Her mouth fell open, and then she closed it on a snap when she noticed a small bug hovering around. “I will not!” she said, indignant. “It’s storming. And I’ll scare the booby birds!”
No humor. She delivered that last line with a straight face. I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Brando.” She sniffed.
I stopped laughing, though the urge was there. It was late in the night, and the storm had softened to only a pitter-patter of rain. The solar lanterns bathed her in a soft glow, her tears like pearl bubbles sliding down her face. She wiped at her eyes, trying to staunch the flow.
“That was a test. I failed. He wasn’t only testing my aim. He was—”
“Wanting to see for himself if you would react if I were in trouble. He had to double-check his own instincts. I know exactly why he did it. I would have too. If it were me.”
“How can you—be so calm? I made things worse.”
A cool breeze swept in. Loose pieces of hair tickled her face. Some of them stuck to her skin from sweat and tears. After the rain, humidity swelled. I moved the strands to the side and tucked a few behind her ears. “You love me.” My voice came out smooth, but inside, I was high. I made the decision not to hold on to John Taylor—I had time for him. He had his coming. No one propositioned my wife. My issue with her was that she didn’t mention it to me.
“You think?” she snapped. Her eyes met mine, and the harshness in them softened at whatever she saw. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I do. Let me try to explain.” I opened my arms to her. She came to me, wrapping her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist. I sat back so I could see her face and our eyes could meet. Her eyes were so exotic and feline. The light on her face threw shadows along her cheeks, the highness of bone never so apparent. “I know you love me. Your love is there, day in, day out. It’s a constant, unwavering, living feeling, like breathing in air. But there are rare times that it becomes a physical thing, something I can hold in my arms and absorb in my skin.”
I shifted some; her bones were sharp, not much meat between her body and mine. “You know how they say the reason love has so many other words that mean the same thing is because it’s too great to contain to one?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper. She sniffed again. Tears slid down her cheeks and landed on my chest, soft and cool.
“I can compare it to many different things, in the same way the word ‘love’ has many different words that mean the same thing. When the feeling of love becomes solid, it’s fleeting, only existing for a short period of time. But when it leaves me, it leaves me with a feeling of pure peace. I touched something that most think has no texture, but it does. I’ve felt it, even if there’s no way to explain it in one way.”
I came up, closer to her face, and wiped her tears. I ran my hands down her arms, pulling them forward, taking her hands in mine.
“You don’t need to worry about Lev or Taylor. You don’t need to worry about anyone. Or what we’re going to do now, or tomorrow, or the next day. Where I go, you go too.” I squeezed her hands. “Always beside me. We’ll figure this out together. But I won’t have you in harm’s way. There might be a time when I have to go alone—”
She went to open her mouth, to speak up, but I motioned for her to wait.
“We’ll discuss it first.”
“And Lev’s offer?”
“If it were just me, I’d take it. Maybe,” I added, seeing the look on her face. “He wants us both. It seems the world sees us as one. It should. Or it would be naïve not to. But no dice, baby. We’ll find another way.”
She nodded, and I felt the pressure rise from her, swept up by a gust of air. “I understand,” she said. “What you were trying to tell me—about those rare times when love touches us.”
“Yeah?”
“I do.” Curiosity over took her face. “I think you’re right about us existing in two different worlds sometimes. At the cave behind the waterfall, I told you the same thing. It was there with us, our love, existing in physical form. I could touch it.”
“So you know how much I love you.”
She tried to unwrap herself from me, but I kept her in place, and she smiled. “Yes, and not only because of what happened at the waterfalls, either. I’ll be right back.” She tugged again. “I promise—Brando!”
I released her, but I really didn’t want to. “Too long,” I said, when she had just walked away.
Her laughter came out low. She went to her bag. I could see her kneeling against the floor, iridescent light outlining her like a halo, and hear her rooting around. The letter Tito had given her was clutched in her hand when she came back, my scrawl burning through the bloodstained paper.
She pinned it against my heart. “You don’t make foolish romantic gestures. Your word is as good as your blood.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Brando
No tears were shed when we left the island, but the sadness in her was palpable. She found it hard to sleep on the plane, which twisted my heart in knots. The peace she found on the island seemed to be thinning with the stretching miles.
