Page 27 of Shadow Target

“Okay. It’s a positive start, Willow.”

As she took the dirty dishes to the sink, she still wasn’t sure, but her heart urged her to remain open and accessible to Shep. He had never been violent or cruel toward her. She rinsed off the dishes, wondering what would it take, then, to open him up more to her? Because of the family he was raised in, did it mean he saw all women through some kind of warped lens? If that were the case, it could explain why their marriage had never stood a chance.

CHAPTER 8

Willow sat in the prow of the local boat they’d rented earlier to ply the smooth, glassy waters of Lake Tana on a cool November morning. It was their second day off from the brutal construction schedule. She’d met Shep at seven a.m. and they’d driven down to the dock area on the southern part of the massive lake Bahir Dar sat on. She had a favorite fisherman and always rented one of his smaller fishing boats. Up until now, it would always have been her and Dev out paddling around the shoreline. This time, it was her and Shep and she allowed her feelings for him to surface and remain with her.

Everything was quiet apart from the cries of the gulls and white pelicans that plied the rocky and sometimes muddy offshore of Tana. The air was cool, in the high fifties, and some fog had formed here and there, giving the lake a somewhat mystical appearance to Willow, the fog a veil symbolizing two different worlds or, perhaps, dimensions to her. She dipped her paddle in and watched the smooth surface break, ripples forming as she pushed it backward to propel the boat forward. The craft also had a small gas engine. But for today’s trip, she wanted the quiet of paddles dipping in and out of the smooth, glassy surface of the water, instead. The gas engine could be used later if they got tired of the physical toll of their excursion.

Above them, a blue heron flew over, heading near the shore. Willow enjoyed the flap of the large bird’s seven-foot wingspan. Turning, looking over her shoulder, she asked, “Beautiful heron, wasn’t it?” Shep was dressed in his khaki pants, wore a form-fitting dark-green t-shirt and his brown baseball cap with the Delos logo on it. She noticed he seemed happy this morning after their serious talk last night. Or maybe content was the word she was searching for? Secretly yearning for him, she watched one corner of his mouth draw upward a bit in a quirky half-grin.

“Yeah, big bird. Long wingspan.”

“I wonder,” she said, “if I see the beauty and color of the bird and you see the mechanics of it only? Our minds, which see things on a very different level to one another, at work?”

Shep dug his paddle into the wake of the boat and, using it as a rudder, twisted its shaft to keep their red and white, badly-paint-chipped wooden boat on course parallel to the shoreline that crept by about two hundred feet away. “I did appreciate the mechanics of the bird in flight. You saw the color, grace and movement of it. Nothing wrong with how we see things, Willow.”

“No,” she conceded, “as you’ve said before, if there are ten people in the same room, there’s ten different realities.”

“Right, and if we had ten other people in this boat right now? Between us, we would have a dozen different ways of looking at that heron that just flew over us, too, I think. Also, the boat would sink.”

Willow smirked at his quip, saying, “I often wonder how anyone gets along in this world at all, what with those kinds of multiple realities… how we all see things differently?”

Chuckling, he said, “Welcome to my world. I manage people. I run into this conundrum all the time.”

Nodding, she said nothing, feeling the languor of happiness flowing through her as they rounded a small peninsular of the lake. “The place I want to take you is about a mile away. It’s a bird sanctuary of sorts. Beyond it, about a mile further, is a family of hippos, and we do not want to go anywhere near them or their territory.”

He frowned. “I know absolutely nothing about them.”

“I’ve had a year to get to know them enough to learn that you don’t want to encroach upon their territory because they can charge and kill you. They seem very docile and gentle, but if they feel threatened, they will attack first, and we wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“I didn’t know that about them,” he said, frowning, looking at the crescent-like curve of the shoreline coming up. “How about we stick to the birds today?”

“Anything with wings is okay with me this morning.” Willow replied.

“I’m surprised you haven’t taken any photos yet.” She had a strap around her neck, the Canon camera it was attached to cradled in her lap. There was a waterproof plastic sack she’d put around the camera in case they tipped over and went in the drink. Willow had learned through rough experience to keep her camera protected with the strap around her neck, and the waterproof bag around it. So that, just in case it ever fell into the water, it wouldn’t sink to the bottom of the lake and be lost forever.

“I’ll wait until we get to our birding area,” she said. The odor of the lake near the docks was of rotted fish, which she hated. But out on the lake itself? It had a clean, moist smell and she dragged it deep into her lungs.

“Sounds good,” he said. “Have you noticed what’s going on between your friend Dev and Luke?”

Willow glanced over her shoulder. “I guess I’m not the only one who sees it?”

“Luke is footloose and fancy free. I was kind of surprised that he seemed really interested in Dev. Not that it’s bad or anything. I guess I just didn’t expect it, was all.”

“Well,” Willow said, “look at us. We met at Bagram Fixed Wing Ops by accident, and we were instantly drawn to one another. Why would it be any different for anyone else?”

“You have a point.”

Snorting, Willow said, “Yes, kinda.”

He laughed.

There were so many good things about Shep that she found herself wondering if maybe she’d stuck in the marriage, that perhaps they could have worked through its rougher patches and survived. Of late, that’s pretty much all that Willow ruminated on, as she was now as she lifted her paddle once more. Today, she wanted to spend quality focused time on Shep’s family. Intuitively, she felt that was a major key to him. Would he go along with it? Remain open to her inspection? Or, closed up like a clam, completely inaccessible? Never had Willow wanted anything more than to crack open more of his background and family situation, like cracking open a rotten clam shell and spilling out the bitter brine within.

“Well, what do you think, Willow? Are Dev and Luke in love?”

She smiled. “Love or lust? Both start with an ‘L’, Shep.” She heard him laugh and it had always lifted her mood in the past, as it did right now. A seagull drifted over their boat, looking down to see if they had any fish. They didn’t, so it flew on. To their right was a gaggle of about thirty white pelicans out feeding on the lake, getting their own fishy morning breakfast.

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