The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,19
until he heard footsteps outside his tent. He snapped awake at once. After the incident with his climbing rope, every sound that wasn’t wind or birds put him on alert. He rolled smoothly out of bed and onto his feet.
The sun had risen. A shadow fell across his tent. “Ian?”
Sara.
A mental picture of her naked body, washed in gold by the reflection of the sunset, charged into his thoughts and obliterated everything else. Wrestling to push the image out of his head—and the reaction out of his body—he reached for a clean T-shirt. “Give me a minute.” Or maybe a few minutes, because all he wanted was to keep playing that image and see where it led.
He shrugged his bad shoulder purposely, letting the discomfort force his attention elsewhere. The joint tingled with the same pins-and-needles sensation he’d experienced when he woke from his nightmare. He put the shirt on, careless about his injury, then grabbed his sling and went barefoot to the tent door.
When he opened it, Sara stood there with her hands jammed into her coat pockets, looking like she wanted to be anywhere else. Her cheeks were pink, too pink to be from the exertion of her walk alone, and he wondered if she were thinking of that encounter at the inlet. Shut up about it, he ordered his body.
A backpack hung from her shoulder. She canted her head, seeming to weigh her words. “You didn’t come down last night.”
“I had to finish packing,” he lied.
She frowned. “I need your help.”
The image of the gory man flashed in his memory. Hhhhelp her. Ian jerked in surprise. He’d never ignored his gut responses before.
Something told him not to start now. He wanted to tell her to forget it, but the throbbing of his shoulder reminded him he owed her his life, whether he liked it or not. He hated being indebted to her, being forced to have anything to do with her.
But parts of him really, really liked it.
He sighed. Help her, it is. This once...then I’m out.
Her cheeks went pinker, and he saw her try to push herself past the awkwardness of their last meeting. The look on her face tugged at his sense of humor. If it weren’t for...everything...he might have laughed. “Let me get my stuff together.”
“What about your post?” she asked.
“It can wait a while.”
They walked to the eastern shoreline, where he knew it dipped close enough to sea level to admit a small dock. Sara remained silent. She didn’t seem to know any better than he what to say in the wake of yesterday.
God. Please stop thinking about that. His pulse quickened. He took a deep breath at the thought of her naked, dripping body, burned indelible in his memory by instant and painful need. He’d almost given in. A couple more steps, and he’d have torn that towel away, and damn all the reasons he didn’t want to want her.
He dropped behind her as they walked, trying to put some space between them, but it served only to give him a too-compelling view of her swinging hips.
A motorboat rested at the dock. “This is our ride,” she said.
“Where are we going?”
“Mainland. I have to find a jeweler, and quickly. I don’t want to leave the dig site too long.” She unsnapped the boat cover, then pulled it back as fast as possible.
“A jeweler?” What the hell was so important about a jeweler that it couldn’t wait? He moved to help her with the boat cover. “Why take me?”
“Faith doesn’t want to leave the dig.”
“There’s always your crew.”
She didn’t answer right away. She folded the boat cover, stowed it in the stern of the boat, then unwound the first of the mooring lines. “We need them working. My sister seems to think enough of you to suggest you come with me.”
He didn’t miss that she left her own opinion unspoken. What had he done to garner Faith’s confidence when he’d hardly talked to her, while Sara remained evasive? He started on the other mooring line. “What do you want a jeweler for, anyway?”
“My necklace, the stone one. I’m fixing it.”
“Was it broken?”
“There are two pieces missing. I’m having them put back in it.”
An unaccountable chill passed through his body. She could have seen a jeweler by herself, at any time. One-handed, he worked the mooring line free, then coiled it onto a cleat. “Why can’t it wait?”
She gestured to the dock and moved to the steering wheel. “Give us a push, will you?”