Author's Notes:
'A Shepherd's Crook' is the fourth book in the Chronicles of Ben Shepherd. The chronological order of the stories is:
The Shepherd of Ashburn Court - Parts 1 - 5
A Shepherd in France - Parts 1 & 2
A Shepherd Afield - Parts 1 - 5
The Shepherd's Crook - Parts 1 - 5
Minimal effort is made in this tale to explain the backstory, so please read the other stories first.
All characters engaging in sexual relationships or activities are 18 years old or older.
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A Shepherd's Crook - Part 4
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Chapter 36
Ben was sitting in his favorite chair in his living room with his laptop nearby, in case he wanted to browse the engineering boards for new puzzles. He had a steaming mug of herbal tea resting on the table beside him. He'd discovered he enjoyed the beverage while in Singapore. Tina and Lucy were doting on him while his children played on the floor before him. Christopher was having a play date at Ashley's.
Just another Sunday morning in Ashburn Court. He'd been following this pattern for weeks and was beginning to feel restless.
General Davis' commando team had fulfilled their promise almost two months ago to get him from the hospital to the airport and on a jet flying home with no fuss. There hadn't been any sign of another hit team from the Russians since their last group had been wiped out so quickly.
His fever spiked when they landed, and he'd spent a week in Hannah's hospital after emergency exploratory surgery with their guest surgeon, Mishka Shyamalan. She'd repaired a torn suture in his small intestine, and he underwent another course of antibiotics to deal with the infection.
When he was finally cleared to go home, he had weeks of recovery ahead of him, and now he was finally beginning to feel like himself again. He'd even been allowed to do a low-impact, low-stress workout. He knew he had a long road ahead to return to his previous strength levels. That didn't discourage him, though, as he'd done it before, and he knew he could do it again.
He'd had multiple visits from each of his loved ones and spent much of that time in cuddle mode. Initially, he was forbidden to do anything more strenuous. Making love fell into
that
category, but cuddling in bed and kissing were allowed. Being naked was also allowed if the mood called for it, and not surprisingly, most often, it did. He was assured that no one felt neglected, and Ben calmed their fears about his health.
During the initial weeks of his recovery, he'd had a surprise visit from Jahal Mannan, who'd heard of his close call and took it upon herself to personally hand-deliver the ring she'd made for him. Tina and Lucy met her at the door, as Ben was still bedridden at the time.
Unfortunately, while she was a master jewelry designer, she sucked at being secretive as her eyes found the ring on Tina's hand and searched for the one on Lucy's before realizing she was being watched by two women far too intuitive for their own good.
The surprise was ruined.
While Lucy shed tears of joy on Ben's shoulder and was extra cuddly with him for weeks, Ben was more than a little annoyed at being robbed of being the one to present it to her. It took many kisses from her to dull that disappointment.
As he was restricted to his home for recovery, there hadn't been much for Liliya to do, but she did walk with him around the block once he could manage it. She told him she was taking online courses in photography as a new hobby. She said it was teaching her how to see the world with fresh eyes, not just from an assassin's perspective.
Evelyn's wounds healed, and her eyes had no permanent damage. When he looked closely into her lovely blue eyes to see for himself, her face warmed up considerably.
That's when he saw the scar.
A thin white line ran across both cheeks and bisected her nose.
Just... like... him.
Something moved in his chest, and he'd wrapped his arms around the woman, holding her close as he dealt with his emotional upheaval. The idea that he'd almost lost her was knocking him off balance. She'd frozen momentarily, then she'd held him equally tight.
She'd been smiling more since that day as they finally managed to get back to work in his basement for lengthening amounts of time as he recuperated. She'd been very diligent in ensuring he kept to the schedule and didn't push himself too hard.
Hector's team completed the tear-down of Rochelle's home and prepared the site for the new construction. While Ben had been spending time on the designs for the new homes with Dan Bishop, he put the project on hold as he wasn't ready to work on it. Additionally, Chanel hadn't informed him when Beth's home would be released. Hector told Ben that his team would be prepared to start again in spring.
Ben and Evelyn returned to the battery project, but his mind told him it was a dead end. They set up a second test in his basement with the bulletproof shielding. This time they removed the plastic wrap from the lithium cells. The result was a battery with no better performance than any others.
Having proven this, Ben had Evelyn run a background check on the designer. She discovered, at the time of his death, that the man had been drowning in debt and needed the funding the project would get from being renewed by the Department of Energy. Instead, he was killed by his own experiment.
Ben asked Evelyn to notify the Department of Energy that they'd have to look elsewhere for a battery solution.
The effort wasn't a complete waste as it triggered some ideas for Ben. He managed to create three small innovations; a new kind of pressure switch with incredible durability and a projected lifecycle of millions of trips before failure, a new temperature sensor that could be used in high G or impact environments, and finally, a miniature sound suppression technology that required no external power source. These could be used in humble ways to improve life, but none were splashy or particularly noticeable. Ben just smiled about that as he added the small prototypes to the trophy cabinets in his office. Evelyn was thrilled to see her name on the small description cards under the title
Assistant
.
The General was pleased with the return on his investment, as his development teams immediately found uses for these inventions, so that was a bonus.
When he was finally capable of walking around and could last more than a few hours before his body forced him back to bed, Rain threw an engagement party for Karen, Jayden, Penny, and Frank.
The entire neighborhood attended and had a wonderful time. Ben called in all his food truck friends to cater the event, and Hector was DJ for the dance party. The foreman said it was the least he could do for his favorite employee of their new business venture.
