She held hands with Aidan as they crossed the bridge, walking into him when he suddenly stopped.
“What?” she said, startled. “Do you hear something?” He put his finger to her lips.
“Shh,” he said. “C’mere.” He pulled her to the side where the shadows concealed them. His voice sounded thick.
Del, Sammy, and the kids had almost reached the road.
Lucy moved closer.
Aidan traced his finger to her cheek and then to her chin. He tilted her face upward.
And then she was looking only at him, his bright eyes shadowed, the messy fall of his hair over his forehead, his wide mouth with that infuriating curl in the corner. His hand moved to the side of her face, he leaned forward, and, letting her breath leave her in a sigh, she rose onto her tiptoes to meet his lips. Her fingers tangled themselves in his hair and she pressed against him, feeling the warm solidity of his body, the crushing strength in his arm as he pulled her against him, and the doubt draining away from her, leaving nothing but happiness.
After a long minute, Aidan pulled back a little. Her lips felt bruised. She was flustered now, conscious of the tingling sensation left on her mouth, the need to keep touching him. Her mouth hardly felt as if it belonged to her anymore. He kissed the tip of her nose and, linking his hand with hers, drew her toward home.
EPILOGUE
ABOVE THE WORLD
“Do you think the rain will ever stop?” Lucy asked Aidan.
He shrugged and she gripped his arm more tightly. “Oww,” he said. “You think you could relax that death grip?”
“Did I hurt you?” she asked.
“No, I’m healed.”
“Well, you know I don’t like being up so high,” she said. Aidan shifted his back against the tree trunk.
“Come here, then,” he said, prying Lucy’s fingers from his arm and guiding her forward so that she was nestled against his shoulder. She still didn’t understand how he could be twenty-five feet off the ground and act like he was lounging on a couch, but she settled into the crook of his arm and crossed her feet on top of his legs. “So,” she said, “The rain?”
“It’s been, what? About two weeks?”
She thought back. “Ever since… you know… that night.” The night they’d escaped. The night they’d first kissed.
He yawned, stretching like a cat. Her hand tightened around his arm again. She pushed the drift of her hair away from her mouth. The canopy of this elm was so thick that the raindrops ran out of steam before they reached their branch.
“It’ll clear up any minute,” he said lazily. “Either that, or it’ll go on for months.”
She pressed her palm against his forehead. It was cool and smooth.
“I’m not sick.”
“I know, I just have to check.”
“Every day?”
“Just until I’m sure that Dr. Lessing didn’t do something to you.”
He exhaled deeply.
“Are you falling asleep?”
“Maybe. I was up at dawn hunting bunnies,” he said. “Ever since Del and Sammy left, I’ve been the guy. At least until you learn to handle a bow as well as you handle a spear.”
His lips hovered near her ear. She felt the soft shushing of his breath. A shudder went up her spine. She snuggled closer. She could hear the dull roar of the waves, the rustle of the wind. As long as she didn’t think about the ground, it was nice being up high, cradled and surrounded by thick, green leaves.
Aidan had picked his favorite tree, the elm, and his favorite place in it. At the very top. When he stood up, he said he could see fifty miles in every direction. Lucy had to take his word for it, because there was no way she was going to balance on a branch that dipped up and down under her weight, with nothing to hold on to but whiplike stems. He liked to be here at dusk, when the bullfrogs started their nightly warblings and the broken string of beacon fires along the northern route became visible.
Del had left a week ago. She’d taken the Geo Wash Bridge west, before heading due north to find the settlement up there. And surprisingly, Sammy had opted to go with her. Actually, Lucy amended, not so surprisingly. They had spent a lot of time together after they’d gotten back from the island, and Lucy had seen something in Sammy’s eyes. Del had kept herself apart from the jostle and bustle of the camp. She’d hunted, she’d helped shore up the dikes now that the canals were filled with roaring cascades of water, she’d harvested tomatoes and squash, she’d worked like she was possessed, but after the work was done, she’d disappeared to places only she knew about.
Lucy had been anxious. Mostly for Aidan. She knew what Del’s friendship meant to him.
“We talked. It’s cool,” Aidan had said. “She made a mistake. And you know, maybe I…” He’d stopped and looked at her carefully then. “Maybe I wasn’t straight with her. About you. How I felt about you. That was wrong of me.”
Lucy had dropped her eyes, suddenly shy.
“You’ll make it up to me, then?” she’d said, teasing to break the tension.
“Lucy, you know how I feel about you, right?” he whispered now.
She was breathless. “Why don’t you tell me?”
He tilted her face up. “Why don’t I show you?”
“How?” she said, fighting the urge to giggle. If she started laughing, she’d probably fall out of the tree.
“Like this,” he said, kissing the lobe of her ear. She closed her eyes, looking at him through her lashes. Her hands tightened on the tree limb. She felt dizzy all of a sudden.
“This,” he breathed, planting more kisses along her hairline. His fingers tangled with hers. She was holding on to nothing but him. He was kissing her eyelids now. Each movement of his lips made her shiver. Aidan murmured her name. She was melting. She couldn’t feel the hard bark against her hip. Nothing existed but his gentle hands and his warm lips.
“You smell like blackberries in the sun,” he said. “You taste like honey.”
He could do this for hours. Kiss every inch, every centimeter of her neck and face except for her mouth. It drove her crazy, made her want to scream Enough!
“Aidan. Aidan! I’m going to fall!”
“Hmmm,” he said, against her neck. He opened his eyes. They were sleepy, but she saw the glint that hovered in them.
Lucy leaned back in his arms and rested her head against his shoulder. Rocked in the elm’s broad branches, she felt safe. The fires weren’t visible through the heavy screen of leaves, but up above where the branches thinned were the stars. Aidan had shown her the North Star, tracing its path from the handle of the Big Dipper, which was pretty much the only constellation she could identify with any certainty. It hung low, not the brightest star, but special now after so many nights of picking it out together, as though it somehow belonged to them. “Are you sorry you didn’t go?”
He took a moment to reply. “Some day, when we’re ready. If you want to,” he said, drawing his eyebrows together. The crooked smile was still there, dancing in the corner of his mouth, but he looked serious.
Lucy followed his gaze northward.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a book is often a solitary endeavor but making it good takes many people.
A million heartfelt thanks to: Silvia Rajagopalan, Charise Isis, Alison Gaylin, Jennifer May, and Charity Valk, who were there at the beginning. Without all your enthusiasm and help it is very possible there never would have been a book.