“You can tell me. I won’t be offended. I’d be happy for you. I can even sleep in the boat as a seal. Jo-Jo loves sleeping in boats. The waves put her right out.”
“No! There’s no—” Inga lowered her voice, glancing at the door herself. Luke really should be back anytime now, unless he’d stopped to gaze at the sunset or something. “There’s no secret relationship. We really did meet by chance, I swear.”
“You expect me to believe the two of you have been sleeping in thisvery small cabinwith no?—”
The door opened just then, Luke edging in with his broad shoulders and a bucket of water that actually looked small next to his large frame.
“—with no sign at all of the missing boat, that’s right,” Inga said loudly. “And we did look. I’m so glad you showed up; we could have been stuck here for weeks if you hadn’t. When did you say you were planning on heading back?”
Nita sighed deeply, and her expression promised the conversation wasn’t over. “Tomorrow, probably. It’s difficult to be gone for too long with Jo-Jo. And I really do feel as if I’m crashing?—”
“Crashing is exactly what we hope to avoid!” Inga said brightly.
Luke cleared his throat. “So, I don’t know if you ladies have thought about sleeping arrangements at all?—”
“Oh, we have,” Nita said, with another eyebrow waggle that Inga tried to ignore.
“—but I’d be completely comfortable sleeping outside. I can just take a blanket or something.”
Nita’s mouth opened in dismay. “I absolutely am not kicking you out! I was just telling Inga I can sleep in the boat.”
“Which I was telling Nita,” Inga said between her teeth, “iscompletely unnecessary.”
“You can’t sleep in the boat with a baby when there’s a perfectly good bed up here,” Luke said, horrified.
“Thank you. That’s what I was telling her.”
Nita snorted. “Well, if everyone agrees that at the very least I’ll be sleeping up here, I’m going to make a bed for me and Jo-Jo on this bunk over here, and you all can do whatever you want with that one there.”
Inga felt her face growing hot. And her next actions were not going to cause Nita to drop her innuendo at all ... but she really needed to talk to Luke without her friend around. She collected a blanket from the other bunk.
“Luke, can we take a walk? I was just going to watch the sun set and I thought you might want to come watch it with me.”
Nita stopped making even a pretense of fixing the bed. “I really can sleep in the boat.”
“Do not sleep in the boat,” Inga ordered her. “We’ll be back soon.”
She went outside. Luke followed her, turning back to give Rogue a quiet command, and the dog stayed behind.
Inga set a leisurely pace up the hill, and Luke fell in just behind her. There was still a lingering warmth from the day, with a growing chill beginning to set in as the sun fell behind the island. The sky was turning purple.
“You know she thinks we’re—well—you know,” Luke said. “And this isn’t going to help.”
“I know. But I wanted to .... be alone, I guess.” Inga stopped at the top of the hill, looked around, and found a relatively rock-free place to spread the blanket in the lee of some boulders. If the helicopter came back before it got dark, they would have at least some cover.
“For ...?” Luke said, his voice rising in a question. He stayed at the top of the path, making no move to join her when Inga sat on the blanket.
“Just to watch the sunset,” Inga said. “Look, it’s occurred to me that when Nita leaves tomorrow, one way or another, I’m going with her. I really hope you’ll come, but—if you don’t, this might be our last chance to ... anyway, do you want to come and sit with me?”
After a long pause, he came over and sat on the blanket next to her. He wasn’t touching her, but if he moved a little, his hip would be brushing hers.
They sat together for a little while, as the purple shadow of dusk moved up the western sky.
“That’s the shadow of the planet, you know,” Inga said, pointing to the sky. “I’ve always loved knowing that. I love that about the ocean in general. You can actually see the curve of the world. It makes me feel like I’m connected to the whole universe sometimes, living where the sea is so much a part of my life. Does that sound strange?”
“Not at all,” Luke said quietly. “I wish I had that.”
Inga glanced at him. His arms were resting over his knees, and he seemed relaxed, more so than she had seen him since Nita showed up. Just verytherein the moment. This was a thing Inga had noticed with other shifters, that they were present in the world in a way that many humans weren’t. Simply existing in the moment, as it seemed. Luke didn’t have that quality very often, which made sense now that she knew more about his past. But he was like that now, quiet and calm and present.
