The Glow of Fallen Stars (Ventura Book 2)

Chapter Three

I hear footsteps squeaking in the sand behind me while I'm standing in the shallows splashing my face the next morning. When I turn it is Ezra.

'I'm going to check around the base of that mountain. It seems like a place there could be water.'

I look down the coast to where the mountain of black rock is painting its shadow across the island. 'I thought you were going to stay here and work on the boat.' I cut a sideways glance at him.

'I still say we should go. While the still is working, while we have supplies – we should go. But it's high-risk, for sure, so I'm willing to give the island a chance to change my mind first.'

I watch him disappear down the beach in the heatwaves shimmering off the sand. Dom arrives next to me.

'Are you ready?' he says.

I slide my arm around him and knock my hand against something tucked down the back of his shorts.

'Careful,' he says, stepping away and reaching around to pull out a short curving sword. Both of us stare at the glare of sun on the blade.

It makes me laugh nervously. 'What the hell is that?'

'Bush knife,' he says, turning it a little to admire it. 'I'm quite impressed that it was in the On-Planet toolkit. We're going to need it.'

'For?' I almost swallow the word.

He points it at the treeline. 'Making any headway whatsoever in that.'

Mariana's inside 37, stripping it for anything else useful, so we just call goodbye to her when we leave. We walk along the coast a little looking for anything that might look like an easier access point into the forest. Dom takes my hand, and it's weird because for a moment it's almost as if we're shy with each other.

'We made it,' he says, a little out of breath from walking in the sand.

The first thing that comes into my mind to say is that we almost didn't – he almost didn't – but I bite it back. Instead I move on to the next scary thing and say, 'What are we going to do now, though?'

He smiles. 'Figure it out as we go along.'

'Figure it out?'

He stops and takes my head in his hands, holds it there. 'I love you,' he says, which doesn't seem relevant at all but makes me smile, and when he leans in close I kiss him, say I love him too.

The red skin across his nose is getting worse, peeling up a little, and his lips look cracked.

'What's happening?' I ask, running my thumb along his cheekbone.

'I think it's the sun.' He touches the places on his chest and shoulders where the skin is starting to pucker and I notice the way the rest of his torso is darker too, browner in varying tones, like the shading on a drawing. It's lovely, actually.

'Suntan.' I remember the word from books and movies. 'Sunburn.'

'You're getting it too,' he says, touching my cheek so that I flinch away in pain and it makes him laugh. 'The good news is that you're also getting freckles, and they're incredibly cute.' He kisses me just under my eye. 'You never told me you had freckles.'

'I didn't know myself.'

'What other secrets do you have, huh, estrellita?' he purrs, his lips close to mine, and for a second all I want to do is pull him against me, down into the sand, and show him everything he doesn't yet know. But he just kisses me once and says, 'You should wear this,' pulling a Ventura cap out of his pocket, pushing it on to my head. 'To keep the sun off.' Then he takes my hand and half winks. 'Let's go.'