Page 13 of Silent Threat
“Good.”
He walked forward, too fast, but she didn’t tell him to slow down. She matched her steps to his and waited for him to look at her before she asked, “Where did you get the scar on your arm?”
“RPG. Rocket-propelled grenade.” He kept going. “Freak accident. The insurgents didn’t know our position. They were shooting blindly at the hillside. A one-in-a-million chance that they’d hit us. I made it. My spotter didn’t.”
“Spotter?”
“Ryan watched my back. We’d split surveillance. A sniper can’t be looking through the scope all day. You don’t want eye fatigue just when the target pops up behind a window and you have a second to take the shot. A sniper and his spotter are like two halves of a whole.”
“I’m sorry you lost Ryan.”
He turned from her. “I picked the spot.”
She touched his hand again. And when he looked at her, she said, “It’s not your fault.”
“The regular shrink already said that. Your job is to tell me about trees and ... I don’t know, bushes?” From the bottom of his troubled soul, he looked unhappy with the prospect, but at least his tone was no longer combative.
She would take from him what she could get. Progress was a beautiful thing, even when it came in drips and dribbles.
She eased her pace. “We should start by slowing down.”
After a moment, he matched her speed, so they stayed side by side.
Next step.“Notice the way the dirt feels under your feet, how great the air smells, how beautiful the trees are, how calm and majestic.”
He snorted, and she could tell he was fighting not to roll his eyes as he asked, “Calm as opposed to what? All the other trees that run around like headless chickens?”
She bit back a smile. He might be gruff, but he wasn’t without a sense of humor.
For long minutes, they walked in silence. The peace of nature seeped into her body. The woods always had this effect on her. Hopefully, Cole would feel the same in time, but for right now, he was a bundle of pain and raw nerve endings. All his bluster was nothing but a coping mechanism.
As they walked around a bend, passing under majestic oaks, she touched his hand. And when he looked at her, she asked, “How much of the birdsong can you hear?”
“The high notes.”
His voice vibrated with tension—his demeanor alert, his gaze constantly scanning the forest when she wasn’t talking. She hadn’t fully understood until now how his being deaf would affect his experience ... how the sounds of the forest—the soothing rustling of the leaves, the birds, and the bugs serenading them—would be lost to him.
They were approaching her favorite clearing, a spot she’d come to think of as her meadow. She liked lying down in the open space, closing her eyes and listening to the primal, unspoiled song of life. The earth’s music filled her up, cleansed her, wrapped her up in peace.
The idea that Cole couldn’t have that tightened her throat. He didn’t have the worst disability among her patients—some of the men were missing multiple limbs—but deafness or blindness could be incredibly isolating. Definitely an extra challenge for ecotherapy. She’d read about it during her studies, but she hadn’t had a patient before with either problem. She would have to feel her way forward here.
For Cole, the loss of therapeutic sound probably wasn’t even the most difficult part. He was a soldier. He’d been trained to watch and listen for danger. A soldier who didn’t hear someone sneak up on him was a dead soldier. Howcouldhe let his guard down, knowing he was, without a crucial sense, vulnerable? How on earth was she going to make him relax?
No wonder he was so ready to fight, ready to strike first. The way he’d whirled on her, ready to attack, in the alley by the gas station made sense now. He’d been standing there with his back to the bathroom door and hadn’t heard her turn the lock, only caught the sudden movement behind him.
You startled me,he’d said.
He’d sure startled her right back.
“I don’t think you holed up in your apartment with those weapons because you were thinking about suicide,” she told him.
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“I think you did it to feel safe. Back to the wall, gun in hand. That way nobody could creep up on you.”
He didn’t respond.
“I’m glad you were able to move past that phase. You could have just as easily developed debilitating anxiety and tipped over into agoraphobia.”
