By some radar between them, some tacit agreement, neither of them mentioned the line they had just crossed, the forbidden terrain they had let themselves stumble into.
She waited for him to turn, to lead the way back to the water.
He said, “We can leave the wood here. But nothing else.” Any meat could be gone before they returned, carried off by scavengers. “Take the fish.”
She bent down and picked up the stick with the two fish dangling from it. He got his knife from where he’d dropped it, wiped it on his pant leg and returned it to its sheath. He felt around among the twisting roots that crisscrossed the trail until he found the pole and his walking stick.
And then he picked up the snake and wrapped it around his neck.
She gasped. “Wh—what are you doing?”
“It’s meat, Zoe. It’s protein.” He found the severed head, tossed it into the trees.
“Ugh.”
He arched a brow, suggested hopefully, “Tastes like chicken.”
“Ugh,” she said again. But she didn’t argue. “Can we go?”
“After you.” He wobbled upright and moved aside, settling the dead reptile more comfortably around his neck. The damn thing had to be eight feet long.
She slipped around him soundlessly, giving him as wide a berth as possible on the narrow trail, and headed back the way they’d come.
He caught her arm when they reached the pool. “Don’t go in.”
She turned and looked at him, a watchful look, and then carefully freed herself from his grip. “Because?”
“There could be piranhas.”
She made a scoffing sound. It reassured him, to see her confident, take-charge nature reasserting itself. “If there were, don’t you think we would know by now?”
“They attack when there’s blood in the water.”
The nearly full moon shone down on them now. He could see her pretty face clearly. The snake’s blood on her cheek looked black in the moonlight. “Ah.” And she nodded. “Okay.”
So she set the fish aside and crouched on the rock to scoop water into her palms and scrub at her cheeks, her arms and neck. He washed, too, awkwardly, with only one good ankle to support his crouching weight, the other leg stretched out and aching a little, growing tired from all the activity that day.
They rose without speaking. She took up the fish. He hung the snake around his neck again, grabbed his pole and his walking stick. They headed, once more, into the trees.
The fish was good.
The snake meat was better.
They ate their fill. He felt stronger almost instantly, his body grateful for the much-needed protein.
After the meal, she changed the bandage on his forehead. Then, with his bad leg propped and resting, he cut the rest of the snake meat into strips. Since they both agreed he should try and stay off his weak ankle, he had Zoe dig a pit close to the plane and then shovel in hot coals from the campfire. At his instruction, she got a canvas poncho from his suitcase and the spare campfire rack from the bottom of the box in the baggage area.
She slanted him a look when she brought out the rack. “I can’t believe you thought to store these racks in there.”
He shrugged. “If you cook over a campfire, you need something to put the meat on.”
She did the rest, following his instructions, laying out the meat so the smoke would cure it, keeping the fire low. The poncho went on top, positioned with just enough ventilation to make it nice and smoky inside.
He had her find another piece of wing to lean against the fuselage, thus protecting the pit from the afternoon rains. They would have to check the fire in there regularly, keep it going, but not too high.
“How long will it take?” she asked.
“A couple of days. The dried meat will be good for about a week. When the snake is cured, we can smoke fish, too—though with the river nearby, I don’t really think we need to.”
She dropped into the chair beside him. “You’re very convenient to have around.”
“Back at ya, and then some.” They shared one of those looks that said everything they couldn’t quite say aloud.
It was getting late by then. The moon rode high over the clearing and the fire kept the bugs at bay. For a while, neither of them spoke. He was avoiding climbing back into the plane and trying to sleep in the backseat that had been his sickbed. Would she sleep in the tent? He didn’t remember where she’d slept those first few nights, but last night she’d left him and taken the tent.
She was looking at him again.
He met her watchful gaze. “What?”
“We might never get back to SA, you know.”
“We will.” As he said the words, he realized he believed them. “And didn’t we agree not to play the what-if game?”
She waved a hand. “That was when you were blaming yourself. This is … well, you know, just getting real.”
“We’ll get back. That’s real.”
“And you know this, how?”
“We might have both been born of money, grown up having it easy, but that doesn’t make us any less tough and smart. We’re survivors. We have tools, the right clothing, decent footwear. And in terms of abundant food sources, getting stranded in the jungle is not a bad choice. If nobody comes to find us, when my ankle is healed enough, we’re going to walk out of here. Our chances are good. Better than good.”
She studied his face. He wondered what she was seeking. “If—when we get back, I want my job, Dax.”
He swore low. “Come on. I may be fatheaded and overbearing, but I know quality help when I have it. Did I say something to make you think I wasn’t aware of your value to me and to Great Escapes?”
“You kissed me.”
So that was it. “A lapse. I apologize.”
“Why apologize? I kissed you back.” She licked her lips, as if the taste of him lingered. “And I liked it when you kissed me. I liked it a lot.”
So much frankness made his breath catch and heat pool in his groin. He said, rough and low, “We have an understanding. I’ve been trying to abide by it. You’re not helping me to keep it, when you talk like this, when you look at me that way.”
She refused to look away. “It’s so simple now, here. I see everything through a lens of that simplicity, of the need to survive. I see that there are a thousand ways to die here. I see that we’re something else to each other, here. Something important. We are each other’s survival, each other’s lifeline. And if you’re wrong and I do die here, I don’t want to die regretting the fact that I never made love with you.”
He clutched the aluminum arms of the chair to keep from reaching for her and he said, with careful coolness, “I feel the same. But it’s okay. You’re not going to die. I thought I just explained that.”
She smiled. How could a smile be that sad and at the same time that full of primal knowledge? And then she broke the searing gaze they shared and stared into the fire. After a minute, in a voice barely above a whisper, she spoke again, “I used to think you were trying purposely to tempt me.”
“Yeah, well. You thought right. And you never gave in, were never anything but beautiful and charming, quick with the comebacks—and strictly professional.”
“We could make another agreement … for now, while we’re