Page 59 of Silent Threat
By the time she glanced at Trev again a few seconds later, he had shut down. Eyes lifeless. Mouth grim. She could almost see the dark cloud that enveloped him.
He was like that most of the time, actually. He was usually at his lightest at their sessions. She knew he liked her. She liked him too, a lot, as a younger brother.
Trev’s nearness didn’t make her feel any of the crazy impulses Cole’s did.
Cole ...Annie could and would resist the physical attraction she felt for him, but so much more than that drew her to the former SEAL. She enjoyed his wry sense of humor. She admired his instinct to help and protect. She respected his inner strength.
He hadn’t made peace with his new life yet, but he never used injury as an excuse. He was gruff on the outside, but he felt deeply. He was still grieving his friend Ryan.
And then there was the way Cole sometimes looked at Annie, that hungry grizzly look, as if he wanted to devour her. The memory of that look sent heat tingling through her.
Don’t think about it.
“The roots need light.” She dove into work. “So don’t bury them too deep or too fully. Orchids grow in just a little dirt in the crook of the branches of host trees. I mean, look at those roots. You think they wouldn’t be able to hang on to anything, but they do.”
“They just hang on with these little things?” Trev ran a finger over a pale-green air root.
“Through storms and everything. You ever seen a tropical storm?”
He nodded, still touching the root. “I was assigned to JTF-Bravo in Honduras for a while before our unit was shipped over to Afghanistan.”
She picked another orchid off the wall and gently tugged it out of its pot. Inside the clay pot, another plastic see-through pot held in the bark. “You have to let some light reach the roots. That’s important.”
Trev’s shoulders relaxed as he began copying what she was doing.
She was suddenly glad for the rain. She had already done the same leaf-branch-trunk-root meditation with Trev that she had done with Cole, but Trev hadn’t responded fully. She suspected he viewed himself as ... if not broken, at least definitely breakable, fragile. He couldn’t relate to the mighty-oak symbolism. But he could relate to the weak roots of the orchid. If those little roots could hold on, then so could he.
Trev and Cole becoming friends was a good thing. Maybe Cole could be the strong, sturdy tree that sheltered a more fragile plant that didn’t have massive roots, just little air roots. Weaker roots that needed something to hang on to, in order to live.
Recovery had stages. Right now, Trevor needed that support, that shelter. And maybe he needed it from a friend, from someone who was kind of like him. Words weren’t always the same when they came from a therapist.
When he looked at Annie next, some of his darkness was fading around the edges. “You think I could take one of these orchids back to my room with me?”
She smiled at him. “Sure, Trev.”
More of his darkness melted away.
Trevor was definitely making progress. And Annie couldn’t have been happier about that. With everything she was, she sensed a breakthrough just around the corner for him. She couldn’t wait.
Soon they were both grinning.
She’d messed up with Cole, but she was definitely doing something right with Trevor. She needed to keep her mind focused on that.
Don’t think about the kiss. Don’t think about the kiss. Don’t think about the kiss.
Chapter Thirteen
NOON FOUND COLEonce again leaning against his truck in the parking lot outside Hope Hill. He watched the facilities and the people hurrying between buildings, coming and going from lunch. None of them looked like a traitor. He needed progress. One damn clue. Anything. Those burner phones the traitor used had to be somewhere.
He had only three more offices to search, and seven patient rooms.
He’d gotten an eyeful when spying on the acupuncturist, but what he’d seen hadn’t exactly moved him forward.
Milo had had a young woman with him—maybe the girl was twenty, if that. They’d both been naked. Milo had been on the treatment table, acting out some fantasy, the woman’s lips moving up and down an impressive erection. But the sex act wasn’t what left Cole mentally scarred. What had him jerking his head back was the fact that Milo had about two dozen stainless-steel needles sticking out of his ball sack.
Like a freaking porcupine down there.
Who did that?
