Kane thought it over. “I suppose I should just not kiss her.”
“I do not think we will have a problem with that if she is going to avoid us altogether,” Jared said glumly.
“I do not especially like the idea of making a nest for her when we have no idea what she likes or where she would like it,” Damon said. “If she does not, we will have to start over!”
Jared frowned. “She said that her father had promised to build her a castle of sand on the beach.”
The others stared at him with varying degrees of disbelief. “We cannot make it out of sand! It will blow away!” Thor snapped.
“Or the tide will wash it away,” Kane said, nodding.
Jared rolled his eyes. “I am only saying that she seemed to like the idea of the beach and castles.”
“I am not at all certain that I can wait that long,” Kane said after a prolonged silence. “My balls hurt now, gods damn it! It could take … months to build a castle at the very least!”
* * * *
“Well, it was a thought,” Sebastian said as they stood on the edge of the plateau Reuel had chosen for their first city.
“I can not even see the beach from here,” Kane said in disgust.
Jared’s expression was angry and disgusted. He pulled his gaze from the view after a few moments and turned to look for Chloe. He had not managed to catch more than a glimpse of her and it seemed that she was always heading away from him when he did. He did not entirely understand the misery that seemed to have become his constant companion, but he had no trouble understanding that it was directly connected to Chloe. When he saw her, gladness would fill him for a handful of moments, his heart would lose all rhythm, and his chest would tighten and when she walked away, his chest would tighten more and he would feel only misery.
He did not think that he could endure much more of it and the only ray of promise that he had been able to think of was the suggestion that Reuel had made. He feared it would not be as simple as that, but he could not think of anything else to try.
And now it seemed that he could not even try that. He supposed she might be satisfied with something else, but he did not know what that might be. He had never heard her speak of anything else.
It would be far easier if he could speak to her and ask her to tell him what she wanted so that he could get it for her, but Damon had said that that was not as gratifying to a woman as ‘surprising’ her. He certainly wanted to get the most benefit from the gift, but it had occurred to him that surprise was not always a good thing. Sometimes surprise was a very bad thing and not what one wanted at all.
As he stood watching her work with the others, though, he saw Reuel approach her. Resentment flooded him the moment she stopped to speak to him and before he entirely knew what he was doing, he found himself striding briskly toward the two of them. Without a great deal of surprise, he discovered the other five had fallen into step around him. Annoyance went through him, but then an idea formed.
Battle formation! She could not retreat if they cut off her retreat!
It worked very well indeed. He might have congratulated himself on it if he had not suddenly discovered that there was a fist in his throat that made it nigh impossible to swallow or speak and his mind had gone perfectly blank. Worse, a look of panic crossed her features when she discovered that they had completely surrounded her.
To his surprise, Reuel came to his aid. “Have you men decided upon a site where you will build the home that you spoke to me about for your family?”
He swallowed convulsively a couple of times, his gaze still on Chloe, but overall that was not a bad thing. She had sent Reuel a startled look when he spoke and then sent him a wide-eyed look that made him hopeful. “My woman ….”
Kane punched him in the side hard enough to jolt him.
He turned and glared at him. “Ourwoman said that she liked the beach, but we are too far away to build a home for her that looks out over the beach. This stone, I believe would work for the castle she wanted, because it looks like sand, but it is much better for building—but we cannot find a place where she would be able to see the beach. I do not know where we should build.”
Reuel nodded. “The site will be important. We are building the barracks here for now for those who have no family to claim. The city will be there,” he said, gesturing, and then turned to Chloe. “Mayhap you will help us for a little while? They can spare you from the clearing.”
Chloe gaped at him blankly when he held out his portable computer terminal. “The city plans that I have worked out are on here. If you will carry this and give us the distances, we will make a rough marking of the placement of the heart of the city and location of buildings of importance. Then we will have a better idea of where the personal residences would be located and, of course, the limits of the city if you … they are more interested in a rural setting.”
Chloe’s emotions had erupted into complete turmoil the moment she’d discovered her guys had surrounded her and she didn’t have a route of escape. She hadn’t managed to fully assimilate much of anything about the conversation but the little that she did grasp only added to her state of confusion. Hope and misery warred within her.
It wasn’t hard to find the source of the misery at all. She hadn’t felt anything else since she’d realized how totally impossible and ridiculous her dreams of settling in the colony with her guys was. On top of that was the fear that they didn’t know that she’d decided to go with Reuel and not stay—not surprising since she hadn’t had the nerve to tell them herself. Coward that she was, she’d hoped that Reuel might mention it, though, and she wouldn’t have to.
The hope was a little harder to pinpoint, but she finally realized that it hinged on the totally false assumption that they knew she’d decided not to stay and were trying to tell her that they wanted her to. She didn’t think she should feel any sort of hopefulness at all if it was only that they assumed she would because they didn’t know she’d changed her plans.
For a time, the war had her hovering on the brink of bursting into tears, but she was able to regain a modicum of composure as she walked around with them and Reuel, and he pointed out where the city’s marketing center would be, the med center, the judicial center and municipal auditorium for town meetings. To save her life, she couldn’t behave ‘normally’ around them. She was afraid to meet their gazes for fear it might encourage them to ask her questions she didn’t think she could answer without squalling.
“Now,” Reuel said several hours later, “as you can see, the city proper will take up much of the plateau with private residences spiraling out around the work center. I am certain most of our men will choose to remain soldiers—and we will certainly need a standing army when there is always the threat of our colony being found and coming under attack. There are the natives to consider, as well. We do not yet have their measure, but I anticipate hostility and territorialism so we will need to guard against attack from that direction, as well, although I believe they are primitive enough they will not be a great threat to us. The city will have patrols to keep the peace, also.
“I am thinking, though, thatfamilymen will wish to take up other occupations, however—possibly as planters since that is an occupation of importance to a colony like ours. Keeping in mind that all men will be expected to take up arms when necessary to defend the colony—would you men be considering something like that?”
