He walked along the edge of camp, far enough out where he wasn’t easily noticed in the night, and therefore wasn’t forced to talk to anyone, but close enough that he could see everyone in camp. He had a destination, of course.
Leah was sitting out around a small fire with Trudy, Jamie, and Michele. Leah was doing the talking for once—the others looked spellbound by whatever tale she was telling, her hands flying and punctuating the air with the sketches of her words. Michael wondered what she’d told them about her absence today, if she’d used the same lie he’d used. Rex had impressed upon Leah the need to stay silent about Juan Carlo’s true motives until they had charged him. If ever.
He stood in the shadows, watching her for a long while, but all he could really see was her hitting him this afternoon, telling him sorry wasn’t good enough. After all he’d put her through, Michael believed he now understood—he couldn’t just pick up where they’d ended things. It just wasn’t good enough anymore. He’d come around to his feelings far too late—the damage had been done, exacerbated by an absolutely surreal experience with Juan Carlo.
After a while, he turned and walked back into the shadows, away from that end of the camp, knowing that he really wasn’t good enough for her—hell, he didn’t even know how to talk about what had happened. He had no idea how to pick up the pieces. And frankly, he had his own shit to work through. At the moment, his relationship with the one woman he had ever really loved seemed like an insurmountable mountain.
THE next day, the group packed up and headed to Bellingham to get settled in before filming began on Tuesday. T.A.’s plan to unite the women and reward them with the rafting trip seemed to have worked—they were in good spirits, a tight group. For the first time since they’d begun training the women, the guys felt optimistic that they could and would pull off a war.
For two days since the incident at the cabin, Michael had not spoken to Leah. She hadn’t spoken to him, either. It was as if some huge wall had suddenly been erected between them that neither of them could scale. On those few occasions their gazes locked, she glared at him. She was, he assumed, furious for what had happened to her, and he couldn’t blame her.
As sorry as Michael was about it, he had reached a conclusion. He couldn’t possibly apologize enough for who he was or what he’d done, and frankly, he didn’t know if he should even try. Yes, he’d made mistakes with Leah, huge, colossal mistakes. But he wasn’t sorry for his service to the United States. He couldn’t have possibly predicted Juan Carlo would reappear, either. But that was the crux of the problem—he would never be able to erase the things Leah wanted erased. Maybe what he had always believed of himself was true. Maybe he was such a good spy because he never had been able to form deep, committed relationships. Maybe he was truly meant to be an extreme bachelor.
It was sobering, disappointing, and even a little heartbreaking for a man who’d had such high hopes.
But it was real.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
IN Bellingham, the soccer moms were put up in a cheap hotel, two to a room. Of course Trudy and Leah took a room, and managed to finagle an adjoining room with Michele and Jamie. They thought it was funny that they had Starlets on one side, and Serious Actresses on the other side, who actually lived up to their moniker by posting times that everyone could run through their lines each night.
The first call sheet listed all the soccer moms, and when they arrived on set, the director explained that they wanted to do all the ensemble filming up front and as quickly as possible so they could send most of them back to L.A. and keep down costs. The schedule called for them to wrap up the big battle scenes in a week or so.
Michael, Leah noticed, was nowhere to be seen as they began to stage the first battle scene. And it wasn’t until they started filming that she did catch a glimpse of him, standing behind the director, his hands shoved in his pockets as he watched the run-through.
Everyone was very excited about the start of filming. Charlene Ribisi handed out little gold soccer ball key chains to commemorate the event. The crew had swelled to dozens, and they surrounded the women and their battlefield. It was a moment Leah had looked forward to all her life, a moment she should have been absorbing through her pores.