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MINKA FELT LIKE SOMEONE had poured sand in her mouth. She was just that parched. The corners of her eyes were filled with grit. Her body hurt. She remembered a weird dream of Sven that left her with a keen sense of loss.
“Honey? How are you feeling?” Her mom asked. She leaned over Minka’s bed and for a second, Minka thought it was Gram.
“Worse than when I put my elbow through the glass,” Minka said. She still had a thin scar where the doctors had stitched her up.
“Good to see you awake. Do you need anything?”
“Water,” Minka said.
“No food or drink yet. The nurses said you might wake up thirsty. You can have ice chips. There’s also this lemon stuff.” It was better than nothing, but not the water Minka longed for.
“Would you like me to read to you for a while?”
“Yes,” Minka said. She wondered how pathetic it would be to ask for Sven. He probably didn’t even know she was in the hospital. He might not even care.
Her mom opened a Mary Higgins Clark mystery. Minka couldn’t see the title, but caught the word ‘Clark’ as her mother lifted the book to settle in. Before Estella could start reading, Minka said, “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Did my Spokane neighbor visit me here? I can’t tell if it was a dream or a memory. His name is Sven.”
“Sven. He’s a nice boy. Yes. He stayed here for hours with you. I wasn’t here when you woke up the first time, but he said you made it clear you didn’t want him near you. You pulled your hand away or something. He’s been guarding you for days. He was here a bit ago, but the officer watching your room said he chased after an orderly. Guess he didn’t like the fellow’s looks. He genuinely cares for you.”
Minka remembered the female voice on the phone. “He cared enough to have another woman in his hotel. I called him while he was in Miami, and a woman answered the phone.”
“He should have the chance to explain. Minka, I don’t want to scare you, but I would feel better if there were someone else I trusted here to watch. I don’t know all of the nurses and doctors, and sometimes strangers come in...and I just don’t know who to trust.”
“Mom, Sven and I were only together a few months. He can’t like me enough to hang around the hospital for a week.” Minka just didn’t believe in happy-ever-after, not after the hell she’d been through in the past few years.
“Honey, I’ve been talking to that boy for the past week waiting for you to get better and he’s a damn sight better than Joe ever pretended to be. Talk to him again. Give him a chance.”
Minka felt a loneliness in the center of her being that Joe had never activated. With her ex, she had felt relief when he left on trips. This was the first time in years she had actively missed anyone. She wanted so bad for Sven to explain away the woman’s voice. Maybe too bad. She said, “I’ll see him, but we’re still just friends.”
“Do you like him?” Ever shrewd, her mother cut to the heart of the matter with a scalpel’s clarity.
Minka stared at the ceiling thinking about the question. She said, “I miss him. I think so. I’m trying not to like him.” The truth was, she was head-over-heels. How could she love someone after just a few months? But she did. She wanted him with her.
“He flew in all the way from Miami when he found out you were hurt.”
Minka felt tears rise to the corners of her eyes. He came to visit her and without remembering she had pushed him away. She said, “I’d like to see him. I’m just afraid I’ll fall worse than I already have.”
“Honey, I think he loves you. You love him, so it will work. Rest for now, and we’ll get it sorted. I’ll call and bring him over. For now, get some rest.”
Minka closed her eyes, “Thanks, Mom.”
Something stirred in Minka’s memory, something sinister. Her eyes flew open, “Mom, they put something in my arm. I’m wearing a tracking device. Make the doctors take it out. Please? I don’t care if you tell Sven about it. Do whatever you have to, but make them take it out. I don’t want to be tagged like a freaking cow.”
“What? Honey, you’re not making any sense,” Estella took Minka’s hand, hoping to calm her down.
“Mom, tell Sven they used a needle to put something into my right arm. It’s a tracking device. Please, just tell him. I want it out.”
“Okay, I will. Everything will be fine. You’re safe.”
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THE POLICE FINALLY released Sven. He returned to his hotel room. Estella would hear soon enough, and the blood that crusted on his shirt looked nasty. Only seven stitches though. Not bad, considering. Sven had three messages from Drake.
He groaned and made the call.
“What’s up?”
“We haven’t found Tom, but I have the location of the two women they kidnapped. I need you.” Drake wasn’t the kind of person to leave someone in danger, even if he didn’t know them personally. Neither was Sven for that matter, but he had another woman in danger, one he couldn’t leave.
Sven knew he should book a flight to Miami, now that the Butcher was caught. He needed to talk to Minka again, plead his case if he had to. He said, “Drake, I just had a run-in with the Butcher from Baltimore. I need to talk to Minka and her mom. I can’t just leave things like this.”
The phone was silent for longer than Sven liked. Drake said, “When will Minka be released?”
His loyalties were torn. At this moment, Minka was lying in a hospital room, needing nothing from him, wanting nothing he had to give. Meanwhile, his best friend did need him, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave Seattle. He said, “I don’t know. Can you give me the day? I’ll talk to Estella and the police guarding her, tell them that they need to stay alert, then I’ll book a flight.”
Sven hated being in love. Recognizing it for what it was, Sven hung up the phone. He loved Minka. She was his future.
Just minutes after he hung up with Drake, the phone rang again. It was Estella. “Sven, Minka is awake, and she would like to see you. Also, she’s going on about some tracking device. She said to talk to you about it. ”
Sven wondered if such a thing as fate existed. He said, “I’ll be right there.”
Sometimes it’s the quiet moments that reveal love. When Sven stepped once again into Minka’s room, he knew that returning to her was the right decision. Her eyes lit up. She said, “Sven? You’re here!”
He grabbed a chair and pulled it closer to the bed and sat down, taking her hand. He said, “I’ve been worried about you. Are you okay?.”
Before Minka could answer, Estella broke in, “I have one question, and then I’ll leave you two alone. Who was the woman who answered the phone in your hotel room in Miami?”
For a moment Sven looked confused. He shook his head, and said, “Woman?” and then realized what had happened. He grinned and said, “You returned my call. I thought you had decided to leave and decided it would be easier not to call back. The number went to our base of operations. You probably spoke with our admin, Kendra. To think I might have lost you over a misunderstanding like that. I take it you didn’t leave a message?”
“I hung up when I heard her voice,” Minka admitted.
Estella wasn’t so easily side-tracked. She said, “Base of operations. What do you do? What are you?”
“My best friend and boss is Drake Ward. He owns the company, Advanced Innovative Technologies. We are a private research company and primarily sell technology to the military. We compete with other companies. You were caught in the middle. I’m sorry.”
Estella said, “What about the future? Is my daughter in danger hanging around with you?”
Sven thought back to his mission. He would be reassigned now that the branch’s spies were revealed. He said, “It’s not safe to date me. I’m supposed to retire to a small town next year but I have enemies. Minka, I can’t stop thinking about you, and I don’t want you to do something that will put you in danger, but if you’ll have me, I want you. I’ll do my best to protect you, but I can’t guarantee your safety, any more than I can guarantee my own.”
“I have some issues,” Minka admitted. The circles under her eyes made her seem fragile. Sven didn’t want her to unload her fears at the moment, but he realized that this was important for her. He held her hand and waited. She said, “I have a hard time trusting people. When you said you left town, I thought you were just trying to get away from me. But then that weird military group kidnapped me and they knew you by name. I need to know that you’re one of the good guys. I know asking is a stupid way of verifying, and I’m obviously not the greatest judge of character. I still need to hear it. Tell me you’re one of the good guys.”
Sven listened to the bustling sounds of the hospital while he collected his thoughts. He realized that this single question that meant so much to her was one that he had never examined too closely lest he discover that his life had been lived serving darkness or at least not light. He feared the question.
“Your question deserves an honest response.” Sven paused and took a deep breath. This wasn’t at all easy. Finally he shook his head and said, “I don’t know. When we started, we thought we were the good guys, do you know what I mean? I can’t tell you if the person who stabbed you was part of our corporate war or something else, but he’s dead now. I’ve never killed outside of war, and I pay for those actions with nightmares and guilt. I try to protect the innocent. I protect the people I love. I try to do right.”
“But?”
Minka was smart. She certainly could read between the lines. Sven squeezed her hand, “The technology I flew to Miami for...it’s not something a free nation should experiment with. I can’t go into details, but I can tell you that it’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a dictator. We developed it, so that says something about us, but it was stolen, and the people who stole it are ruthless. They kidnapped a college student. Drake wants me to return to Miami...but I didn’t want to leave you.”
“I would like to work through our issues together, if you are willing,” Minka said. She looked beautiful, even exhausted and in a hospital bed. She added, “And I’d love for you to rescue that college student if you come right back here and help explain to the doctors the tracking device so those bastards can’t find me again.”
“I’m willing to work through your issues, and I will come back as soon as I can,” Sven smiled, and with his curly black hair and well-chiseled physique, he looked like an archangel, at least the ones in statues. “I know a doctor who can help with that device. I’ll call him before I leave.”
Minka looked small in that hospital bed when she asked, “When are you leaving?”
“I’m going to stay here for a few hours so that Estella can get some rest. I’ll catch the red-eye to Miami. Will you be okay while I’m gone?”
“I’ll be fine.” Minka said. She sounded so hesitant, so afraid of being hurt again that Sven wanted to wrap her in his arms and hold her forever.
He wanted her close. It was time to tell Drake that he was done with corporate life. “Minka, I have a home in Montana where I’m planning to retire. Would you like to stay there while you recover? It will be safer. Move in with me. I’ll join you as soon and as often as I can in the next year, and then after that, we’ll be together.”
“Are you sure? That’s a pretty big thing.”
“It’s a next step. We can decide if it’s a big thing or not once you’re feeling better.”
“Then yes,” Minka said.
For the next several hours, Sven took the position of Minka’s guardian angel, standing guard while Minka slept. Sven called in a favor, and his doctor friend removed the tracking device from her arm. Sven asked the doc, “May I take that? I have an idea.”
He didn’t want to leave her side, but Drake needed him. At least if he had to travel to Miami, he could take the tracker with him. It might create a decoy for Minka. Minka needed him, but so did Drake.
Estella returned from her much needed rest, and it was time for Sven to go. Feeling torn in two, Sven left Minka’s side.