Austin groaned again and gripped her shoulders, her hands hard and wonderfully demanding. Her tongue met Gem’s, hot and firm, turning the kiss into something deeper, something hungrier. Gem gripped Austin’s shirt, clinging to her. Her breasts tightened and her blood beat hard in the pit of her stomach. Her breath came faster, her head grew light. She wanted to climb into Austin’s lap and press against her. She wanted to feel her everywhere. She tugged at Austin’s shirt, found hot skin and hard muscles. She groaned.

Austin jerked back. “Gem. God. Traffic. This isn’t safe.”

“I know.” Not safe for more reasons than Gem could count. She braced her palms against Austin’s chest, holding herself away or she’d kiss her again. She gasped in a breath, another, until she felt like she could speak. “Traffic. Right. God, sorry.”

“I hope not.” Austin curved a hand behind Gem’s head and yanked her close. She kissed her hard, hard enough for Gem to open her mouth and take her in again. God, she wanted to be naked, she wanted Austin’s mouth and hands all over. She wanted in a way she hadn’t wanted since before she knew better. She got a hand between them again, stroked the few inches of skin she’d bared on Austin’s stomach. Needing to feel. Needing. Austin’s hips lifted and Gem’s vision blurred. “Okay, we need to stop.”

Austin groaned. “I know. You feel so damn good.”

“We can’t stay here. And we can’t…” Gem gestured to the front of the car and the wheel and the gearshift and the insanity of what they were doing. She laughed, her voice shaking. “And you know. We can’t.”

Austin slumped back, her hands on her thighs. “Yeah. I know. We can’t.” She glanced over, her face stark with hunger. “But I want to.”

Chapter Six

The silence stretched to fill the car, the air as thick as the swirling mist outside. Ordinarily Austin didn’t mind silence. She enjoyed the quiet, letting it give her mind a place to empty and her body to relax. So much, maybe too much, of her life was spent on the move, but she didn’t stop long enough to wonder if that was what she really wanted. She and Gem had shared long stretches of silences throughout the day, and even with the absence of words she’d been attuned to Gem’s presence—her quiet breathing, the companionship and warmth reaching her as if Gem had extended a hand to touch her. This silence was different, a chasm of uncertainty filled with all they hadn’t said. Her head pounded with her own voice and what she imagined Gem was thinking.

When in doubt, revert to talking about the weather.

“I think the fog’s lifting,” Austin said.

“We’re on a roll, then. I’m catching a cell signal,” Gem said, staring at her phone. She flicked through a few screens. “NOAA predicts a chain of fronts moving through over the next few days.” She laughed a little mirthlessly. “I believe we’re about to experience the calm before the next storm.”

“I don’t mind if it gives us a shot at getting to the coast.” Grateful for any sign of normalcy, Austin leaned over and switched to an alternate route on the GPS. “What do you think? Shall we try to skirt around this and take the coast road south? If it doesn’t work out, it could end up taking us longer.”

“I don’t mind taking a chance,” Gem said quietly.

Trying to decipher some hidden meaning to that statement and deciding anything she guessed would be wishful thinking, Austin turned off onto a local road that would take them to the shore road on the ocean side of the peninsula. During the season the narrow two-lane was congested and traffic crawled for miles as the chain of tiny coastal towns strung along the shoreline filled with tourists, but in mid-September, they were preparing for the long off-season, when many of the local stores closed, the motels shuttered, and the year-round inhabitants scrambled to make a living or went on public assistance until the tourists returned in spring along with the birds.

Birds. Gem’s passion.

“Tell me about the birds,” Austin said.

“What about them?” Gem sounded slightly suspicious, as if she couldn’t fathom why Austin would ask.

“Anything.” Anything just so I can hear your voice. Austin glanced at her, wondering if her desperation showed in her eyes and not really caring. They had so little time. She just wanted them not to be strangers for a little while longer. “Why do they migrate in the first place?”

“We don’t really know—we can only surmise from their behavior.” Gem chuckled. “Like with so many things. Anyhow, something signals them to migrate. That cue isn’t necessarily the same for every species—sometimes it’s the shortening of the day, or the change in nighttime temperatures, or a reduction in their food supply. Certainly genetics plays a part. The exact combination of factors probably varies from species to species, but even first-time migrants know where to go when the time comes.”

Despite wishing the damn birds were flying anywhere but right toward them, Austin was fascinated. By the phenomenon all on its own, and by Gem’s enthusiasm most of all. “Do they always come back to the same places when they migrate?”

“Many do—especially the long-distance migrants that travel from Canada as far south as Central America. Some locations, like the area around Rock Hill Island, are what we call migrant traps. Popular stopovers for large numbers of birds.” Gem smiled. “And of course, favorite spots for researchers, conservationists, and amateur birdwatchers.”

“Migrant traps.” Austin winced inside. Perfect. Not only did she have to worry about shore contamination, she had to deal with a threat to a pivotal location for people and wildlife.

“Mmm. That’s part of the reason we study the flyways, so we can identify these areas of high species concentration and protect them. The island sanctuary is one of the stopping points along the Atlantic Flyway.” Gem hesitated. She loved talking about birds, and she didn’t mind skirting around the topic Austin obviously didn’t want to discuss any more than she did. Like the elephant sitting in the backseat leaning over their shoulders. The kiss neither one of them wanted to acknowledge. She was grateful for the surcease. Maybe in a few more hours she’d be able to sort out her own feelings about it, but right now she was as surprised by the kiss as Austin probably was. Other than that first insane kiss with Christie ages ago, she’d never done anything so uncontrolled. And this time, she’d done it with a clear head, absolutely for herself and no one else. Unlike that first time, when she’d done it more out of desperation to save things with Paul than anything else. This time she’d kissed a woman first because she wanted to. She’d wanted to touch Austin, taste her, delve inside her. The question was why, and she hadn’t an answer. “Do you really want to hear about all this?”

Austin nodded. “I do. So, this Atlantic Flyway—I’m assuming that’s not a euphemism.”

“Not at all. There are quite a number of flyways traversing North America, well-traveled migratory pathways with established stopovers for various species. It’s made it easier for conservation groups to protect endangered species by identifying and preserving sanctuaries.”

“Like Rock Hill Island.”

“Yes—the Audubon Society has been the big mover and shaker there, but plenty of smaller groups and institutions do the same thing.”

“I remember when I was a kid,” Austin said, “watching the geese fly south in huge V-shaped formations. The sound was so amazing. I always felt a little sad—I don’t know why.” She shrugged. “Maybe I just wanted to be somewhere else too.”

The melancholy in Austin’s voice tugged at Gem’s heart. “Where was that?”

“Vermont,” Austin said. “My mother is a trauma surgeon at UVM.”

“Is that where—” Gem trailed off.

“Where I had my surgeries? Yes.”

“And now?” Gem didn’t have the right to ask, but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted—needed—to know in some deep primal place that Austin was safe.

“I’m good. Perfect health.”

Austin grinned and looked more like the charming rake she’d appeared when teasing Gem in the diner about the buxom and seductive waitress. Had that only been half a day ago? Time seemed to have fractured into before and after the kiss, and the universe had taken on a whole different color. Despite the fog, the before-kiss time had been suffused with sunlight and blue skies, at least in Gem’s imagination. The after-the-kiss was a deep purple morning sky on the edge of the sea as storm clouds rolled in. Reminding herself she loved both and never feared a gale, she went with her instincts. “It must have been really hard as a kid, though.”

The silence surged back and Gem held her breath. Their truce was so fragile, like a fledgling first attempting to fly.

“I didn’t have the stamina of other kids, so sports were out. In my family…that was tough.”

“A competitive lot?”

Austin’s laughter was sharp-edged and humorless. “About everything. My father was active Air Force and flew fighter jets in the Gulf. He met my mother there—she was Navy reserve and got called up as a medic. She got out between wars when my brother was born, but she never left the front lines. My brother’s some kind of athletic savant—he never met a sport he didn’t excel at. Got drafted to both a Major League Baseball team and the NFL. Played both for a while and finally settled on baseball. Plays for the Yankees.”

“Richie Germaine is your brother?” Now that she thought about it, she could see the resemblance. Germaine was a star on and off the field—smart, handsome, and mega-talented. He also had a world-famous model for a wife, and they were frequently the subject of media attention.

“Yep, that’s my big brother. I never could catch up in the physical arena—by the time I was finally done with the surgeries, it was too late for me and school sports.” Austin grimaced. “Or much of anything else my family valued.”