knees on the gritty sand. “Why, David, why?” he screamed into the wind.
Would anyone ever find his body? Would David, his parents, his grandfather, ever discover what happened to him? Ian sagged down onto damp sand and brushed his hair away from his face. His fingertip grazed the amulet.
The stone glowed brighter than it ever had before, and the uninhabitable atoll was once more uninhabited.
David avoided the caves, afraid of what he’d find, but Ian had never been gone so long before.
Making his way down the familiar beach path, he scrambled into the cavern he’d played in as a child. He’d made love to Ian here during the early days of their relationship.
He knelt down beside a stone, picturing Ian, head thrown back and all that glorious hair flowing over his back as David loved him with his mouth. Ian. His Ian. Where was he? Would he come back? Could he come back?
David reached behind the stone and closed his hand over a cloth-covered object. He shut his eyes and huffed out a breath. Ian’s parting gift. Did that mean Ian had escaped the Maid’s fate and was safe somewhere? His heart clenched. Why hadn’t he realized how much he loved the man while there was still time to work things out?
Ian could be anywhere. Anywhen. And David powerless to find him.
He pulled the object from behind the outcropping, wrapped in the same odd fabric that had preserved the box and the stone they’d used to create the amulet.
With gentle fingers he peeled back the cloth. Gold. Jewels. The figure of two men, joined together for all eternity at the groin. His heart skipped a beat.
Ian had told the truth. The statue was real. But wait. Incas weren’t so long of limb, nor did they have such angular noses. The man lying back with his legs spread appeared European, with a fall of long hair pooling under his shoulders, and a familiar-looking amulet around his neck. And the man’s lover! Bald head, broad shoulders… Oh God…
A scrap of paper rustled to the floor of the cave and David stooped to pick it up. There, in Ian’s barely legible scrawl, was the only note he’d ever included with any of his packages. “To be with you is my greatest desire,” it said simply. “For all time, in any time.”
David whipped his gaze from the note to the statue and back again. It couldn’t be, and yet… A love story. Between two men, so important that some bygone artist had captured their love in a stunning creation—the celebration of love. Love that knew no boundaries, no excuses. No time. Timeless. “For all eternity,” David said.
Tears sprang to his eyes. Yes, despite his earlier protests, his greatest desire was his auburn-haired, green-eyed pirate. If and when he ever saw his lover again, he’d gladly announce on the rooftops that he loved Ian—and deal with the consequences later. A flash of bright light illuminated the mouth of the cave. Fear tightened his heart as another brilliant bolt of lightning lit the summer sky, followed by a rolling boom of thunder that shook the ground beneath his feet and showered him with loose sand from the cave walls. That was close! Heavy drops of rain pelted from the sky. David ran up the beach, wrapping the statue in the cloth for safekeeping as he did.
He stopped in his tracks on his porch, staring at the open front door and the wet footprints that led into the hall. “Who’s there?” he called. No answer.
Brandishing the statue like a weapon, he crept through the entrance, following the prints up the stairs to his bedroom. He flung open the door. A filthy intruder sprawled face down on the pristine covers of his bed. The mosquito netting lay in a heap on the floor.
Still clutching the prize his beloved had sacrificed himself for, David eased silently forward. He lowered the statue to the dresser, slowly pulled his cell phone from his hip pocket, and dialed emergency services. Oh dear God.
Fear of one kind was replaced by another. “Ian!” Badly sunburned, hair-matted, and dressed in rags, Ian lay unconscious upon his bed. “Send an ambulance!” David yelled to the dispatcher who answered the phone. He muttered his address while searching for a pulse. There! It was weak, but Ian was alive.
What had happened to the man? For the first time in his life, David didn’t care that Ian was dirty or possibly harboring vermin. As gently as possible, he moved