He didn’t speak, and he didn’t move. I couldn’t tell if that had helped or not, so I blundered on. “I should have stayed back there earlier, to help Cherise and Kevin. They needed help, but I just-I just ran away. So I’m the last person to demand heroic sacrifices, here. I should have-”

“You should have done exactly as you did,” he interrupted. “You should have run. You have to save yourself, Jo. Neither of your appointed guardians are all that capable of helping you now, no matter how much we-” His voice failed him for a second, and then he finished. “No matter how much we want to.”

We sank into silence-not quite comfortable, but it mellowed out, and I felt tensed muscles easing. I don’t know quite how it happened, but soon enough I was leaning against him, and his warmth felt so safe, so reassuring. After a while, he put an arm around my shoulders, and I let my head rest in the hollow of his neck.

“That girl, Cherise,” I said. “Is she still alive? Did I leave her to die?”

His warm fingers stroked across my forehead, the same gentle gesture I’d seen him give Lewis.

“Sleep,” he murmured, and I felt the warm brush of his lips against my temple. “Dream well.”

“I will,” I said faintly.

He kissed my hand, an old-world kind of gesture, full of tenderness, then got up with a grace that looked scarily sexy, and walked toward the opening of the cave. I didn’t see him leave; it looked like he just misted away between one blink and the next.

I slept with that.

Yeah, and you know what? I had the distinct feeling that I’d probably enjoyed the holy hell out of it, too.

THREE

I fell asleep, lulled by the gradual warming of my body and general exhaustion, and woke to find some trail bars and water sitting next to me. No sign of David. Lewis had draped his own thermal blanket over me, and clearly he’d gone out. Scouting, maybe. Foraging. Peeing. I had no idea.

I yawned, stretched, and got up to work out the wincing stiffness in my back and neck. Once I felt more or less human again, I folded up the foil blankets, replaced them in their little packets, and added them to the backpack leaning against the wall. I cautiously sniffed myself, to bad results, and wondered what the odds were of a nice, hot bath appearing if I wished really hard.

I squeezed through the opening and emerged in predawn darkness-well, it could have been midday; it was hard to tell. The sky was a uniform gray, the color of melted lead, and the clouds had a heavy, solid consistency that threatened real trouble. Somewhere way above, lightning flashed and was visible as a distant blue-white strobe. Thunder drummed, and it sounded just miles away.

It was freezing. I hadn’t realized how accustomed I’d gotten to the relatively balmy temperatures inside the cave, but the first icy slice of wind reminded me. Convulsive shivering made me move faster, and in seconds I made the tree line, found an appropriately screened area, and took care of bladder issues. Once the immediate biological crisis was averted, I started back toward the cave…and then hesitated, because I could hear something.

Something like splashing.

I followed the sound over a low rise, down another steeper drop, and through a thick clumping of scrub trees.

I peeked through the branches and saw Lewis, naked, up to his waist in a small pond. And it was steaming with heat, like a natural thermal spring. Wisps of white curled up from the surface, drifting in a low layer of fog that obscured my view only a little.

Did I mention Lewis was naked?

I stayed where I was for a few seconds, getting quite a view of the lean strength of his body, water glistening as it ran in slow trickles down his abs. I felt guilty about it, but that didn’t stop me. I wondered if there’d ever been anything between the two of us. If there had been, I clearly had some severe neural damage not to remember it. Vividly.

I had enough of a conscience-twinged epiphany to look away when he swam for the shore. Gawking I could justify. Actual peeping was something else.

When I looked back, Lewis was zipping up his blue jeans, water dripping from his brown hair to patter on his strong, tanned shoulders. Without looking up he said, in the most studiously normal tone I could imagine, “The water’s going to stay warm for the next half hour or so. Might as well use it. You need it.”

I hadn’t made a sound; I was certain of that. But he wasn’t shooting in the dark; after he’d toweled his hair dry with his T-shirt, Lewis lifted his head and focused his stare right on the scrubby trees that screened me from immediate view.

Busted.

I cleared my throat and pushed through, earning a few scrapes in the process. Apart from another distant mutter of thunder, the lead-colored day was very quiet. Water lapped the shore. Lewis shook out his T-shirt and pulled it on, then a thermal top, then added one of those well-used flannel shirts on top, which he buttoned almost to the neck.

I took the plunge. “Lewis, did we ever-you know…?

He concentrated on his shirt buttons, even though it wasn’t like they took a lot of effort. I could see he was thinking about lying to me, and then he gave up and said, “Once.”

“Wow.” I tried to smile. “Was it that bad?”

“No, it was that good.” He kept his eyes fixed somewhere else, not on me, but I still felt a flash of heat and nerves. “Look, I’m not in love with you,” he said. “Maybe I used to be, but I’m not anymore. So you don’t have to worry about any complications from me.”

I nodded. His gaze finally brushed over me, moving fast; even though his eyes didn’t linger, I felt another wave of corresponding heat.

“I just want you to understand where I stand,” he said. “You don’t love me, I don’t love you, and that’s it. Right?”

“Right,” I said. My lips felt numb. “I love David.”

“Yes. You do. You don’t know it right now, but you do.” That warmth-inducing gaze came back to fix on me. With a vengeance. “You’ll remember.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

He let out a breath, and it plumed white on the sharp-edged breeze. For a long, perilous second, it seemed like he had something to say to me, but I felt him give it up before he could make the leap. He looked away. “Hurry up. We have to be on the trail in the next hour.” And with that he sat down on the shore, put on thick socks, laced up his hiking boots, and sauntered off.

I guess his ribs had healed. He wasn’t favoring them, although there had been a spectacular multicolored bruise on his left side.

On the one hand, it was good that my sole human ally and-to be fair-protector was back in top form.

On the other hand…the rib thing had been convenient for us to use as a shield between us. Now gone.

I watched, but he didn’t glance back. The water was still steaming. I bit my lip, sniffed myself again, and stripped even though the bone-chilling wind made it torture.

I’d forgotten how good warm water felt. I guess I’d known intellectually, but the second I waded in and felt it immersing me, I could barely breathe for the pleasure of it. I sank down to my neck, then held my breath and slipped under the surface. I stayed under for at least thirty seconds, then broke through to take in a gulp of air. The bottom of the pond was slimy and the rocks were sharp, so even though I had no specific recollection, I was pretty sure I’d had better baths. It just didn’t feel that way at the moment. This was the first real memory I had of one, and it was magical. I couldn’t really relax, though. I kept watching the tree line, waiting for the bad guys to jump out.

Nothing. The day was silent, brooding, with a sharp smell of incoming rain or snow.

When the water began to chill I waded out, hastily dried off, dressed, and ran back to the cave. My teeth were chattering by the time I arrived, and Lewis paused in the act of shouldering his pack to toss me a chemical heat pack.