He was grimly concentrating on the water, lost in thought. He finally looked up in alarm as she snapped a branch with her foot.
His surprise truly surprised McKinney. “I thought you had eyes everywhere. Your trusty companions seem to have failed you.”
He frowned and looked up at the ravens on branches above. “Someone’s apparently getting a little too used to you.”
She walked up to him and looked out at the water. “This is nice. I didn’t know this was here.”
He nodded.
She noticed he held a mirror and scissors. “What are you up to?”
“Shaving the beard.”
McKinney put on an exaggerated, shocked expression. “Really? That thing must have taken you ages to grow.”
He nodded again.
“Doesn’t look like you’ve made much progress. Hard to part with it?”
“I guess it is. But it was for a mission I spent too much time on.”
She studied his face and walked up to him as he tried to look into the tiny handheld mirror.
He stopped for a moment. “What?”
She extended her hand, and when he hesitated, she took the scissors from him. “I can see better. You want it all off?”
He nodded.
She started clipping through his beard and realized there was some gray in the black hair. This close to him, she realized what a formidable man he was. His jaw solid.
His face was still stern.
“You okay?”
“They’ll be sending assets after us eventually, and I don’t want to attract them here. Which means we need to move on.”
“To where?”
He seemed at a loss. “That’s the problem. I’m trying to figure out a way back for you.”
“What about you? You’re still going after these people—aren’t you?” She kept clipping, and now she was starting to see his real face for the first time.
“I have no choice.”
“Have you uncovered anything about who’s behind this?”
“That’s the other problem, but it’s my problem.” He looked at her. “I’m sorry you’re involved in this.”
McKinney continued clipping. “You saved my life. You don’t have to apologize to me.”
He absorbed the comment silently.
She stepped back a step and gripped his jaw in her hand, turning his head side to side. His beard was quite short now—at shaving length. McKinney couldn’t help but notice how handsome David Shaw was. It was the first time she’d really seen his full face. “You look a lot better without that beard.”
She let go, and he checked her handiwork in the mirror, rubbing a hand along his jawline.
He knelt down to pull shaving cream and a folded straight razor from a kit in the bag at his feet. As he stood she extended her hand.
“Let me.”
He eyed her warily and gestured to the straight razor. “You know how to use one of these?”
She nodded. “I used to date a swimmer.”
He gave her an odd look.
“Don’t ask.”
He reluctantly relinquished the razor and took off his T-shirt to hang it over a tree branch. McKinney noticed scars crisscrossing his back and shoulders. What looked to be old wounds along his ribs, another one above his right shoulder blade. His lean, muscular frame flexed easily as he splashed his face with water.
He turned to face her, and she could see more scars along his chest, one leaving a hairless trail along his right pectoral muscle. He had almost no fat on him.
Odin noticed the look on her face and nodded toward the razor she held. “You gonna be safe with that? ’Cause I’m full up on scars already.”
“I’ll be fine. I didn’t know you’d been so badly hurt before. Are all these combat wounds?”
He shrugged. “Comes with the territory if you stay long enough. I’ve been luckier than most.”
She pointed to the nasty scar tracing along his chest. “What was this?”
He looked down. “Training accident in Texas. We were dropped into trees. I got impaled on a branch.”
He saw the look on her face.
“Ah, you were expecting it was from a knife-wielding terrorist?”
She nodded. “I guess I did.”
He applied some shaving cream to his hand from a can and started rubbing it along his jaw and face. “That’s this one over here. . . .” He gestured to his side.
She laughed then got the razor ready, holding his jaw. “Don’t make me laugh.” She looked into his gray-blue eyes as she made the first swift swipe of the blade. He didn’t flinch. “How can you go back now, David? Do you even know who you’re going after yet?” Another sweep of the blade.
“I can’t sit by and let someone build an army of autonomous killing machines. We all know how that ends.”