Zoe stripped down and soaked in the big tub again—because it was there, because she could. The bed was soft as a cloud, the sheets about a gazillion thread count. She felt light-years away from the tent in the jungle.
And achingly lonely for Dax’s body pressed close to hers.
She knew his room number, but she didn’t go to him. She didn’t pick up the phone to call him—or if she did, she set it quietly back in its cradle without dialing.
This was the toughest part: tonight, the next night.
Maybe for a week or two. Gradually, it would get easier. She wouldn’t yearn for his arms around her, for the touch of his lips on hers, for the feel of his breath as it stirred her hair.
She wouldn’t miss him so desperately. These needful feelings would pass. She would be fine.
If she had learned nothing else from the jungle ordeal, she had learned that she knew how to endure.
The next day, Wednesday, her dad had one of the BravoCorp jets take them back to San Antonio.
There were reporters waiting on the tarmac when they landed. The media wanted the scoop on Dax Girard’s latest big adventure, on the thrilling rescue of a daughter of one of San Antonio’s first families. For ten minutes or so, they answered shouted questions, about what it had been like, how they had lived through it and what they had felt when help came at last.
When the reporters finally let them pass, Dax left her without a soft word or a single touch—which was fine, she told herself. Just what she wanted. They were back to life as they had known it before the crash.
“Take the rest of the week off,” he commanded. “Catch up on whatever you need to catch up on. I’ll expect you back in the office bright and early Monday morning.”
As if. “Thanks. I would like a day. So I’ll take tomorrow for myself, if that’s all right with you.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Good, then. See you Friday.” He turned to shake her father’s hand and to kiss her mother’s cheek. “Davis, thank you for everything. And Aleta, what can I say?”
Her mom beamed up at him. “You can say that you’ll come to dinner at our family’s ranch, Bravo Ridge. Sunday afternoon about three? Let my family show their appreciation for what good care you took of Zoe.”
He smiled his killer smile. “I think it was the other way around, to be honest. She took care of me.”
Her mom was not letting him charm his way out of her invitation. “Please. Sunday? Zoe will give you directions.”
Zoe tried to help him say no. “Mom, come on. He’s a busy man and—”
He didn’t let her finish. “You know, I think I would enjoy that. Absolutely, I’ll be there.” Did he slant Zoe a challenging glance?
She had no idea because she refused to look at him. “Well, okay, then,” she chirped out, falsely bright. “Great.”
“See you Friday,” he said again, speaking directly to Zoe that time.
She made herself meet his eyes. It wasn’t easy. “Thank you, Dax. For everything.”
“Nothing to thank me for.” His voice was brusque. “We both know that. Without you, I’d be dead.”
She thought of that giant snake dropping out of the trees above her head and suppressed a shudder. “Back at ya.” They were the words they had said to each other in the jungle. And they came out in a near-whisper.
He nodded and ducked into the limo that waited for him.
“What an amazing man,” said her mother as the big, black car rolled off. She turned to Zoe with her most loving, coaxing smile. “Come on to the ranch with us, just for an hour or two? The family will have gathered to welcome you home.”
She couldn’t refuse an invitation like that, even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t. “Of course. I would love it. I can’t wait to see everyone.”
So they drove out to Bravo Ridge.
The whole family was there. When their driver pulled to a stop in front of the wide-spaced white pillars that lined the long verandah, the front door opened and everyone came pouring out.
It was 2:00 p.m. on a weekday, but each of her hard-charging brothers had taken the afternoon off to see her safe at home again—even Travis, who hardly ever came in from his latest oil derrick. He’d driven up from the Gulf just to give his baby sister a hug.
Zoe was handed from one set of loving arms to the next.
Her niece, Kira, even demanded a big hug of her own. She held up her sweet little arms. “Aunt Zoe, Aunt Zoe, me, too! I missed you. I was so worried because you were lost. Hug me, too!”
So Zoe scooped her up and spun her around and drank in the feel of those small arms clasped tight around her neck.
When she let Kira down, she smoothed a hand over her short golden hair, reluctant to relinquish the moment. And she thought of what it might be like, to have a little girl of her own.
Strange. To picture herself as a mother—and not just in a hypothetical sense, but in a true awareness that she wanted that, wanted a baby of her own someday.
Dax had done that, made her see herself and her dreams of her future all the more clearly—at the same time as she realized that her dreams weren’t his dreams. When she did have children, they wouldn’t be Dax’s. He didn’t want to get married, ever. He didn’t want children. He’d been totally honest and up-front about that.
She needed, above all, to keep in mind that a relationship between them could go nowhere, even if she were willing to put the job she loved in jeopardy for the chance to be with him again.
Zoe stayed at the ranch, with her family around her, through an early dinner and most of the evening. Her dad and mom dropped her off at her condo on their way home.
Everything at her place was just as she’d left it. Even her houseplants had done fine in her absence. She’d put them in trays of water before she left and they’d come through looking as perky as they had on the day of her departure.
It was almost ten. But she didn’t feel sleepy. And Dax had given her the next day off. She put her cameras, her laptop and her PDA on their chargers and unpacked. Just about everything was dirty. So she sorted laundry and started the first load.
Then she got the memory cards from her cameras and uploaded the pictures she’d taken onto her home PC. Some of them were really good.
And a large number of them were of Dax—at the river, basking on a rock, looking like everything a man should be. And by their campfire, putting their fish dinner on the grill, giving her a big thumbs up. She had pictures of him shaving in the morning, his face slathered in a white foam of shaving cream. Pictures of him checking the smoke pit, pictures of his fine, broad back as he hobbled ahead of her on the trail to the river, leaning on his makeshift cane.
There were pictures of him in the tent, too. Naked. Eyes low and lazy. She looked
