The Scent of Jasmine (Edilean 4)

Alex bent as though to kiss her again, but they heard a voice and he straightened up. With a regretful look, he dropped her hand, and they entered the camp.

Nineteen

It was three days since the first time they’d made love, and Cay was sitting by the side of a little pond, her feet dangling, her legs bare. She was wearing only her shirt, and it was unbuttoned down the front. Alex was just a few feet away, holding long leather bags up to a little stream of fresh water coming from a rock. He was wearing only his underdrawers, so his upper half was naked. She looked at the back of him, at the way his skin played over the muscles of his body, and she wanted to touch him, to put her mouth on his, to do all the things they’d been doing for the last few days.

On the morning after their first night together, he’d had a talk with her about the possibility of conception.

“Then you’ll have to marry me,” Cay said.

The only sign he gave as to a reaction to this announcement was a flicker of his eyes. “But what if my name isn’t cleared? You can’t live with a criminal all your life. I may have to go back to Scotlan

d.”

Cay decided to display as little emotion as he did, so she made no comment on the fact that they’d just agreed to get married. “Could you bear living with my father’s clan, the McTerns?”

He smiled at her. “Have you fallen in love with me, lass?”

She didn’t want to say what she felt about him, but then, the truth was that she wasn’t sure of her own feelings. All her life she’d known what she wanted and what kind of man would fulfill her dreams, but Alex was far and away from being that sort of man. On the other hand, she deeply enjoyed his company.

But then there was Lilith. As far as Cay could tell, Alex thought the woman was perfect. She’d had no flaws, not even any annoying personality quirks that mortals have. In Alex’s eyes, Lilith was the epitome of all that a woman should be. That he didn’t know much about her didn’t seem to bother him.

Cay knew that if she and Alex did come through all this together, even if they married and had a dozen children, she’d never live up to his memories of his first wife. The wondrous, beautiful, perfect Lilith would always be between them. The woman he’d lost. The great love of his life. The woman he’d fallen in love with at first glance.

Cay drew the name Lilith in the mud by the pond with a stick, then pulled the stick across it, making deep furrows.

“They’re full,” Alex said, a water skin in each hand.

Looking up, she had to laugh. His beautiful body was nearly naked, but his face was still covered by a bushy, untrimmed beard.

“And what amuses you so much, lass?” He walked across the rocks to get to her, put the sacks down, and began to dress. Around them, the alligators made their deep cries, and the birds were settling into the trees for the evening. By nightfall, all the trees would be so full of birds you’d hardly be able to see the leaves. At the camp, the tents were set up, and Eli, Mr. Grady, and Tim awaited them.

“You and that beard. Don’t you think it’s time you shaved it off?” When he sat down beside her, she put her hand behind his head and kissed his eyelids. “Or are you hiding something under there? Maybe you don’t want me to see how ugly you are. Is that it?”

“How can I compete with Grady?”

Groaning, Cay pulled away from him. “You aren’t going to start that again, are you?”

“How can I not?” Alex said. “All day on the boat it’s ‘Mr. Grady this’ and ‘Mr. Grady that.’ You never stop. And the way you look at him! I swear, lass, that today I nearly shoved the man overboard.”

“Did you?” She was smiling. “There’s no reason to be jealous. He’s my boss, and I have to please him.”

“Please him?”

“With my drawings. He likes what I do, don’t you think?”

“I think he likes too much about you,” Alex muttered.

“If he likes me but thinks I’m a boy, that doesn’t say much for his manliness, now does it?”

“As for that, I’m not so sure they do.”

“Do what?”

Alex stood up to finish dressing. “Think you’re a boy.”

“You couldn’t think they know I’m . . .”

“I’m not sure. They certainly don’t seem to mind when you and I slip away for hours each evening when I do my best to satisfy your insatiable lust.”