Locked Away

Chapter 2-2

Clouds had gathered as Cam had been working and the air had already begun to chill, even though the sun was still an hour or so above the horizon. She was just storing the garden tools back in the shed when she heard that unmistakable Harley engine turn into the driveway from Lake Road, which wound across the property.

“Yo!” came the yell from the top of the walk.

“Yo, yourself!” Cam answered. She looked up at the tall, strong figure silhouetted on the top step of the walkway down to the house. The long, blonde hair fluttered in the breeze as the motorcycle helmet came off. The sun was just low enough to highlight the beauty that stood there.

“Ah, on your knees! Just the way you should greet me,” Michael, as Michelle Gauchet preferred her name to be pronounced, chuckled as she sauntered down to where Cam was kneeling. “Or are you getting ready for some other kind of kinky garden activity?”

Cam looked up as Michael’s right eyebrow rose in anticipation of a smart, off-color answer from her wife.

When it didn’t occur, Michael asked, “isn’t it a little too early to be winterizing plants?”

Cam pushed herself up to her feet and leaned forward to give her wife a welcome-home kiss.

“Unfortunately, no, it isn’t too early nor was I getting ready for something else,” she said as she wiped her hands on the towel that hung just inside the shed door.

Michael, almost six feet tall, looked down at her, waiting, sensing the seriousness in Cam’s stance.

Cam nodded her head. Even Michael’s sensual French-Canadian accent couldn’t push through her shroud of disappointment that her vacation had come to an end.

“Maggie called today. They want me back in Washington by Tuesday. I have a flight out of Burlington Monday afternoon.”

Michael reached out and drew Cam to her, holding her tightly. It was always this way. There was a feeling of loss when they had to part and Cam would go on assignment. There was never an estimate of how long it would be before she’d be returning, and both knew how dangerous Cam’s assignments could be.

“Well, at least that gives us the weekend together. What time’s your plane?”

“Two in the afternoon. I’m having dinner with Pauly Monday night.” Pauly, as Cam called her best friend, Paul Tarelli, also worked for the DEA. They had gone to the Baltimore police academy together. When Cam had signed on with the DEA to work undercover, Pauly had followed suit to help her. Now Pauly worked exclusively as an assistant to the director. Their friendship had lasted longer than any other relationship in either of their lives, except, of course, family.

“Then I’ll give my Monday classes to Robert and take you to the airport,” Michael said with determination. Her assistant could teach martial arts classes as well as she could.

“You don’t have to, sweetie,” Cam started.

“Now stop that. You know I always take you to the airport. And you always argue that I don’t need to. And-” she said with emphasis, “-you always lose that argument. Now, am I correct or am I not?” Michael looked down at her wife. Being almost six feet tall gave her an advantage of winning almost every argument, if only by sheer intimidation.

Cam smiled. It was this way every time she had to leave on an assignment. Maybe it was nervousness on her part. She shouldn’t be. She’d been away on these assignments far too many times in the last fifteen years to be nervous about them. Perhaps it was just the ceremonial denial that she needed Michael’s help. Whatever it was, she’d have to get over it sooner or later.

“Is anything the matter?” Michael asked. “You seem down.”

Cam shook her head and smiled. “No, I think I’m getting tired of traveling for this sort of thing. I should have taken that administrative job when Dickie offered it two years ago.”

Michael snuffed. When had they started calling Cam’s immediate supervisor, Richard C. Deems, that name? It still wasn’t clear that he even knew they used it. Deems was the Director of Covert Operations for the DEA.

“But then you’d be living in Texas or New Mexico and we’d be traveling back and forth between here and there every month…or week…or so. One way or another, you’d still be on the road,” was her reply.

“True,” Cam acknowledged as she sighed and turned back toward the house. “I may just be a little depressed. I’m always on assignment in September and I never get a chance to go home to Massachusetts. I say I’ll do it every year and, when it comes, I’m never able.”

Cam’s mother and father had been killed in a car accident in September over twenty years ago, and each year her sister Lori went to the cemetery to place flowers on their graves.

“I’ve also been checking everything around here to see what needs to be repaired.”

“It’ll all get done,” Michael said confidently. “Jean-Rene will keep an eye on it as usual. Guy will help him. Everything will be taken care of.” Michael had great confidence in her brothers.

Cam smiled at her. Jean-Rene Gauchet owned some lake front property four or five miles north on the opposite side of the lake and spent as much time as he could working on both pieces of land. He lived on the lake year-round with his wife and two teenagers. Cam was always amazed at how much work Michael’s brother accomplished while still holding down his position as the Senior Investigator of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Detachment at Coaticook. Guy, the elder brother, spent a lot of time on the lake in his weekend home. He was attached to the Montreal office of the RCMP.

“You’re right, as usual. I’m looking for things to worry about so I won’t have to think what my next assignment will be.”

“Well,” said Michael as she placed a quick kiss on Cam’s forehead “Your very next assignment will be to light a fire in the den so I can put some steaks on to grill. It’ll get colder as soon as the sun goes down. There’s a storm front moving in and a strong breeze is forecast for tonight. It’ll blow directly across the lake.”

“A fire? In the fireplace or in the middle of the floor?” Cam winked with a sly smile. A quick slap to her rump was the answer.

Steaks and a fire? Michael was getting revved up for something and Cam knew what it was. This would be a perfect weekend.

* * * *

Michael leaned back against the couch facing the fire. Cam was wrapped in her arms. The dishes from their dinner were strewn across the floor. So were their clothes.

“Do I have to tell you yet again how much I love you? I hate it when you have to go away,” Michael whispered.

“Well, hopefully this is the last time. I’ve already told Craig I want to retire,” Cam told her.

“Will he let you?” Michael asked.

“I don’t care. I can’t be away from you so much. I have money. I don’t need to work so hard.”

Michael hugged her closer. “It would be wonderful to have you here when I want to see you.”

“Or I could spend some time at your house.”

Michael leaned forward to look into Cam’s face. Even though they’d married six years ago, Michael had kept her house in Montreal so she’d have somewhere to stay if she was too tired to make the trek to Cam’s house on the lake after teaching her martial arts classes. Occasionally, Cam went into Montreal to shop and they’d stay there for a few days.

“I love having you there when I get home from work,” she said.

“And I could get to go shopping every day!” Cam laughed. Michael’s house wasn’t that far away from downtown Old Montreal.

Michael squeezed her tighter. “If you do that, you won’t have any money and then you’ll have to go back to work.”

“Never,” Cam declared. “I’ll make you support me.”

“Like this?” Michael rolled over onto Cam, letting her full weight press onto her. She kissed Cam under her ear.

“Get off me!” Cam laughed up at her. “We need to clean up these dishes.”

“No, we don’t” Michael said. “I’ll pick up the dishes while I make you breakfast in the morning. You shouldn’t be working before you leave. Besides, you are all mine until you leave and I’m not letting you out of bed till then.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Now let’s go upstairs and get this celebration started.”

“I thought we already did.”

“No, we made love down here. Now we have to go to bed and do it.” Michael pushed herself to her feet and held her hand out to Cam.

Cam chuckled as she got up. She’d never met another woman that had such an active libido.