he said. “It’s a moral dilemma: Do you tell the public something they’d find appalling? Or do you let them go on believing what they need to?”
He shook his head. “Makes you wonder about Darwin,” he said.
But no matter how much time I spent with Alex, Connor was the focus of my dreams at night. I had linked the two of them in my mind.
I would fall asleep thinking of Alex and wake with Connor’s name on my lips, as if Connor, jealous, had started threading his way into my subconscious. One night my dream was so vivid that when I woke up I could still feel Connor’s breath on my cheek, and this worried me.
Most of the time, Connor left me on my own. But when he thought I was in trouble, he was harder to shake than my own shadow.
WE WERE WALTZING AROUND THE PERIMETER OF THE SHALLOW POND behind the lodge, keeping time to the sounds of an African night. “I can’t keep up with you,” I said, breathless. “You’re going too fast.”
“You’re going too slow.” Alex whirled me around a curve, lifting me off the cool, dark ground. As he set me back on my bare feet, my ankle buckled, and I pulled him with me to roll down a gentle slope.
With every turn his body braced mine, or mine supported him, a sensuous volley of power. We landed with our fingertips inches from the muddy water, Alex tangled beneath me.
I tentatively rested my head on his chest. With the exception of that first goodnight kiss, this was the most bodily contact Alex and I had had. It was difficult to know what he wanted of me. Alex was friendly, open, but not physical. I wasn’t sure if he was taking it slow; if he was taking itanywhere. As for me, well, I was hoping for more. In fact, I had braced myself for a one-night stand, and during the past week I had almost convinced myself that this would be all right, but Alex made no moves of seduction. More often than not, I reached out for Alex under all kinds of pretenses, shamelessly trying to prevent him from keeping his distance.
I breathed in the scent of his soap and his sweat. “Sorry,” I murmured. “Ballroom dancing was never my forte.”
Alex laughed, a deep rumbling sound against my ear. “It’s an acquired talent,” he said. “My mother used to make me take classes twice a week. I hated it—those white gloves and overperfumed fat girls who stepped on my feet—but damned if I don’t still remember every step we ever learned.”
I smiled into his shirt. “You must have had an unconscious wish to escort a debutante. Or be Arthur Murray.”
Alex smirked. “Not likely.” He gently stroked my hair, and I curled into the contact. “I think my body just liked the exercise.”
He had told me several nights before about being born with a hole in his heart, about not being able to run and play until he was nearly eight. “Imagine that,” Alex had said dryly. “A romantic hero with a broken heart.”
I had heard the weariness in his voice, the pain of a little boy who saw himself as defective and did everything in his power to compensate for his weakness. I wondered why he had mentioned this to me. I let myself pretend it was because he thought I’d truly understand.
As I closed my eyes against his chest, remembering, Alex stiffened and sat up. I looked away, ashamed that I had made him uncomfortable by holding him. I shook my head, cataloguing the reasons Alex Rivers did not want—did not need—someone as inexperienced as I was.
Alex turned toward me. “There have been a lot of women,” he said carefully, “but I don’t let anyone get close. You need to understand that. The truth is, I don’t want to be disappointed again. Not by someone else’s shortcomings, and especially not by my own. So I act like it’s not that important.” He shook his head. “Cassie,” he said, “I’m so damn tired of acting.”
Moving on instinct, I leaned toward Alex and slipped my hand under his shirt. He was telling me what I had no right to expect, although I knew it was far too late. I had not been in many relationships, but I had had Connor, so I understood that this was how it all started. You fell in love with someone because of the tilt of his smile, or because he could make you laugh, or in this case, because he made you believe that you were the only one who could save him. When it finally came, it might be a one-night stand for Alex, but not for me. By then I would have given him too much.
I heard Alex’s quick draw of breath as my skin skimmed over his and settled, palm placed against his chest. I smiled into his eyes as I held his heart in my hand.
SUNDAY WAS THE DAY OFF FOR THE CAST AND CREW, ALTHOUGH leisure time in Tanzania left much to be desired. I was sitting on a swing in the shade, when Alex slid an arm around my waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
And it really was beginning to feel like that. I had all but abandoned theUCLAsite. After that night on the edge of the pond where Alex had set the terms for a relationship, we were inseparable. In fact, Alex and I had been together so frequently that when he was missing, people on the crew came up to ask me if I knew where he was. I had felt a little uncomfortable at first, the way he’d so easily drape his arm over my shoulder while I was demonstrating how to clean a fragment; or the way, in front of everyone, he’d tell me what time to meet him for dinner.
He reminded me of primate studies of territoriality I’d followed: males conspicuously leaving their mark to let others know where they weren’t welcome.
But on the other hand, no one had ever been so possessive of me that they’d tried to stake a claim, however temporary. And, well, it felt good.
Ilikedknowing that in the morning, I was the first person Alex would seek out. I liked kissing him goodnight and knowing a passerby in the hall had seen us. I was acting like a teenager for the first time in my life.
Alex drew me closer. “I have a surprise,” he said, whispering the words against my ear. “We’re going on safari.”
Immediately, I pulled away and stared at him. “We’re doing what?”
Alex smiled. “Safari,” he said. “You know, lions and tigers and bears, pith helmets and ivory poachers. Things like that.”
“No one poaches ivory anymore,” I said. “The only thing they’ll let you shoot with is a camera.”
Alex stood, pulling me to my feet. “Well, I for one am sick of cameras. I’m all for taking it in with the eyes.”
I followed him, already picturing the rolling Serengeti, the slowmoving herds stirring breezes. A single black jeep was waiting at the foot of the porch, and a slight native with a brilliant white smile offered his hand to help me climb in. “Cassie,” Alex said, “this is Juma.”
