Just over two weeks after surgery the band ages were gone, but some of the swelling and redness remained. All in all, Elizabeth was quite pleased with Hennessey’s progress in that respect.
It was the tension brewing between them that she could have done with out.
From the moment the last of the band ages had come off a subtle shift had occurred between them. Quite frankly Elizabeth couldn’t say for sure whether it was her or him or if that was actually when it began. But something had changed on a level over which neither of them appeared to have any control.
Or at least she didn’t.
Admittedly she couldn’t read Hennessey’s mind, but she didn’t doubt for a second that he suffered some amount of discomfort related to the tension as well.
And to think, she could have been soaking up the sun and drinking martinis the past two weeks.
She blew out a breath and folded the last of her laundry. The Agency had delivered her lug gage the day after her arrival, but a number of the out fits she’d packed for her vacation were far from what she would have preferred to wear in Hennessey’s presence. The bikinis were definitely off-limits. She’d had no choice but to wear the few, more conservative out fits over and over.
Hennessey stuck with jeans and but ton-up shirts or T-shirts. He went around bare foot most of the time. For some reason that bothered her consider ably more than it should. It wasn’t that he had unattractive feet. To the contrary. His feet actually fascinated her. Large and well-formed. Like the rest of him.
She rolled her eyes and pushed aside the stupid, stupid obsession she had with the man.
Watching David’s face slowly emerge be yond the swelling and redness only made matters worse. Perhaps that was even the catalyst in all of this. She just couldn’t be certain of any thing.
The last time she’d gotten too close to Hennessey the yearning to lean into his arms had been almost overwhelming.
Was she losing her mind or what?
Thankfully no other agents had been murdered since Motley and his wife. Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut to block the image of the face she’d trans formed for the very purpose of protecting the man behind it.
Hennessey assured her that the investigation was ongoing but all had surrendered to the idea that who ever was behind these killings couldn’t be stopped any way but by infiltrating the group David had once affiliated him self with. Another week at least before that could happen.
The one other agent they had initially tried to send under cover to infiltrate the group several weeks ago had been killed in the first twenty-four hours. Using David’s face as safe entry was the only hope of getting any where near the truth.
Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed. She hadn’t let her self think too much about David and the past since that night the whole lot of them—she, Hennessey and their guards—had gotten a mild case of food poisoning. Stomach cramps and a few mad dashes to the bathroom but, thankfully, nothing more disconcerting than that.
For days now she had set her emotions out side the goings-on within these walls. She had separated the bond she had shared with the man, David, from the CIA operative, David. It hadn’t been that difficult, to her utter surprise. She’d turned off her personal emotions and looked at this operation as a case.
But would there be repercussions later? She was a trained physician. She understood that the human psyche could only fool itself to a certain point before reality would override fantasy.
She had far too many scheduled patients depending upon her for her to take a chance on suffering a psychotic break of any sort. Not that she felt on the verge of any kind of break, but she recognized that things with her weren’t as they should be.
Scarcely a week from now her part in this would be over. Surely she could man age another five or six days. She and Hennessey had learned to be cordial to each other most of the time, had even shared a laugh or two.
But then there was the tension. She’d pretty much determined that the source of the steadily increasing tension was sexual. He was a man, she was a woman; plain, old chemistry saw to the rest.
Though she didn’t dare guess how long it had been since Hennessey had had sex, she knew exactly how long it had been for her. Four long months. And that last time with David had felt off some how. As if they were out of sync, no longer in tune with one another.
Elizabeth pushed the memories aside. Those painful recollections had nothing to do with any of this. She was a woman. She had fundamental needs that had been ignored. End of subject.