For the past three days she had felt pretty much numb. Empty, really. Everything she’d thought to be true about David was nothing but lies. Learning that truth had hurt, but not so much as it would have had she not suspected that there was someone else months before his death.
But just beneath the numbness she had felt these last few days lay something else that simmered steadily. She told her self it was nothing, but that was a lie. She’d been attracted to Hennessey since that first night three months ago when he’d shown up to play bodyguard. That attraction hadn’t abated. Not in the least. But with David’s death and the idea that agents she had given new faces were dying, she hadn’t been able to think about that for any length of time. Even now, maybe it was the exhaustion or just the plain old emptiness still hanging on, her developing feelings for Hennessey were too far from the surface to analyze with any accuracy.
And why in the world would she even want to go there?
Hennessey was the furthest thing from what she needed as a man could get. He represented everything wrong she’d done in her last relationship.
Why couldn’t the irrational part of her that wanted to reach out to him see that?
He was one of those dangerous types. A man who risked everything, every single day of his life. She couldn’t count on him any more than she had been able to count on David, excluding his various and sun dry betrayals.
What she needed was safe, quiet, bookish.
A man who spent his days behind a desk reviewing accounts or reports. Not some gun-toting, cocky hot shot who kicked ass at least twice before lunch most days.
She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind as Dawson took the necessary clandestine route back to the safe house. Thank God no more agents had died.
And although she hadn’t seen Hennessey this morning she knew the time was close at hand for his departure. The swelling and redness had been all but gone yesterday. She’d struggled with focusing on the work rather than the end result.
It was far less painful to look at each feature individually rather than to look at his face as a whole. But the one saving grace was his eyes.
Joe Hennessey had the most amazing blue eyes. Even with his face changed, those startling blue eyes made it virtually impossible to notice any thing else.
His flirtatious personality emanated from those eyes.
The deep brown of David’s still haunted her dreams occasionally, but lately the only man she’d been dreaming about was Hennessey.
Such an enormous mistake.
Why couldn’t she get that through her head?
She saw it coming. If she could just hold out a little while longer.
Three more days and she would go back to her life. He would go wherever it was David’s associates were suspected of being and most likely they would never again see each other. The end.
She squeezed back the emotion that attempted to rise behind her eyelids. She’d done her job, had prepared Hennessey for the operation. There was nothing else she could do. Nothing else she should do until this was over. Then she would reverse the procedure, assuming he survived.
Getting on with her life was next on her list. She could not wallow in the past or pine after a man who would do nothing but bring her more heartache.
She had to be smart. Making the right decisions about her future had to be next on her agenda. Her career was everything she’d hoped it would be. Now if she could only say the same about her private life.
There was only one way to make that happen.
Put David Maddox and any thing affiliated with him out of her head. Move forward and never look back.
It was simple.
But before she could do that she had to be sure she had passed along every tidbit Joe Hennessey would need to survive the coming mission. Even though she fully understood that a relationship between them would be a mistake, she didn’t want him hurt. What ever she could do to facilitate his efforts was not only necessary but non negotiable.
By the time she and Dawson had reached the safe house it had started to rain and a cloak of depression had descended upon her despite her internal pep talk. The sky had darkened, much like her mood.
When the garage door had closed, ensuring no one who might be watching had seen her emerge from the vehicle, she got out and went in side. She shook off the nagging weight that wanted to drag her into a pit of regret and dread. This wasn’t the end, she assured herself, this was a new beginning.
Hennessey would move on with what he did best and she would refocus some of her energy into her personal life. She’d neglected that area for far too long.
Life was too short to spend so much time worrying about all the things she’d done wrong. All the mistakes she’d made. She had to look ahead, move forward.
How many times did she give her patients that very advice? All the time. The kind of devastation that wrought physical deformities more often than not was accompanied by chronic clinical depression. At times, even after full recovery, a patient would linger in the throes of depression’s sadistic clutches. Patients had to make a firm choice, to wallow in the past or move into the future.
She had to do the same.