The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [25]
She was so lost in reverie that she didn’t noticed the rain slowing down until it had almost completely stopped. She blinked as the dark green light of the jungle shifted slowly to brighter hues, and the steady, soothing rhythm of the rain gave way to first silence, then the tentative calling of birds and animals.
She crawled out from under her shelter of leaves and her hand immediately sank wrist-deep in mud. Only a few days ago that would have produced a snort of disgust. Now, she stepped forward, dropped the cloak for the time being, and slathered the protective mud all over her body.
She was adapting. She was growing.
She was meeting the Challenge of Spirit, and as she smoothed the smelly, goopy stuff over her arms and torso, she understood why the priests and priestesses had chosen that name for this ordeal.
Libby waited nervously for him to appear. She had made a halfhearted attempt to put on some makeup, but then at the last moment had washed it off. There was no [73] need to dress up. This wasn’t a date, it was business. Deadly, dangerous business.
Tourists didn’t frequent the site she had chosen for their rendezvous. It was a rocky shoreline about a mile or two from her little cabin, without the long stretches of white sand that sunbathers flocked to. She had walked here; the brisk wind had brought some color back into her pale cheeks and the exercise had helped her to feel slightly more alert.
He materialized about five minutes after she had arrived. She hadn’t seen him since Covington had requested the temporary transfer. He looked good.
Tall, slender, his golden hair turning silver, he was dressed informally, as she had requested, in slightly baggy pants and a sweater. She recognized the sweater. She remembered pulling it off him the first time they had made love.
He saw her and waved, walking toward her carefully amid the rocks. She tucked her hands under her arms and smiled back, somewhat tightly. The wind was having far too much fun with her thick, curly hair, and she knew it’d be a rat’s nest by the time she had a chance to comb it out. If she’d been thinking she’d have pulled it back in a ponytail, at least.
He stood beside her now, much taller than she. It was the first time they had met in private since he had gently taken her hands, looked into her eyes, and said that they needed to end it.
“Hello, sir,” she said, and extended her hand.
He shook it, his hand warm and strong as it closed about hers. She knew he hadn’t wanted to end it, had in fact wanted to take it further, but Assistant Director [74] Aidan Fletcher realized before Libby had that their romance was destroying their working relationship. They’d remained good friends and in the end, the supervisor-employee relationship hadn’t been damaged. He’d been right to break things off, though she had cried for days at the time.
“It’s good to see you, Agent Webber. Though considering the distinctly informal aspect of our environment, I’d prefer it if you called me Aidan.”
“All right.” She pressed a small button in the pocket of her jacket. Almost immediately she heard a small chirp from Aidan’s jacket. She blushed.
He laughed. “You tried to put up a dampening field without telling me,” he said. “I see Covington’s taught you how to sneak.”
His easy manner was calming her. She gave him a quick grin. “Impossible to sneak past you,” she said.
His smile faded a little. “Listen, um ... It’s no secret that you’ve gotten back together with Harry Kim, so I assume you wanted to see me on business.”
Harry. If she hadn’t been disentangled from Aidan, she never would have been free to rediscover him. She had told Harry, at the banquet, that she’d slept with a few men and fallen in love with one. She felt a surge of gratitude toward that one man, who now stood before her, for being wise enough to let her go.
“You’re right,” she said. “This