He could try to get her to drop a message somewhere rather than tying it to her leg, but if he told anything even vaguely resembling the truth, it would sound like a bizarre prank and be ignored.
He absently chewed on the pen, thinking, then sighed and wrote.
IF YOU’RE READING THIS, YOU HAVE WON A NEW PHONE OF YOUR CHOICE, COURTESY OF HOWE ENTERPRISES AND OUR LATEST VIRAL MARKETING CONTEST. CONTACT PROTECTION, INC: DEFENDERS IN REFUGE CITY AND TELL THEM YOU HAVE A MESSAGE FROM CARTER HOWE. GIVE THEM THIS. THE CODE WORDS ARE KIDNAP, SWAMP, PAWPAW, WIZARD.
Carter considered this message. If it reached the Defenders, they’d be as good as rescued. Ransom had the power to get information out of thin air, so he probably hadn’t even needed to say that he was in a swamp with pawpaws. Just letting them know that he’d been kidnapped by the wizard-scientists was plenty.
Assuming it reached them, that was. It was a longshot, but it was all he had.
He signed the message, then nudged it at Precious. She gripped it in her talons and cocked her head inquiringly.
“Drop this near lots of humans,” Carter said. “Outside of the swamp.”
She chittered excitedly and launched herself into the air. He watched her spiral upward, a glint of gold, until she was lost from view.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “I guess they really are that smart.”
He returned to the fire, where he found Fen wrapped in his wet coat. The only bare skin showing was her face, but that only served to remind him of that dazzling glimpse of her nude. She’d covered herself with her hands and a wet skirt, but that had only accentuated her nakedness. He’d only seen her for a moment and he’d been distracted by surprise, trying to hide his hard-on and worried first about the supposed drone, and then worried about Fen seeing Precious.
And yet despite all that, the vision was burned into his mind with every detail sharp and clear as diamond. He’d never seen a more tempting sight. At that moment, he didn’t care that she was trying to take over his company and had been annoying him for years. He’d wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his entire life.
He tried to repress the thought that he still did.
“Well?” Fen demanded. “Was it a drone?”
“No.” He fished frantically for a reasonable explanation—a satellite?—and fell back on, “It was a gold helium balloon. God only knows how long it had been floating before it got blown here.”
“Huh. It seemed like it was moving too fast for that.”
“Well, you only caught a glimpse of it before it got hidden by the trees.”
To his relief, she seemed to accept that. “Sorry I sent you off on a wild goose chase.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re alert, that’s good.” He hesitated, caught by a wild impulse to suggest that they hang up their clothes and not turn their backs, but that would only drive him insane with desire and make her deeply uncomfortable. Instead, he said, “Want to do the swamp-tease again?”
“I’m fine as I am,” Fen replied. “The coat is wet, but the fire’s warmed it. It can dry off on me as well as it can hanging up. But if you’d rather…”
“No, I’m fine. The pants can dry on me too.”
Carter sat down as close to the fire as he could get himself, then reached for his bag of tools and parts. He spread them out on the dirt before the fire, hoping they’d give him an idea. His mind drifted as considered the objects and everything they could be used for. Images of turning gears and twisting wires floated across his mind’s eye, then coalesced into an idea.
He set aside a battery, picked up his wire-stripper, and was soon lost in his work. Carter only looked up when he’d finished. The sun had set and the only light came from the fire. Fen was sitting beside him, silent and still and swallowed up in his black coat, watching intently. On the ground beside her were a set of huge leaves she’d repurposed as plates. One was piled with pawpaws and one with what looked like tiny corncobs skewered on twigs.
“You went foraging?” he asked.
She nodded. “Those little corncob things are cattail spikes. You can toast them like marshmallows.”
“How long have you been sitting there? I must’ve been boring you to death.”
“Not long, and not at all. I like watching you work. It’s… peaceful. What did you make? It looks like a miniature hair-dryer.”
Please please please please please don’t explode,he thought, and turned it on. Just in case, he kept his body between it and Fen.
The device whirred to life.
Immensely relieved, he said, “Hold out your hands.”
Fen looked nervous, but did so. She laughed with sheer delight as hot air warmed them. “Itisa hair dryer!”
