LITMIR.BIZ

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each Sunday. My past life has taught me compassion, and understanding and unconditional love.” Then he squeezed her hand tight. “Lydia, I can’t bear you being angry at me. But I certainly don’t blame you.” He let out a long sigh, his hands dropping to his side. This wasn’t going to be easy, not with Lydia. She was too innocent for this. “If I’ve lost your respect, then I truly am lost.”

      

      That comment shut her up, good and proper. But she glowed in her silence, and she didn’t exactly feel like pouting anymore. He wanted her respect above all else? Did that even hint at any type of feelings he might have for her, other than those of friend and coworker and fellow Christian?

      Lydia swallowed hard, prayed for guidance, then said, “You did have my respect, and you still do. I just wish I’d had your trust so you could have told me about all of this.”

      He pushed a hand over his face. “It’s not a matter of trust. CHAIM doesn’t allow us to give out information. We tell no one. We don’t share the details of our jobs. That would put too many people in danger. And I think someone has done exactly that—given our identities and our locations away. There are people all over the world who’d like to see all of the CHAIM operatives dead.”

      “Starting with you?”

      “It looks that way, yes.”

      “But now that I know about CHAIM, can’t you give me a few more hints? I need to be prepared for the worst.”

      He heaved them both up an embankment, then stopped to take in the lay of the land while Lydia stopped to marvel at his strength—not just his outer physical strength, but an inner core that now radiated around him and made him seem powerful and heroic in her eyes. And made her wonder, yet again, just how many secrets he was carrying.

      Too tired to figure all that out, Lydia concentrated on their surroundings. The woods were shrouded in a blanket of gray moonlight, the river glistened like a silver necklace. She could hear the rustling of forest creatures off in the distance. At least, she hoped it was forest creatures and not humans dressed in disguise, coming for them.

      Since he just stood there like a good-looking block of stone, she reminded Pastor Dev again. “I need to understand. I like details, I like to be organized and prepared. So I need to know everything, just in case.”

      He got moving then, his boots stomping through the underbrush. “No, you don’t. You just need to do exactly as I say, for your own protection and safety.”

      She hurried to catch him, then stopped to stare at his retreating back. “Will you ever tell me all of it? I mean, why we’re really being chased and what you did to cause this?”

      “Probably not. You’re better off not knowing.”

      And that’s the only answer she got. He refused to give her the details—for her own protection, of course. Lydia was getting mighty tired of being kept in the dark for her own protection. But then, what choice did she have? Right now, she could only follow the man she loved as they marched blindly along.

      So she stomped after him in her sensible pumps, so very glad that he at least thought she was amazing, practical and pragmatic. The compliments couldn’t get much better. The man might be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he didn’t have a clue as to a woman’s heart. Not one clue.

      Lydia didn’t know where she was going to wind up after this. Right now, she just had to find a way to survive New Orleans. If they ever got there. But after what happened when they did get there, Lydia would have rather stayed hidden in the woods of North Georgia.

      FOUR

      “Why New Orleans?” Lydia asked an hour later as they drove over the Alabama state line, heading for Mississippi and eventually, Louisiana.

      Pastor Dev shifted the gears of the beat-up Chevy truck he’d managed to “buy” off a kid near Marietta, his eyes straight ahead on the back road they were taking to the Interstate. Lydia didn’t try to figure out how he’d arranged to buy the truck, but then, finagling a truck from a teenager in the middle of the night was only one of his many talents, she imagined.

      “I told you, there’s a safe house there. It’s the least likely place anyone would look for us.”

      “Now that makes sense,” she replied, tilting her head back on the rough fabric of the seat. Then she glanced over at him again. “Are you sure about my parents? I don’t want them to worry.”

      “They know you’re safe.”

      He wasn’t much for giving out unnecessary information. And now that Lydia thought about it, he’d always been that way. Not a big talker—about himself. But he could talk a bobcat through a pack of bulldogs, faithwise. Was that the mark of a good minister? Or the cover of a man full of secrets?

      Tired of all the questions running amok inside her head, she decided to try a different tack. “What happens in New Orleans? I mean, do we just sit and wait?”

      He shook his head. “No, you rest and I work.”

      “Work? What kind of work?”

      “I have to locate my superiors, let them know I’m okay. I’ll need to give a thorough report, then wait for further instructions.”

      Lydia was getting mighty tired of this “further instructions” business. She didn’t like being undercover, not one little bit. But she didn’t want to ruffle Commando Dev’s already riled feathers, so she tried to sound excited. “That should be interesting.” Then she closed her eyes. “What about Pastor Pierson?”

      He didn’t speak for a full minute. Lydia slanted her eyes to watch him for signs of wear and tear. “Are you okay?”

      Pastor Dev tapped the steering wheel in a soft gentle cadence, then glanced at the NASCAR-emblazoned key chain that dangled like a necklace around the truck’s rearview mirror. “Arrangements are being made. The official report—a break-in and robbery.”

      “What about us? What’s the official report on us?”

      “We were in a different room. We were never there.”

      “They switched your room?”

      “Yes. To protect you. And to keep my cover. The official report will be that we had to leave the conference suddenly. After a few days, the official report will be that we’re on a working retreat.”

      Lydia felt her dander rising, but she held back. “Y’all like to stretch the truth to the limits with all this undercover stuff, don’t you?”

      “It’s for our safety and protection.”

      “Yeah, there is that.”

      He didn’t answer, and Lydia felt small and petty for being so snippy. But then, it was late and she was tired and still suffering from shell shock. And since she hadn’t been through the school of special ops etiquette, she thought she was doing a fairly good job of winging it.

      “So Pastor Pierson’s family thinks he was attacked and robbed? And that’s it?”

      “That has to be it. And that is the truth. He was attacked.”

      But Lydia could tell by the way he stated the obvious, that wasn’t all of it. One of his best friends was dead, and she could see the weight of that pulling at Pastor Dev’s strong shoulders. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

      “Me, too. Get some rest, Lydia. We have a long way to go.”

      Then he went completely blank, effectively shutting her out. Lydia felt the burn of tears in her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to give in to the need to cry herself a little river. So she prayed, her eyes closed, her mind emptying of all the questions and the unpleasant images. She put an image of the Lord front and center in her head and held to that image as she asked Him to protect them. And while she prayed, she wondered if might made right. If the need for the better good of all made up

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