Page 78 of The Seeker
“Yes, I discovered that at three a.m.”
“Why don’t I go to the diner next door and see if they have any while you finish getting ready?”
He grabbed her arm, pulled her to his chest, and brought his mouth down on hers in a hard and thorough kiss. He tasted like mint toothpaste and irritation.
“Hmm.” Rhys buried his face in the curve of her neck and breathed deeply. “You’re not a princess, you’re a goddess,” he said, his voice rough.
“A goddess for fetching tea?” She gently pulled back and placed a soft kiss on his lips before she headed for the door. “I hesitate to imagine the accolades when I make you breakfast someday.”
They headed south from Lafayette,crossing into smaller towns around New Iberia, and then drove to the small camp where Roch had secured a boat from a contact who didn’t ask many questions. They would use the pontoon boat as a base as they explored Bayou Chene and the area where Rhys was certain the Wolf had been hiding. Smaller kayaks would take them through the narrower channels of the swamp, but Meera was fairly sure the hip-high waders Roch threw onto the back of the truck were also going to come in handy.
They parked the truck off the road, securing most of Rhys and Meera’s electronics in a waterproof toolbox—the exception being their basic recording equipment—and loaded their camping gear onto the pontoon. Then Roch hopped in the back, fired up the outboard engines, and they were on the water.
Meera sat next to Rhys as he nursed his second large cup of tea. She’d gotten him two just to be safe.
“Have you been on the bayous before?” she asked.
“No. Only seen pictures.” He squinted into the morning light shining off the water. “They’re primeval. We’re only a few minutes from paved roads, but it feels very isolated.”
“It is. We’ll see a few fishermen, but this isn’t a highly populated part of the swamp. The one village that used to exist around here was abandoned about seventy years ago.”
“Why?”
“The water changed. Young people moved away.” Meera spied the ruins of an old wooden home on cedar stilts crumbling on the edge of the water. “It’s a hard life out here. The ecosystem is fragile. Rising sea levels will not be kind.”
“But people still live here.”
“A few.” She put on her sunglasses as the boat changed direction and the sun grew brighter. “Not many.”
“At first it seemed preposterous that a thousand-year-old singer could hide in the middle of a reasonably populated area and disappear until she became the equivalent of an urban legend. But once you come out here, it’s not hard to imagine.”
“No, you can get lost quite easily if you don’t know your way around.” She nodded at Roch. “I’d never come here without a guide.”
“Please don’t.”
Meera’s mood hadn’t sunk, even when presented with a cranky British scribe who was apparently the mate heaven had chosen for her. She examined him in the morning light. His hair was thick and still damp from his shower. His skin was alarmingly pale. Was it genetic, or did he spend far too much time at a desk? She needed to make sure he didn’t spend all his time inside. If they had children, she hoped—
Moving that quickly, are we, Meera?
Her mother would be delighted at her train of thought, but despite her continued reservations, Meera couldn’t help but admire him. Rhys was a handsome man. He had a tall, lanky frame padded with lean muscle. His eyes were sharp and deep set, with a strong jaw that would grow a generous beard if he didn’t keep his face shaved. She could see the dense black stubble already growing.
Meera reached across and brushed her thumb across his cheek. “Have you ever grown it?”
“Not for centuries. It’s quite thick, and I always live in warm places. Do you like beards?”
“On some men.”
“On me?”
She smiled. “I’d have to see it.”
“Hmm.” He sipped his tea, then offered it to her.
“No, thank you.”
“You seem better today than you have been.”
“I am.” She frowned a little. “I don’t deal well with uncertainty. I grew up with too much order to be comfortable with it. I choose disorder, but only planned disorder.”
