“Hey,” Gem called.

Emily bounced to her feet. Small, red haired, and blue eyed, she exuded energy twenty-four hours a day, even when she was sleeping, as Gem had discovered when they’d shared quarters in the past. Emily tended to talk in her sleep.

“Gem.” Emily, dressed for fieldwork in tan cargo pants and a T-shirt proclaiming Love a Sea Turtle in pastel pink, opened her arms wide and hugged Gem for a long moment. “You made it. I didn’t expect to see you until later today, if then.”

Joe, a heavyset middle-aged guy with close-cut salt-and-pepper hair and a wide broad face with a slightly off-center nose and a C-shaped scar over his left cheek that betrayed his college boxing days, grinned and waved. “Great to see you.”

Gem kissed Emily’s cheek and waved back to Joe. “Believe it or not, I drove. Well, I didn’t, but I grabbed a ride with someone who did.”

“Wow,” Emily said, “that must’ve been one hell of a trip in that storm.”

Gem felt her face color and hoped they wouldn’t notice. Yes, it’d been one hell of a trip.

❖

Austin sat on the side of the bed with the echo of Gem’s fading steps resonating in her thoughts. She’d been there awhile, long after the sound of the car starting and Gem leaving had succumbed to the silence. Her mind was uncomfortably absent the usual whirlwind of ideas and schedules and seething have-tos, the myriad responsibilities that drove her days and kept her from examining the totality of her life. Now she was left with only the memories of the day before—snippets of conversation, the glimmer of amusement in Gem’s eyes when she teased, the lift of her breasts and curve of her mouth when she threw her head back in ecstasy. As Austin focused on the images, she realized Gem was all she could think of and all she wanted to think of.

Fingers itching, Austin rummaged through her leather satchel, pulled out her pad, and found a drawing pencil in the side pocket. Rapidly she sketched the picture emblazoned on her brain—Gem straddling her, hands gripping Austin’s thighs, her torso arched in an elegant C, her neck taut, head thrown back, and hair flying. Gem uncaged, powerful and free and heart-stopping. The lines and shadows came rapidly as her hand raced over the page, driven with the kind of urgency that usually drove her in other ways. What compelled her now was not the need for success, or proving herself, or winning anyone else’s approval. This passion was born of gratitude, wonder, and supreme pleasure. When her hand finally stilled, she looked at what she had done and her chest filled. Yes, that was Gem—stunning and surprising and like no other. Austin captioned the drawing Wonder, signed and dated it.

No one else would ever see it, the image was too personal, but she wanted her stamp on it in a way she’d wished she’d been able to leave her stamp on Gem. Even now, a flood of possessiveness and desire burned so hot inside her she didn’t even have to ask if she’d ever felt that way before. She knew she hadn’t. She wasn’t done wanting to touch her again, and feared she might never be. Gem set off a storm within her to seek and claim and possess. She never wanted anyone else to see the woman she had drawn. She had no right to feel that way, but there it was. The ache in her depths was as much pleasure as pain, discovery and loss all wrapped up in one.

Carefully, she closed the pad and stored it back in her case, stripped, showered, and dressed in khakis, clean socks, her boots that had finally dried, and a dark-blue cotton polo shirt. She pulled on her windbreaker and carried her duffel down to the car. Half an hour later she took a seat on a stool at the counter in the small diner in the center of town. A blowsy bottle-blonde with teased curls and a wide smile, tight T-shirt cut dangerously low, and tighter jeans sashayed over with the menu in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other.

“Good morning, stranger,” the blonde said, pouring coffee without being asked.

“It’s not raining, so it must be,” Austin said. “I don’t need a menu. I’ll take the special with bacon, eggs over easy, and wheat toast.”

“You got it.” The blonde leaned an elbow on the counter, giving Austin a panoramic view down her shirt. “Just get in this morning? Are the planes flying again?”

“I don’t know.” Austin focused on adding cream to the coffee and avoiding the show, which she wasn’t sure wasn’t deliberate. She sipped. Hot and strong, just the way she liked it. Which she pointedly did not say. “I got in last night. Drove.”

The blonde’s eyebrows rose. “You must have some cojones, then.”

Austin grinned. What the hell. “They’ll do.”

“I’ll just bet.” The blonde chuckled, shouted Austin’s order to the fry cook, and swiveled away to refill the cups of the other three people at the counter. The booths along the front windows were empty. Austin found a day-old newspaper in a rack by the door and read it while she ate her breakfast. She didn’t really absorb any of the news, but it kept her mind off Gem for a few minutes at a time. In between recaps of the coming storms, local crime stats, and high school sports scores, she’d picture Gem’s face when she was about to climax or hear her urgent cries or feel the press of her breasts, and a hard knot twisted in her stomach. Gem had held nothing back, at least in those moments, and neither had she. But she had at other times.

She hadn’t lied, but she hadn’t admitted the facts she knew would push Gem away. She had reasons for not revealing what had brought her to Rock Hill Island, good reasons for it, but after the night they’d spent together, those rationales echoed hollowly even to her. With a sigh, she left a twenty by her plate, finished the coffee, and headed for the door.

“Stay dry,” the blonde called after her.

Austin drove to the airport and arrived twenty minutes early. She made arrangements with the ticket agent—singular—for the airline, who doubled as a representative for the rental agency, to keep the car another week. At 9:55 she walked out behind the terminal to the far end of the runway and waited. At 9:59 the chop chop chop of an approaching helicopter signaled the end of her journey with Gem and the beginning of the job. The bird set down, the side door slid open, and a flight jockey she didn’t recognize signaled her to come aboard. Austin lowered her head and ran across the tarmac. As she climbed aboard, she carefully relegated the moments spent with Gem to the private vault of forsaken dreams that seemed to grow ever larger with each passing year.

Chapter Twelve

Joe rinsed his coffee cup in the small sink and turned it upside down on the drain board. “I’m going out for a look-see while the weather holds.”

“Good idea,” Emily said. “The beaches along the causeway really took a beating, and I’m worried about the nesting areas. I ought to head out too.” She turned to Gem. “I guess you probably want to get settled after the trip you had getting here.”

Gem finished off a powdered-sugar doughnut, eating it more for the energy boost than the taste, and dusted off her hands on a paper napkin. “Actually, I’m pretty keyed up. I wouldn’t mind getting a look around myself.”

“How about we meet at the Point in half an hour or so? That will give you a chance to get your gear out to your cabin.”

“What’s the situation with the trails?”

“Everything was underwater last night,” Emily said. “I couldn’t get out to my place until this morning.” She laughed. “You’ll probably be okay, but I hope you’ve got high boots in your gear.”

“I’ll send up a flare if I get stuck,” Gem called as she walked out into a still-rainless morning.

She drove to where the road ended in a makeshift, sandy parking lot, dragged her gear out of the car again, and set off down a winding footpath that ran through the scrub paralleling the shoreline. Off to the right, the wetlands were dotted with small ponds and connecting streams, where freshwater met sea. Her cabin was the farthest in the chain of half a dozen, about a mile’s easy hike from the parking area. She had learned to pack very efficiently, with an emphasis on raingear, serviceable shirts and jeans, and plenty of warm socks. The nights would be cold and if the rain continued, which it often did under the best of circumstances, she’d be changing her footwear frequently. She also had her cameras, spotting scopes, laptop, and electronic data bands for tagging fledglings in a waterproof bag in her duffel.

As she walked along, a pleasant sweat breaking on her neck, her thoughts kept returning to Austin—was she already caught up in her work, was she thinking about Gem, had she already forgotten last night? Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to believe the night had meant nothing more to Austin than a quick physical encounter. On the surface, it was exactly that, but nothing between them had been on the surface from the beginning. But maybe that was just her. Austin had broken her defenses and slipped inside. She felt her still, the memory a warm thrill brimming just beneath her skin.

A heron flew up with a startled cry, its wings spread wide, gracefully beating on the cold, clear air as it tried to distract her from its nest.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be disturbing anything.” She followed its path for a while, reminded of the fragile balance between man and nature, nowhere more critical than right here. The sanctuary provided a layer of protection to the wildlife and plant species, but nothing could completely safeguard against predators and hapless humans. The conservationists fought a never-ending battle with the wind and sea to prevent erosion of the key areas, fencing vulnerable nesting grounds and routing tourist traffic along paths where they’d do the least damage. She and her fellow researchers did their best not to disrupt any of the life-forms they studied, but their very presence was a disturbance.