He sat by the fire, watching her crouch by the water, splash her face and clean her teeth.
The trust she’d placed in him acted like a tight band around his throat, making it hard for him to respond to her, so he’d merely nodded.
Her slim, straight back and long dark hair was all he could see, but when she grabbed her hair and twisted it into a rope to keep it off her face, he turned to find his own toothbrush, the gesture almost too intimate for him to feel comfortable watching it.
It was going to be a long night.
6
Velda wokeup stiff but actually quite cozy.
The sleeping bag was warm and she snuggled a bit deeper, watching Ethan build the fire back up.
She realized him moving around had woken her, and he seemed to realize she was watching him, because his gaze locked onto hers.
“Sorry,” he said. “We need to get going.”
She sighed and wriggled out of the bag, rolling it up tight and setting it aside before she went off to the stream. She took the pot with her and came back with water to boil.
They moved together quietly, making jah and heating breakfast, then tidying up the overhang so there was almost no sign of their presence.
“A good tracker will know we’ve been here, but that can’t be helped.” Ethan studied their little camp site.
He handed her a pack, which looked a lot lighter than his one.
They both also had their personal bags to carry.
She guessed he’d just give her the look he’d given her in Nanganya if she tried to persuade him to give her an equal turnwith the heavier pack. And what the heck, he was clearly much bigger and stronger than she was.
“Those mountains look pretty high,” she said, staring at them, hands on hips.
“We’ll go through the valleys between them, not over them,” Ethan said. “It isn’t as bad as it looks.”
She shot him a disbelieving look and he smiled at her, his face much lighter than it had been last night.
His coloring was the opposite to her own, his hair light to her dark, his eyes blue to her dark brown. He looked gilded in the morning sun.
He suddenly turned, the movement quick and somehow dangerous, and he tilted his head. “Something’s coming,” he said. “We’ve run out of time.”
He started walking and she fell into step behind him, and as they got into the trees she heard the sound of a hover coming down the valley.
Rescue was half an hour away if they wanted it, but Ethan was right, the ship that had downed them might try again, and she didn’t want to risk her and Ethan’s lives, as well as the lives of their rescuers.
Not when the stakes were this high.
If it was a rescue team they could hear, and not their enemies, it would take them time to find the hover, work out she and Ethan weren’t in it, and then start to look for them, and given the pace Ethan was setting, they would leave them far behind.
They stopped for a break and something to eat and drink near midday, and Velda realized she was more out of shape than she thought she was.
She hadn’t dropped into a basic training camp for nearly six months, and it showed.
She leaned back against the damp rock beside the waterfall Ethan had led them to and closed her eyes, worried that if she sat down, she might have trouble standing again.
“Water,” Ethan said, and she opened her eyes and found him right in front of her, holding out a water bottle.
“Thanks.” She took it, sipping slowly, and watched him crouch down and light the small portable heater from the hover’s emergency stash and prepare them lunch.
It was nice here, she realized. The sound of birds, the splash of the waterfall, and the warmth of the sun in the little clearing.
