“A small plane,” Dax said. “Single engine. The flares?” He wobbled upright on his good foot and threw more wood on the fire.
She jumped from her chair and sprinted the few steps to the plane. The flares waited on the floor of the front seat where she’d put them when Dax was so sick.
She grabbed two. By then, the plane was directly overhead. She tossed a flare to Dax, lit hers as he caught his and lit it, too.
They waved the flares, yelled as loud as they could.
The plane kept on going.
They stood there, looking up, still holding the sizzling flares, waiting for the sound of it to grow louder again as it circled back. Her heart was beating so hard and fast, it felt as if it might punch through the wall of her chest.
The drone of the small engine faded away toward the north. Still, they waited. Maybe it would take a few minutes for the pilot to turn around.
More waiting. Awful, agonizing waiting.
And nothing.
They looked at each other then and both said the same really bad word at the same time.
Her heart slowed, dragging now. It found the sad rhythm of disappointment. The adrenaline spike faded, making that sick, dropping feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She stuck her still-fizzing flare in the ground and Dax did the same with his. Then she asked, hopefully, “You think they saw us?”
He shrugged. “The odds are pretty good—the clearing is highly visible from the air. Not to mention the wrecked plane, the fire. The two of us, waving our arms like mad. Plus, the flares—Yeah, I’m thinking they saw us, definitely.”
“So maybe they’ll report our location to the authorities at least?”
“I have no idea. But it is a little odd they didn’t circle back, just to make sure.”
She nodded, muttered another bad word and said half to herself, “Drug smugglers, maybe …”
He was shaking his head. “You just never know.”
She sank to her camp chair. “All these days … Monday to Sunday. Seven days—and nothing. And finally a plane goes over, and then right on by. I was kind of getting used to our situation, learning to live with it…. ”
He limped near and stood above her. “Come up here.” When she rose, he took her in his arms, kissed her hair, caught her face between his hands and kissed the tip of her nose.
She asked morosely, “Are you trying to cheer me up?”
“Is it working?”
“Well, a little …”
He held her gaze. “You’re the one who’s always reminding me that we can’t afford to let our attitudes slip.”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
“And it’s possible they didn’t need to come back around, that they have our coordinates and help will be on its way. It’s not as if anyone would try and land here unless they were in a helicopter or, like us, they had no other choice. So buck up.”
“Yes, Dax.”
“We’re going to have ourselves a great time. Fishing, swimming, having all the sex we want together. Digging for grubs and root vegetables—”
“Dax.”
“What?”
“Just leave it at the endless sex, okay? Quit while you’re ahead.”
Keeping the fire going a little higher than usual and the flares close at hand, they went about their day.
Zoe got out her cameras and carried them with her—to the river, along the other trails that led off the clearing. She didn’t want to miss her chance to get some decent pictures, in case they did get out soon.
She took a lot of photographs that day, including any number of private photos of Dax, just for herself. And she took many more that would be suitable for general distribution—not only of him, but of the shy crocodile basking in the sun on the far riverbank, of a bright blue macaw perched on a palm leaf, of the waterfall in all its churning, jeweled glory.
But no more planes went over. The rescue helicopter they hoped for never appeared. And no one came out of the jungle to tell them they were saved.
As they ate their dinner of grilled fish, steamed bamboo shoots and baked yams, he said, “It’s very possible that the people who live in this area actually know we’re here.”
She glanced around at the rim of dark trees and then called, “Hey, if you’re out there, take us to your leader! Please!”
He chuckled. “If they haven’t shown themselves so far, your shouting at them probably isn’t going to do it.”
“But why wouldn’t they show themselves?”
“How would I know? Maybe they don’t trust us, maybe others like us have made them wary—rich Anglo-Americans, who think they own the world. It’s possible they’ll decide to come forward eventually.”
“And it’s also possible there’s simply no one there.”
He shrugged, tipped his head up to the black, star-strewn sky. “Mostly, it seems that way, doesn’t? Like we’re the only two people left on Earth.”
Not much later, they crawled into the tent together. In the fading light from the fire, she took a few more private pictures of him, pictures just for herself.
And then he told her to put her camera away.
She obeyed without argument. She went into his waiting arms.
And she was set free of the thousand and one fears that haunted her constantly: that they wouldn’t be rescued, that some deadly predator would finish them off first; that some death-dealing illness or injury would befall one or the other of them, leaving only one left.
Alone.
Somehow, that terrified her the most—that something might happen to him. She would lose her only companion. Secretly, since the crash, she had prayed that if one of them had to die, it would be her.
Partly because she found she had begun to care for him way too much. And partly because she was selfish; she didn’t think she could bear being left all alone.
Yet in the tent that night, there was only his kiss, only the marvelous terrain of his fine body. Only his passion.
And hers.
After they made love, they talked. He was so easy to talk to. And here, away from SA and the constraints of his role as Dax Girard, über-rich ladies’ man and macho adventurer, he was honest with her, revealing himself in ways he might never have done back at home.
He said that his workaholic father had died of a heart attack a month after Dax got his master’s from Yale. The death of his distant yet adored dad changed everything, he said.
“All my life, I had waited, to be a grown-up, for him to respect me and pay attention to me. He died without that ever happening.”
When his father died, Dax swore he would never be like the old man, ignoring the important things, never traveling, never really enjoying any of the pleasures of life, working himself into an early grave.
She stroked his shoulder, feeling sad for him. Without a mother at five, losing his father in his early twenties. “So … who’s Nora?”
He pressed a kiss against her hair. “When did I mention Nora?”
“You called out to her, more than once, when you were so sick.”
“Nora was my wife,” he said. “We married when we were both still