The Doorway by TW Smith (microsoft ebook reader txt) 📕

Once the threat of assassination seems to have passed, she listens to his claim of knowledge of a terrorist cell known by some top government officials.  The only thing preventing her from dismissing this man as a crazy has-been are the names mentioned as he closes his tale of espionage.  The prospect that her primary contact here in the states could be compromised seems to be enough of a reason to consider helping this man.  The alarm that suddenly chimes from her watch, sounding as innocent a smart phone notification to the untrained ear, is a clear indication that they had stayed in one place far too long already.

This is a building she has used for concealment often enough so she knows that the quickest and most discrete way out of this building from their current location was a fire escape at the back of the building.  Without hesitation, she leads him across the hall with only a brief hesitation to circumvent the electronic lock.  After preventing him from turning on the light and ensuring that the door has closed securely, she helps him move slowly and quietly across to the bedroom and out the window.  The fire escape is rusted and looks dangerous.

The ladder of the lowest level of the fire escape has fallen off.  With little more than a mental note to address that in the near future, she watches the room behind them for any signs of pursuit.  A moment later, after her new compatriot had descended with the utmost lack of grace and finesse, she hurtles the railing to join him.  An odd feeling overtakes her as she falls which quickly escalates into vertigo.  When she reaches the ground, mildly twisting her ankle when she lands, she drops into a squat supporting herself with both hands and her extended right leg and bows her head for a moment allowing herself to recover.  After only a moment, she is stirred into action by her companion offering his hand.

Annoyed by the minor injury and the invasion of her best hiding place, glares up at him.  His face is handsome and his piercing green eyes are as penetrating as they are impenetrable.  She attributes the momentary weakness as residual vertigo and accepts his hand.  As she regains her feet and her balance, she can’t help but notice how soft his hands are leaving her doubting his claim of government service.  Irritation renewed, she demands an introduction.  He identifies himself as a British agent, Lyle Cane, with a flourishing bow.  That eliminates any question in her mind about his softness, hands and physical prowess.

After agreeing to help, despite her fatigue, she more than rises to the challenge.  In a sequence of near miss adventures where they are nearly fatally run off the road before, blown up etc, she finds herself in love with Lyle.  Her love climaxes one night resting in a motel room just prior to finally catching up with the alleged villain, as they both lay unable to sleep.  It was a night that shapes everything else to come.

It turns out that the alleged villain was actually the underling of the real villain, Grendal Muntz a.k.a. Lyle Cane.  Grendal kills his rogue underling, Vince Malgrin, execution style before turning his gun on and capturing Sienna.  He takes her clothes and weapons and leaves her to die the following morning with the scheduled demolition of the building.

She barely escapes her bonds and is forced to run naked out the back just ahead of the collapse of the building.  After running to and hurrying down a nearby alley, thankful to have eluded observation, she finds a discarded suitcase in a dumpster.  The dresses and shoes she finds are not suited for her current situation but she has no choice.  Donning one of the dresses and a pair of high heels, she goes in search of her new nemesis.  During the trip, she discovers that she is pregnant just before she corners Grendal in the room of the building where she was first recruited.  She intends to kill him but succumbs to the feelings she has for him and walks away.  He takes the opportunity to shoot at her emptying his clip but only managing to hit her twice in the leg before she turns and shoots him once in the forehead.  The book ends with her leaving the building by way of the still broken fire escape and weighing the decision of giving up the life of a spy for something more meaningful.

As much as David was envious of Lyle throughout the buildup to the romantic interlude, he always thought that there was a fundamental change in Sienna from the character introduced in the opening chapters that started just after the fire escape scene but passed it off as a writer’s foo-pa born of a budding romance, especially given how she played so hard-to-get for so long.

Chapter 3

For the remainder of the trip, the road was considerate of their journey right down to the uncrowded service station where they stopped for lunch.  When the exit was finally near, David roused his mother and she resumed giving directions.  She appeared to be somewhat refreshed so he was reasonably certain that she had slept a little but she was still distant as if she had been physically and emotionally drained from the trip.  He really wished that he could help her but he was pretty sure she had given up on help a long time ago. 

The final leg of the trip to their temporary home was quite easy and he silently hoped that his mom was a proud of him for his driving as he was.  When the car was parked and the ignition killed and he was unloading their meager luggage, he finally allowed himself to reflect that there hadn’t even been so much as a close call through the entire trip.  He couldn’t help but consider that it was almost as if fate was delivering them to something preordained.  Despite his pride and confidence, or perhaps because of it, he glanced warily around, even at the surrounding sky, to be sure that nothing was about to destroy the car and ruin their vacation, or worse, his thus far perfect driving record just to spite his sense of accomplishment.

Once inside, it only took him a couple minutes to explore the single story two bedroom beach front bungalow.  His mom was resting on the couch and he decided to wait so they could go to the beach together.  After only an hour, she was recovered enough to begin their family vacation and she expressed her appreciation that he had done so.  David thought he understood the exertion and the toll she was surely paying by way of her sacrifice to bring them on this vacation so he felt guilty for wondering why she had arranged it.  There was still plenty of daylight remaining however and David was eager to be assimilated by the immense crowd already populating the beach below them.  Once their spot was secured and his mom was resting comfortably in the shade of the umbrella, David meandered as quickly as possible to the water taking in all the sights he could on the way.

He spent an hour jumping the waves and allowing his eyes to wonder to whatever heavenly bodies which moved into his field of vision.  It didn’t escape his attention that his mother was watching him, presumably with those sad eyes that he perceived had haunted her during the entire trip so far.  Still it was time to take a break and his sun screen was probably due to be refreshed anyway.  He made his way back to their spot to relieve his mom from having to watch their stuff for a while.  He hoped that she would take on some waves herself though he wasn’t sure she was up to the challenge of waves as rough as these were.

As he dug through his bag, he was surprised to see his mom heading toward the ocean.  He hoped that being in the water would help take the weight off her bum leg.  Not for the first time, he considered the coincidence that this mother and her lead character both shared the same injury.  On the other hand, he knew that authors often write parts of their own life into the works so it was probable that coincidence was all it was.  He pushed these thoughts from his mind though as a young woman nearby rolled from her stomach to her back but forgot that her top wasn’t latched.  Though she quickly corrected the mistake, that one moment in time amounted to the fulfillment of a young man’s fantasy and David enjoyed every second of it.  Still, with his book in hand, the vision made him wonder exactly what Sienna would look like if she were real.

Even covered, the woman’s breasts were something to behold and David adjusted his position to provide ample opportunity to do exactly that.  He really didn’t get a lot of reading done during that time but it really didn’t matter much because he knew the story inside and out.  Periodically, however, he pushed aside is admirations to look for his mom to be sure that she was alright.  He really wished that he could be out there with her instead of sitting her guarding their belongings.

When he noticed her limping up the beach toward him, he quickly adjusted his book to look as if he had been reading the whole time.  The little smirk that crossed her lips, however, assured him that he wasn’t fooling anyone.  He wasn’t sure but he imagined the blush of his face progressing through many shades of pink and red before finally arriving at a faming scarlet.  If his mom was upset by his roaming eyes, she gave no indication whatsoever.

He watched her bend over the cooler but when she seemed about to lose her legs from under her, he jumped up and rushed to her side and helped her recover while getting her a bottle of water.  At first she smiled at him as if he was the knight in shining armor but then her eyes move passed him and her face melted into a look of pure torment and he had absolutely no idea why.  After sipping on her water and making some cryptic comment about losing a key, by which he assumed she meant the key to the flat where they were staying, she started hobbling home and he was torn between helping her and sticking around for a while.  Since they were only here for a week, beach time won and knowing how independent his mom was, he let her go.