AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It is,” he agreed, straightening. “Those wooden arches were probably the entry point for the monastery.”
“Yes. As time goes on, and we’re not so frantic in the building-up phase? I can take us out to some of the islands to see Debre Libanos, Ura Kidane Mihret: working monasteries. Most of them are round in construction and with thatched roofs, but not all of them. As an engineer, I think you’d find them amazing and worthy of scouting out. And since you’re a man? You’ll actually be allowed inside the church or monastery to see the inner structure of them. Lucky you.”
“I wish you could come in with me,” he said, giving her an apologetic look. He continued to walk around the hill, inspecting items, large and small.
Willow followed him at a distance, smiling to herself. Shep was in his element. He loved learning, and she knew he’d never seen this type of building before. His focus was intense as he would stop, kneel, always touching wood, brick, or dig into the dirt, his curiosity always high and present. The breeze strengthened and she closed her eyes, lifting her face to the blue sky as sunlight lanced down between the white bark of the eucalyptus trees that crowned the area. Happiness overwhelmed her for a fleeting moment. Just that ripple of joy sent hope flowing quietly through Willow. She’d finally, grudgingly, that one night, known she still loved Shep. She’d never stopped loving him since, but she hadn’t been able to live with him. Not the way he was earlier. For some reason, Willow thought that, after she’d divorced him, that love would stop. But it hadn’t, much to her shock and surprise. She had no idea where that expectation had come from. Maybe based on other friends who’d divorced and moved on?
The love was still there, just as strong as before, despite the head-butting they’d gone through, the realization of which left her stunned and a little dazed. What the hell was she going to do about it? How was it affecting him? Or was it even? She was too busy in the buildup phase to have time to honestly sort it all out.
Shep’s profile was strong. She’d often thought his face was hewn from granite. He wasn’t pretty-boy handsome, but he had an arresting face, built upon life outdoors, braving the elements, not to mention whatever hard work was thrown at him. Willow knew they needed time to absorb what was happening to them. In some ways, she was reeling from it. Never in a million years had she entertained the thought that, once they met again after their long absence from one another’s lives, her love for him would rise and be even stronger than it had ever been before. She scratched her temple, pushing wiry tendrils of hair away from her cheek. To say she was in mild shock was an understatement. Did she dare allow for the possibility of Shep walking back into her life once more? Was he feeling the same? Grimacing as she took the short steps down the hill to follow him around it, Willow warned herself that she might be getting out over her skis. One honest gut-wrenching talk with him two weeks earlier didn’t mean he felt like she did at all.
***
Shep appreciated Willow’s patience as he nosed around like a birddog on a scent. The hilltop was large and round, some half-buried and scattered remnants everywhere. For him, it was like a treasure chest to be investigated thoroughly, completely; a picture of a puzzle, like a blueprint being created in his mind.
About an hour later, he ambled over to where she was sitting against the trunk of a large eucalyptus, opening her knapsack, bringing out their lunch. Glancing at the watch on his wrist, he saw that it was around eleven-thirty a.m. Willow had taken off her hat, and her ponytail hung long and frizzed by the humidity. Her natural beauty made him want her badly. Willow had not given him the green light yet to do anything that was serious and personal toward her. He was afraid. Hell! Who wouldn’t be? What would she think of him wanting to, somehow, bandage up their past, try and heal it, and start all over again? Was that even possible? Or, was it some ridiculous need of his alone?
Crouching down in front of her, arms resting on his knees, he said, “Hungry?” That was a loaded word and he saw her take it many different ways as she unpacked the plastic bags holding their lunch.
“I think,” she laughed, “I’d better ask HOW you mean that word, Porter. You got that animal look in your eyes.”
“Does that bother you?”
Her green eyes grew a darker hue as she consider his tease. “No.” She handed him a sandwich in a plastic bag. “I don’t scare easily. You know that.”
“You’re a very brave person,” he admitted, taking the sandwich. “Thanks,” and he sat down, cross-legged, a few feet away, facing her. “I’m hungry,” he added, opening the tuna sandwiches she’d made the night before.
Willow ignored the layers to the word and pushed an opened bag of potato chips between them. “Makes two of us.”
A silence settled between the two. The few birds that had been chirping somewhere above them, stopped singing. Shep broke the quiet, saying, “There’s a lot going on. I was hoping, somehow, we might get a few hours of downtime during all this.”
Her lips quirked. “Dev and I are working from dawn to dusk, and sometimes, into the night to get the equipment up to the villages for the next morning’s construction.”
“You are working hard,” he agreed. “My two teams are working sunrise to sunset, too. Everyone knows we’re on a razor-thin wire of calendar dates with each Delos school and when it should be finished.” He enjoyed the sweet pickles, and the slight taste of mustard and mayonnaise she’d added to the tuna. His heart widened with incredible joy as he saw laughter come to her eyes.
“You included, right?” and she picked up a potato chip, popping it into her mouth.
“Yeah,” he sighed, giving her a warm look, “I suppose so, but as the project engineer, I have a lot of different baskets with different things in them to keep my idle hands damned busy.”
“No kidding,” she muttered, enjoying her sandwich. She wanted to drown in his eyes, remembering the tenderness he could share with her, but she pushed that all away. What she really wanted to do was shove the food aside, say to hell with it, and grab Shep and demand how he was feeling about them. Was he even going up and down like she was in her heart? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d felt this way. He’d been so conservative when she first met him, and his idea of lovemaking had been bed only. That changed very quickly because Willow saw opportunity everywhere. And she saw him change his mind, too. She saw a look of deviltry come to his gaze. “Are you trying to read my mind?” she asked.
Feigning ignorance, he said, “No, why would I even need to?” And he grinned. “You were always easy to read on the outside, Willow. You’re like an open book.”
“Yes, and you were like a diary: closed and locked up,” she muttered, frowning. Okay… that neediness for good sex was begging her to throw caution to the wind. She’d done it many times before with this man and he’d always been right there for her, no wilting lily himself. That was one of the many things she had loved about Shep: He was strong and brave and steady when he needed to be there for her. And when that wasn’t required, it was like a reset in him to go back to his unassuming, quiet, contemplative, thoughtful nature. Otherwise, he was a pretty easy-going guy and that had always appealed strongly to her because she disliked loud, braggart, toxic alpha types. He was an alpha, just one of the quiet ones… until it became necessary to show otherwise.
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but my fears about having to meet you once more after these last three godawful years, had me running scared.”
“Me too, Shep. When I got that email from Wyatt, I froze.”
“Really? You too? What is wrong with us? We’re not unintelligent people, Willow. And maybe that’s part of the issue? We’re too damned smart for our own good? We read things into situations that aren’t there? We assume too much? Not enough? After you left me, I tore myself apart mentally trying to figure out what I’d done wrong and how I could fix it.”
“Ditto,” she murmured, finishing off her sandwich, licking her fingers. “It takes two to make a marriage and it takes two to break one up. I never entirely blamed you for it. I was at fault, too, and I wish I had told you that before I walked out on you.”
“It’s always easy to see the other person’s weaknesses, but ignore our own,” he said, shaking his head.
“I went there, too. I admit it, I have a hair-trigger personality, I’m impatient, I get a fixed idea in my head and that’s all I see. I don’t always hear the other person’s conversation like I need too. I filter it out, and that’s not good, either. I know where my faults and weaknesses are, Shep.”
“Join the club,” he grumped, giving her an understanding look, his sandwich gone. He reached for a handful of chips from the bag, “but it’s terribly human. Isn’t it?”
