But by their third visit to the river, Jasper insisted she try by herself. It was hard to concentrate on the viewfinder with his breath on her neck. Her subject ruffled its wings, preparing to fly. Jasper leaned over her shoulder.
“Adjust the focus—you’ve got the shot now. You see?”
And she did. The way the sunlight hit the lapwing’s feathers. The beak questing up toward the sun. Hopeful, determined. Even as her finger brushed the shutter, she knew. It was going to be better than anything she’d ever taken.
“Just needed the right lens.” Jasper grinned down at her.
“The right teacher, more like. Would you hold the camera? I want to see if there’s a nest around here. If you don’t mind.”
“Go for it.” Jasper stretched out on a sunny spot on the bank.
Sighting a likely patch of reeds, Emma splashed deeper.
“You know what I like about you?” came Jasper’s voice. “You’re peaceful. Not needing to talk all the time…”
So it hadn’t occurred to him that she might be too nervous to think of anything to say.
“… disappearing into your focus, like a proper photographer. You’d probably make a good sailor too. Same skill.”
Emma resisted the pull of the vision. Jasper helping her onto his yacht. His arm around her waist as they reeled in a rope. A cabin below deck, just big enough for two…
“That’s what travel does. People like you and me, travelers, we don’t need to push a conversation. Because we’re less possessive. Of places, of people. Of relationships…”
There was a mass bobbing under her patch of reeds. She crouched.
Frogspawn. In September. Six months out of season, for this climate.
First the frogs mating on that city street, and now this. It was either a bizarre species mutation or environmental upheaval on a scale she’d never heard of. Her hand, stretching toward the cloud of spawn, stopped.
This had all happened after the flood. And she still had to check the University’s archives to be sure, but her blood told her that both it and these anomalies were something new. Climate change in action. This could be genuinely groundbreaking research. Journal-worthy, even. Her fellowship project plan would have to change. She could survey the river in sections, checking for other anomalies. She’d need to assign more budget for equipment. Photograph it all. Run live-stream feeds, possibly.
There was a mystery here. And now that she almost had it between her teeth, she could not bear to let it rest.
Still musing, she turned to find Jasper’s camera pointing at her.
“There,” he breathed. “Just perfect.”
Emma swiped a strand of hair from her face.
“No, hold still,” he said softly. Their eyes met, and Emma could not look away. Under his gaze, her body was a river rippled by raindrops. Every inch of her, alive.
The shutter clicked. “Got it. Come on, you must be freezing in that water. Time for your rescue.”
He pulled her onto the bank, and she stumbled against hischest. Her head spun with his closeness. That clean cotton smell where his T-shirt clung to his neck. The animal scent of sun-warmed skin. And beneath, something she couldn’t identify. Something smoky she had only smelled once, her nose buried in her father’s blazer on some rare, long-ago visit. She breathed him in.
He smiled, his face inches from hers. “Now I have the best shot I’ll get today. So…” He was going to kiss her. She knew it. Emma melted toward him. But then Jasper twisted, fitting the camera back into the padded bag. “So, what next?”
Emma swallowed her disappointment. Her eyes caught on a dome above the trees. “I actually kind of wanted to get to the Library today. For my project.”
Jasper groaned. “You really want to spend your afternoon looking at old photos of a river?”
“The Library’s archives are rare. I never thought I could find out so much about an ecosystem a hundred, even a hundred and fifty years in the past.”
“I wish I cared about something here as much as you care about this project. Maybe then I wouldn’t miss sailing so much.”
“But you’ve got people. Your friends. The ‘Society,’” she added, in strenuous air quotes, and Jasper laughed. “You have a gift. Leadership, or charisma, or whatever they call it. You’re good at people.”
“And you’re not?”
