Page 61 of Shadow Target

He dropped his hands from his face, rolling onto his side, one arm behind his head as he studied her in the low light of the room. “I’m not. Did you sleep well?”

“I must have,” she croaked, clearing her throat, trying to get her bearings. “I didn’t even know when you came to bed.”

“About an hour after I carried you in here. You were already asleep. If the person gets to sleep as long as they want after a trauma, the body uses that time to recover from the event. That’s what you did.”

Pushing her fingers through her dried hair, feeling the silkiness of it, he smiled at her. She murmured, “I don’t remember you coming in, Shep. I must have been dead to the world. I do feel marginally better.”

“It’s going to take you weeks to recover from the shock, Willow. But you will recover… Oh, just so you know, after I took a shower, I also had to send Luke a preliminary written report on what happened. He forwarded it to Delos and Artemis.”

Groaning, Willow said, “You told them I crashed their Otter. Right?”

“Yeah, I had too. But wait, they’ve already replied to, and…”

“Are they angry? Upset?”

“No. They’re relieved that you’re alive and going to live. They understood why you did it. They’re sending two replacement Otters to us. One is coming from Kenya, the other from the Sudan. Two male pilots on board each one. They’ll arrive tomorrow morning, and I’ll be able to get back on track with the building schedule at Addis Zemen.”

“What about me? And Dev? We’ll get to fly one of them, won’t we?”

He gave her a lazy grin and moved beside her, bringing his arm around her shoulders. “No worries there. One set of pilots will be transferred back to the Sudan. A replacement Otter will be flown into their facility there this coming week. Artemis wants two planes here. You and Dev will get one of them.”

“They’re leaving the other two pilots here, then?”

Nodding, he said, “Yes, and I’m glad of it. You were running into FAA regulation limits on how much you could fly in one day, and the charity doesn’t want to run afoul of those regs.” He moved his hand lightly across her shoulder and upper arm. “Look at it this way? You’ll have some downtime. You were getting run ragged, Willow.”

“I suppose you’re right, she agreed, leaning into his body, resting her head against his shoulder. “Does Dev know all this?”

“Yes, I gave her and Ginny the gist of what the charity had decided to do.”

“How are they doing health wise?”

“Better. The doctor came over this morning, gave them some prescriptions and I heard from Luke, around four, that they were sleeping peacefully. Their fevers had dropped. The doctor agreed that they got a bad case of food poisoning. Luke himself is tired, but fine. He came through this better than anyone.”

Placing her hand against her chest, she whispered, “Because of his SEAL training. And you because of your knife training.”

“Yes, on both counts.”

“It’s good to hear Dev and Ginny are feeling better.”

“Delos is also sending us two more security officers, so that both Otters and pilots have someone on board to protect them at all times, no matter where or when they fly.”

“That’s even better. Was it ever a mistake for me to get someone from the foreman’s workers to come with me this morning. I had no idea Zere could be one of David’s soldiers.” She shook her head, giving him a grim look of apology.

“Hey, no second guessing here. We had a gap in our security, and no one realized it until it happened. Ginny and Dev couldn’t help falling sick with food poisoning, but we didn’t have backup for security to make up the difference, either. That’s what got us in trouble. From now on? We’ll have a security officer at the warehouse when shipments come in and leave, and one at the airport on stand-by, in case one of the one of the Otters’ security people gets sick or something. We’ll always have a third person ready to step in, to ensure you have someone who will protect your safety while flying those supplies to us.”

“That’s a lot of money they’re spending on this effort, Shep,” she said, frowning.

“The way they see this gig, we have almost a dozen buildings going up in a dozen different locations to create adequate safety for our charities here in this country. That’s going to take us nearly a year to complete, so it’s not a wasted effort, no matter the extra cost. We don’t know who will take David’s place, but power hates a vacuum, so I’m sure someone will step up to take over the five hundred soldiers he had here in Ethiopia. We don’t know who, but what’s for certain is that someone will,” he growled, shaking his head. “Terrorism is alive and well all over the world, but really most dangerous to people like us who work in third world countries.”

She sighed, kissing his cheek. “And all we’re trying to do is help them out.”

He slid his hand up and down her upper arm. “Yeah… just like Afghanistan, except here in Ethiopia, they are better at trying to improve people’s lives. A lot of their people are already educated, and that is a good thing.”

“True,” she murmured. “Maybe that’s why Dev and I like being here. The people are great, they are kind, and they help each other out. It isn’t always like that everywhere else. They are WORTH helping, Shep. To me, at least, they are.”

“Me, too,” he agreed. “There’re always bad apples in every country in the world. It doesn’t matter if it’s first, second or third world. We were well briefed on what it would be like coming over here, that we could encounter dangerous situations. The charity has tried to plug the holes on what they thought might happen, but until you have boots on the ground, you don’t know the details of what ELSE could take place and cause us havoc.”

She snorted. “And it’s the details that can get us killed. Like they almost did me, this morning,” and she shook her head, trading an unhappy glance with Shep.

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