The Scent of Jasmine (Edilean 4)

ween us is better now.”

Lifting up, she looked into his eyes. Their bodies were naked, and they were snuggled together in the tall grasses about a mile from the camp. Tomorrow they’d reach the trading post, and a new portion of their journey would begin. “What if we never went back?”

“You mean never leave this paradise and never return to people and noise?”

Around them the birds and the ever-present alligators were nearly deafening. Smiling, she put her head back down on his shoulder. “I just have a feeling that something is going to happen.”

Alex started to say some words to quieten her worries but decided instead to tell the truth. “Me, too. But maybe I feel that way because of what went on before. Just when I thought I had everything, it was all taken from me.” What he wasn’t telling her was that he had that indefinable feeling that he’d inherited from his mother. Something was about to change. Whether it was for good or bad, he didn’t know. It had always puzzled him that he hadn’t had a premonition about his wife’s death.

Cay was silent for a moment. “Do you wish you hadn’t been through all this?”

“Of course! The stench of that jail cell will haunt me for the rest of my life. What was said about me at the trial, no man should have to hear, and—” He stopped talking when Cay sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just getting cool is all.” She began to wrap the cloth about her breasts.

“I wish you didn’t have to wear that thing.” Alex helped her fasten it. “If it weren’t for Tim, I think you could wear your ball gown and the others wouldn’t be surprised.” When Cay still didn’t say anything, he turned her to look at him. “Something’s bothering you, so out with it.”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s just that if all of . . . of what happened, hadn’t, you and I wouldn’t have met.”

When she looked at him, he knew what she was saying. She was asking him if he wished he had Lilith back rather than her. But how could Alex answer that? Lilith had been his wife. True, it was for a very short time, but they had loved each other from the first moment they saw one another. There was something about that initial feeling of love that overshadowed the more realistic relationship that he and Cay had.

Pulling away from him, Cay slipped her arms into her shirt. “She was your wife and you loved her. I understand. Would you please hand me my shoes?”

“We aren’t going to have another fight, are we? You aren’t going to stop speaking to me again, are you?”

“No,” she said as she kissed him softly on the lips. “In fact, I don’t think I’m ever going to do that again. The next time you do something I don’t like, I think I’ll punch you in your old, ugly face.”

Alex smiled as he lowered his eyelids and looked up at her in the way that had made many women forgive him for whatever he’d done. “Is that so? Old and ugly, am I?”

“Warthogs are prettier than you. And if you don’t quit looking at me like that, I’ll put that yellow flower under Tim’s pillow, the one that makes him sneeze. He’ll be wheezing all night long.”

Alex stopped his seductive looks and lay back on the grass, groaning. Since he and Cay had made up from their argument, she’d not moved back into his tent. Eli had said to Alex, “I think it’s your turn to sleep with the boy,” and his eyes said that he wasn’t going to give in.

Alex didn’t tell Cay, but he thought Eli’s stance had something to do with the fact that Alex and Cay had made love in the tent next to Eli’s. To hide his embarrassment, Alex had turned away. “You win,” he said to Cay. “I can’t stand the boy’s whistles, much less his sneezes.” Twice, Tim’s very loud sneezes had frightened flocks of birds out of overhead trees—and the people below had been cascaded by a rain of feathers and other not-so-pleasant droppings. “I hope we never fight again.”

“So do I,” Cay responded, but her voice was less hopeful. She wasn’t sure why, but she was dreading tomorrow. It wouldn’t be their little group of people, but there would be strangers at the trading post—and strangers carried news. She worried that fellow explorers had been to the settlement where Thankfull lived and asked questions. If law enforcement people knew Alex had gone into the swamps, maybe they’d do whatever was necessary to get there ahead of him, and they’d be waiting for him.

“Don’t look so glum,” Alex said as he put his arm around her. “You could always go back to those men who asked you to marry them. Now what were their names?” Laughing, he walked ahead of her.

“Alex,” she whispered. “They were all named Alex.”

“I know him,” Alex said, and his breath was so tight that Cay could hardly hear him. They’d arrived at the trading post two hours before, but both Cay and Alex had hesitated. They’d taken a long time to adjust the moorings of the boat, and Cay had made the excuse that she wanted to see to her drawings. Tim ran off the second the boat touched land. After where they’d been, the trading post, with its half a dozen small houses nearby, looked like a big city. Mr. Grady and Eli had also paused, but after a while, they went ahead, but they walked slowly and looked closely at everyone who passed them.

After a couple of hours and no one had run toward them with guns and handcuffs, Alex and Cay decided to go into the long, low building that was the center of the tiny settlement. It was where men came to take the furs they’d collected to exchange for goods and cash from the trader. He would then sell the trappings to the men who came down the river, and eventually, the furs would end up on the back of some rich woman in New York.

But when Alex and Cay cautiously entered the post, Alex had turned pale, whispered, “I know him,” and quickly left. The young man behind the counter looked up from the bird feathers he was counting—to be used on ladies’ hats—and saw only Cay. He looked her up and down, as though trying to remember if he’d seen her before, then went back to the feathers. Mr. Grady and Eli stood to one side, mugs of cider held to their lips, watching what was going on around them.

Cay slipped back out the door and began running, looking frantically for Alex. She found him sitting on a log not far from the boat.

“Who is he?” she asked as she sat down beside him. She was trying to remain calm, but her heart was beating in her throat.

“Believe it or not, he’s one of the rich boys from the race track.”

“Did you take much money from him?”

“What does that mean? You sound like I robbed him.”

“Some gamblers feel that way. I want to know what we’re up against, that’s all.”