“They’re ground-tied trained,” Roan murmured, tipping his head back, slugging down half the bottle of water he’d pulled from one of his horse’s saddlebags. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
Shiloh couldn’t help but stare at him. His flesh was deeply tanned and the red bandanna around his thick, strong neck only emphasized the maleness of him. He tipped his Stetson back on his head, one knee drawn up, his elbow resting on it. With the leather chaps on, he reminded her of a long-ago knight dressed in a coat of armor. But more to the truth, Shiloh felt walls around Roan. Why? Compressing her lips, she decided to ask.
“Are all black ops guys walled up?” she asked, sliding him a glance. There were small fanlike lines at the corners of his eyes, telling her he was outside a lot, squinting against a harsh sun.
Tipping his head in her direction, Roan caught and held her curious gaze. “Now, where did that question come from?” he teased. “What do you mean?” He saw the seriousness in her gaze and he hadn’t been expecting such a surprising observation from her. He saw her cheeks grow pink with blush.
“It’s just a feeling I get from you,” she murmured, a little defensive. “I was thinking because you were in black ops, that you had to hide in different ways, and that was the reason for feeling you were guarded?” She boldly searched his amused gray gaze.
He drank the rest of the water and capped the bottle, considering her explanation. “When you’re an operator, Shiloh, you can’t allow your emotions to get in the way of what you’re doing. You put them away. Out of the way.”
Her brows fell. Shiloh felt sorry for him. “Really? I mean, men are human. So are operators. Doesn’t it bother you to always hide your feelings?” She watched his mouth curve into a slight, sour smile.
“Let me put it another way. If you had the barrels of AK-47s staring back at you, and the guys at the other ends of those weapons wanted to kill you, what would you do? Would you go hysterical? Let your emotions get the better of you?” He took off his hat, wiping his sweaty brow with the back of his arm, and settled the hat on his head once more. “Or”—he pinned her with a hard look—“would you ignore how you felt and focus on what you had to do to defend yourself, shoot back and kill them instead of them killing you?” He saw her face go blank for a moment, saw some emotion he couldn’t interpret deep in her green eyes as she mulled over his questions.
“I guess,” she said, and shrugged a little, staring down at the bottle between her hands, “I don’t know how to put my feelings aside.” She lifted her chin, holding his calm gray gaze. “Is there such a thing? Can you really do that?”
“Sure you can. It’s training, Shiloh. That’s all it is. You find out real quick that if you let your emotions run you, you aren’t going to be thinking clearly enough to survive.”
“Wow,” she muttered, thinking about that. “I’ve never not run on my emotions.”
“But you haven’t, until lately, ever been threatened with a life-and-death situation. Right?”
She scowled. “Well,” she began hesitantly, “that’s not quite true. . . .”
Roan’s brows dipped as he felt a shift in her thoughts. Nothing obvious, but as a long-time operator who was used to picking up on a person’s real feelings, this snagged his full interest. Studying her, he saw she was avoiding looking at him, that her full lower lip was being chewed on between her teeth. There was a lot more to Shiloh’s story than he’d originally realized. He had to tread lightly, feeling as if an IED was sitting between them. Invisible, but there just the same. He saw her worrying the water bottle, slowly turning it around between her fingers, staring hard at it.
“Can you talk about it?” he wondered, holding her unsure gaze. She looked so scared for a millisecond and then hid her reaction from him. It took everything not to lift his arm and place it around her suddenly tense shoulders.
Shrugging, she whispered, “It’s not something I tell many people about.”
“Does Maud know?”
Shaking her head, feeling bereft, Shiloh uttered weakly, “No . . .”
Roan’s mouth thinned and he waited. He knew there was trust building between them, felt it and saw it back at the barn when they worked with Charley. Whatever Shiloh was holding on to, it was big. He could feel her emotionally wrestling with it. Had he accidentally stepped on an IED with her? Sure as hell felt like it. And here, he thought her simple question about his walls was a tempest in a teapot. Yet, there was a side to him that was ultra-protective toward any woman or child who couldn’t adequately defend themselves. Roan supposed it came from his upbringing, his dad who said it was the place of man to protect those who were vulnerable, no matter what. But there was more to it than just wanting to protect Shiloh. His reaction to her was almost visceral.