Chapter 7

There are a lot of people in this world who can let things slide off them and act like it's just not that big of a deal. Slight them, insult them, belittle them. They just seem able to take it and look at the bigger picture of your relationship with them. Like they put it into context and can overlook your one-time transgressions or lapses.

I would never be one of those people; never had and never could. Give you a little insight into me in this respect. On my office wall when I was at State was a large, beautiful poster that shouted out its message in a soft, curling font: "Don't Get Mad - Get Even."

That was me. Revenge Girl.

So while Terry and Dino were content to sit inside the office trailer and talk about the recovery operation, I told them I'd be back. I had a little side mission. Wanted to take some video of the construction going on so I could force feed it to that asshole executive with the Canadian company who swore it wasn't happening.

Halfway to where I wanted to shoot, I remembered I needed the disc I'd left behind in my backpack inside the trailer. Fuck, I muttered under my breath, I did want this on a separate disc so I didn't lose any of the other material already on the disc that was in the camera. I had my hand on the trailer door's handle when my ears picked up a conversation inside between Dino and Terry. One word; a name really. And I stopped in my tracks and did the one thing I should never have done. I eavesdropped. Their voices drifted to me through the open window.

"You remember Isabelle Ferre?" Terry said, his voice almost soft.

"Shit. Isabelle? Damn, Terry. Who'd ever forget her? You guys were..."

"I know." Long pause. "This was her group."

"Excuse me? When did Isabelle... Wait. What are you trying to tell me, buddy?"

"I screwed up, that's what I'm trying to tell you. It just... it happened, okay?"

"No, not okay. WHAT happened?"

I heard Terry let out a long groan. I could picture him, running his hand over his head, closing his eyes and rocking in that way he had. Finally, he said, "I saw her in the bar. The night I was taken. She was in the hotel bar and I..."

"Oh, sweet Jesus."

"It was a few drinks, mate. I wasn't drunk. Okay, yeah, I played around with her, but it wasn't anything really serious. You know Isabelle was always someone who needed me to talk her into helping us."

"Give me a fucking break, Terry. I've seen you 'talk' with Isabelle. You might have used your mouth with her, but there sure as Hell weren't very many words coming out of it."

"I just wanted her to help put me in contact with the BASC group. I fucking swear, Dino. It was nothing but some ... heavy flirting ... at first. But ..." Another pause and my heart was no longer even beating, I think. "She put something in the last drink. I think. Cause I'd had about half of it and started feeling weird. Next thing I knew, I was stumbling back to my room. I was half undressed when she knocked on the door, and ... Fuck."

"I don't think I want to know any more."

"Dino, I swear, there must have been something in the drink. The next thing I knew, we were in bed and she was on top of me. I just... Oh, Christ. They taped it."

"Taped? What? Like they videotaped you fucking her?"

"It wasn't... I didn't mean to... I was drugged." He groaned again. "That's why I went back. I had to find the tape."

I heard the wall of the trailer thud and then Dino cursing loudly. I guessed in his anger he'd punched the wall. His voice was pure pissed off Dino. "You have GOT to be kidding me. You risked the lives of you and Lisa, both of you, so you could go back and get some God damned blackmail tape? I didn't believe it for the fucking laptop but this is... What? Isabelle figured she'd eliminate you as a threat?"

"She knew I had received an e-mail with information we could use to track down the inside people. They couldn't let that happen, Dino. Not before they had the money. It's why they took me. The rest... the stuff with her... that was just to make it personal, so we wouldn't come back on her afterwards."

"No way, buddy. I don't buy it. How fucking bad could the tape be, Terry?"

"It's bad. She showed it to me." Terry's voice was soft. I was turning to walk away, my heart feeling very confused and my brain barely functioning, but then he said, "Lisa would never have understood."

I looked at my hand on the door handle and watched it shove the door open. Terry was sitting in a chair and watching Dino pace. When I entered, I looked Terry in the eyes. Something way down deep inside me snapped. "What wouldn't Lisa understand? That you fucked another woman while on an operation? Or that you fucked me afterwards without telling me about it first?"

Didn't bother with a slap. He never even tried to block me; just took it even though he saw it coming. I was so sure he'd stop me, that I was really giving it my all. By the time I realized he wasn't even going to try to deflect my fist, it was too late. My punch hit him so hard against the jaw that he dropped like a stone.

In stunned silence, I watched him fall. Dino was kneeling next to him in a flash, checking to see if he was still alive, I would guess. Terry was out for the count, but apparently not dead I could tell, as Dino turned and looked up at me with worried eyes.

He stood and touched my shoulder. My hand was still clenched tight in a fist.

"Lisa, sweetheart, let's all take a deep breath."

"You breathe, Dino. All I want to do is get the hell away from here. That bastard down there? It disgusts me to be anywhere near him. He's your friend. Fine. I understand. He's not mine." My voice caught as I watched the pity in Dino's eyes, and I knew he was getting ready to try to comfort me. Held up my hands. "Don't. Just don't ... If you only knew ... I missed every signal. I spent all that time with him and all I saw was the person I wanted to see. He should never have touched me without telling me what had happened."

"Lisa," Dino's voice was a heavy whisper and he moved right up next to me. "You, of all people, should be able to understand."

"Understand? Oh, sure. Of course. He was coming on to her to get information and it got out of hand. Sure. I understand. Using sex to accomplish your mission? My specialty, right?" I glared into his blue eyes. "All this time he's looked down on me for the things Kirk told you guys about me using sex on some of the operations. But never once was I cheating on someone. And never once did I lie about it or try to whitewash it. It was what it was - a tactic; nothing more and nothing less. One among many. But he's always had such trouble with it and ... He's such a fucking hypocrite."

"Lisa, he was drugged." Dino took my hand, the one that had delivered the punch and looked at the damage I'd done to it. It was bleeding and already swelling. But it didn't hurt; I was too numb everywhere for anything to hurt. I grabbed it hard away from him.

"Bullshit. If he was drugged, he wouldn't have been so worried about what the fucking videotape showed because we'd be able to tell. He would never have felt guilty about that. God, Dino... I saw the looks she gave him. I just didn't realize ... And lying to me about his fucking laptop. It makes a lot more sense now."

Terry moaned and started trying to sit up. Dino looked down at him, then said to me, "Why don't I send you out on the first chopper? Terry and I will come back on the second."

I was in the air long before they ever took off. Not that I watched. It's just that we were approaching San Ignacio and the chopper pilot mentioned they hadn't taken off yet. When I saw Bennie standing by a car at the field where we landed, I marched up to him. "Dino wants you to take me back to Belize City. Now."

My voice brooked no argument, not even a question. I borrowed his radio to call Rosaria and have her set me up with the next flight to anywhere in the States. Stopped by the company's building only long enough to grab my suitcase and laptop. Left the video camera behind on the desktop. Left a piece of paper tucked securely underneath it. Two words scrawled on it: 'I quit.'

I looked like shit, I noticed as I looked in the mirror of the plane's tiny bathroom, holding my poor fist under cold water to ease the pain. About an hour outside of Miami and I was suddenly worried about how I looked? What the Hell kind of difference did that make now?

It had all fallen into place for me by then. All the clues. All the signs I'd missed because I would never have looked for them. It wasn't the fact that he did or did not have sex with that woman. It was that, whatever had happened, it had been significant or he wouldn't have reacted like he did. And, the hardest thing about it was that he hadn't told me. That he hadn't assumed I'd understand. That his first instinct had been to lie and cover up.

It was the little things I began to see that told me that whatever had happened, it had meant something to him. I leaned over the sink, feeling myself almost retch at how it made me feel.

And in my mind I had the same movie playing over and over, until it was making me feel like such an idiot. They had known each other before; and I just knew from the way he and Dino talked that they had been lovers. She must have been the 'wrong person' he told about the evidence against the inside men with the companies. I remembered the way she had looked at him. Then there was the fact he wouldn't look at her but had stared pointedly at Martin, making me think it was Martin who was the important one to watch when it had been her all along.

The fact he'd left his address book behind should have told me he was either undressing or in the process of dressing when he'd been taken, because it was this habit of his that I was so used to, I never even thought about it. It was always the first thing out of his pocket when he took off his jacket and the last thing he put into it when he was getting ready to leave. How easy it had been for him to lie to me about the laptop and I remembered the way his eyes looked while he did it. And how coldly he'd looked at me when he caught me sneaking up on him after he'd gone back to the camp. I wondered what he'd really been planning to do, what he would have done if I'd not been with him. And, of course, I had followed him into her tent while he searched for the evidence he thought was more valuable than his life. I figured it must have been at least one notch above just embarrassing; that it must have been much closer to incriminating in what it revealed.

My internal movie always seemed to go into slo-mo when it reached the place where he'd cried while hugging that fucking laptop case to his chest. Inside that case, the thing of most value to him hadn't been the laptop; it had been the videotape. His fingers must have been touching it through the case even as he looked at me. He'd really been holding the evidence he didn't want me to know about; and all the while he'd made me feel like he was emotional because he was so happy to see me, he must have been feeling guilt.

There was something about all those sweet words he'd given me those days in the rainforest, and how he'd gone out of his way to tell me he loved me, to make me swear I would always love him, no matter what. The memory of that twisted in my gut.

I couldn't wait to get to Miami so I could take a shower and try to wash the feel, the scent, the touch of him off me. You should have told me, Terry, I whispered to him in my brain. Closed my eyes; saw the ravishing smile she'd given him and the cold way he'd looked at me before I followed him to her tent. It took another fifteen minutes to gain control over the dry heaves I'd been reduced to by then.

By the time I was back in my apartment in Washington a week later, my emotions were so complicated that I couldn't figure them out. When I walked in, I just wandered around for a while, aimlessly trying to find a place to settle. My eyes finally caught the blinks on my answering machine. The diode said there were 21 messages. I knew who they were from and played them anyway. Dino's voice ran the range of concern to anger and back in the course of the 20 messages he'd left over that week I'd been on the run from them. But the last message I hadn't expected.

"Lisa. We need to talk about this, love." It was all he said. Terry's voice would always do it to me. I played it over and over. Listening to his inflections, imagining a million different things he was trying to load into one simple statement.

Still so crazy in love with him that it hurt in a way I would never have imagined. 

I had always been so sure that I could tell when Terry was trying to lie to me. It had been something we'd joked about. How I always read his eyes. Always. And now, even that was a lie.

During the week between Belize and this day, I knew they'd tried to track me.  Dino called both Dave and Barb. Dave found the tap they'd put on my credit cards and passport; they were trying to figure out where I was or where I was going. The fools. My friends would never have given me up; they would always do whatever they could when I was in trouble and needed help. Especially Dave. That's who I went to in the end because I knew it's where I could find solace. It was also where I found harsh truth. Shit happens, he had said. Deal with it.

But not just then. Not quite yet. Not so ready. Not at all steady. There was something else I wanted to do first and so I booked out of Dave's place within a day of getting there. Places to go, people to beat up, I told him and laughed so he thought I was joking. Those days and having a goal to mess up someone else's life... what can I say? Revenge has been known to keep me going when nothing else ever could.

It proved to be restorative, my trip to exact a small measure of revenge for Belize. And the time I was away having my own unique brand of fun and the distance gave me some time to think and gain perspective. Then I'd come back to Washington, to my apartment, to where I figured I needed to be for a while.

In my bed that night, I watched the ceiling fan whir above me. I hid in the shadows. And knew my life would go on. I was putting things into order and knowing I wasn't ready yet to let go of him, but I also wasn't ready to make it up with him. No one had ever made me feel this way. Across the big pond from me and he was still touching me.

Because I had reached some conclusions during these days away from him. I was ready, in my head, to give him the benefit of the doubt and understand that whatever had happened had taken place in a jumbled up time for Terry. Who knew what being a hostage, in her power, had done to add to whatever memories he had of whatever had happened the night he was taken? Who knew how much his mind had worried during the time he was chained in that small hut over whatever it was that had really happened that night? Who even knew if the drugs, if there were drugs, had robbed him of clarity for what really had happened that night? Who could have ever known how hard it would have been to tell me? Who wouldn't have chosen the easy way out? And who wouldn't have hoped no one found out?

A saner, more rational Terry would never have gone back for anything like a tape. But he wasn't reacting sanely or rationally at the time he made the decision. He was reacting to the need to reestablish control over his life. I convinced myself of that.

Perhaps he would have told me eventually. Perhaps he would have even made sense of the jumble.

In my own head, I had made sense of what I thought would happen between us now. How we'd eventually reconcile if we both wanted to and how I'd be able to hear his side to it. But it wasn't really my head that was having the hard time at that point. It was my irrational heart.

Of course, I wasn't at all sure how we'd ever even reach the point where we could reconcile if I couldn't even find the way to see or talk to him. How would he ever have the chance to tell me his side if I couldn't bear to be close enough to him to hear him talk to me?

In the middle of my night, I reached for the phone and called Dino. Listened to his voice and wished so badly he could have made me just forget. "Where are you, sweetheart?" his quiet lilt asked me.

"In a not-so-good place right now, Dino. But I'm fine and you don't need to worry about me anymore."

He gave me this soft laugh. "You know I'll always worry about you. I wouldn't be a very good boss if I didn't."

"I don't work for you anymore. Kinda thought you got the fact that I'd quit, Dino."

"You don't have to come back to London. I have a job I need you on and it's..."

"No, Dino. Sorry."

He didn't say anything for a while and it was long enough that I was afraid we'd somehow been disconnected. And then, in this aching voice, he asked, "What do you want me to tell Terry?"

"Nothing, buddy. Nothing. I'll talk with him. Eventually. I don't want to leave it like this. Is he in London with you or is he...?"

"He's out of the country. Reviewing some client security measures in South Africa. Should be back within a week."

"Then I'll call and leave a message for him at his house. He can just ring me when he gets home."

I watched the fan whir for another two hours before I finally got disgusted enough to get up. I was watching the Washington night sky and flashed on that night I'd watched England's sky. It's how I figured out my next step.

Chapter 8

The very essence of memory is that it's always triggered by the little things for me. A smell. A faint taste of reminiscence. A flash of an image that connects with a mostly forgotten scene in my past. Three chords in a song. Words that make no sense and yet, they dredge up old conversations.

Inside his bedroom. His house. It looked just like the first time I'd seen it and that very memory slammed into me so hard that it made me sink to my ass and cry.

Hugging my knees and rocking in the middle of the floor. Suddenly so overwhelmed with what I'd lost. Missing him so badly I thought I might never recover.

He'd wiped out every memory of me in his space. Like I'd never existed there. Neatly packed up into two suitcases and two boxes. Like he wanted me erased from his life.

It took me an hour to get a painful grip on this new reality. Called the office and got put through to Janet, Dino's administrative person. Nice girl but, Lord, I sure was not in the mood for chit-chat. Finally, just cut her off when she asked if Terry and I were back together; if that was why I was back in London. Asked for Dino; she put me on hold because he was on another call. But, less than a minute later, I hung up before he had a chance to come on the line. After all, what would I have said? Was there something he could have done or said? No, there wasn't.

This was no place for me anymore. My hands shook wildly as I dialed for a cab to take me to the airport. Wrote Terry a note, asking him to ship the boxes to me in Washington. Took the two suitcases he'd packed, plus the one I'd brought with me on the trip from Washington, to the front door and sat there on the stoop, waiting for the cab.

But before it got there, a sleek black car pulled up to the curb and I watched through sore eyes as the redhead got out. He knelt down in front of me for a moment, looking in my eyes before he hugged me to him. We were still locked there like that when the cab tooted. Dino rose slowly, patted my head and then went to the cabbie, paying him off and telling him plans had changed.

Back in front of me, picking up a suitcase, quiet voice saying, "You're staying with me tonight."

Later that night, we were drinking, barely talking. He'd taken me to a pub, knowing me well enough to know I needed to tell him, but that it would never be the easy way. When I finally told him how it had shocked me to find Terry had packed my things, he looked off for a few minutes.

His eyes sought mine finally, fixing me with a hard glare. "It's why you came back though, isn't it, Lisa? You were just going to pack up and leave him. Right? I mean, you obviously weren't coming back to see him, to try to work it out, because you knew he wasn't here." He shook his finger at me. "He knew you better than you realized. He was trying to make it easy on you."

Dino was wrong about me. It wasn't why I'd come to London. And he was wrong about Terry. Because Terry hadn't packed my things up to make it easier for me. He'd done it because he'd always expected me to leave him. From the beginning of our relationship. So much so that it must have been an instinctual response for him to instantly pack my stuff for me, rather than waiting to see what would happen between us.

"You know, Dino, I had a lot of time to think about what happened and about how we both reacted," I told him. "Honestly? I came here mainly to see how I'd feel once I was back in his house. To see if I could figure out how I feel about him."

"Do you still love him?" he asked me in a hard voice.

"I sure don't want to," I replied and when he frowned at me, I sighed. "Yes. I still love him, Dino. But I guess that's something I'll have to just get over."

"He still loves you," he said.

"Funny way of showing it, don't you think?"

"Could say that about you as well. You never even gave him a chance. You never even waited for the whole story. You never even thought once about just forgiving him if he'd really done something wrong."

I took in his hard glare, that Dino tilt to his chin that always looked like he was waiting for someone to clip him there, like he was daring you to disagree with him. I reached out and stroked along that waiting-to-be-punched chin. "You'll always be his friend, won't you?"

That night, I didn't sleep. I sat in a chair by a window and stared off into the night. Wondering how we could be in love with each other and be so miserable.

And then heard Dino's words again in this part of my brain that apparently was still processing them. This talk about the "whole story" and "if he'd done something wrong." What was I missing?

"Why didn't you just tell me if I was wrong about what happened?" I told him after I shook him awake. Plopped down next to him on his bed and waited impatiently on his answer.

"Christ, Lisa. Let me fucking cover up here, would you?" He was trying to drag a sheet up over himself and I glanced down and only then took in his state of, um, virtual undress.

"Oh, Dino. You don't have anything I haven't seen before. Don't be so silly," I tsk'd him. And got this sleepy look of reproach from him as he yanked the sheet up under his chin. "Tell me what I need to know about what happened to Terry in Belize."

"No." The word came out very forcefully, as if he thought it would avert any argument from me. "This is between you two. You want to know, you ask him."

"That's a bit tough, don't you think? Did you forget he kicked me out of his life?" I reached over and swatted him on his arm, instant heat flying out of me. "He obviously doesn't want anything to do with me anymore."

"Then why did he book a flight the moment he found out you were here?" As soon as he said it, his face told me he hadn't meant to tell me that. "Fuck. He's going to kill me."

"He's coming back? For me?" I could barely speak.

"I was talking to him when you called the office. Janet told me you were calling me from his house. He asked me to keep you here until he could get back."

It's the only reason I was there to greet him when his plane landed the next afternoon. I watched him walk through a door from Customs, knowing he'd be gliding through untouched. When he came out, he didn't see me and I was able to drink in my fill of him. And then a second sense must have told him he was being watched, because he turned his head and looked around for a few moments before he saw me.

My heart slowed and ached hard as we stared at each other, people rushing back and forth along the walkway that divided us. Neither of us moved for so long that I worried it had been a real mistake to assume he was coming there because he needed to see me. Maybe he just wanted to be sure I left. Maybe he wanted to tell me off.  Maybe this was some sick thing Dino dreamed up to trick us into seeing each other again.

He moved toward me, never taking his eyes off me. I kept trying to see his eyes, to read him. To pretend to myself that I still could, as if I ever had been really able to, read him. But just watching him move... I would have flown a lot further around the world just to see him walk toward me again.

When he reached me, he moved in so close but he didn't try to touch me. He just looked down at me. I put a hand on his arm, needing the reality of feeling him. "Do you still want to talk about this?" I asked him, my voice shaky with the possibility that he'd say 'no.'

Slow nod from him and his face relaxed into the tiniest of smiles. He held out his hand and I took it. We didn't say anything as we walked to the car Dino had leant me and we barely talked about anything more than traffic as I drove us to Terry's house. At the curb, he looked toward his front door and then back at me. "This is okay with you? Because, if it's not, we could go stay somewhere else."

I didn't answer, just got out and waited for him. Entering the house was tough; we both looked hard at the boxes and then he took my hand and dragged me into the living room. We sort of settled on the couch; I heard him clear his throat nervously and I couldn't find anything more interesting than my knees to look at.

"Well." We said it at the same time and kind of glanced at each other before looking away again.

"This is certainly awkward," I muttered.

"Where are you staying?" he asked me.

"Not here," I replied, the words coming out too fast and too harsh. My eyes flew to his face and caught the way his eyes got harder. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that, Terry. I just... Well, I mean, all things considered, I couldn't very well stay here... I stayed with Dino last night."

"You should stay here. This is still your home, too." His big hand stroked my arm. His eyes softened but I still couldn't find my sea in them.

"No, it's your home," I said, my voice so quiet it was barely even a whisper. Nodded over to the boxes. "I got the message."

He closed his eyes and this sad groan slipped out of him. "Lisa..."

"Don't. It's okay. I understand." Feeling that twist in my gut again. "What else should I have expected?"

"Lisa, I'm... I shouldn't have done that. I thought it would... I was angry."

Nodded at him, feeling the way his fingers tensed on my arm. Knowing he was still angry. We sat like that forever. At least that's what it felt like. Forever, and we still weren't even talking about what we should have been. "Well, I should go. I'll... I don't know... I'm sorry I left like I did, Terry. But it was all I could do."

He didn't say anything, just looked at me and I was still trying, without success, to read him. Nothing. I went to rise from the couch but his fingers resting on my arm circled above my elbow and checked my progress. "Don't go," he whispered. "Not yet. Let's at least clear the air between us, Lisa."

That's when I focused on him again. He was looking at me as if I might have the answers to all this shit we were slogging through. I didn't. I only had my own convoluted logic. "There was a code, Terry. We lived our lives by it when I was on missions. What it took to survive, to win, to make a difference - that's what we did. And even when we made mistakes, if it was for the cause - if, when we did it, it was calculated to advance the operation - then it was just something we learned from if it turned out to have been a mistake... And we left it in the field. We didn't bring it home with us... Look me in the eye and tell me that what you did was for the operation or that, at the time, you thought it would help get the hostage home. Tell me that and I can understand... And, I promise you, I will find a way to leave it back in the field. So, tell me, Terry. Please."

I watched his eyes go through phases, not sure I was reading them accurately, but knowing he was weighing his options and deciding what the truth was. Finally, whatever was happening, it became obvious he'd made up his mind. I could see it.

"How much do you trust me, Lisa?" He raised his eyebrows at me as his lips curved into this smile that I wanted to believe in. He moved toward me, not reaching for me, just getting close enough I thought I could almost hear his heart beating. "Do you trust that I love you?"

"I trust you, Terry. More than you know. So please tell me. Because I need something to hang on to in all this. I just keep waiting for this to be over and for you to be in love with me again. It's that time between being hurt and somehow getting over it that I can't seem to figure out."

"Do you want me to tell you what happened?"

"No... Yes... Fuck. I don't know." I looked at him and hoped he could see that I wanted nothing more than to hear a lie, if that's what it took to make me feel better. "Do I want to know? Will it make me feel worse?"

"I made a mistake." Turning on the couch. Looking me dead in the eyes. "But, at the time, I didn't realize it was a mistake. When I saw Isabelle, I knew she'd come looking for me. And I thought I knew why. That she had the connections to help me negotiate the deal. What I did... We had a history together and if I hadn't come on to her, she would never have helped me. It's just what she expected, so I did it. My only regrets are that I let it get out of hand and that I never saw the double cross coming."

For long moments, I just looked at him. Still no sea that I could find in his eyes. And the reality was that, even though I had wanted him to tell me that it had just been an operational mistake so that at least one part of me could make sense of it, it actually didn't help as much as I thought it would. There were still all those little things that had made me feel like a fool. There were still the big hurt spaces inside me that didn't feel that much better. "I see. Well... Okay. Well, I guess we've cleared the air."

Clear air between us that didn't seem to have solved the entire problem. I started asking myself if there was something I should do or say, a way to bridge from hurt to healing, a miracle that would erase the emptiness between us and restore the way we'd been before Belize.

He must have thought we were a lot further along on the path to healing than I did. When he spoke to me, his voice was almost breaking from the desire for things to be okay again.

"I need you right now in a way I don't think I ever have before, Lisa. I need you to forgive me for fucking up. And I need you to help me figure out how I'm going to keep you in my life." He pulled my body close to his. Leaned in toward me so we were about a breath apart. "I need you to help me feel like I'm still a man."

Watching his lips move. Hearing him. So close. Not understanding my reaction. I could see his need. It was written in his mouth, on his hands, in his voice. I swallowed hard; my hands reached out almost on their own to touch him. His chest, moving with the pace of his breathing. His neck, corded with tension and yet shifting as my fingers trailed along it. But something inside me refused to look in his eyes anymore. Until he whispered my name and it felt like a new promise. Only then, and only with a conscious effort, could I take in his eyes. They swam before me.

And that's when I knew I was still so lost when it came to him.

He barely had to move to reach my lips. He touched them once with his before beginning a gentle, if insistent tug of my bottom lip. By the time his tongue crept into my mouth, I was crying and he could taste my tears. He pulled away from me and looked at me like it was the first time he'd seen me that day.

"Let me go. Please," I said, my voice shaking and my hands pushing against him to get some space between us. "I can't. Not yet. Not now."

"Stay with me, Lisa. We can work this through, but not if you're running from me," he said.

"You just have to give me some time." I was trying to get up from the couch, wanting to be ... I didn't know where I wanted to be. Maybe it was here. But more likely it was anywhere but here.

"Don't leave yet. Stay the night. You take the bed. I'll sleep on the couch. Just ... stay here tonight. Please."

There was something about his voice that told me this was a step I simply had to take. That to leave just then might have done him harm in a way I couldn't bring myself to do. And that was how I ended up sliding into his bed a few hours later. We'd barely said anything more to each other in that time. Most of the time we spent sipping beers and sitting awkwardly on his deck.

I borrowed one of his t-shirts to sleep in after I called Dino and told him I'd be staying there that night rather than returning to his place. Don't read too much into it, I explained to his too-delighted voice, we're struggling.

Upstairs, alone in his bed, I drifted in memories of better times. Downstairs, I could hear Terry pace. I have no idea how, because I felt so totally wired up, but somehow I fell asleep, as if I was lulled just by his solid presence somewhere near me. When I woke, only a few hours had passed and the house was completely still. In the dark, in his bed, in his house and still missing him in a physical way that consumed me. Crying into the pillow because this was all so wrong and I didn't have anyone to comfort me.

Creeping slowly through the hall and down the stairs. Standing on the last step and watching his indistinct form sleeping in the shadows of the living room. Desperate for him to make it better for me. I sat on the floor next to the couch for a long time, just listening to him breathe.

Finally, I touched him lightly on the face, running my hands down the ever-present shadow of scruff along his jaw. He opened his eyes and focused on me. "I'm cold. Can I come under the blanket with you, Terry?"

Something happened to me in the next moment. He turned on his side, raised the blanket and looked at me. Déjà vu. It was the morning after the first night we'd slept together in Trinidad. He'd made that exact same tender gesture. I felt the same flush of relief to be able to settle in next to him.

Before my head even hit the pillow, he was gathering me in close to him, warming me up. I closed my eyes and all I could remember in that moment was that I had promised him once that I would always love him. No matter what.

In the morning, I woke instantly when he shifted against me. Some instinct took in what was happening. He had wakened with a hard on and was trying to move away, knowing one night's sleep wasn't enough to make me ready. I climbed up from the couch and went to take a shower, using that alone time to will myself to just roll with whatever happened that day.

Wiping off the steam fog over the mirror, I saw my eyes come into focus there. Replayed the night before. Wondered if he interpreted it as I did. That he knew I was willing to work this through, to try to salvage what we had because it meant so much to me.

It was a cold, strained day. Rainy storms blustered outside; and inside, we couldn't find a way to warm up to each other. We talked but only about safe things, like his son or the client in South Africa. When his cleaning lady came, he suggested we leave her to her work and go out for a long lunch. So, into the storm we went, splashing puddles in the drive and then trying to avoid them on the walk into the small restaurant he chose. More memories snuck in on me, from the way the menu reminded me of the first time we'd eaten there, to hearing snippets of piped in music that made me see the trips we'd taken to watch Henry play soccer.

By the time we got back to his house, I had agreed to spend at least one more night there. Decided I should take Dino's car and go get my suitcase. As I took off, I had this flush of relief to have a break in the tension we were both trying so hard not to acknowledge. I drove slowly to Dino's apartment. Took a lot of time deciding whether or not I should bring the suitcases Terry had packed back with me to his house, or if I should only bring the one I'd traveled with from Washington. Finally decided to err on the side of caution and only brought my traveling suitcase with me. Back in Dino's car for the return trip and I drove even more slowly back to Terry's house.

When I walked back in the house, there was a subtle change. It took a while to get it. He was out on the deck and I went to tell him I was back. Got a nod and a polite peck in greeting. Took my suitcase up to his bedroom and stopped cold. Looked around. Felt the old heart kick and buck.

In the time I'd been gone, he'd been busy. He'd restored me to his life.

My souvenirs on the bureau top. My perfume bottles nearby. Pictures of us back on the wall where I'd hung them. I could see some of my clothes hanging in the open closet. I turned around and he was leaning against the doorframe.

"Tell me you'll stay," he said. "I need you here. With me. I'm sorry for the mistakes I've made."

"I should never have left you in Belize. I should have known... I should have seen you were in trouble but..." Shook my head, wiped away the tears that lingered on my cheeks. Then crossed to where he stood and took one hand with mine. "Tell me you love me, Terry. Because all I want right this very minute is to be the one person in your life you can count on. I let you down, but it won't ever happen again."

His big hand swept up to my cheek and he used it to guide me up against his body. I felt his solid chest under my other cheek, felt his other arm snug around my waist pulling me in even closer. Closed my eyes and the memories of him flooded in over me. His smell. His feel. His heat. The way his heart sounded when I listened to it like this. The way his head leaning in on the top of mine always felt reassuring. How his muscles would tighten when I ran my hands along his back.

How much just being enveloped by him was an experience that could overwhelm me.

"I love you, Lisa," he whispered to me. I shut my eyes and clung to him, edging in closer. He let out this long groan and I pulled away to see his eyes. It was a sight that made me smile because it was the first time in so long since I'd seen, really seen my sea swimming easily in there.

Going up on my toes, I arched my face up to his, wanting to taste a kiss... to see if it was like old times with him. To see if that intimacy was mine again. But he stopped me by kissing my forehead.

With his mouth still resting there, he said, "I'm about to show you how incredibly selfish I can be, and I'm hoping to God you'll understand. I need something from you, Lisa. I need it in this way that..."

"Tell me, Terry. I'll give you whatever I can."

But he didn't tell me. Not at first. At first, he showed me.

He moved into me, his arms gliding down my back, gripping me on the roundness of my rear. Not exactly gentle, but so in control, and not to be denied. His head tilted toward me and his lips nuzzled mine briefly, before landing hard on my neck. It was this demanding, sucking kiss at first. I moaned when it changed, as he bit into me, not because it hurt but because the very baseness of the gesture excited me. Then he kissed me lightly there, as if to make up for the aggressiveness of the bite.

"Let me take you." My eyes closed at the roughness of his voice. But he wasn't seeking my verbal permission, not so much as he wanted my physical acquiescence. And I knew in that moment, that his needs overshadowed my own. That this need in him had been building since the instant after he'd been outwitted and bested in Belize.

So, I stayed with him as best I could. It was easy to give this to him; I had certainly asked as much of him in coming to grips with what had been robbed from me in my own bad times. We had different needs in the aftermath of our own personal reminders of our fallibility; but just as I only faced and went beyond mine in the safety of his arms, he was seeking his victory in his ability to possess me totally and commandingly.

From the moment he felt me give myself over to him, his movements were forceful but measured. His hands slipped between us and parted the buttons of my shirt. He might have kissed my shoulder when he removed my shirt from my body, but it was a kiss of aggression. He concentrated totally on getting me nude and then stepped away from me, his eyes traveling the length of my body as if he were taking inventory of something that belonged to him.

I took his hand when he extended it and he led me to the bed, where he had me sit on the edge. "My clothes. Take them off," he muttered.

There, now. There it was. No question who was determining how each part of this would go. My fingers made quick work of his black polo shirt, gliding up his skin and shanking it off over his head in one flowing move. I leaned forward and sucked in a gentle kiss on his abdomen, feeling him tremble just a bit, but his hands took mine and placed them on the snap of his jeans. I glanced up to find storm-tossed eyes watching me with serious intent. I had his jeans and underwear down within the next thirty seconds.

He put his hands on my head and, for this, he needed no words to tell me what he wanted. It was also what I'd wanted since I'd felt him hard and ready against my hands as I had lowered his zipper. I wanted to make it good for him, to take it slow and let it build, thinking it's what he needed; but as I went to nuzzle and lick, I felt his hand wrap around his cock and he placed its head against my lips. "Just suck me."

If I hadn't already been getting wet, that would have been all it took. I still don't understand why, because I would normally hate to feel I was only there to be a vessel for some man's gratification, but for some reason, in the context of what was happening... It definitely turned me up another notch. He groaned deep in his throat as my lips circled him and I felt him shift his stance, rocking his hips forward into me as I slid down his shaft. But he let me take him slowly, his hands resting lightly atop my head, and he moaned softly as my mouth and tongue worked on him.

In no time, it seemed, he was panting. And just as I felt his thighs tremble and his ass beneath my fingers tighten, he stopped moving and pulled me off him. Then almost roughly pushing me down on the bed, climbing in over me, shoving me away from the edge with his knee between my crotch. He dropped down on his elbows to kiss me, his mouth hard on mine, his tongue demanding entry into me. I wrapped myself around his body just as he entered me below in one long, deliberate lunge.

This deep growl that seemed to rumble inside his chest sneaked out of his mouth. He started moving in me, grinding hard when he'd hilt and then almost coming completely out as he receded. Under my hands, I could feel the tension in his back and neck. I started whispering in his ear. "Fuck me, Terry. Go on, do it harder. Do it like you want. Take me."

He stopped kissing my skin, dropping his forehead against my throat, wrapping his strong arms around my waist. And he started just thrusting; hard, deep, slowly picking up a faster rhythm, driving me breathlessly toward a release that made me abandon my determination to stay with him for him. Instead, in that time, I was mindlessly seeking a soaring coming that rocked my body and then lingered in these electrical aftershocks.

"Oh God, Lisa," he mumbled harshly to me, as my hands tried without success to raise his head so I could kiss him. He was losing all gentleness, now simply blind in his need to dominate me as he thrust harder. "Fuck... Lisa, no... Oh. Fuck. Fuck yes."

His coming seemed to take him by surprise. When he finished, he simply stayed shoved up deep inside me, resting his body atop me, not moving except to drag in deep breaths. When he calmed, he slowly raised his head to find me and I saw traces of tears along his face. My hands in his hair, a smile on my face that he seemed unaware he'd put there. "Tell me I didn't hurt you, love," he whispered.

Shaking my head, struggling to find a way to get to his lips, "No, baby, it was... Damn. It was good."

Sudden giggle from him. Then he plopped to my side, his arms dragging me on top of him, his mouth on mine. When he pulled his lips away, he held me close to him, saying, "I don't know how much longer I could have gone on without you. I feel like I'm home again."

"Me, too," I told him. Closed my eyes and knew we were going to find our way back to each other.

Almost four weeks later, we nestled in on the couch to watch a television news show that we both felt this sick need to see. It was about the Chalillo Dam and the illegal activities by a Canadian company and how they had led to political upheaval as well as unprecedented opposition among the country's residents. It was also about the fight to stop the dam project that had drawn in international environmental organizations.

About ten minutes into the hour-long program, we watched footage of illegal building that we had witnessed going on in the jungle. Terry looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh. Forgot to mention that, did I?" I muttered. "Well, see, after I left Belize, I... well, you know, I just was feeling the need for some revenge. To make me feel a little better. I went to Canada to force feed the disc of video images I took of the dam work to the asshole with the company who swore to me there was no building going on. But just before I went to cram it down his throat, I realized I might do him more harm by handing over the footage to the Canadian film crew that had wanted to cover the story in the first place."

Yep. Revenge. I got it in good measure. Gave a copy of the disc to the Canadian crew and then shipped other copies along with background material to some media friends in Houston, Miami and New York who were always looking for some fun exposé journalism.

And the rest? As they say, it's history.

The best news in the whole mess, as far as I was concerned though, was that there were some things that weren't history. Like the jaguar's habitat. Like the green cathedral rainforest in that area of Belize.

But, most importantly, I was grateful that other people would be able to witness the stunning and majestic sight I had. Burnt red feathers against shifting greens. In the end, saving the scarlet macaw of Belize was accomplished when international media zeroed in on the story and the pressure made the government cave in and stop the Chalillo Dam.

"You did that even though it accomplished everything Isabelle was after? Why would you do that?" he asked me, looking at me like he had just discovered the huge hole in my head.

"Christ. It was a tough choice. Had to decide who I wanted to fuck over the most." I dodged his elbow. "Give me a break, Terry. I was really pissed at the time. I took it out on the easiest target. I certainly didn't want to help that bitch and her group but... well, I don't know, Terry. There was something about that rainforest that really affected me. Saving it was bigger than Isabelle, wasn't it?"

We turned back to the television as loud booms erupted. And we both smiled as the infrastructure was reduced to bits of rubble when government engineers detonated the explosives to render it history.

The Chalillo Dam. It had nearly destroyed us. Now, it was a memory.