01 Untouchable - Untouchable (48 page)

“
Yes, is he
here?”

“
Oh, no. We bought this
house from him,” she stated as a man came up behind her and said
hello.

“
He sold his house?” That
just didn’t seem possible. This was the only place in the world
where I knew I could find him. He couldn’t cut the tie to the one
place I had counted on to secure his memory to the
planet.

“
Yeah, we closed last
week.”

“
Do you know how I can get
in touch with him?”

“
No, I’m sorry. We only met
his attorney at the closing. I have his attorney’s
number.”

“
Yes, please—if you don’t
mind.”

She invited me in as she went to
retrieve it. He had sold the house with all the furnishings and a
flood of emotions hit me.

She gave me his number and I thanked
her and left. I dialed it before I pulled out of the driveway and
got a receptionist. I didn’t identify myself, but simply told her
it was a matter of extreme urgency that I speak with him. When I
got him on the line, and he discovered who I was, he didn’t want to
talk to me. I was begging for all I was worth for him to please at
least tell Micah that I needed to find him. He reluctantly took my
phone number and then hung up on me.

I was almost back to New Orleans when
my phone rang. I pulled off on the side of I-10 because if it was
him, I knew I wouldn’t be able to drive. But it wasn’t Micah; it
was Celeste.

I was sobbing and crying
asking her to please tell me what was going on and that I
had
to see
him.

“
Where are you,
Leese?”

“
I’m on I-10, almost back to
New Orleans.”

“
I’ll meet you at the
restaurant in twenty minutes and we’ll talk.”

It didn’t take me twenty minutes to get
there, but I waited outside for her car to pull in. We never made
it inside. When she saw me she came over and sat in my car. I was
trying to keep it together, but I was failing miserably.

“
Is he in jail?” I managed
for my first question, mopping the tears off my face.

“
No,” was her short
response.

“
Can I see him? Can I meet
him somewhere?”

“
Leese, he’s going through
something that is very difficult for him.”

“
Well, it certainly isn’t
easy for me!” I was trying not to snap at her, since this was the
closest I’d gotten to him since he left the hospital.

“
Leese, did you ever think
that it might be wrong for you to come chasing after him? Did you
ever think that if he wanted to, he would find you?”

The words were like she had slapped me
in the face. They had the same effect and I felt my composure
coming back to me. “Celeste, I love him and I…”

“
Stop it! I thought you were
someone who was unselfish and caring. Don’t do this. Stop looking
for him. Call off your attorney and leave him alone.”

“
Couldn’t he at least tell
me himself to leave him alone?”

“
No, he can’t! You’re going
to kill my son if you don’t back off. Do you understand me,
Leese?”

She was truly angry with me, and I
still couldn’t understand why I had to stop.

“
If you love him,” she took
a breath, sounding as if her anger was softening. “And I
mean
really
love
him, then forget that you ever knew him.”

I opened my mouth, but I was so
desolate inside from her words, I couldn’t speak.

“
You don’t know anything
about our lives and the people we deal with. You two got too close,
and that isn’t good for someone who…” Her frustration level went
back up as she attempted to find the right words. “You were
together because he was supposed to kill you! Don’t you understand
that? Leave him alone. Don’t come back here to New Orleans. Stop
bothering Gwen and end this, now.”

“
I’m not trying to hurt him
or any of you, Celeste.”

“
Good, then you’ll listen to
me and do as I ask. Go home. I’m sorry.” She was moving from anger
to tears.

I wrapped my arms around her and told
her that, even though I didn’t understand, I trusted her enough to
do as she asked.

She cried on my shoulder and thanked
me, and then got out of the car.

I flew home. It was all over now; my
search had ended. I had never been so hollow, so empty, and so
barren as when that plane touched down in Florida.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Mom was concerned over how depressed I
was, but I couldn’t snap out of it. I’d come so close and he was
now out of my life forever. My eighteenth birthday was coming up on
Wednesday and I had decided, rather than living with Mom and Kimmy,
I’d take my inheritance and find some place quiet to buy a house
and spend some time in seclusion.

Ryan had called me several times and
left messages, asking about our date. I finally relented and
returned his call. He was in Palm Beach for the summer and he
openly told me that, if nothing else, he could be a good
distraction for a little while. He wanted to know what I was going
to do for my senior year, and I said I was finishing up my credits
online because I just wasn’t ready to dive back into public
life.

I agreed that we would celebrate my
birthday together the following weekend; just me and him, the Trans
Am and my new car, and a big stretch of desolate airstrip on the
north end of Lake Okeechobee.

Sunday morning we left for church,
traveling in separate vehicles because I needed my private drive
time. I had traded in my Porsche for an Aston Martin Volente. It
was the only time I really didn’t think about Micah, when I was
traveling too fast for the memories to catch me.

I was back to being someone who exuded
the fact that I had money. I was back in my designer clothes and
had my good jewelry and expensive Louis Vuitton purse, and Prada
shoes, but it was window dressing and on the inside I was painfully
empty. I’d give it all up to be just any other eighteen-year-old
girl who had the man she was truly in love with, the man of her
dreams.

I pulled into the tree covered lot of
the Baptist church. As much as I loved the little church in
Pensacola, this was my home church. I’d learned to sing my heart
out for God standing on their stage; I’d praised, danced and
worshiped inside these walls most of my life. I believe that
nothing is chance. God has His hand in everything, even in my
deepest pain. He had a reason for what I was going through. I
didn’t like it, but I accepted it as His will and that was the only
thing left to keep me moving forward.

I stood outside, leaning against my car
in the shade, early as usual because of my driving. I’d pulled my
long brown hair back into a pony tail with just a couple strips
loose by each ear and waited for Mom and Kimmy to show. A few
people were arriving, but they knew I hadn’t been in much of a mood
for being social lately, so they simply smiled at me and went
inside. I watched a postal truck pull into the parking lot and a
young man took a package and went inside the office. I thought that
was a little odd. I knew they advertised that they would deliver on
Sunday, but I’d never seen one actually do it. The pastor stepped
out of the office and pointed my direction.

The man approached me smiling, carrying
a small box. “Are you Annalisa Winslett?”

“
Yes, I am,” I replied
cautiously.

“
I have a package that I
need you to sign for.”

“
Addressed here—to the
church?”

“
Yeah, that’s what it says
and it was specifically noted to be delivered here at nine a.m.” He
handed me the box with the green signature card attached to the
top. I signed. He removed the card and told me to have a nice day
and left.

Okay, I don’t know what anyone else
would do, but lately my life had been on the crazy side so I shook
it and then listened to it, looked for wires sticking out—yeah, I
couldn’t help but wonder if I was getting a mail order
bomb.

I cautiously opened it and lifted the
lid. Inside was a sleek new iPod. I lifted it out and underneath
the iPod was a note that read, “Happy Birthday, It was the only
song that could possibly say how I feel about you. Love,
M.”

I almost dropped it. I knew
the handwriting and I knew who M was. My hands immediately began to
shake. I opened my car door and sat down, before I fell down. I
plugged it into my stereo system and found the single song that had
been downloaded on the player. I didn’t recognize it. It was
titled
The Reason
by Hoobastank. I hit the play button. The first words sung
were, “I’m not a perfect person...” and I started
crying.

He might as well have written the
lyrics himself, because it ripped straight to the bottom of my
heart. “…I'm sorry that I hurt you. It's something I must live with
everyday. And all the pain I put you through, I wish that I could
take it all away and be the one who catches all your tears. That’s
why I need you to hear...I've found a reason for me to change who I
used to be. A reason to start over new…and the reason is
you…”

I couldn’t stop shaking, I couldn’t
breathe. All this time I had been aching for him, needing him,
wanting to know if I had dreamed that he had told me he loved me.
And then I had sealed him up inside my heart when Celeste told me
that I had to let it go, for his sake.

I felt a warm hand touch my arm. I
turned and, just like a dream, he was kneeling there beside my car.
I don’t remember going into those marvelous steel bands that he
uses for arms, but I knew I never wanted to leave them. I was
sobbing, just about to shake into a million pieces and all I could
say was his name, over and over.

“
Baby,” came the voice that
was like a piece of heaven.

God, I missed that voice.

He was using his thumbs to try to dry
my tears as he cradled my face. “You switched to waterproof
mascara?” He choked out, his eyes filled with tears that threatened
to overrun his lashes.

I laughed. “Where have you been? I
thought I was going to lose my mind completely.”

“
I told you getting out of
the mob isn’t easy.”

I stopped breathing.
“You—you’re…”

“
Yeah, Baby, that’s all in
my past now and I was wondering if you still were interested in
forever?”

“
Oh, Micah, do you really
mean it?”

“
I didn’t know if you still
wanted me…”

I couldn’t let him finish that
sentence, as I laced my fingers through his hair and raised my lips
to meet his. I wanted to have the kiss, the kiss I didn’t think I
would ever have enough time in this lifetime to finish. There would
be no painful ending to this one; this would be the beginning of so
much more. This kiss was warm and gentle, sensual and long. I could
feel that familiar heat burning through my veins and I knew I was
flushed with color by the time our lips parted.

“
I guess I’ll take that as a
yes,” he whispered and then kissed me again. This time a little
stronger, a little hotter and building with all the need we had for
each other. “Oh, Baby, I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed
you.”

I moved to kiss him again. I knew I was
never going to get enough of this. But now he was smiling and
putting his fingers to my lips.

“
We are in the church
parking lot,” he grinned. “I’d like to keep doing this but—well, if
this is your church then I don’t want them to have a bad impression
about me.”

I laughed. There were going to be a lot
of impressions that people would take away from the two of us being
together and most of them I knew were going to be bad, but I also
knew that God had brought us together for a reason.

“
I love you, Micah,” I
whispered, hungry for another kiss, but knew he was right. We
needed discretion and restraint. “You’re really out?”

“
My whole family has gone
through hell to get me to this point—and I know this is where I
want to be. Gwen got me out of Florida before the Fed’s arrived.
She’s put her job on the line to see that all the evidence in
Louisiana has been destroyed. Dad and Mom both faced the local
family to stand up for me when I said I wanted out, and David…” he
choked on the words. “Well let’s just say he’s in the most trouble
of all of us.”

“
Why?” I had to know.
“Because of getting Robert put away?”

“
Leese, it’s like a cardinal
sin. No one in the family works with the police; it’s a death
sentence. I didn’t even know the crazy bastard did it until it was
too late. Dad is still trying to save his ass.”

My hand went to my mouth, shock,
surprise and fear filled me. “Why would he risk that?”

“
He figured it out. He knew
it was real for me. He’s never been in love, but after I had to
leave you and he saw what it did to me, he knew he couldn’t chance
Robert putting another hit out there on you. He knew it would have
killed me. I guess Gwen had been right about him all
along.”