They drifted into a companionable silence, broken only by the clatter of palmettos catching a breeze. Kate was first to speak. “There were whales off the point day before yesterday. They don’t come often. When they do, they stay for some time. I’ll show you the best dune for observing, if you like.”
She offered it like a gift. Rising to go to her, drawing her from her own chair and keeping her hand in his, Devlin murmured, “I’d like that. I’d like it very much.”
The reclusive Kate had reached out. But he wasn’t fooled. With the sea at their feet and an autumn sun to warm them, a man and a woman who were more than strangers, but not yet friends, might spend a pleasant morning walking the beach. But there would be dark times ahead for both of them. Times when Denali came for him in his dreams. Times when Kate fought her demons and herself with night music.
But someday, for Kate, there would be times of peace.
Three
A sharp report splintered the air, followed by a rapid barrage impacting like gunshots against Kate’s ears. Recoiling instinctively, she tumbled from her seat, a paperback novel flying from her lap. Crouching on the weathered dock, she braced for more.
But there was no more. Quiet settled over a peaceful day as if it had never been broken. A flock of ibis, erupted from the limbs of a bald cypress by the first battering sound, began to return. Croaking raucously in a show of indignation, each perched precariously again in a great flap of wings and flying feathers. Once settled, wings tucked, feathers soothed, only their low grousing and the lazy lap of the river marked the passage of the day.
Birds ceased their muttering, the river sped to the sea undisturbed. As the midmorning sun burned hotly over the dock of Sea Watch, the well of quiet deepened, only to be broken by a humorless, restless laugh.
Rising, dusting sand and splinters away, Kate shrugged in disgust. After joining The Black Watch, she’d endured months of training. Grueling, precise drills teaching and preparing her to deal with any situation. The skills Simon McKinzie required were drummed into her. Drummed and tested, until each merged with natural abilities. Becoming first nature, as Simon promised, not second.
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