Bay of Sighs (The Guardians Trilogy 2)

As Sawyer slid the knife home again, Doyle sauntered forward. “Hell of an offer you just turned down. I don’t know whether to admire or pity your willpower.”

“Neither do I.”

“I’d tell you to try a cold shower, but you’re already dripping. Taking a chance shifting down to the sea. Then again,” Doyle added when Sawyer remained silent, “even admirable or pitiable willpower only goes so far.”

“I think I liked you better when you didn’t say much of anything.”

“Can’t blame you.” As he passed to go inside, Doyle gave Sawyer a friendly punch on the arm.

For himself, Sawyer decided to stay outside, and drip, a few minutes longer.

At least he didn’t have breakfast duty, and considering the hike ahead of them, no calisthenics at dawn. He made up an hour of the sleep he’d lost in the night trying not to dream of a naked Annika.

He figured coffee would do the rest.

In the kitchen, Bran cooked his one and only breakfast specialty—a full fry. Since Sawyer had no complaints, he grunted a greeting, grabbed a mug for coffee.

“Ready here in ten minutes,” Bran told him. “Doyle wants to be off as soon as we’ve cleaned our plates.”

“I’m ready.” Literally, as he’d spent some of the restless night ordering his pack. “Need help here?”

“Under control.”

“Then I’m taking this outside.”

He stepped out, and there was Annika, dressed for the day in cargo pants and boots and a tie-dyed tee she’d wanted because she’d thought it looked like rainbows. She sang under her breath as she created one of her tablescapes. A pyramid of juice glasses had chains of little flowers and clover spilling out of them and into a pool at the base.

At the base stood what he thought were figures she’d fashioned out of toothpicks, leaves, more clover.

As he started over, she looked up.

“Good morning!” She ran to him, jumped into his arms. The kiss managed to be as bright as a May morning and dark as midnight.

“Wow.” Riley came out with her own coffee. “What did I miss?”

“Sawyer kissed me.”

“Yeah, got that. Congrats. Slow and steady wins the race, huh, cutie?” she said to Sawyer.

He wasn’t feeling slow or steady at the moment, so just sat down. Natural, he decided. Everybody should just act natural.

“Flowerfall?”

“Yes! And we’re all having a holiday. See, the mirror it sits on is the Island of Glass, and we can have one perfect day after we find the stars, take them back.”

“I could do with a perfect day,” Riley decided.

“It will be. I wanted to make a garden, but we don’t have time.”

“A flowerfall’s its own garden.”

Pleased with Sawyer’s comment, Annika lifted her face to the sun. “Maybe this will be a perfect day.”

If perfect days included hard, sweaty climbs, this one qualified.

“The Phoenician Steps.”

As Sasha stared up, and up, Riley grinned. “Named so because they once thought the Phoenicians built them. Now we know they’re courtesy of the ancient Greeks. And,” she continued as they started the climb, “were once the only way to access Anacapri. Remember, when you start to huff and puff, when your quads start to whimper, the women who used to have to go up and down them, nearly a thousand steps each way, to get water, carried that filled jug on their head all the way up again.”