“You’re like a walking miracle. Prepared for anything, aren’t you?”
“It takes skill and dedication. What about you?” He watched her repeatedly rinse her mouth and spit out the contents. Finally ridding herself of the bad taste she took a long drink, and he found himself mesmerized by the way her throat worked as she swallowed.
Dahlia handed him back the canteen and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m a seat-of-the-pants kind of person.”
“I don’t think I entirely believe that,” he said with a small smile. He reached down and pulled her to her feet, retaining possession of her hand. “We’re just strolling through the Quarter, Dahlia. We have to avoid the condo if at all possible. With the firefight and a few men down, the police are going to be swarming around that area.”
“And the NCIS. They’ll send their people, and just about everyone else. My guess is they’ll put out an OPREP-5 Navy Blue. That’s an operational report, a high alert, to include outside agencies such as the FBI that there’s trouble.” Dahlia added. “Did everyone get out alive?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I did what I could and then came after you.”
Dahlia looked away from him. Everything had gone wrong, and people were dying. She didn’t engage in fire-fights or assassinations. “I think I’m in the wrong business,” she admitted as she walked beside him.
Nicolas set the pace, a casual stroll. He knew the importance of blending in, of becoming what people expected to see. In the early morning hours just before dawn, street cleaners, deliverymen, and police officers would be out. With the shoot-out between military and unknown assailants, the Quarter would be buzzing with more activity and curious people than usual at such an hour. The French Quarter was a small place, and word of the firefight would spread fast. There would be so many rumors, no one would be able to sort them out for weeks.
Dahlia concentrated on breathing in and out. She shut out the fact that at any moment the police might stop them and ask questions, or that a member of her own NCIS team or the killers might spot them. She tried to look like a woman out for a very early stroll with her lover. The idea of Nicolas being her lover was almost more than she could handle. He made her feel ultrafeminine, and no one in her life had ever managed to make her feel that way. She didn’t think much about being a woman. What was the point, when her body temperature was either too hot or too cold? And what would happen if they did try to have sex? Just kissing nearly caused the eruption of a volcano.
Soft laughter played down her spine, made her shiver with awareness. Nicolas brought her knuckles briefly to the warmth of his mouth. “You’re thinking things best left alone.”
“I know.” She was unrepentant. “But if all I have in my life is just thoughts, then I’m not going to waste the opportunity.” She was still fighting to breathe, to shake off the trembling and feeling of sickness. She didn’t want to talk, except maybe to hear the sound of his voice. She wanted to walk the streets of the French Quarter and just for that short time pretend she was normal. She wanted to have her dreams of the man walking beside her and not think about death and spies and men selling out their country for money. Mostly she didn’t want to think about energy and the effects on her body. She needed a nice peaceful place to hibernate in for a while.
Nicolas glanced down at the top of Dahlia’s bent head. He tightened his fingers around hers. She was withdrawing from her surroundings. He could feel the way she mentally pulled back, the way she went inside herself, behind the protective walls in her mind she’d built for herself.
Lily had been working with the GhostWalkers for some time to teach them ways to build barriers in their minds against the continual assault from everyday life. Until Lily had worked with the men Whitney had experimented on, they were all in various stages of dysfunction. Dahlia had managed to find a much more flimsy version of a barrier, but she’d done it on her own.