when they were younger, but that their relationship had begun to change as they had entered their teenage years. They were no longer fairly evenly matched, as they had been for years, and they no longer held the same interests. Phillip was older and more confident. His sunny disposition and outgoing personality were more than enough to cast a shadow on his quiet little brother. Jamie, on the other hand, was just entering that awkward time in a young man's life when everything seems to be changing. Lee remembered being that age. He had hated it. But he had grown out of it, and he knew Jamie would, too.
Lee thought again about spending some more time with his stepson. He knew Amanda wouldn't care, as long as Jamie was with him. Maybe they could grab a burger for lunch. He could call her from the car and let her know, assuming she was off the phone with Francine. He looked out the window at his Corvette. It was a mess from the past week's thunderstorms. Maybe after lunch, he could talk Jamie into helping him wash it.
********
As they finished their meal, Jamie looked at Lee with a serious expression on his face. They had talked a little while they ate, mostly about Jamie's new camera and his interest in photography. Lee tried to read his stepson's expression, knowing the conversation was about to change direction. He hoped he could get Jamie to admit what was troubling him. If the problem was out in the open, at least they could work on getting it solved. As he studied the boy's face, it occurred to him, as it had many times before, how much Jamie resembled Amanda.
Jamie interrupted his thoughts. "Lee, do you love my mom?" he asked abruptly.
Lee was surprised at the question, but he answered without hesitation. "I sure do. More than anything."
"Are you going to marry her?"
Lee worded his response carefully. "Being married to your mother would be the most wonderful thing in the world. But I want it to be okay with you and your brother, too."
Jamie stared at his mug of cola. With his fingertip, he drew some designs into the condensation on the side of the glass. He seemed to be trying to decide what to say. Finally, he spoke. "Lee, I know you probably think I don't like you very much."
Lee did think that. He had overheard Jamie say as much to Phillip one day. "It's okay, Jamie. You don't have to explain . . . "
"Yeah, I do." He cleared his throat, in an effort to keep his changing voice from cracking. "It's not that I don't like you, Lee. Actually, I think you're a pretty cool guy. Phillip does, too, but I guess you already know that. I guess I'm just worried about what might happen if you and Mom get married." He picked up the salt shaker and tapped it against the surface of the table a few times, then he set it down hard. "See, I know that my mom and dad were in love. In a way, I think they still are. But they got divorced, anyway. I guess what I'm worried about is, well, how do I know that's not going to happen again?"
"Jamie . . ."
"Lee, I want my mom to be happy. But I want to be happy, too. I want to be part of a family. If you're part of it, too, that's fine. I just don't want you or anybody else to hurt my mom. Or me."
"Jamie, I would never hurt your mom. Never in a million years. Or you, or your brother. You have my word on it. And for what it's worth, I already consider you and Phillip to be part of my family. I . . . I hope that's okay with you. And I'd really like for you to consider me part of yours."
Jamie nodded, but then he fell silent. Lee was sure there was more. He studied his own empty glass. He didn't want to put any pressure on the boy. He knew Jamie would resume the conversation when he was ready.
Jamie fiddled with his straw for a while before he continued. "I guess there's something else I want to talk about. This isn't very easy for me to say, but for some reason, I think I can say it better to you than to Mom or Dad."
Lee looked up at him, surprised. Jamie was going to confide in him? The boy was looking directly at him. "Lee, I'm scared," Jamie blurted suddenly, before quickly looking away.
Not knowing what to say, Lee just sat there. He hoped he was wearing an expression that would encourage the boy to go on, but Jamie was staring at the table again. "Scared?" Lee prodded gently.
"Yeah," Jamie admitted. "You know. When Mom went to California in February, she . . . she almost didn't come back."
"I know," Lee said solemnly. The events of the past February were almost as fresh in his memory as the events of the previous evening. It occurred to Lee suddenly that Jamie hadn't really been unfriendly to him until after he and Amanda had gotten back from California. Now that he thought about it, Jamie had been uncharacteristically cool to the rest of the family since then, too. Even to Amanda. Lee hoped Jamie wasn't going to blame him for Amanda's injury. He had already gone around and around with himself over that, finally agreeing with Amanda that none of it had been his fault. It had been pure chance that they had driven into the line of fire at exactly the wrong moment. Norton Scott hadn't known who Lee was at the time, and he probably hadn't even been aiming at Amanda when he pulled the trigger.
Jamie spoke again, interrupting Lee's train of thought. "And even though Dad's around, it's not like he's really around. You know what I mean?"
"I think so." Lee wondered what Joe had to do with this. Maybe Jamie wasn't going to blame him for what had happened in California, after all.
"So it scares me that something might happen to one of them. Or to Grandma, or Phillip. Or to you, even. I never thought about it before Mom got hurt, but now, I think about it all the time."
"It scares me, too, Jamie." Lee admitted. He finally understood what his stepson was trying to say, and he was struck with the similarity between Jamie's outlook on life and his own. Like Lee, before he had been able to admit his love for Amanda, Jamie was afraid of getting too close. He was afraid of losing the people he loved. "Look, Jamie. It took me a long time to learn this, and I could never have learned it without your mom's help . . . but yeah, life's too short. You've already got that part of it figured out. The thing is, you've got to make the most of it while you can. And that means spending it with the people you love. You're right. Those people might not always be around. But that's no reason not to love them while they're here. In fact, it's a pretty good excuse to love them all you can, don't you think?" Lee tilted his head as he looked across the table, trying to make contact with Jamie's downcast eyes. He hoped some of what he'd said had gotten through. "Jamie? Does that help?"
"Yeah. It does," Jamie answered after a moment. With a thoughtful expression on his face, he sipped his cola. Lee watched, as his stepson's expression seemed to take on a twinge of remorse. "I'm sorry if I've been a jerk," Jamie said finally.
"You haven't been a jerk, Jamie," Lee told him. "I think you've just been growing up. It happens to everybody."
"You won't tell Mom about this, will you?"
"Well, I'm pretty good at keeping secrets. But I don't like lying to your mom. I'll tell you what. I promise that I won't bring it up, and if she does, I'll tell her it's just between us men. Okay?"
"Okay." Jamie seemed relieved, as he finished his cola. "Lee, can I ask you one more question?"
"Sure, I guess." Lee wondered what could possibly still be on Jamie's mind. It seemed like the air had been pretty well cleared.
"What do you do?"
"Do?" Lee frowned. Maybe the air wasn't quite as clear as he thought. "I work for IFF. With your mom. You know that."
"And IFF is a documentary film company, right?"
"Right . . ."
"And you're like a producer or something, right?"
"Um, something like that."
"So, Lee, how come a film producer doesn't know how the picture gets on the film?" Jamie asked, reminding him, not very subtly, of a conversation they'd had a couple of weeks before.
Lee had opened his mouth to answer, when he suddenly realized he didn't know what to say. He didn't know exactly what question he'd been expecting, but this certainly wasn't it. As his mind searched for a plausible response, he noticed Jamie's brown eyes twinkling behind his glasses. The corners of the boy's mouth were starting to turn up into a smile. Lee began to laugh. He had seen the same expression on Amanda's face a thousand times, and he knew exactly what was coming.
"Gotcha!" They said simultaneously, pointing at each other, and erupting in laughter. They stood up and grabbed their jackets. As they stepped away from the table, Lee placed his hand on Jamie's shoulder, and he was delighted when the boy didn't shy away.
"Hey, look at all that sunshine! How about helping me wash the 'Vette?" Lee asked, as they headed out the door.
"Is that anything like helping you whitewash the fence?" Jamie asked, immediately realizing his slip. "Uh-oh."
"You've read that book," Lee accused him, laughing.
"Well, maybe . . . But I don't think I've read Treasure Island . . . " He grinned sheepishly at the expression on Lee's face. "More than once or twice."
"Yeah, right," Lee said, playfully collaring Jamie by the back of the neck. "I think the library's open again tomorrow afternoon." They made their way around several parked cars and climbed into the filthy Corvette. "Come on, kiddo," he said, still laughing happily. "If you help me wash this car a few hundred times, I just might let you drive it someday."
THE END