The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,53

looked up at him. His figure blurred around the edges. Tears. No tears. Stop it. She screwed her eyes shut and pulled her knees up, hugging them and hunching on the cot’s edge. “Please go away?” she begged into her arms.

The cot sank as he sat beside her. “Absolutely not,” came his soft murmur.

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. A long, broken wail tore from the center of her being. She covered her head with her arms and curled into a tighter ball, trying to disappear into herself. Tears flooded forth in a torrent that shredded her from the inside out.

His arm came around her back with a gentle tug. She gave up all pretense of hiding her anguish, shifted, and threw herself at him to sob into his shoulder. He held her tight while she went to pieces in his arms. Her heart unraveled. She couldn’t stop it. She shook with terror at the force of emotion pouring through her. This—oh, God, this was why she never let her guard down.

Ian laid his cheek against the top of her head and stroked her hair, saying nothing as she wept.

The last vestiges of her self-control caved in on top of her. Guilt crashed down with it. She cried so hard her ribs hurt. She cowered against his body, clutching in desperation at his jacket, but the pain sought her out and laid her open. With no escape, she surrendered and let the tears come until none were left to cry.

Seconds, minutes, hours later—she had no idea—exhaustion crept up on her. Her eyes burned with salt and dryness. Her head ached. An empty hollow sat in the pit of her stomach where all the feeling had been. Still trembling, she pulled away from him and scrubbed at the tearstains on her cheeks.

He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a bandanna. He shook a puff of chalk dust out of it and offered it to her.

She took it and wiped the tears away. “I haven’t cried like that in twenty years.” Her voice sounded hoarse, nothing like her own. “Not since—”

“—your father died,” he finished quietly. “I remember.” He propped up the pillows on her cot, then slid backward to sit upright against them. Without a word, he reached for her.

She went, and rested her back against his chest. His arms came around her again. Warm. Safe.

“You stayed late after school for something. I was there for baseball practice. I saw you crying in an empty classroom, but I didn’t know why,” he told her. “I wanted to do something. I should have.”

She wiped at her face once more with his bandanna, then huddled on her side against him, gazing at the off-white canvas of the tent wall. “You just did.”

****

Ian roused later to the sound of footsteps outside. The lantern had guttered out. Wide-awake in an instant, he squinted into the darkness. The footsteps paused in front of Sara’s tent. He groped one-handed along the bedside table, but it held only the extinguished lantern. He searched along the bedside. His hand landed on a spare tent pole. Easing out from under Sara, he picked up the pole, then moved soundlessly to the tent door.

A sliver of starlight appeared as someone unzipped the door. A shadowy figure slipped into the tent.

Ian sprang forward and jammed the end of the tent pole into the intruder’s gut. His victim wheezed and hunched over. He spun the pole around and swept the person’s feet out with it. His adversary landed with a thud and another wheeze, and Ian brought his boot down on the figure’s chest. There was a strangled grunt. Ian poised the tent pole to strike again if necessary.

“What’s going on?” came Sara’s panicky voice. Ian heard her fumble behind him, then the crash of the lantern falling to the floor. The tent flooded with flashlight.

Squinting against the sudden illumination, he looked down. The redheaded woman lay pinned under his boot with an expression of shock.

Sara lurched off the cot. “Becky. Oh, my God. Ian, let her up.”

Ian took his boot away. The redhead heaved for air and rubbed at her chest. She struggled to her feet. He stepped back and planted the end of the pole in the floor with a suspicious glare. “What are you doing here?”

Sara took the woman’s hand and tugged her to a seat. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, more or less. I came to see if you were okay.” Becky rubbed her stomach with a rueful moan.