Then she forced herself to go all the way in.
She loosened the tie in her hair and then ducked down, scrubbing at her scalp.
The mountain water was freezing, but the weightless sensation was heaven. The river cradled her, after a day with a heavy pack and a long walk. She moved to her pack and lifted out of the water a little, getting soap and shampoo, and after she was clean, she turned to the bank to find Ethan sliding into the water with her, a fire crackling behind him.
“Thank you.” She shivered in the water, glad there was a warm fire to go to when she got out.
“Cold?” he asked.
“Yes, but it’s still lovely.” She sighed and sank down to her shoulders, letting her hands take her weight on the river floor so her legs could float in front of her.
Ethan had brought a change of clothes and his own soap down to the water, and she let her eyes flutter closed to give him some privacy.
Something nudged her arm, and she forced herself to look down, and then, with a shriek, leapt to her feet. “Thing,” she gasped, pointing as it swam away.
“Fish?” he asked, and when she turned to him, she saw his eyes crinkled in amusement.
“Very ugly, for a fish,” she said, and shivered, suddenly cold now she was wet and in the evening air.
“Fuck it,” he said, and stepped up to her, lifted her out of the river and onto the bank.
She stood, astonished, as he pulled a thin, quick drying towel around her shoulders and hauled her close.
She grabbed the ends and put her hands around his neck, encasing them together in the warm cocoon. “Couldn’t resist me anymore, huh?” she asked.
“No, I couldn’t.” His hands were warm as they rested on the small of her back. “I was waiting for your contract to end, but then you got into a river naked with me.”
“You got in the river naked with me,” she corrected. “I was in there first.”
He laughed.
Threw his head back and laughed.
Then he bent his head and kissed her.
7
It wasa mistake to pull Velda up close to him while they were both wet and naked. But then Ethan acknowledged that he’d been making plenty of mistakes where she was concerned since yesterday.
They hadn’t even spoken about what was between them, so he lifted his lips from hers and forced himself to drop his arms.
She stood in place for a moment, her gaze on his face. “You’re not going to go back to pretending you’re not interested in me, are you?”
“No, I think that ship pinched to the black at our lunch stop.” He’d known it, he just hadn’t worked out how to bring it up.
“It pinched to the black quite a long time before that,” she said, “but I grant you that today you really let the curtain fall.”
“When did you guess?” he asked.
“When you came to me about Wren and Ed.”
The wind suddenly rose, icy and sharp, and she handed him back his towel.
“I have my own,” she said when he tried to give it back, and they dried off quickly and dressed even more quickly.
When they were sitting around the fire he’d made, eating dinner and waiting for the pot to boil for jah, she gave a sudden sigh and wriggled until she was right next to him, shoulder touching shoulder.
“You said you were waiting for my contract to end. You didn’t want to get involved because I was your boss?”
