into him. He felt her straighten her back and push her buttocks against his groin. He made a grumbling sound that was half-way a laugh and slipped his fingers an inch under the rim of her waistband on her shorts, causing her to giggle.
“Careful, Chris might hear us…” she said, and then corrected herself, “or… me, anyway.”
“Let him,” he whispered into her ear,. “He knows full well what is expected of us. If he didn’t hear us the first time, he certainly won’t hear us this time.”
“He’s awake this time,” she japed him, “and this time it’s in the daylight.”
She twirled in his grasp until she was facing him and wrapped her arms around his head but instead of kissing him, she merely stared at him, matching his eyes to hers. He felt suddenly naked, more naked than he’d even been, as she gazed at him, into him, as if puzzled by something she had caught on the periphery of her vision. He reminded himself that people usually couldn’t hold eye contact for more than twelve seconds and began to count down, but by time he’d reached fifteen, he knew there was something more.
“What is it? What are you looking for?” he teased her coyly, but kept his eyes fastened to hers.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “some way to make sense of what I’m feeling. It’s hard…”
“Hard?”
She bit her lip and finally broke contact, dropping to her knees again to pick up the wicker basket. “What am I to you? I think that’s what I’ve been wanting to ask… but it sounds so… stilted, so artificial, so day-time-drama, to actually ask it out loud,” she laughed at her own analogy, “and I know you’re going to feel stupid answering it.”
“I…”
“But,” she interrupted him quickly, putting a finger to his lips. He shuddered at her touch. “… I don’t want you to answer this without thinking. I think… I think if you’re not careful, the answer will really hurt me. Which is okay, if it’s the truth… but…”
“Sarah,” he said. How to explain what he himself had no words for? His fist clenched and the pectoral muscle for that hand suddenly tightened. “Okay. I’ll think… I’ll wait. But I already know the answer, even if you won’t let me speak it now.”
She smiled at his stubbornness and took a step toward him, her small breasts gently scraping against his chest through her tank-top, and she angled her head toward him and kissed him lightly on the mouth. As she pulled away, it was impossible to conceal the pained look in her eyes, which were also at once full of a kind of pity that unnerved him. What does she pity about me, he wondered. That I was forced to make a choice between so many women, and chose her? That I have to suffer the consequences, the danger I’ve put her in now that she’s here? Or is it something simpler, something we both share in common – a loss of orientation, a compass without a bearing?
He lowered his head and said no more, even as she turned back to her work in the garden, shoving her hands into the soil’s dark complicity of worms and humus, as if he hadn’t been there at all. Disgruntled, but also shaken by her ultimatum, he walked inside and splashed cold water on his face. From the other room he heard a series of rattling curses. No doubt Chris trying to get the satellite phone to work.
Even if they could get a signal to the mainland, there was no guarantee that help would be sent quickly. He looked back out the main window and saw Sarah through the smudged pane, kneeling and plucking weeds from the garden beds. She was doing everything she could to keep busy, and in keeping busy, she was averting that circular pattern of thinking that had condemned Dylan. Smarter than me, he observed. He needed to keep himself busy, too.
He looked back out at the open acreage. If the poachers returned, they needed to be ready. Time to put some of that hard-earned training to use, he decided, and slapped another splash of cold water onto his face.
CHAPTER SIX
Arthur idled the small outboard motor at a steady pace. Sitting in the front of the boat with his rifle slung casually over one shoulder, Kyle had his camo jacket zipped to the neck and the hood thrown over, probably more to hide his scowl than to protect against the spatter