Page 55 of Operation: Silent Angel
“You absolutely should have,” Michaela said. Her gaze shifted to Lambchop. “Mac left today.”
A sympathetic expression formed on Lambchop’s face. “Yvette, you are exactly where you need to be. I’d like to think God brought you here for Michaela and me to help you find peace. That’s probably also why our mission abruptly ended early. It was fully resolved, by the way.”
“That’s good,” Yvette remarked.
“I just got home an hour ago,” Lambchop continued. “In time to give Stephanie her last bottle and put her to bed.”
Yvette smiled, seeing the contented and loving smile on his lips. He was such a good father, which was no surprise to her. Her gaze went back to Michaela. “I won’t stay long, but thank you both. I’ll be fine.”
Michaela prompted her to sit on the couch in the front room with her.
“Michaela, I’ll get your wine glass from the other room. Yvette, can I interest you in a glass of wine, a cup of tea, or something stronger?” Lambchop offered.
Yvette chuckled. “Do you still have that bottle of Basil Haden?”
“We do,” Lambchop answered. “I’ll join you in a glass.”
Yvette watched him leave the room. “If I had known he’d gotten back, I wouldn’t have come,” she said. “You two get too little time together.”
“Stop that,” Michaela said. “I’m glad you came.”
“Me too,” she admitted. “I knew I needed to talk to a friend about how I felt.”
“Did you tell him how you feel?”
Yvette shook her head. “We have an agreement.”
“That agreement goes back nearly two decades. Yvette, you were just out of college when you fell in love with him, and the two of you made that agreement. Things change over time.”
Yvette nodded. “Things haven’t changed for him.”
“How do you know that?” Lambchop asked as he handed a wine glass to Michaela, filled halfway with a dark red blend. “I workedwith him this time, as I did in Greece last year. I think he’s changed quite a bit.”
“How so?” Yvette asked.
“He was more introspective this time around. I think he sees the end of his career looming, and he was more focused and thoughtful in the impressions he was leaving behind as he executed the mission.”
“I don’t think I understand what you mean by that,” Yvette confessed.
“The fact is he went rogue and went all in to bring this guy down. I think since he’s unsure of what his status will be after, that he wanted to make sure Shepherd, all of us, and probably you, all knew it was for the good of the world that he did it and not for some feather in his cap to feed an over-inflated ego.”
“No one who knows him would ever think that,” Yvette argued. “I don’t think he’s done the job to stroke his ego, not that pulling off things that were next to impossible didn’t make him feel like Superman of the intel and spy community.”
Lambchop chuckled. “That he does have the reputation for. Look, he’s been playing this game for a long time. I think it’s only natural that at some point, anyone who has, and is still alive is bound to see the end of it looming. In this case, it’s because he’s maybe burned one too many bridges and he may be forced out, at least by Interpol. In the back of his mind, he has to be wondering where he’ll land next.”
Yvette wished he had wanted to land with her. She would have welcomed it. But did he know it? And surely, if he were to approach Shepherd, Shepherd would have a place for him.
“You would have liked him to want to land with you,” Michaela vocalized.
Yvette wondered if she’d said it aloud. “Yes.”
“Would he have had any way of knowing you would have liked that? No offense, but I know you, Yvette. You put up a strong, tough front. If he hadn’t known, would he have asked?” Michaela posed.
“Probably not,” she acknowledged.
“People keep the important things too close,” Michaela said.
“Pot, kettle, black,” Lambchop teased his wife. “How long did we dance around each other before admitting what we felt, what we both wanted?”
