Page 69 of Operation: Silent Angel
“I’d like nothing more. I’d love to wake up with you beside me every day. I’d love to go to sleep the same way, and I’d love to have a life with you.”
“I can’t promise every day,” he said. “But most days.”
“Are you done working for Interpol or whoever you’ve been working for the last few months?” she asked.
“My Interpol contact reached out to me last week. He said the climate has settled and I could come back, but you know what? I don’t want to. I was freelancing, working for multiple agencies, and I’ve grown tired of that as well. I thought I’d approach Shepherd and see if he had any work for me.” He watched her reaction as he took a sip of his coffee after he’d said it.
She smiled. “I’d hope he would.”
“I was just with him. In Galena. I was in a unique position to help a couple defect from Russia. I consider that my last freelance job. Shepherd helped.”
Yvette was shocked at his pronouncement. She knew that Shepherd and Diana were in Galena for a rare weekend getaway. “He did?”
“Yes. The people defecting trusted Shepherd as well as me. It was a condition of the arrangement that Shepherd be involved. I know that he and Diana are staying through the weekend. I thought I’d make an appointment with him on Monday afternoon and pitch it then.”
“So, you didn’t bring it up to him in Galena?”
“No,” he replied. “The opportunity did not present itself. And I wanted to talk with you first to ask for your thoughts. I didn’t want to assume anything.”
“I should have asked you to stay before you left a few months ago. I wanted you to,” she admitted. “I knew I had changed. I wanted more than the relationship we agreed to so long ago. I was a different person then, Mac.”
“I knew that when I was here a few months ago. Hell, even Garcia has changed, married with a kid. I knew when we went to his house for dinner and I saw you with the baby that you were a different person. You have an incredible life here with friends and a home. You’re doing the same job, but your life is settled and more normal than it is for most of us in the intel community.”
“Yes. I wasn’t sure if you’d realized it.”
“I did. And over the last few months, I also realized that I wanted it too.”
The timer on the stove chimed that the casserole was done. Yvette took it out and set it on the burners to cool. Then she came over to the table and took a seat on his lap. “We need to promise each other that we’ll be more honest and open about what we want and what we feel.”
“I promise I’ll try, and I want you to call me on it if I don’t. I want this to work, Red. I want what Shepherd and his wife have, what Cooper and Madison have, what Garcia and his wife have. Until I saw that they could pull it off, I always thought it was not for people like us.”
“I truly believe it’s only possible because of the job we do at Shepherd Security. If I were still with the CIA, it wouldn’t be possible. I know that when you were here before and first saw the domestic side of Garcia, that threw you. I’ve watched it all happen over time. You were thrust into theTwilight Zoneall at once. Once inconceivable, it’s now perfectly normal to have babies and small children at the office.”
Mac shook his head and laughed. “Yeah, I can’t envision that. But I’d like to see it.”
“Well, Angel normally brings her youngest to the office on Mondays, so you just may if you get an appointment with Shepherd.”
Uniform
Yvette managed to trade shifts on Sunday with Bravo Team member Tommy ‘Louisa’ Flores, who was in town and scheduled to cover Ops, so that she was off and could spend the day with Mac. Mac's meeting with Shepherd was scheduled for thirteen hundred hours on Monday. Yvette’s Ops shift began an hour later. She drove him to the Shepherd Security Building in time for his meeting.
Putting the car in park in the private parking garage on sub-basement level two at twelve forty-five hours, she turned to him. “I’ll escort you to Shepherd’s office and will be in my office during your meeting. I’m sure he’ll contact me when your meeting is over for me to come collect you.”
Mac chuckled. “You make me sound like either a child or a belonging.”
She returned his smile. “You’re neither.” Then she turned serious. “Good luck with your meeting.”
“I’m staying with you, regardless. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and early retirement wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I could be your house husband, so to speak.”
“Husband?” They hadn’t talked about marriage.
“So to speak, common-law husband if you wanted to keep it that way. I think considering me your boyfriend sounds foolish at this point. Don’t you? Or we could make it legal if you wanted to. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching over the past few months, Red. If I can work for Shepherd in some capacity, that would be the ideal. If not, I’m ready to be done.”
She leaned into him and pressed a kiss to his lips. “We’ll talk after your meeting.” She shook her head in the direction of the elevator. “We should go so you’re not late.”
Shepherd’s office door was open when the doors to the elevator dropped them off on the fifth floor. It was five minutes till. Yvette approached his office and glanced in. Shepherd stood at his stand-up desk in the corner of the windowed wall.
“Hi, Shepherd,” she greeted.
