Page 29 of Shadow Target

Willow smiled and held his gaze. “Yes, I remember you telling me about the Incan terrace farming you saw in South America. I don’t know if you remember, but you sent me a photo of the terraces at Machu Picchu, that sacred place of the Incas near Cusco, down in Peru. You had taken a train from Cusco, you said, down through the jungle to where the huge Incan stronghold had been built. And I remember thinking you were more impressed with the terrace farming than the actual temples built on that site.”

“You’ve got a good memory,” he said. “After we broke up, I took the undercover job and went to work for Delos. They sent me to that area to put in wells for the Q’ero Indian villages. That was a long time ago.”

“Impressed with my memory, huh?” and she laughed, shaking her head.

“I am.”

She sobered and said, “Well, I have a confession to make, Shep. Every email you sent me and every photo; I’ve saved.” She searched his eyes, his skin gleaming with perspiration from their hard hike. There was surprise in his eyes and then, something else, hope maybe? Hope for what? Them? Willow couldn’t answer that question.

“Well, since it’s confession time? I have kept every one of your emails and photos, too.” Shep said back.

They stood looking at one another and Willow ached to walk that short distance and move into his arms. Melancholy swept through her over the choices they’d made earlier in life, both right and wrong. Opening her hands, she whispered, “I don’t know about us, Shep. In some ways, we seem to be on the same wavelength. In others, we act like aliens to one another, each speaking in a different language each other can’t understand or even grasp what the other is trying to say.”

He turned, tucking his thumbs beneath the straps of his knapsack, looking out over the calm, beautiful lake. “Yeah, that’s about the bottom line on us, isn’t it?” he said, and held her troubled green gaze.

She stubbed the toe of her boot into the ground, muttering, “Where we fit with one another, it was great.” She lifted her head. “And where we didn’t? All we did was argue, and scream and shout at one another.”

“I hear you,” he said, nodding. “I’m mostly at fault on that one. I didn’t exactly handle it well.”

Frustrated, Willow came and stood near him, close enough to feel the heat of his body. His profile was hard and she could feel him thinking. There was nothing weak about Shep. He was a warrior and a Type-A, driven to succeed, built for life’s challenges. So was she. Searching his damp face, seeing the burning look in his narrowed blue eyes as he looked back from the lake view and studied her, she reached out, entangling her fingers in his. Shep’s flesh was hardened, calloused and felt rough on hers.

She said, “I have another confession to make. I’ve been wanting to get somewhere quiet and uninterrupted so I could talk with you.” She felt his fingers curve gently around hers, saw the softening in his gaze, felt his yearning for her. Mouth dry, she pressed on, her heart beating harder, trying to steel herself against his reaction. “There’s a lot we need to catch up on with one another, Shep. And I don’t know if it’s something you’re really interested in doing. Are you?” and she tilted her head, digging into his gaze. His fingers tightened a little more around hers, as if to keep her from moving away.

“I don’t know where this is going with us, Willow,” he admitted hoarsely. “But since coming here? Seeing you in person? It sure as hell beats emails being passed from time to time between us.” One corner of his mouth lifted a little, not a smile, maybe a grimace. “Look, I know I was the reason you walked out. At the time? I didn’t understand what the hell was going wrong between us. It seemed the more I tried to explain it to you, to separate out the issues, the angrier and more frustrated you became.”

“I couldn’t reach you, Shep. You were listening with your head, not your heart. This goes back to me being emotional AND mental at the same time. You had somehow cut yourself off from your feelings, except when we had sex. I LIVE with my emotions 24/7/365. You don’t.”

Wincing, he hung his head for a moment, staring at his dampened boots. Dragging in a deep breath, he caught her gaze. “You were right. I couldn’t get it… not back then. But I’ve had plenty of time to stand back from our crisis and really examine it, take it apart and study it. You know: That self-aware thing you were hammering me with?”

Willow wanted to cry because, as he rasped those words, she saw the deep wounding he still carried secretly within him. At least now, she knew intuitively that those scars originated from his family. “Well, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect back on my antics in our marriage, too. I can’t say I’m very proud of how I conducted myself with you, Shep.” She released his hand and took a deep breath, as if she were about to step off the edge of a cliff of no return. “Is it possible to EVER discuss your past with me fully?” Your growing up years?”

Frowning, he haltingly managed, “After you left me, I went in search of the self-awareness you always told me about, and what that term meant to you. I scoured the internet, and I found a guy, a therapist, in Cusco, there in Peru. He… Renaldo ended up becoming a great friend, over time. We’d get together over pisco sours at a local bar and just talk. He never charged me, even though he’s a very popular psychiatrist in the region. He didn’t make it like I was going to a therapy session. We’d just talk. I told him about us, about my lacking or misunderstood communications between us.”

Relief poured through her as she listened to Shep. She saw how hesitant and unsure of himself he was with her on a personal level. That had never showed up in everyday professional-level situations while on this operation together. “Did he help you understand what I was trying to share with you?”

“Yes, it took about a year, and many pisco sours and talks at that bar, but I finally grasped it.”

“And how did you then look at our situation? Where we got crossways with one another, Shep?”

He opened his hands and closed them. “It all went back to me not opening up on an emotional level with you, Willow.” Shep frowned, started to look away but then held her upturned gaze instead. “I told him about my father’s divorce from my mother when I was thirteen. And, just like you had told me much earlier, he pinpointed that as one of the reasons I shut down and went into my head. I closed off my heart because it was just too painful to leave myself open.” Lifting his hand, he moved a few errant strands of red hair away from her temple, holding her teary gaze. “I never opened myself up to you. I did when we had sex, but then I’d shut back down, afterward.”

A shiver flowed through her, one of relief that he was finally allowing her into the rest of the dark, family secret of his. She’d been right all along. “And when we loved one another? It was beautiful, heart centered, Shep and we both knew it. We trusted one another at those times.”

She held his gaze and went on, “But you did close up afterward. I could feel it and I saw it. When we made love, it was communication through our bodies to one another and it was always wonderful. But as soon as we were done, usually an hour afterward, I could feel you emotionally retreating from me, closing back up, and then, as always, I felt abandoned by you. It was as if you took your love you had for me and locked it away again so I could no longer be fed by it as you fed me when we had sex.”

“I got it,” he mumbled, avoiding her gaze. “Renaldo laid it out to me in a way I could see and grasp.” Rasping wearily, he went on, “I really did destroy our marriage, Willow. I nearly destroyed you. I realize now you were fighting back, fighting to save both of us, but I just wasn’t there.”

A tremulous sigh tore from her lips. “I didn’t know WHAT had caused it. I was blaming myself, Shep; that I was somehow lacking in something, and it was my fault that you remained closed up, and I couldn’t reach you.”

“No, Angel, it was all on me,” he admitted, sliding his hands in a comforting motion across her tense shoulders. “I’ll gladly take the blame, Willow. I have no pride or ego in this. It hurt so damned much when you left me.”

She rested her hands against his biceps, studying his agonized expression. “I felt like I was in a battle every day with you and we were stalemated. I had to leave you Shep, because I felt like I was dying inside, dying emotionally. You weren’t feeding me like I was feeding you with my emotions. There was no sharing along that level between us. I had to leave. I didn’t want to, but I’d done the best I could, and it wasn’t enough.”

He held her, bringing his hand behind her head, her frizzy red hair tangling between his fingers as he rocked her slightly. “Just let me hold you? I need this Willow, so damn badly.” He rested his head against hers, closing his eyes, absorbing her strong, warm, feminine body against his.

Shep could barely remain still, hold himself in control, as Willow sank against him, entrusting herself fully to him. She smelled so damned good to him, that ginger scent in her hair, her special womanly fragrance that hardened him until it was painful. Willow would surely feel the bulge of his erection, their hips against each another as they were. Her breasts, so soft and full, made his palms ache to touch them. So many past love-making sessions had haunted his dreams ever since he’d gotten to Ethiopia. Being around Willow was like an addictive drug. He lived to see her, even if at a distance. They were so damned busy, the tempo of the construction so high, that sometimes, they shared only a glance. But it fed him, his heart, his still-wounded soul, and he ached on every level to reclaim her. But how? How could he do that? Shep knew he wasn’t the greatest at talking. Especially about things that he’d done wrong.

His therapist, Renaldo, had told him from the get-go to let his ego dissolve because it had no place in the mix when one person truly loved another. It wasn’t about being right or wrong. It was about being a team. And, as a team, you learned to put ego and pride aside because they could destroy any union over time.

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