Vixen Soothed

Posted on Wed Apr 3rd, 2019 @ 8:54pm by Civillian Shae & Major Jacob Asher

Mission: Interlude 1
Location: Jake's House
Timeline: Current (Sunday Night)

It was dark by the time she made her way back to the house, and when she deposited her bow and quivers by the door, there were significantly fewer arrows than before, all destroyed in trees or from being struck by another arrow or simply lost from aimless firing. Her fingers were raw and the cuticles were cracked and bleeding from a combination of the dry, cold air and damage from trying to dig the precious arrowheads out of the tree bark. But she didn't bother to ask for a first aid kit, she couldn't even feel how much her fingers hurt, she just went upstairs and laid face down on the bed, sighing in relief from the heat of the glowing fireplace.

When they had gotten home, it was clear Shae wanted to be alone. That didn’t bother Jake, because he needed some time to himself as well. He changed so that he was dressed for running through the woods, stretched out, and ran. He ran and thought very dark thoughts. He could have gone down to the little training room his friend had set up in the basement and working the heavy bag, or training with various weapons, or thrown weights around. He could have, but he didn’t. Having dark thoughts and being violent wasn’t a good combination for a man who had, in his job description, Kill People. Jake never talked about this with anyone, but he was afraid to give into the kinds of dark thoughts and murderous rage he felt sometimes. He was afraid one day he’d lose situational awareness and not realize he was somewhere that violence wasn’t a viable option. So, sure, sometimes when he got angry he punched the bag. But the darker the rage was, the less violent his workouts became. When he felt like he did now, like he had failed somehow because Mama Edith wasn’t a red stain on the ground, he just ran, and ran, and ran to clear his head. When he found one of his favorite spots near the property, Jake stopped, stretched, and then ran through the full Tai Chi form and did some Qigong. He meditated a bit, and when he felt he was calm enough, he ran back to the house.

It didn’t take him long to realize Shae was in the house. He saw that the tea set was unused, so he boiled some water and did some more stretching to keep from tightening up. When the water was boiling, he put some of the tea Shae liked (one of the herbals, he didn’t think she needed any caffeine) into the pot and waited for it to brew. When it was finished, he divided it between two covered mugs and put them on a tray with some honey, and some spoons. He brought this upstairs and set it on the dresser in the Master Bedroom. He glanced at Shae and saw her hands. Anger started to form, but he breathed and let it go. The cuts on her hands were just part of overdoing it at archery. No one had done this to Shae. She was fine. He went to her side and kissed her on an exposed cheek. Then he pulled off his clothes, threw them in the hamper, and walked into the master bathroom. He turned on the shower and let it heat up. He could do with a soak in the large tub, but he wanted to wash the gross off, first, then see if Shae would let him see to her hands.

Shae had started dozing within seconds of laying down, but she was vaguely aware of Jake in the room. She made no move to join him when she heard the water running, nor to acknowledge him at all, she was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and she was grateful that he wasn’t trying to coax her into joining him for a soak. Still, hearing him nearby was somehow soothing for her, and she felt herself drifting deeper towards sleep. She wished there was a way to go back in time to this morning, when they had been in the kitchen making breakfast together, before that damnable text so they could take another path and ignore the phone when it buzzed. Even now that her anger had subsided, her sense of personal safety had been violated by Edith’s careless threat, and she knew it was safe for her to change here, but she was too afraid to do it; she couldn’t take the chance that someone would see her and take a picture, even here. A few tears trailed down her cheeks as she heaved a heavy sigh; she was so tired of hiding, so maybe she should just go back to Lethuan and stay there until she was needed.

Jake came back into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. He sat down on the bed next to her and ran his fingers through Shae’s hair. His eyes watered. Please don’t let them scare you away from me. he thought. “If you want to back to your home,” he said aloud. “I can call Nathan and ask him to authorize it. I’d like to come visit you there later this week, but if you’d rather be there by yourself--I’ll understand. The human race in general and PND specifically haven’t always shown you our best faces, have we?”

“Maybe tomorrow, I don’t want to be alone right now,” Shae answered softly. “I’m so tired of always being on the outside, looking in at people being happy. Why does it have to be such a crime for me to want that?” she asked, finally opening her eyes as she turned her head to look at him.

Jake continued to run his fingers through Shae’s hair. He loved her hair, but he missed the fox ears. “It isn’t, or at least it shouldn’t be, and it makes me so angry when people make you feel that it is. So goddamn angry.” Jake breathed again and let the anger pass through him without finding a home, and smiled at Shae. “Why don’t you let me look after your hands while we talk? They’re cracked and in some places actually bleeding. That can’t feel very good.”

Shae drew a hand closer to finally notice how bad her fingers were, and then she nodded. “What’s it like to be happy and to have a family? I know I was happy once, but I can’t remember anymore,” she said, her eyes blinking heavily, either from tears or fatigue and she couldn’t rightly tell at this point.

Jake got damp, soft cloth and some other supplies. He began to gently clean Shae’s hands. Once they were clean, he rubbed something on her hands and fingers that wouldn’t sting the cracked places but would smooth the skin so they could heal. Jake winced at Shae’s words, but then let that pain pass as well. He knew her current unhappiness wasn’t because of anything he did, but her words still stung.

“Shae” Jake started to say. “I can’t answer that for you in the way I think you want me to. But for me, Friday night, Saturday all day and night, even this morning, I haven’t been that happy in a long time. And even though terrible, hurtful things happened today, you know what? I’m still happy. Yeah, I’m angry and frustrated that people hurt your feelings. And I’m angry and frustrated and sad that so much bad has happened to you that you’re feeling like you are now. But you’re here, in my house, in my bed, with really badly chapped hands and tears in your eyes. You didn’t push me away or run away back to your home. You came back here, with me. And that, Shae. That makes me very happy.”

“If I ever do run back to Lethuan, just know I’m not running from you,” Shae said, her fingers finally curling to hold his hand, but very tenderly because she was finally realizing how much her fingers hurt. “You will always be welcome in my home.”

Jake gave Shae’s hand a very gentle squeeze. “And you are always welcome in mine, Shae, always.” Jake brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “So, I did make you tea, and it was damn hot when I made it, but I think it’s just warm now. Want to try it? Or do you want me to go make you more?”

“It’s fine,” Shae said, and finally pulled herself upright. She disliked that she had been the cause of Jake’s sadness and anger, but some days were harder than others and Shae knew that a day would come when she would be thrown to the ground emotionally and she wouldn’t be able to get back to her feet, and the thought of bringing him down with her terrified her. When he handed her the cup of tea, she held it in her hands for a moment before taking a sip, pondering what she was going to do now. Well, she knew one thing she was never doing again, and that was going to the dining facility when Mama Edith was there! “I haven’t caused any trouble for you, have I?” she asked, looking over at Asher. “I know it wasn’t right of me to yell at her like that, but I couldn’t hold it in.”

“Nah,” Jake said. “Nothing I can’t handle. You should probably be a little more careful about where you get that angry and in front of who, but whatever the fallout is, I’ll--let me rephrase. Whatever the fallout is, I’m sure you can handle it, and if you want my help with that, I’m ready and willing.” Jake stood up and stretched, his towel looking for the world like it would fall off if the slightest breeze came along. “Well, I suppose I should make dinner, which probably means I should get dressed.”

Shae had barely eaten at the dining facility, and after her exertions in the forest she was quite famished, but she didn’t realize that until he mentioned food. “May I come help you?” she asked shyly, almost like this was the first time they would share a meal together.

“Get dressed or make dinner?” Jake asked with a smirk. “I’m kidding. Sure. Let me just put something on. While you might enjoy the view of me cooking in a towel, having that towel fall off in the process of me failing to dodge a splatter of hot oil doesn’t do it for me.” Jake walked over to the dresser and with his back to Shae and the smirk still on his face, he let the towel fall as he put on a pair loose pajama like pants and a t-shirt. “Well, slowpoke? Coming with me?”

With a blush and a small sigh, Shae followed him downstairs. Jake had been sharing some wonderful Earth foods with her over the weekend, and to show her appreciation she wanted to cook one of her favorite dishes, or as best as she could make it with what they had. And truth be told, she wanted something familiar. So she started some rice to steam and collected ingredients to bread and deep fry some pork chops.

“Here, this will be unpleasant to cut with my fingers like they are,” Shae said, handing him an onion and then some green onions. “How should I handle a confrontation when something happens like today? I don’t want my presence to become a problem, but I don’t want to keep running to you when bad things happen.”

“Okay,” Jake said as he cut onions. “So what do you think went wrong today?”

Shae thought about it while she deboned the pork chops and then started beating them with a meat tenderizer. “During my talk with her, I stopped listening when I became frustrated, confused, and afraid,” she admitted. “And then I got angry and I wasn’t really thinking while I was angry, I could have found a better way to confront her about how she made me feel.”

“That sounds pretty damn good, actually,” Jake said. “Walking away when you start to get upset and aren’t being heard and not coming back until you’ve had a chance to process what’s going on is often the best course of action, when you can do it. And I am a resource for you to process these types of situations with, but you should find others as well because they might be better suited to help you with some situations. You do need to understand that we have rules about not making the workplace hostile for anyone. So if someone is making you uncomfortable and you can’t seem to handle it yourself, talking with me or General Wolf or whoever my new team XO turns out to be, that’s the right thing to do.” Jake started chopping green onions.

Shae nodded; so if she went to Asher, or anyone else for that matter, it wasn’t for him to solve her problems, it was to work through the problems so she could solve them herself with a level head! “I think I understand,” Shae said. She battered the pork chops and set them in the pan to fry. “It was just so hard to think of that while I was angry; I’m not used to the military chain of command, nor am I accustomed to asking for help. And I hope you know I never would have hurt her, I really did want to give her a piece of my mind, just that and nothing more. I had forgotten that the bow was in my hand, and my quivers were in my draw hand, I couldn’t have shot her with the way I was holding them even if I’d wanted to.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I know. But if one of the SFs got nervous they might have shot first and asked questions later. Hopefully with a taser--that’s kind of like our version of a Zat’nik’tel, except it can only stun you, but if they didn’t think first, they might have drawn their handgun and once that clears the holster, things can escalate quickly. Mama wasn’t helping by escalating things the way she did. She thinks the rules don’t apply to her and Nathan--the Wolf General--Have I told you how hard I have to resist calling him that myself, just to needle him? Anyway, Nathan indulges her because bellies full of tasty food are good for morale, and so is having a mother figure on site. But if she crosses the line once too often, she’ll find that the limits to his patience can appear very suddenly. I know that from experience.”

Shae found herself giggling when he said he wanted to call their commanding officer ‘Wolf General’ because there was something amusingly adorable about that! But she grew serious when he continued, all while flipping the pork chops. “I am still learning the rules, but I will be more mindful of the security men and myself if I find myself in a confrontation again, though I will strive to avoid confrontation altogether. But… I am still worried if she makes a complaint. I do have the right to defend myself, right?”

“Uh,” Jake said, thinking how to explain this. “If someone attacks you, yes. If Security comes to take you into custody because you attacked someone else, technically, no. Can I make a suggestion?”

“Of course,” Shae replied, checking to see if the pork chop was done.

“It’s always better to just admit your own responsibility regarding a problem like this, before your superior assigns responsibility to you,” Jake said. “We send Nathan an email tonight telling him what happened. You tell him what Mama said to you and why it upset you. You admit you got angry, you lost your temper, and that you said and did things you regret. You’re sorry and you’re working on strategies to avoid this happening again. Be ready, though, because Nathan may call you to his office along with Mama and have you apologize to her face. If he does that, my suggestion is that you just do it. Hell, volunteer to do it without being told to. You were right to be pissed with her, but by charging in there like that, you made it hard for Nathan to deal with. But you apologize to her in front of him, I can almost guarantee that he’ll then excuse you and have a word or two with Mama.”

Shae growled. “So I must lie and say that I am sorry that she threatened me?!” she asked. “I truly am sorry that I caused a scene, that I rushed in without thinking, but I do not regret a single word I said to her. I would say them again if given a chance! But I will not apologize for how she made me feel, because that is what I told her, how I felt!”

“Shae!” Jake said, to get her attention before she went entirely off the rails. “Shae. First of all, it wasn’t what you said, it was how you handled saying it. You got angry. You lost your temper. You shouted at her in front of all of her people. You had the moral high ground and by losing your temper, you lost it. If you want it back, you have to swallow your pride, cop to what you did wrong. You’re not apologizing for what you said, you’re apologizing for how you said it. She was wrong, so were you. Take responsibility for your actions and let Nathan deal with hers. There’s nothing you can do to Mama that isn’t going to get you in a world of trouble, EXCEPT that you can take away the obstacle your outburst is placing in the way of Nathan dealing with Mama. You want vindication, this is how you get it. Some enemies you shoot in the face, some you stab in the back, and some you set up so others can take them down. Mama Edith is of the latter variety.”

Shae calmed down as she took his words to heart, then nodded as she took out the pork chop and cleaned out the oil. “I will do my best to make this right. You will help me write this message?” she asked.

Jake smiled. “I said I would, and I will, but only because a) you’re still working on your English and b) you’re new to this kind of thing, and definitely not because I think you’re weak or somehow incapable of taking care of yourself--Damn. That smells and looks really good.”

“I’m about to do the best part. Can you put some rice in some bowls?” Shae asked, then started cooking the onions in some broth, then sliced the pork chops. “I still don’t understand why she said the things she said to me. I know she thinks she was trying to help me, I just don’t understand how creating fear is supposed to help me.”

“I don't either,” Jake said. “Honestly, I'm not even sure I followed all of it. What she said to me after made no sense either, for the most part. Frankly, I have a really hard time understanding what she’s trying to tell me most of the time. I did get that she thought I should be worrying about what you need and not what you want. Thing is, it's not my place to tell you what you want or what you need. I can make suggestions or observations and advise you when you’re in unfamiliar territory, but unless it's a work related thing, you're an adult who has taken of herself just fine without my help for the last two decades.”

“So I’m not the only one who has trouble understanding her? That makes me feel a lot better already!” Shae said with amusement. She put the pork chops back into the pan amongst the carmelized onions, then she scrambled a couple of eggs and poured them over the meat and onions. Then when the eggs were almost cooked through and still slightly runny, she slid the eggs, meat, and onions onto the two bowls of rice and let the savory broth drip through for the rice to soak up. Then she topped it all off with the green onions. “I kind of wish she would explain herself so I could understand, but I also don’t care what she thinks… Is that bad of me?” Shae asked as she took her bowl (with the bigger portion of pork) to the table.

Jake took his bowl to the table. He took a pitcher of water out of the fridge and brought that to the table with two glasses. He filled one for both of them. He got them both ustensiles, surprising Shae with both fork and knife, and if she felt like using them, a very nice set of chopsticks, as well as one for himself. He’d picked them up in Japan years ago. “Well,” he said. “For me, it’s hard to hear things I don’t like, even harder when those things or the person saying them really upset me or challenge some belief I hold. When I’ve calmed down, though, I try to go back over what was said to me and see if there’s anything of value in it for me. For example, thinking about it now, I do think that Mama was worried about your safety. People with her color skin have been mistreated in this country going back to the 1600s, so around 400 years, starting back when we weren’t even a country yet, just a loose collection of colonies, mostly from Great Britain, also known now as the United Kingdom. The United States, the country we’re in now, is in North America. If you look at South America, at former Spanish and especially the former Portuguese colony of Brazil, that mistreatment goes back 500 years. They were brought to these places, and here, as chattel slaves. A civil war was fought here about 150 years ago and that resulted in the abolition of institutional slavery, but people who felt that blacks were inferior still managed to find ways to keep them down. There was a movement to change that about 50 years ago, and progress was made, but we have a long way to go. So, I guess my point is, Mama has experience with being mistreated for being different, with being treated as inferior. The more I go over this in my head, I think she probably meant well, Shae, really. She just--I guess she just didn’t understand how badly she was confusing you and didn’t listen when you tried to tell her.”

If there was one thing Shae was able to maintain regardless of how hurt or angry she felt, it was empathy; hearing that Mama Edith’s people had been subject to a life of slavery and then later mistreatment simply because of the color of her skin was humbling to the young Kitsune. “Well, just because she understands some small fragment of what I’m going through doesn’t give her the right to scare me and make threats,” Shae stated. “So… I know I said I would not accept her apology if she offered one, but I will at least hear what she has to say in her defense and make a decision based on that. So how is your pork?” she asked, then expertly shoveled egg, onion, and rice into her mouth.

“Fantastic!” Jake said after shoveling food into his mouth, chewing and swallowing. “Wow. Really, really good. Thank you. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” Jake continued in between eating. “Did you teach yourself to be so good at this?”

“Kind of?” Shae replied, then made a funny face as she thought about her cooking. “Some stuff I remember from my youth, watching my mother and other family cooking, some things I learned from watching strangers cook, some things I figured out on my own, and there are some things I was taught,” she said. “There was this one man who hurt his leg and I brought him firewood and wild game until his leg was better, and when I came around he would teach me some things, like the basics, and from that I started figuring out other things.”

“Well,” Jake said. “They taught you, and you taught yourself, very well. How old were you when you were helping the guy with the injured leg? You can approximate. I know you’re not entirely sure of your age. Maybe it would be easier if you told me how long ago--but it was a different planet--wow. That makes my head hurt. So… approximately how old were you?”

Shae made another funny face as she thought about it. “This was many years ago, I had not yet started to experience my heat cycles,” she said, but continued to ponder the time. “It could have been as many as ten years ago.”

Jake nodded. “It’s not bothering you too much, is it?” he asked. “Me asking questions? If my questions ever make you uncomfortable, just go ahead and let me know and I’ll stop. My parents just taught me that I should always ask more questions than I answer. My father would add ‘especially when conversing with a woman’ when my mother wasn’t around. Anyway, I still struggle with that. So, now that I’ve broken my parents’ rules and talked about myself, let’s get back to a much more interesting subject: You. How long have you been living on Winter Wonderland World with the giant bears and overgrown rabbits?”

“Winter Wonderland? Oh!” Shae smiled as she realized what he was asking. “Eh, let’s see, I made a den in the snow, that served me well for the winter, then I had to figure out something else for the spring… I hadn’t thought to build a house yet, so when winter came again, I made another den and I started planning and gathered materials. It took me two springs to build the house because I couldn’t finish the walls to get the roof up before the next big freeze came… So I guess that makes it three years? And I don’t mind the questions, but I will be sure to let you know if any of them do bother me.”

“When you say you made a den,” Jake said. “Did you live mostly in your fox form during that winter? Seems to me it would be warmer… except that I keep forgetting that some of the ‘game’ animals are as big as you are if not bigger. So maybe that wouldn’t work? Sorry. I’m new at this, but very interested to learn how your life works.”

Shae laughed softly; she was finally starting to feel a sense of normalcy, even though she still felt angry and scared, but it was fading with his help. “For a while, yes, I lived in my fox form. Over time I was able to build out a den big enough to live in as a person, but it was still quite, eh, I believe you would say ‘cozy’. But it worked me, and I still do it if I know I’m going to be in a place for a while.”

“Uh,” Jake said. “Interesting. When I did my winter survival training, a blizzard came in. The instructors finally went around and found everyone and brought them in. The idea was to train us, not kill us. Only they couldn’t find me, and I, not being a moron, wasn’t going to go wandering out into a blizzard on a mountain. I managed to make it through the night. I had a shelter built and a fire going for some time, but then it got too damn cold and windy. My shelter was made of pine branches lashed together with a waterproof tarp on the floor. I rationed my fuel supply, and what provisions I’d been able to acquire. I kept melting snow for water, and even when I got desperate, I didn’t eat the snow directly. I knew it would drop my core temp even faster. Finally, I cut some of the lashings holding the branches together, lay down on the tarp, wrapped myself in my one blanket, and pulled the whole thing down on top of myself. The snow piled on top of the branches, which actually kept me warmer. I kept clearing air holes until I passed out. They found me the next morning, and brought me back to the base hospital. You’d think after that, I’d never go near the cold again, but almost the reverse is true. After that experience, the cold and the snow just don’t frighten me anymore. I’ve been stationed in a warm climate for the last several years. I actually missed this stuff.”

“Yes, I know what that is like,” Shae replied with a smile and a nod. “Don’t get me wrong, I hate being cold; even in fox form with all that fur, it can get unbearably cold, but there is something surprisingly comforting about watching the snowfall while being warmed by the fire, and the trees are so beautiful standing out against all the white and the branches trace lines in the sky, and it’s so peaceful… And everytime I go someplace warm, oh, it’s nice for the visit, but I am always so eager to get back to the snow once my business elsewhere is done.”

“Shae,” Jake said. “It has been much nicer watching the snowfall and being warmed by the fire while cuddling up on the couch, or in bed, with you this weekend. Thank you so much for spending it with me. I hope we’ll being doing this again soon.”

“I enjoyed spending this time with you as well,” Shae replied, smiling slightly. “Next time, can we go to my home? As much as I like the convenience of running water and your stove, and I want to take that stove back with me so much! Anyway, I like these things but I also miss the simplicity of the way I live.”

“Absolutely,” Jake said. “I love that place of yours. It meant a lot to me that you shared it with after only knowing me a such a short time. It’s possible we can get next weekend off, or at least Friday night to Sunday morning. We’d need to do final mission prep Sunday afternoon, so if we go, we should come back Sunday morning. But yes, absolutely. Next time at your house.” Jake smiled a wicked smile. “Question: Do I get to hold you all night, or do I have to go to bed keeping my hands to myself only to wake up with a cute Kitsune woman drooling on my arm?”

Shae blush. “I do not drool!” she insisted. “Oh, well, not while I’m a person, but you can hardly hold it against me when I’m in fox form,” she admitted with a pout. “But I don’t see why the location should change anything.”

“I was just teasing you about what happened last time I spent the night at your home,” Jake said, grinning. Jake slid his hand across the table and capture on of Shae’s. “If you want to come back here at all this week to spend the night, you’re welcome, of course. It’s a bit of a haul out here and back again, but it’s doable. But in case you don’t, I intend to get the rest of the week’s displays of affection out of my system before I have to go back to being Major Asher: Dashing Special Tactics Officer and Leader of People.” He’d almost said men, but he led women, too, this days.

“Wow, you’re almost like one of those showy birds, I half expect to see your hair stand up like a crest,” Shae remarked, then laughed. “I do like the idea of coming back here if we do not need to stay at the base overnight, but I do plan to do some language studying this week, so do not be upset if I must stay there from time.”

“Not at all,” Jake said. “You know I’ll support you doing whatever you need to do. You finished? Go curl up on the couch under that blanket and rest while I clean up. You’ve had a trying day. Would you like some more tea?”

“Yes, some tea sounds nice,” Shae replied, then went over to the couch. It was then that she realized she was still wearing her shoes, so she kicked them off so she could get comfortable on the deep couch, pulling the warm fleece blanket over her. Forget the couch, what this fireplace needed was a nice fur pelt to lay on! And she might actually have a nice bear pelt, but she would have to get that when she went back to Lethuan, so the couch and the blanket would have to do for now. “Asher, would you mind if I brought things from Lethuan to keep here?” she asked.

Jake grinned. This was a good sign. “Of course not. You’re welcome to. Anything that makes you feel comfortable being here is fine with me. What did you have in mind?”

“Furs, maybe?” Shae said warily, hoping that wouldn’t be too weird for him. “I like to line my dens with furs, they are comfortable to lay on, and I thought a fur in front of the fire would be nice.”

Jake caught the plate he almost dropped at the thought of laying Shae on a fur in front of the--er--of laying with Shae on a fur in front of the--Jake smiled and shook his head. Asher, you’ve got a one track mind sometimes. “Well, just make sure the animals they come from aren’t using them anymore. Wildlife on Lethuan runs large.”

Shae looked over the back of the couch at Asher, staring at him as though he had grown a second head. “I don’t even know how I would get a living Lethuan bear through the Chappa’ai, much less through the base and to your house!” she exclaimed. “Have you been drinking fermented beverages?”

Jake laughed. “Nope,” he said. “Didn’t want you to feel left out. Though I was going to have one shot of whiskey in a moment. I’m just feeling happy and I get a little silly naturally when I’m happy.” Jake finished cleaning up and poured both of them some tea. He put honey in his and stirred it in, before bringing both mugs to the couch. “Is there room under that blanket for chilly Air Force Majors? Actually, just this chilly Air Force Major. I’m kind of territorial sometimes, at least in my own living room.”

Shae lifted the blanket so that he could slip in beside her. Once he was settled in, she took the mug he offered and took a sip, then she snuggled up to him with a contented sigh. “Thank you for bringing me out here and looking after me. If I was on base or even just alone, I’d probably still be in a fit of anger. I’ve never had someone care about how I’m doing like the way you care, and I wanted you to know that it is appreciated.”

When Shae snuggled in close to him, Jake slipped his arm around her so they could get closer. “Thank you for trusting me, Shae, for letting me in, for letting me care for you. I know the idea frightens you, makes you anxious. But despite that fear and anxiety, you’re still here. That shows great courage. In fact, you show great courage in everything you do, both in your personal life and in the field, and I can’t even find the words to explain how much that courage impresses me. It’s an honor to work with you professionally and to know you personally.” This time, it was Jake’s turn to blush. “Um, I hope that wasn’t going too far. Sometimes I talk too much.”

Shae chuckled. “You do, but that’s okay, I like hearing you talk,” she said, smiling as she nuzzled his chest. “Your voice has a very pleasing sound.”

Jake set his tea down and started running his fingers through Shae’s hair. “Thank you,” he said. “So does yours.” I could just sit around listening to it for hours Jake thought. And I would, if I had the chance. “Rest now. If you fall asleep, or you decide you just can’t resist my charms anymore, I’ll carry you upstairs to bed.”