Agent on the Run (The Agents for Good) (17 page)

“We’ll have the baby with us, but that’s all. Lisa is going to watch the others and then when we come back we’ll watch there’s for them.”

John looked decidedly more interested, but he continued to hold onto the injustice of the humiliation he’d been put through.

“Imagine it honey, you, me, on an island, a tropical one this time. Just like old times baby. Two weeks in the warm sun with just you and me and the baby. Now that’s worth getting all dressed up for a day isn’t it honey?” Asia said cajolingly.

John shook his head, as he gazed down into his wife’s erotically promising eyes, “You’re such a wicked little temptress!” He said, as he caved into the plan.

Asia shook her head, as she pulled his head down toward hers for a kiss, “I’m not a wicked temptress honey. I’m just a woman passionate about pleasing her man.”

I shook my head, as I saw both of April’s brothers led off by their cake hungry wives.

I glanced at April beside me, “Your brothers are defeated men. I suppose you have such plans for me as well?”

April pulled in close to me and rose her fingers up to frame my face, as with a deep look of sincerity she said, “There’s absolutely nothing that I want to change about the man God has used to save and enrichen my life in so many positive ways!”

We kissed and it was with an anxious hunger for each other that we pulled back out of the kiss after a long moment. A teasing gleam came into April’s eyes and I prepared myself for the humor at my expense that I expected to soon be forthcoming.

“Now give me a couple of years and the answer might be a different one.” April said tongue-in-cheek.

I laughed. In all honesty she was probably right. Marriage was often a combination of compromise and surrender and I was sure we’d have our differences, but with God’s help we would settle them peacefully and preserve the love for each other that had brought us together at first.

I glanced around and then back to April, “What do you say we slip out of here or would that be cutting your big day short?”

April grinned big, “I thought you’d never ask!”

I grinned big myself and acknowledged for perhaps the first time in my life that it was so good to be me right now.

Chapter Fifteen

Worth the Frustration

Sweat popped out all over my forehead and it was a good thing that I had taken the tuxedo coat off, as I felt like the muscles of my arms and shoulders were about to split the seams of the white shirt that I wore as it was.

“Honey you look like you’re about to blow some major arteries there. Just put me down before you strain something please!”

Oh for the love of mercy would she just shut up!

April’s lips immediately pursed together, as I saw her pull back some words she had been about to say. I winced, as I recorded the fact that the passion of my thoughts may have overridden the block that Elon had put in my mind, which kept her from reading it freely.

I glanced at her eyes to see if I’d hurt her with the harshness of my thoughts. Her eyes were laughing at me and I was relieved to see it.

I glanced up ahead of us. It had to be another stinking fifty feet before we reached the side door of the old Victorian mansion!

Who’s crazy idea had it been to install these long walkways?

I glanced down to April lying languidly still in my arms, only to see that she was about to burst out laughing. I shook my head as I huffed out, “Look I know this could be perceived as something insensitive as well as something you never ask a lady, but just how much do you weigh?”

“A little over 300 pounds.” April said apologetically.

That’s how much it felt like. Glad to know I hadn’t been imagining things.

“The metal adds a lot of weight.” April said stating the obvious.

No kidding!

I glanced at the door still a distance off and beyond it lay a spiral staircase to climb. This just wasn’t working out this way. I set April’s feet down and helped her stand up.

“Glad to see that you’ve come to your senses dear.” She said, as she unknowingly stoked my temper.

There she went opening her mouth again and doubting my manly attributes!

Well she had a surprise coming!

I half spun her around and dipping down I lifted her up, as I grasped the back of her legs throwing her over my shoulder, even as I straightened back up.

My hand settled securely on her bottom and I started back up the path. I had to admit that the caveman approach was a lot better in more than one way. April was one endless giggle, as she hung dangling over the back of my shoulder.

Let her giggle, if she wanted to. I was a man and I was going to get the job done!

I came to the door at long last. It would be locked and I wasn’t about to fumble around in my pocket in search of the rental key so in true caveman fashion I raised my foot and slammed it into the old weathered side door.

The entire handle part of the latch mechanism detached from the rest of the door with the splintering sound of wood to then fall satisfyingly loud on the tiled floor inside.

“You broke the door! We don’t own this place!” April exclaimed.

“I don’t care! They can sue me for damages if they want! It felt good and I’d do it again!”

“Ooohhhhh you’re such a beast!” April exclaimed in a melodramatic tone.

“You bet I am baby girl!”

April giggled against my back again and I let her have a smack on the bottom to underscore my masculine stance on the matter. She never stopped laughing.

I had come to the ornate spiral staircase that dominated the foyer of this Victorian mansion. Curse this Victorian style of architecture with its twelve foot ceilings and extra long staircases!

April out and out laughed as she read my thoughts. I started up the stairs resolutely.

Talk about feeling the burn!

I was drenched in sweat by the time I reach the top and I had to blink my eyes hard repeatedly to flick the sweat out of them. I saw the door at the end of the hall through the sweaty blur of my impaired vision and I headed for it.

The door was closed, but not locked. I’d already lost my ridiculous security deposit for the house so what the heck anyway. I kicked it open too. Stepping into the room I approached the rose petal strewn bed and tossed my burden onto it with a resounding bounce of the box springs.

I checked April’s eyes again to make sure I wasn’t scaring her, only to see that I was having quite the opposite effect on her. One of the best sights I’d ever seen in my life was seeing her laying there with a look of open desire for me in a pile of white lace and fancy beadwork.

She’d have to wait though, because I needed to catch my breath.

“I’ll finish ravishing you in a moment, but right now I need to sit down.” I turned and sat heavily down onto the side of the bed still panting from my experience with the stairs.

April came up behind me on her knees and started kissing the side of my face, “Oh you’re so strong!” She said in a silly tone, but I felt my masculine ego swell up anyway.

Her hands came around my front and gripped my soaked shirt and ripped hard tearing the shirt completely off of my chest.

“Hey! I’m the one that does the ripping!” I exclaimed.

She just laughed and finished ripping my torn sleeves off.

Impudent woman!

Heck I needed a shower before I started anything.

Her thoughts invaded mine, “No you don’t! You smell manly.”

That did it!

I turned reaching for her, “Time to rip you out of that dress sweetheart!”

April danced back out of reach across the big bed and hotly responded, “They’ll be no ripping of this dress buddy! My daughter is going to wear this someday!”

Alright, for that I could make an exception, even in the impassioned state of arousal that I was in, “Alright fine!” I said, as my hands found her. “But when I get through with these rows of impossibly tiny buttons and this creation of silk and lace is lying in a puddle on the floor whatever else you have on is getting ripped off!”

“Oh yeah?” April teased.

“Yeah!” I reiterated loudly and she giggled again.

Oh for the love of mercy what was up with these stupid buttons!

“What’s the deal with these stupid tiny buttons? Why would you make something so hard to get off? Don’t they know men have to remove these things?”

April was laughing uncontrollablely now, but I was really starting to get frustrated!

She glanced back over one half bare shoulder her eyes full of sensual mirth, “Oh how I love you honey!”

I stopped my mind numbing task completely frustrated with the tiny buttons, “I love you too honey, but this is getting……”

“Honey?” She said cutting my whining off.

“What?”

“Buttons can be sewn back on.”

Rip!

“I hope you know you’re going to be picking up every last one of those buttons!” April exclaimed, as buttons pinged throughout the room like the shrapnel from a spent grenade.

“Later!”

April’s happy laughter trailed out of her reflecting the inner joy that she felt inside, as her husband freed her of the rest of what separated her from enjoying what God had created to be specially shared just between her and her husband. It was a gift of pleasurable union from humanities Creator that too few ever thank Him enough for.

Chapter Sixteen

Last Wish

Three months later.

Chantry smiled into the warm rays of the morning sun beating down on him, as Maria pushed him through the flower gardens. He opened his eyes and had to blink for a moment to focus his eyes against the brightness of the sun. He pointed at one of his favorite flowers and Maria needed no other indication of interest.

Maria stopped and she stepped forward past Chantry and up into the landscape planting bed to pick the particular flower that she knew Chantry was partial to. She snapped it off cleanly, while admiring the beauty of the flower for herself before returning to Chantry.

Chantry was smiling, only his eyes were closed and Maria knew her master had left her.

She’d told herself that she was ready for this moment, but she wasn’t. Tears slipped down her face in abandon, as she knelt down before the man, who had given to her so generously and had been a friend to her, a place of calm surety in the storm that was her strange life.

He’d given her purpose or better put something meaningful to do to pass what seemed like the endless time of her bitter life. He’d helped her not to be so bitter and it had been good to have someone to please, who had responded with kind praise and adoration that befitted that of a loving grandfather.

Maria was still no closer to a solution as to what she was to do now. Looking up into the bright morning sky she sobbed, “Oh God please help me!”

It was the first time she’d called out to God in a very long time.

She had nothing. Nothing but a life of aimlessly drifting through and around people without being seen or being of much use to anyone.

Her eyes focused on the flower in her hands. Chantry had given her a priceless gift. He’d given her a home and a family. She’d grown so used to it that she’d forgotten how it was to be alone, but it was coming back to her in bitter waves that felt like they were choking her.

She raised the flower up that was covered in her tears to Chantry’s lap to place it there beside his hand. Her eyes focused on something that already lay there. In Chantry’s one hand a piece of paper was clutched as if he’d been handing it to someone. Maria’s eyes rose to Chantry’s face, he had known when he’d sent her for the flower that it had been going to be his last moment.

Maria tenderly pulled the paper free and gave a sob when she saw it was addressed to her,
“Darling Maria please stop crying, because I know you are. There is nothing sad about this moment for either me or you. I have gone on to a better place and I have been given it to know that your future is secure. So please do not mourn anymore. The future before you is exciting and I press upon you to live it to the fullest! I have one last assignment for you to fulfill. At my gravesite burial, after everyone else has left I want you to remain! This is very important! Do not leave, for any reason, as then I cannot guarantee the path of your future will yet be a secure one. You may be old enough in terms of time to have been my grandmother, but over these past few years you’ve been like the daughter to me that I never had. Thank you! Over and out, Chantry.”

Maria had never stopped crying and she didn’t now. She folded the wet paper up and then laid her head down on Chantry’s lap, “Your final wish is my command master.”

As ceremonies go for those who have departed the realm of mortality Chantry’s was different. Different in a way that ever great man’s should be, but so rarely are.

There were over 5000 people in attendance, within the small confines of the cemetery.

The crowd consisted of a diverse makeup. Forty heads of state from nations around the world were present. A who’s who of those involved in the dealings of world politics, not to mention several underworld connections helped fill out the rest of the mixed multitude. And then there were just the ordinary people that Chantry had impacted the fruit of his many philanthropic endeavors.

Of a truth 5000 people was far too few in attendance, as the entire populations of countries and the world at large owed Chantry a debt of gratitude for his many efforts in the pursuit of justice and freedom.

More significant than the group that was gathered was the aura that filled the outdoor setting in which all those in attendance keenly felt. This man they honored hadn’t been an ordinary man in the traditional sense, because he through his effort of will and strength of faith had far outlived the experiences and endeavors of just an ordinary man.

Chantry’s life and what it had stood for was an ideal for those who had viewed it unfold to try harder themselves to press into the straight and narrow path of life and faith that Chantry had poured his existence into accomplishing in the time given him. This man had been blessed by and kept of God and there was no denying the heavenly presence in the atmosphere that was accompanied by an air of peace beyond comprehension, which made the whole parting ceremony more one of joy than of mourning, because here was a man who’d gotten it right in life and entered the next with his best foot forward.