“Ah.”
Shea didn’t know what to say to that. Given yesterday’s events, she couldn’t help the awkwardness she felt at his arrival. In the end she said nothing, letting Clark carry the conversation. She pulled slightly up on her horse’s reins intending to let the two ride ahead of her.
Eamon followed suit letting Clark pass. “We’ll catch up.”
Clark nodded and shot Shea a sympathetic look before touching his horse lightly in the side. It moved a little faster, jostling Clark in his seat as he caught up with someone he knew further down the line.
Eamon and Shea rode in silence for a bit. She glanced at Eamon from the corner of her eye. He looked relaxed. Not at all like they were at odds.
Maybe in his mind they weren’t. After all, why would a leader care if a subordinate was upset as long as that subordinate continued to follow orders?
“Shane, how long are you going to continue like this?”
Shea looked at him startled. “Continue like what?”
“This.” Eamon gestured between the two of them.
Shea didn’t know how to answer that. She thought she was being very civil.
Eamon sighed gustily. “You have to be the quietest Lowlander I’ve ever met. Usually you have to hit them upside the head to get them to shut up. With you, it’s the opposite. I feel like I have to knock you upside the head to get any words from you.”
Shea shot him an expressive look and guided her horse out of arms reach.
“Speak boy,” Eamon barked. “Quit giving me crazy eyes and speak your mind.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Something. Anything. How’m I supposed to trust you if I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours?”
There was that word again.
Forestalling her objection, Eamon said, “And don’t tell me there’s nothing. You’re too smart for that. And none of that damn politeness either.”
Argh.
What did he want from her? She just couldn’t win.
“What the hell do you want from me, Eamon? First you yell at me for not following orders and then when I do you’re on my ass for that too. I can’t win.”
“Finally,” he said. “We’re getting somewhere.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t talk to people.”
“I talk. I talk all the time.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “You make statements and then act all butt hurt when people don’t do what they’re told.”
Shea couldn’t help the sneer of disbelief that crossed her face. “No, I don’t.”
“Yes, yes you really do,” Buck told her, riding up on her other side.
What was this? Pick on Shea day.
She kicked her horse wanting away from the two ganging up on her. It didn’t work. They simply followed.
“You’re good at what you do,” Eamon continued, as if she wasn’t actively trying to run away. “Bright, observant. But you never take the time to explain. You just make a statement and then expect everybody to fall in line.”
Shea couldn’t believe she was hearing this.
“What am I supposed to do? Take the time to talk when people are walking into danger? They’ll be dead before I get through the first explanation.”
“Trust takes time,” Eamon said.
Aaannnd, they were back to this.
“You can’t build a rapport overnight,” he continued, ignoring her small growl. “You want people to believe you? Well, you’ve got to start small. Explain why something is the way it is rather than just telling them what to do.”
“Take the shadow beetles, for instance,” Buck pointed out helpfully.
“I was right about those,” Shea snapped.
“Yes, but no one believed you when you said there was danger up ahead. What’s the point in being right if you can’t get anybody to listen?” Eamon said.
The point was that she was right, and they were wrong. If they’d listened, everybody would still be alive. They didn’t, so they were dead. Not her problem. She’d done her job.
Eamon, reading the look on her face, snorted. “It’s all very well to be right. I like being correct just as much as the next person, but one day you might regret not being able to get your point across. Your inability to influence your fellow soldiers might end up getting someone you care about killed.”
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Sensing that his words had struck a chord, Eamon said, “Think about it. You’re good at what you do, but you’d be better if you could relate to your fellow scouts. No one can survive alone out here.”
Putting those words in her head, Buck and Eamon peeled away from her and joined Clark up front.
Shea was left alone. Again. She was beginning to sense a theme.
She spent a good hour pissed at his criticism. He barely knew her but thought he could tell her everything that she was doing was wrong.
Ok, so her inability to relate to others or be remotely diplomatic wasn’t new. She’d had trouble fitting in with Highlanders and just about everybody else her entire life. At first it was because she was so young and had come from a very different background than most villagers. The guild, in many respects, was much more open minded than those living in the outlying communities. They were more accepting of a body’s differences. So few came for training anymore that anybody able to pass the tests found a place to belong.
Perhaps that’s why it had been so shocking when Shea reached her first post and found her skills casually dismissed by the male dominated society of the Highlands.
She could still remember the disaster of that first mission. She’d lost three men on a routine trade run over something that could have been prevented if they’d simply listened.
Could Eamon be right? Could she bear some responsibility for the loss of life because of her inability to communicate?
Shea shook her head. Eamon was full of it. She’d given them her informed opinion. If they ignored it because she was a woman and an outsider, there was nothing she could do about that.
Shea kept as far from Eamon and the rest of the scouts for the rest of the morning. Anytime it looked like someone was about to engage her, she went out of her way to avoid them. She was successful in her endeavors until they stopped for the evening.
Once they’d stopped, Shea didn’t know what to do with herself. The men worked as a team and whenever she tried to help she just seemed to get in the way. She’d gotten used to the responsibilities with Eamon and the others, but this was a different dynamic, and she didn’t automatically know her duties.
She drifted toward a group, containing Clark, playing a card game. She watched quietly for a while, trying to pick up the rules. It was difficult. It seemed random to her, lacking any sort of logic. They each held a set of cards with odd drawings on them. Every now and then one would pick up a pair of dice and roll them and then play a card.
“Would you like to play, Daisy?” a woman with a large scar bisecting her jawline asked. Her smile was cunning as she glanced up at her before picking up the dice and rolling.
“I don’t know the rules,” Shea said.
There was a look between the players.