* * *
By the timehe carriedMargaret through the door of the hut, she had regained control. Her face was still buried in his neck, but she didn’t move it. She wanted him to keep holding her. There was something relaxing about not having to try so hard, accepting that she wasn’t perfect and that just this once she didn’t have to be. To let her emotions—illogical or not—rule her for just a little while.
He stood in the dark hut, then slowly let her slide down the length of his long body until she felt her toes touch the ground. Her arms were still linked around his neck and his warm hands rested flat against her bottom. He was breathing rapidly, the sound husky and abrupt. But he didn’t move. He only stood there, still and silent.
She couldn’t fight him any longer. She couldn’t fight what was between them. And she didn’t want to. She was tired of fighting something that felt so right inside of her heart even if it seemed wrong inside of her head. She looked up at him, wondering what he would do.
There was no answer in his expression. Nothing but a hard and blank look. She sensed he was battling with something inside him, something that wasn’t easy for him. His hands shook with it.
She whispered his name, and he closed his eyes briefly, then he reached up and took her hands from around his neck. He just held them at their sides for a moment. He was staring somewhere over her head, his eyes showing no sign of what he was thinking.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “What are we going to do?”
He released her, then took a step back. “I’m going to leave.”
“You’re what?”
He stepped back again, then turned away.
She stared at his back.
Two long strides and he was in the doorway. “I’m leaving.” He stood very still, the late afternoon light behind him. It was intimidating, the way he almost filled the doorway, like a portrait that takes up the whole frame.
She could see the tension in his stance and that his breathing was still not even. “Why are you leaving?”
After an awkward stretch of silence, he turned, his hand resting on the door.
“Because this time—for once—I’m not going to try to take something I want.”
Her voice was a ragged whisper. “Why not?”
“Because it’s just too damn important.” A second later the doorway was empty.
* * *
Margaret satinsidethe dark hut, her head buried in her hands. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t true. She didn’t have those kinds of feelings for Hank.
But she couldn’t lie to herself anymore than she could lie to him. She felt open and bleeding and miserable. She thought she heard something and looked back at the doorway, part of her hoping he would be standing there. But he wasn’t. No one was there.
He didn’t have to be there, though, because his image was still in her mind. The image of his tall body backlit by the setting sun. Like that of a visiting angel.
But she knew him for what he was.
He was no angel. He was a heartache.
* * *
Hank went swimmingevery night.He had to. It was the only way he could get any sleep, swimming in the lagoon lap after lap. It cooled his thoughts. It cooled the fire in his blood, a fire he had trouble controlling for the first time in his life. And he didn’t much like that fact either.
Smitty avoided him. That was fine, considering. Over the last few days he’d spent most of his free time watching her, watching her do anything. Burn a meal, light a fire, chase Annabelle.
He’d even taken a page from Smitty’s book and slinked up the rocks, lurking in the shadows to watch her bathe. God... He’d only done that once. There was only so much a man could take.
After that he’d only watched her brush her hair dry in the sunlight.
He’d had the same response.
One afternoon he’d watched her walk on the beach when she didn’t know he was there. She had stopped and drawn words in the sand. And he’d gone back and read them after she’d left. Just single words strung together with no particular meaning:sick, mind, heart, Hank, kiss, no, why?
