Luna was still watching him. Waiting for a reply to her remark. That flashing image had taken no more than a second or two, though the experience had felt longer. Nigel exhaled slowly, flicked his gaze to meet hers, and took care to keep any improper emotion out of his voice when he answered, “Nurturers are not exactly celebrated in the circles in which I run.”
She shrugged, her shoulders emerging from the water in a flash of skin that made his blood boil. “Maybe you’ve been running in the wrong circles, Mr. Grimm.”
He absolutely, one hundred percent, beyond any shadow of a doubt,hadbeen running in the wrong circles. And now he ran in no circles. There was just him. And Garden and Debbie and the flowers. No circle to be had, certainly none worth mentioning.
He looked down at the water lily in front of him again and plucked a bit of debris from its pad. “And what aboutyou, Miss Talbot?” he asked, keen to redirect the focus of this conversation. “Do you see yourself as a mother one day?”
Now it was her turn to be strangely silent. Nigel turned to look at her, found her gazing away from him, back out to the trio of waterfalls. Her expression was infinitely sad. So sad, it made his heart jolt. The impulse was strong to glide over to her, to put his arm around her and draw her to him, saying, “What is it? What’s wrong? Tell me why that question hurts you so?”But he shouldn’t have asked her such a personal question in the first place. And she certainly owed him no answers. He rolled his jaw, trying to think of some way to take it back.
Suddenly, Luna’s expression shifted. Her brow lowered, her jaw set, and a look of determination gleamed in her eye. “That looks to me like a waterslide,” she said.
“What?”
“I know it’ssupposedto look like a series of natural cascades. But doesn’t it look to you as though they run from one to the next? Like, if you start at the top there, you could ride it all the way down to that deep pool at the bottom?”
“Perhaps,” Nigel admitted, lifting his gaze to the topmost crest of the highest fall. He shuddered. “Fabian and I never—Wait. Where are you going?”
For Luna was swimming again, leaving the water lily pool behind and making her way back toward the falls. “I’m going to try it,” she called.
Nigel’s eyes widened. “It could be dangerous!”
“Yes.” She tossed a look back over her shoulder. “Or it could be glorious! Don’t you want to find out?”
Nigel cursed softly, his hands knotting into fists underwater. But what was he going to do? Sit here among the water lilies while she cast herself over that edge into certain doom? No. If she was determined to break her neck, he might as well break his along with her.
Muttering more curses, he waded after her, neither so swift nor so smooth in the water as she. Luna led the way back to the final, deepest pool, where the roar of the waterfall was too loud for speech. There she turned back to him and pointed to where the stones seemed to form a sort of natural staircase. Before Nigel could make any move of protest, she scrambled up onto the shoreline and stood there, dripping.
Nigel’s eyes nearly popped from his skull. The way her slipclungto her . . .Oh gods.He nearly sank into the water and drowned right then and there.
Luna turned back to him, pointing first at the stairs and then gesturing for him to follow. Dual desires sprang to life and took up war in Nigel’s breast. First was the tremendous urge to heave himself out onto the shore and positively chase her down. The other, however, was to stay exactly where he was and never move again.
He drew a steadying breath.Thingswere not as fully under control as he would like. But, well, his trousers were wet and tight and probably secure enough to disguise anyuntowardhappenings.
Luna beckoned him again with more enthusiasm. He couldn’t disappoint her.
Muttering prayers to gods he did not believe in, Nigel planted his hands on the edge of the pool and heaved himself up. Water streamed from his undershirt and suspenders, from his saturated trousers and puddled around his bare feet. He shook himself out like a dog, hair flapping and falling over his forehead. Then, tossing that hair back from his forehead, he looked up to where Luna stood a few steps higher than him.
She was watching him. Her eyes were very round, but her expression was otherwise a complete mask. There was an uncharacteristic stillness about her, as though something deep in her center had suddenly quickened with tension. Her lipswere slightly parted, and he watched her chest rise and fall with the expulsion of a breath.
“What?” Nigel said and looked down at himself, searching for water weeds or some disgusting lakebed creature. “Do I have something on me?”
Luna swallowed. Then, with a quick shake of her head and no other answer, she turned about-face and continued climbing up the stoney path. Nigel followed after, taking special care not to let his eyes linger on her wet, practically-naked body. It was a trial of will beyond anything he’d ever faced in all his born days. But for her sake, and for the sake of the high esteem in which he held her, he rallied his forces and kept his gaze firmly averted. For the most part.
By the time they reached the top of the three waterfalls, the oppressive heat in the atmosphere had done its work. Both of them were sweating and steaming faintly, all the coolness of their swim undone. Luna stepped into the river, which was no more than calf-deep at this point. Her arms outstretched, she tottered out to the point close to where the water poured over the edge. “See!” she cried, shouting to be heard over the waterfall’s noise, and pointed.
Nigel stepped to her side, feeling the pressure of the current against his calves. He saw what she had discovered—a subtly-placed tubing system, leading all the way from this topmost point down to the bottom pool. He wasn’t convinced howsafeit might be. Alfred P. Grimm may have built it with the aim of “toughening up” his two namby sons, in which case, Nigel wouldn’t send his worst enemy hurtling down that way.
But Luna put her hand on his shoulder, banishing all other thoughts or considerations. She stood up on her toes, drawing her mouth close to his ear to shout, “Who’s going first?”
Nigel gulped. A nearly overwhelming temptation simply to turn his head and kiss her burned in his heart. Right there.Right then. With the added convenience that, having done so, he could promptly cast himself to his death over the brink when she inevitably pushed him away.
But no. He respected her.
He did, gods-damn it.
“I’ll go,” he said, placing his own lips near her ear this time.
Luna shook her head, stepping back a pace. A flush tinged her cheeks, probably from the heat and the exertion of the climb. Then she lifted her face to his again, speaking once more into his ear. “No, it’d better be me. If that water is deep, you might need me to save you.”
