Casey could see the pain in Maggie’s large hazel eyes. “You walked away because it was destroying you. I’m sure Shep walked away out of relief because he couldn’t take the pressure of your demands for him to open up and be emotionally accessible to you.”
“You should have been a shrink, Case. Yes, that’s hitting the nail on the head.”
“Well,” Casey murmured, looking back at her desk, where the file lay, “what are we going to do? I won’t be able to change your guard dog for you.”
“I don’t want him on this mission, Casey. Anybody but him. Please…”
Casey studied her friend’s strained features, wishing it wasn’t too late to grant her desperate request.
“Well, Shep, what do you think?” Morgan tried to gird himself for Hunter’s reaction to the mission. More than anyone in his organization, Shep Hunter was a loner. Morgan knew why and understood Shep’s demand for solo missions. Morgan studied the man standing before his desk in the war room of Perseus, which was hidden deep in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Shep was a giant at six foot six inches tall, and the thirty-eight-year-old ex-air force pilot was one of Morgan’s best mercenaries. Shep was heavy-boned and muscular, and even dressed in jeans, cowboy boots and a denim long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, he looked dangerous. Maybe it was his square face and that jutting, rock-solid jaw that gave Shep such a hard look, Morgan thought. With his short black hair and thick, black eyebrows, which emphasized his frosty blue eyes, Shep Hunter reminded Morgan of a mighty eagle ready to swoop in an attack and gut the quarry he had his sights on.
“Humph,” Shep said as he sat down in the chair across from Morgan’s desk and continued to read the mission proposal rapidly. “OID, huh?”
“Read on…there’s more to this,” Morgan warned him briskly. He was prepared to see Shep refuse the mission once he read page two, which identified the OID virologist who would be on the mission with him. Every time Morgan tried to pair Shep up with a partner, he’d refused. They’d had hellacious shouting matches over the subject from time to time, in this very room. And Morgan knew Shep would walk out and quit rather than be assigned a partner. No, ever since Sarah had died on that fateful mission with him, Shep had closed up tighter than an proverbial clam. He absolutely refused to be partnered up again.
And yet, as he tried to appear at ease as Shep devoured the mission brief, Morgan gathered his argument points as to why, if Shep wanted this mission, the OID decoy must be part of it. He just hoped Shep would take it. No one was better suited for this task than Shep, Morgan knew.
Glancing at the photos of his family on one side of his desk, Morgan felt some of his tension easing. The fraternal twins in Laura’s lap were smiling. How simple and beautiful life could be. He loved his wife and four children more than anything in the world. Looking up at Shep once more, Morgan realized he saw a lot of his former self in him. Morgan had once been as hard and icy as this merc sitting in front of him. It would take a woman who had metal, who had courage to probe the depths of Shep’s fear of intimacy, to help open him up. Morgan acknowledged even today that Laura had had more courage than he’d ever had back then. She’d taken him on—and won. But Morgan was the real winner as far as he was concerned.
When Shep rapidly flipped the page, Morgan steeled himself.
“I’ll be damned.”
Morgan leaned forward in the chair and put his elbows on his desk. He saw surprise in Shep’s normally hard, unreadable features. “What?” he asked tentatively.
“I’ll be damned. I don’t believe this,” he said in a deep tone. He held the file pointing to the photo. “This is the woman I’m supposed to guard? Dr. Maggie Harper? Are you sure?”
Puzzled by Shep’s unexpected reaction, Morgan said, “Yes. Why? Is there a problem?”
With a shake of his head, Shep uncoiled to his full height. Tossing the folder on Morgan’s desk, he turned and walked around the large, silent room with his hands on his hips. “I’ll be go-to-hell, Morgan. Life really is full of surprises and twists.”
Morgan scooped up the file and looked at the photo of the doctor. He didn’t understand Shep’s reaction. He’d never seen Shep act this way about a mission. And Morgan wasn’t sure if Hunter’s response was a good or bad one. Usually, Shep would throw the file at him and tell him to go to hell if there was a partner involved. This time, the man’s face was softening. Morgan could see a glimmer of something warm and tentative in his icy blue eyes. And his mouth, usually a thin line, had the corners turned up in a slight smile.
Stymied, Morgan held up the file. “Clue me in, will you, Hunter?”
Turning, Shep gave his boss a measured look. Though his fingers were draped casually across his narrow hips, tension thrummed through him. He felt his heart beating hard in his chest. And he felt happiness threading through him. The feeling was completely unexpected, but beautiful. It made him breathe in deeply—as if he were coming alive after a long, long sleep. How long had it been since he’d felt anything? Especially happiness? Oh, he’d felt happy for his younger brother, Reid, when he finally met Casey Morrow. And he was overjoyed that Ty and Dev had finally found women they wanted to spend their lives with, too. Yes, everyone in the family was married now—except him. And each time he’d met the woman one of his younger brothers had chosen to marry, he’d felt sad, too. Sad because he knew no one would want him. He was one mean son of a bitch who didn’t give an inch in a relationship. But after what had happened to him, how could he?
That was life, Shep decided. Life had been cruel to him. And torturous. After Sarah…He quickly snapped his mind shut, like a bear trap. Pain suddenly intermingled with the quiet joy pumping through him with each powerful beat of his heart.
“That is Maggie Harper?” he demanded. “She is a graduate of Harvard Medical School, right?”
Floundering because Shep never reacted this way to a potential partner, Morgan quickly flipped to the back page of the mission folder and glanced at her bio. “Yes, Harvard.” Looking up, he narrowed his eyes. “Just what is going on here, Shep? Tell me what I don’t know. Usually you blow up when there’s a partner even mentioned. This time you’re standing over there like a raccoon grinning over a crawdad you just caught.”
Shep smiled a little more widely. “Maggie Harper was my first real relationship. We met in our freshman year at Harvard. What a hellion she was.” He shook his head in fond remembrance. “She had guts to take me on.”
Tentatively, Morgan murmured, “I see….”
Allowing his hands to slip from his hips, Shep moved back toward the desk where Morgan still stood with a confused look on his face. “I’ll take the mission, Morgan.”
Stunned, Morgan held the younger man’s stare. Shep wasn’t one to smile often. He wasn’t exactly smiling now, but the corners of his broad, generous mouth were pulled slightly upward. Morgan saw something else in Hunter’s eyes that he’d never seen before: happiness. And hope. He stared back at the color photo of Maggie Harper.
“Does she…I mean, have you had contact with Dr. Harper—”
Chuckling, Shep said, “Nope, haven’t seen her in—let’s see—almost twenty years. I think I’m going to find this interesting, Morgan. It says she’s on a sharpshooting team. Third best in the U.S. She hasn’t changed at all. She was riding eventing horses before she went to Harvard. Looks like she’s still doing the same thing—taking risks.”
“Well,” Morgan began, completely shocked by Shep’s behavior and his agreement to take the mission, “it’s yours, then.”
Rubbing