Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
W illow didn’t expect Shep to answer her question about it taking him three years to admit about trying to be better at communicating with her this time around. It had been the major reason she’d walked out of the marriage and away from him. She’d loved him when she’d divorced him. He’d never denied her reasons. Over the last three years, the wounds he’d inflicted with his incredible stubbornness had begun to heal. Willow had known it would take time. But, as she’d reorientated her lifestyle away from the military and back into the civilian world, she’d felt the whole process accelerate greatly. But she’d never stopped loving him, as she was discovering right now.
“Have you made peace with the fact you’re a civilian now, and no longer in the military?” he asked her.
Willow swallowed her surprise. Surprise both at the uncanniness of the question’s timing but even more over the simple fact that Shep had asked HER a personal question! Before? No, never; she was the one who’d always had to prod, wheedle, and push a personal feeling out of him and into the open. Maybe he was serious about trying to communicate with her? She licked her lower lip, slowing the car as she turned it into another smaller street lined with palm trees.
“After I decommissioned and left the military, I felt lost.” Of course, she’d just walked out on him, too, demanding a divorce at the same time. Not wanting to quantify ‘lost’, she said, “I did a lot of talking to other pilots who had left the service, Shep. Most of them were going into the airline industry to fly truckloads of people from one random point to another. That’s not the vision I had for myself.”
He chuckled a little. “That’s not your speed or your style, either. You always liked skirting edges, challenging yourself. And sitting in the pilot’s seat of an airliner is about as boring as it gets.”
She managed a faint smile. “You’re right about that. So? I kept looking around. I saw a Shield Security ad in an airline newsletter. They were looking for what we term ‘bush pilots’; people who would fly in supplies to third world countries where there was only a dirt strip, at best.”
“I imagine that got your interest?”
“Yeah, it did. I called up their office, got an interview booked, and flew to Alexandria, Virginia, where they are based. I went through three different levels of interviews and, on the third one, I ended up with the president of the firm, Jack Driscoll himself.”
“I was impressed with Shield Security,” Shep said. “I was glad Delos was reaching out to one of the top agencies in the world. Considering how this mission was gonna play out, we needed real security from people who knew how to provide it.”
“When I sat down in the room and met Driscoll, I soon found out he was an ex-SEAL,” Willow fondly recapitulated. “He’d been warm and welcoming, which I hadn’t expected. But I figured out quickly if you worked for Shield, you would be treated as family, not just another number or employee.”
“Right,” he agreed, meeting her glance for a moment. “I felt the same way when the Marine Corps, working with Delos, approached me. I guess I popped up on their radar screen. I’d been selected to work undercover as a Delos employee, along with my Seabee construction crew. I went in for the interview. I’d also had no expectation of ever meeting the top dog, but there she was, right there from the git go.”
“When did you join this undercover operation with Delos?”
“Two years, eight months ago. You?”
“About the same time frame. For when I joined Shield Security I mean. I basically went from military to civilian status and a new job within three months’ time.”
“No grass grows under your feet,” and he saw her face thaw.
“You’re a Marine officer. Why’d you decide to switch to undercover work?”
Shrugging, he said, “Even I get bored. I just wanted some peace. Something less dangerous, if possible, in my life. Delos is a global entity and frequently works with well-known security agencies and military branches. I figured they knew what they’re doing and might provide what I wanted.”
And that had all been shortly after she’d walked out on him. They had both left the service, but in different ways. Willow wanted to ask more, but she withheld her questions. Surprised that they were talking to one another like old friends with a common past, she found herself hungering for more of just this kind of communication. “Yeah,” she murmured, “I was tired of dropping bombs. It got old after a while.”
“How’s your brother, Ben?”
Her heart tumbled. Ben was her older brother, two years older. This was the FIRST time that Shep had EVER asked about any member of her family. On her part, she’d opened up to him, filling him in on her family history in an effort to get him to talk about his own upbringing and kin, but he never had. “Well,” she said, her voice growing low with pain, “right now? He’s somewhere on the Syrian-Turkish border. He’s fighting with the Kurds against ISIS. He quit the Army, even though he’d risen to the rank of a Delta Force operator, and just suddenly went to work with the Kurds.” She risked a glance over at him, seeing the shock in Shep’s narrowing blue eyes.
“One of the most dangerous places on the planet. Especially now, since the Russians are in Syria along with ISIS and all we have, as a much smaller contingent over there, are our black ops special forces. Turkey considers the Kurds terrorists. That’s not a good setup.”
“I wanted him out of there, but he loves what he’s doing,” Willow muttered, frustration bleeding through her tone. Her hands opened and closed nervously on the steering wheel as she made another turn onto yet an even smaller, narrower side street. Several pink, yellow and light-green stucco condos, all four to five stories tall, stood along this meticulously clean and beautifully landscaped street.
“The last I remember you telling me about him was that he was home for R lush leaves shining and bursting with life. Some had small, lavender flowers showing among their greenness.
“Take a seat at the kitchen table,” she said, bustling to and fro, gathering everything she would need to make breakfast for them.
“Thanks. Nice place. It’s alive,” he said, sitting down at the small, round, white wrought-iron table with its glass top. Everywhere he looked, the place was neat and clean. It was part of Willow’s discipline, he supposed. But he was a neatnik, too. Another place where they agreed to agree and not disagree. It was burning him up inside to not ask her about why she still had a photo of him. He watched her work; that quick efficiency of hers.
“I like living plants in my home,” she said. “I hate sterile environments.”
“Did your parents have a lot of plants in their house where you grew up?” Shep realized he’d never talked about such things with Willow, and he’d made it his mission to correct that flaw this time around; to show her he did care about her and her family, and not just himself. She seemed rather stunned for a split second, giving him a quick look as she arranged the eggs on the counter.
“My mother, you know: ‘Ruth’, is a nutritionist. She was always growing her own herbs in small pots along the windowsills of our house in whatever Air Force base we were currently at.”
“Your Dad is probably retired from being a pilot in the Air Force by now though, right?”
“Yes. They’re living outside of Pacific Beach, California, near where I was born. They have a small ranch. Mom has a huge organic garden, plus my dad ordered a Sun Glo greenhouse package for her. He built it from the great kit they got, and now she’s got vegetables and herbs year ’round.”
“Sounds nice,” he said, leaning back, one leg hooked over the other at the ankles.
Willow brought over his coffee, sitting it before him. “Drink up.”
He looked up into her eyes, seeing a mix of emotions. She felt vulnerable to him and it automatically made Shep protective of Willow. Scoffing to himself internally as he lifted the dark, fragrant coffee to his lips, he knew she hated it whenever he became protective of her. She’d always called it ‘smothering’ and ‘suffocating’ and said that she was fully able to take care of herself. That had always been an area of contention between them, brutally heightened to the nth degree as they’d played out the farce that had been their marriage in the Afghan war zone. He thought ‘farce’ often when it came to their marriage but didn’t completely believe the word. Shep had often wondered if they’d been stateside, or in some other safer environment, if maybe the stress would have been less and if their marriage could have survived. He would never know the answer, but his mind asked the question over and over regardless.
Willow cracked six eggs into a bright-pink ceramic bowl, whisked them, and added salt, pepper, a few herbs and some milk. “Tell me more of your adventures over the last three years?” she asked him.
“Just like what you already know: kicking around the world, drilling wells, constructing buildings and stuff like that. Mostly in South America. Peru, to be exact.”
She smiled a little, pouring the eggy mixture into a black skillet on the stove. “I imagine you got to brush up on your Spanish?”
Shep had four foreign languages under his belt, Spanish one of them. “Yeah, it came in real handy.”
“So, the Marine Corps has continued using you and your team undercover via Delos I see.”
“They try to put me where no one’s going to notice I’m a Marine in disguise,” he said. “We were up in the Highlands of Peru, near Cusco. There’s a lot of activity with Russian drug teams coming in and trying to take over the cocaine trade up there. We were able to help locate them, and then the Army Special Forces killer teams went in and took them out. We were digging wells for those villages, so the Q’ero people always told us the truth of what was going on. They’d send messages discreetly to us. Messages we could pass on to one of those hunter-killer teams to take the bastards out. The Q’ero people hate the Russians. And that’s why I’ve spent the last three years down there.”
“Commendable work,” she murmured. “But dangerous.”
Shrugging, he said, “Someone has to do it. I like being undercover.” and he rubbed his beard. “I don’t have to shave every day,” and he grinned a little.
“Yeah, shaving every day wouldn’t be much to look forward to,” Willow agreed. “You look the same from when we were together at Bagram. All the black ops members there went unshaven, right? It helped them fit in with the Afghan guys with their shaggy beards.”
“It was a good disguise,” he agreed. Shep had been through the Naval Monterey Language School to acquire Pashto, one of the languages of Afghanistan. He’d already learned Spanish, French and Italian.
“Ever been in Ethiopia before?” Willow asked.
“Nope, and I don’t know the language either.”
“You have a linguistic mind, so you’ll pick up some of it, I’m sure.”
He smiled, appreciating the coffee. “I dunno. If you say so.” He saw Willow shake her head and groan as she worked efficiently at the stove. “I know,” he drawled, “I wander the world clueless sometimes as far as you’re concerned.”
“I didn’t say that.”
He laughed a little. “No, you get brownie points for that, Willow.”
She laughed with him and quickly put the eggs on the two awaiting pink ceramic plates. The toast popped up and she had all four slices buttered and ready in no time. Turning, plates in hand, she said, “I know we can’t just ignore our past as we work together. It’s going to come up. But I’m not here to put salt in our wounds, Shep.” She set the plates down, turning and going to a drawer to retrieve the flatware.
He sat up, inhaling the fragrance of the scrambled eggs, and the sprinkled chunks of goat cheese and fragrant, mouth-watering herbs she’d mixed into them. “I was thinking along the same lines. I don’t want to fight with you, Willow. We have a job we’re going to be working together on and I want peace between us.”
She gave him the flatware and sat down opposite him, coffee beside her plate. “Chow down.”
Shep was starving and he ate quickly, as did Willow herself. In the military, there was very little time for a nice, luxurious meal. Everything was gobbled down within five minutes flat. And, through force of habit, this time was no exception. He wasn’t distracted quite enough by the amazing food to disregard the peaceful aura Willow always brought along with her, or the look he loved on her face when she was enjoying herself. Her fingers were long, and he watched them curl around her large mug of coffee from time to time as she consumed the breakfast fare. Those fingers had caressed him, loved him and, the fool he was, he’d driven her away. Sadness settled in his chest, and he fought against it. The past was done. He had nothing to build on but the here and now.
“It was good, thanks. You’re one helluva cook. You always were.” he said, once done eating.
Her lips quirked. “I love cooking. With our flight schedules to the villages we take care of around the region, I don’t get much downtime.” She looked around her quiet, green-plant nook. “With this new assignment? Dev and I will be flying our asses off 24/7/365. About the only thing I’ll have time to do is stagger in here, hit my rack, sleep the sleep of the dead, get up at 0500 the next morning and fly all day long all over again.”
“Yeah, it’s a big project,” he agreed, munching on his dark-brown toast slathered with butter. “We need to sit down, but not right now, maybe later, to see the schedule you’ve worked out to get the supplies from the warehouse here in this city flown out to those villages.”
Nodding, Willow sipped her coffee, relaxing against the wrought iron chair. “Among many other things.”
“Are you up to dealing with me?” he asked, holding her lidded stare.
“I told Wyatt Lockwood I was.”
His brow lifted. She wasn’t directly answering his question, avoiding it instead. “I want to make this work between us, Willow. No one in these teams, except for Luke, because he’s Shield Security for this gig, knows we were married before.”
“Yeah, I got that.” She gave him a thoughtful look. “You’ve changed a little from what I can tell so far.”
“Naw, never gonna happen. Remember? I’m the stick-in-the-mud. The guy who was stubborn as ten mules put together. All head and no heart.” He saw a grin edge her full lips. But Willow was off limits. He’d had his chance and had blown it. But he couldn’t control his physical response to her. Three years apart had made her even more attractive to him than before.
“I remember,” she said, pushing her empty plate to one side. “I always liked when you sent me a photo of wherever you were at in your emails.”
“Oh… those. I know how much you love photography, Willow. And I didn’t want to lose touch with you completely.”
“You usually sent me pictures of children, dogs or random people out in fields.” she said.
Shep replied, “Kids and animals were always important to you. I saw that when we went into Afghan villages with medical teams to help them. I liked the photos you sent me as well.”
She nodded, sipping her coffee. “I thought you might like to see where I was working and flying.”
“I did. I’ve never been in Africa, and I found your photos always interesting. I wished,” he admitted, “there had been more.”
“Mmmm.”
Shep saw sadness in her expression for a moment. He was feeling sad, too. “Look,” he began heavily, opening his large hands, holding her gaze, “I need to apologize to you. It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve had three years to reflect on my being a total jerk toward you.” He pushed on, feeling his stomach clench because Willow gave him a shocked look, as if never expecting him to own up to what he’d done to her and their marriage.
“I know there’s a lot wrong with me. At the time we married, I didn’t see it, but you did.” His mouth flattened, his voice growing hoarse. “I loved you, but I drove you off, Willow. And… looking back on it? I screwed up totally. You had every right to walk out on me and demand a divorce. I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know. And I don’t’ expect any forgiveness. I just want the slate between us clear so we can work together on this undercover assignment honestly. I don’t want barbs of anger from myself to you. All I want at this stage is the hope that we can be the friends we once were before we took that premature leap of faith into marriage. What do you think?” and he studied her stunned expression, her eyes filling with tears. She swallowed hard several times.
“I-I guess I never expected this,” she admitted, her voice hollow. Leaning her elbows on the table, wrapping her hands around the mug in front of her, she added, “I accept your apology. I wasn’t exactly spotless in our marriage, either.” She sighed. “And we married in a war zone, Shep. And we divorced in it, too. I was a combat pilot. The adrenaline highs and lows I went through during and after missions, didn’t help matters, either.” She gave him a sorrowful look. “I’ve had the same three years you had to look back and see what I contributed to our divorce, also.”
“There were a lot of pressures on us,” he agreed quietly, holding her somber gaze. “But I was the main reason you walked out. And I deserved it. I’m not asking for pity here. What I hope, after these three years, is that I’m a changed person. At least, I’m trying.”
Willow sat back, staring at him. “Are you presently in a relationship, Shep?”
He gave her a wry look. “Me? You were married to me. What other woman would put up with a patriarchal, neanderthal hulk like me?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” she admitted.
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “At least, I guess you could say that over the last three years I tried to do something you accused me of being incapable of.”
“What was that?”
“Trying to teach myself how to become self-aware enough to be thoughtful and caring toward other people. Trying to plumb my own depths, my thoughts… those pesky emotions I avoided like the plague,” and he managed a poor semblance of a smile. “You were right: I was completely self-centered.”
“I used the word ‘narcissist’.”
“Yeah, that one, too. Anyway, I’ve been working on myself, looking at why I am the way I am. And what happened to tip me that direction.”
“That’s good to hear,” she said softly.
“You’ve always been self-aware, haven’t you?”
“My mom supported me when I was just a kid, Shep. She said I had to be responsible and think about what I was going to say to someone before even opening my mouth. That, if I ever did something unhealthy, I had to look inside myself and figure out where that action had originated from. To understand what event, experience, what person or environment, pushed me in that direction. And if it hurt someone else? Any human, or animal or the Earth itself? Then I had to fix that broken bit within myself and never do it again. So yes, I’m constantly aware of myself. It doesn’t mean I’m perfect. It just means I’m trying to be a better person where I wasn’t before, is all. Probably most important? Is not projecting on other people.”
“Yeah, I remember this talk with you many times.”
She responded with a nod. “We’re getting into some deep psychology here, but people are constantly projecting on one another. And it’s a terrible place to be in because the other person is always savaged and hurt by our accusations about stuff that we, ourselves have within us, but we’re blaming the other person and then playing the victim. Yup, it’s a terrible place to be in, Shep. And that was a huge part of our marriage going south.”
He responded, “I have a tough time seeing myself, so I don’t really feel any changes. I hope you will see them in me, though.”
She snorted. “I’ll get off my tirade about patriarchal males who are toxic masculinity at its finest. Just the fact that you asked me PERSONAL questions about my family shows you’ve changed. You never once asked me about my family before.”
Wincing, he said, “Yeah, I was pretty much asleep.”
“At least now you’re trying. That’s good, Shep.”
“I needed you to know this, Willow, because we’re going to be working closely together over the next year and I didn’t want World War Three to erupt between us like it did in our marriage.”
“I told Wyatt I’d be professional, and I will be, Shep. You don’t have to worry about me nagging you. I know we can work on that level with one another without any problem.”
He gave her a warm look, wanting to reach out and curl his fingers around hers. “We’ll make this work,” he promised her, wild feelings of relief flowing through him. Willow had grown, too, he realized. She’d once had a hair-trigger temper when things didn’t go her way. Now? She was thoughtful. Not so quick to judge or throw up defenses against him if he started withdrawing from her emotionally. Sure, all looked good enough for now, but Shep still had no confidence in the strength of the hull of their rebuilt relationship; the same ship they’d already wrecked on so many angry reefs while trying to man the helm together in the past. How could they expect to keep the vessel on course this time around?