Ransomed Dreams by Sally John Page A

mean, who lives like you two do, in the middle of the Dark Ages where you can’t even get phone service?”
    She shut her eyes as if that would tune him out.
    “But you’re not missionaries, are you? You’re not even ambassadors spreading goodwill. You’re just two scared ostriches with your heads buried in the sand. You think you can avoid more pain. Believe it or not, you are inflicting it upon yourselves because you can’t keep inhaling that sand and stay alive for long.”
    She felt movement, heard the unclick of his seat belt, and looked up to see him spring to his feet. He yanked open an overhead bin and rummaged in it.
    “Sir!” a flight attendant shouted from her own seat at the end of the aisle. “Sir! You have to stay seated!”
    Sheridan realized the plane was gaining speed. People craned their necks to see what Luke was doing.
    “Sir!” she screamed now.
    He waved a blanket for all to see, slammed the bin shut, and plopped back down, all in one swift motion. “You look cold.”
    “Thanks.” She took the blanket from him and spread it on her lap.
    “I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business.”
    She met his eyes, lit by the reading light above him. They were more green than gray.
    She remembered the first time she had noticed a change in their color. It was in Houston, at the hospital. He had come into the waiting area and handed her a small paper bag. She reached inside and pulled out the old red cobbled leather Bible with onionskin, gilt-edged pages, its language Spanish. In the bottom right corner in fading gold letters was Ysabel Maria Cole .
    “It got shipped to the storage unit,” he had said.
    After the shooting, she never returned to her beautiful home in Caracas. Security said it was too dangerous. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to leave Eliot’s side anyway.
    One of the perks of being an amby’s wife was having a large staff. Luke contacted those people she’d grown to love over the five years many of them had spent with her. They packed her and Eliot’s things, shipping most of them to a storage unit in Virginia where, again, they took care of it all. One trusted assistant, a native Venezuelan, had chosen personal items that Sheridan needed. Those were in the bags sent immediately to the Caracas hospital. More of her things arrived later in Houston. With such upheaval, it was easy to see how one Bible had been missed.
    She remembered how she had held the book, staring at Luke, astonished at what he had produced. He explained how he once heard her talking about the cherished possession. When he didn’t notice it among her things, he had it tracked down.
    Until that moment, Luke had been a mere shadow performing his duty. Whether out of guilt or because the government paid him to do it, he protected her and Eliot and saw to their needs. As she held the Bible, though, the result of his act of kindness, he took on color. Green twinkled in his irises.
    Like now.
    She turned away from it. But the truth she saw in them flashed in neon lights before her: Luke cared. He really did.
    Was that really why he broke his promise and came?
    * * *
    Once they were airborne, the flight attendant served them drinks. Obviously still rattled by Luke’s earlier behavior, the woman ignored his apology and spilled hot water on Sheridan’s tray.
    Accepting a wad of napkins from her, Sheridan wanted to commiserate with her. “He’s always like this—just one big disruptive force.”
    The woman grunted in reply. Sheridan half expected a federal marshal to appear in the aisle.
    But he cared. Somewhere deep in his black heart he cared.
    “Luke, I want to explain about me and Eliot.”
    “Save it. You need to rest.”
    “Inhaling sand isn’t all that bad, not once you get used to it. Topala isn’t in the Dark Ages. It’s been good for us to live there. It was exactly what we needed.”
    “Needed. Maybe that time is over?”
    “I’m talking. It’s none of your business.”
    He smiled.