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“Porter here,” he answered.
“It’s me. Are you clean yet?”
He laughed. “Yeah, pretty much so. Nice not to smell like muddy river water.”
“Tell me about it.” She licked her lower lip. “Shep? Do you feel like coming down here? I’d like your company.” There was a moment of silence. Willow swore she could feel shock coming from Shep even through the phone connection. Why?
“Sure. Can I bring you down anything with me? I’ve just made a huge salad and put chunks of tuna in it. Are you hungry?”
She smiled, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Yes, my stomach is growling. Bring it and yourself down here?”
“You set the table and I’ll be there in a minute,” he promised.
She clicked off the phone, her heart beating a little harder in her chest. Wrinkling her nose, she knew she probably looked shabby in her favorite run-around tee. Shep had seen her like this before, so she let that go. More than anything, she wanted him… his energy… his voice. It was stabilizing to her right now. Opening the cabinet, she took down two large bowls. There was what felt like desperation roiling within her, going up and down like a rollercoaster. Right now, she needed Shep’s presence… his touch… HIM! He’d saved her life.
The knock at her door came five minutes later and she opened it. Shep was wearing a form-fitting dark-red t-shirt and jeans that lovingly outlined his hard lower body. On his feet where a pair of frayed gray tennis shoes without socks. He looked incredibly handsome to her, his hair still damp, slightly curled here and there, being so long and with such a mind of its own. He’d trimmed his beard, taking a piece of that darkness away from his face that always inspired her imagination. When he’d had that fullness of beard back in Afghanistan, it had made him look dangerous to her in a sexual kind of way.
“Come in,” she said, stepping aside. In his hands was a huge, red ceramic bowl, full of salad and the promised chunks of tuna.
“Thanks,” he said. “Kitchen table?”
“Yes,” she said, closing and then locking the door. Even though Tefere David and his soldiers were somewhere out in the woods near Lake Tana, Willow no longer felt as safe as before. Following him in, she liked the way the man moved, his butt a definite plus in her world.
Shep set the bowl down. He looked over at her. “How are you doing?”
“Cleaner,” she admitted, touching her dry tee. “I’m not real well-dressed but right now, I don’t care.” She saw the heat glimmer in his eyes as he grinned.
“You look beautiful just the way you are.” He held out the chair for her to sit down.
“Thanks,” she murmured, sitting. “I don’t feel very beautiful to tell you the truth.”
Shep sat at her left elbow, his own chair scraping the tiles as he pulled it to table. “You’re in shock, and you’re just feeling the letting-down process roll through you right now.” He took the two wooden forks and hefted a good scoop of salad into her bowl. “What you need right now is to eat, hydrate and sleep.”
“And how do you know all this, oh ground pounder?” and she smiled a little, watching him fill his own bowl with salad. He’d also brought along a bottle of balsamic vinaigrette, and she poured some over hers.
“Too much experience behind it,” he muttered, taking the dressing from her. “When you get shot at, mortared, or RPGs are flying your direction? You get the same set of emotional and physical reactions that you’re going through right now. First, there’s terror, then you’re afraid you’re going to die, and then you fight back or run. And whether you’re escaping by vehicle, on foot or by helo, you’re in shock. Everyone goes into shock when threats and trauma hit them, Willow.” He stirred his salad with his fork. “If you’re lucky and you make it out alive? Then you have the let-down phase. First, you feel exhausted because you’re experiencing an adrenaline crash through your system. Then, you get hungry and sleepy at the same time. I always tried to eat first and then sleep afterward. And while that’s going on? Your emotions are up and down like an elevator from elation to terror and back again, almost like a continuous, alternating circuit. You realize you just dodged a bullet that could have taken your life. And yet, you’re still alive, and there’s a miraculous feeling that you are.”
She poked at her salad, “You’ve really nailed it. That’s exactly how I feel: up and down.”
He chewed his salad and swallowed. “And I would imagine you’re feeling shaky and unsafe right now? Because that’s the next level: the realization that there is no safe place anymore.”
“Yes, I’m feeling horribly vulnerable.” She gestured with her fork toward the main door. “I locked that door. Normally? I don’t.”
“You need to lock it every time,” Shep warned her, frowning.
“I honestly didn’t believe Wyatt’s threat assessment about David wanting an American woman to… oh, god… to behead.” and her throat hitched over that last word.
He paused, his heart aching over her visible trauma at the very thought, and then continued to eat. “Artemis has access to the most advanced network of top-secret information in the world. They are on the A-list of every democratic country’s intel web. The type of intel they get is highly prized and yet, very few get it. When I sat in that mission briefing with him and the others, I believed every word he said about David. I knew the sources he was getting it form.” He held her gaze. “Now? I think you believe, too?”
Snorting softly, Willow said, “Yes, I do. Before? I thought Wyatt was over-hyping the situation.”
“Wyatt’s an ex-SEAL. They stick to brutal facts, not drama.”
“I got it, believe me, I got it in spades, Shep.”
Nodding, he continued to eat voraciously.
Willow ate, but not nearly as much as he wolfed down. Once she was full, she pushed the bowl away from her, picking up her glass of iced tea. She studied him from beneath her lashes. He’d gotten a lot of color back into his cheeks, his eyes sharp and alert as always, and then her gaze fell to that mouth of his. Despite the trauma she was experiencing, she felt her lower body turn up to a yearning stage. There was such a powerful, nearly overwhelming urge to make love to this man right now. It shocked her in a different way from the trauma, as the animal need surged wildly through her.
