Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 125037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
They had developed their private language over time. The female owl was extremely intelligent, and she had caught on to his various call patterns and the meanings behind them very quickly until, over the years, they’d developed communication skills he hadn’t believed possible. He needed her to find the intruders and let him know their exact position. He preferred to hunt them a good distance from Leila. No matter that he told her she could defend the den they were in, he didn’t want her to have to.
The notes of the male owl were as close to the real thing as possible. Her eyebrow shot up. “You’re telling an owl to do something.”
He nodded. “I need her to let me know the location of those men hunting you.”
“She can do that?”
“Don’t tell me you aren’t able to utilize animals, because I think you can.”
“Not like that. I wish I could.”
“It took me several years of working out patterns that would sound close enough to a male great horned owl calling to a female. She took less time to learn it than I did to develop it.”
“That’s amazing. Even just the fact that you persisted.”
He gave her a faint smile. “You’ll find I’m quite stubborn when I want to do something. I tend to persist until I get my way. I can work at something for years and never stop until I manage to attain my goal.”
“That’s not a bad trait to have. You sound like you think it is.”
“It can be very bad. I got myself into a lot of trouble when I was young. If my commanding officer knew half the things I did, he’d most likely throw me in the brig.”
“I doubt that. I think you’re considered very valuable by everyone but you.”
She could be right. He hadn’t given it much thought. “Please continue telling me about what happened with your daughter and how you came to be separated.”
Leila sighed. “Mistakes. Misjudging people. Not knowing who was an enemy and who wasn’t. I was sent out a few times to help in situations with troops. While I was gone, they had a woman looking after the baby. She seemed okay at first, but after the second time, when I returned, I found I didn’t trust her—or anyone else but Marcy, my commanding officer’s wife. Not that I trusted him. The baby is highly intelligent. They didn’t take that into consideration, or that I might have ways to communicate with her that they didn’t.”
She looked at him as if he might not believe her. He nodded, hoping to reassure her that he would always believe her. “There have been several GhostWalker babies born in the last few years,” he told her, still massaging the knots in her neck. Each time she gave him more information, she tensed as if she expected him to condemn her. “Every single one shows remarkable intelligence and the ability to understand and communicate before they are able to speak.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “Grace isn’t the only one?”
She called her daughter Grace. Nonny, Wyatt’s grandmother, was Grace Fontenot. She was the best woman Diego knew. If Leila’s daughter was anything like Nonny, she would grow up to be an incredible human being. More and more, Diego believed he’d been born to be with this woman. Every sign seemed to point in that direction. They were even free of the taint of Whitney’s pairing that had originally bothered so many of the GhostWalkers. Everything he felt for Leila was from getting to know her. Being in her mind. Seeing who she really was.
He admired her courage. He respected her as a soldier. The fact that she was so injured and yet ready to defend their position got to him. He hadn’t expected the intense chemistry. She was injured. He was her doctor. He was caring for her in ways that forced an intimacy between them that should have been awkward. It wasn’t.
“No, Grace is in good company. I love that you named her Grace. Wyatt, a member of my unit, has a grandmother and a daughter named Grace. We all call his grandmother Nonny. She’s one of the most amazing women I’ve ever met.”
“I liked the name. It’s maybe a little old-fashioned, but it suited her.”
There was love in her voice. Her face had gone soft. He’d never seen that look on his mother’s face. Not even when she looked at Rubin, and he was her favorite.
“You’re beautiful all the time, but when you talk about your daughter, you’re even more so.”
Faint color swept under her skin. “You always make me feel good about myself. Thank you for that, although I don’t know how to handle it. It’s a little embarrassing, but still makes me feel good.”
He brushed a kiss on top of her head. “Why did the woman watching Grace make you feel as if you couldn’t trust her?”