Page 21

Chapter Twenty-One

AVA

M y students were tuckered out after the long day. They ate the reconstituted chicken and rice, then we all sat around the fire lamenting the fact that we had no graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallow for s’mores before everyone dawdled off to bed. I’d taken a short nap after cutting my finger, so I was wide awake. I was also on edge. Harold had given us a brief and not terribly encouraging update. The storm was still heading toward Costa Rica, and while the winds hadn’t reached hurricane levels, it was still on track to do some damage.

I hadn’t been much help with dinner preparation, but my thumb had stopped throbbing, so I picked up the towel to dry the dishes that Jack washed. “You were quiet at dinner, Lo. What are you thinking?” He handed me a plate. Our gazes caught and held for a second before I pulled mine away.

“I’m thinking the insects and animals are very quiet out there tonight, which doesn’t bode well. I hate to have the trip cut short, but if a storm blows through here, and we have to evacuate, I can’t see hiking back in afterward. I’m not sure what the grant foundation will say, but we can’t stick it out here if it’s not safe.”

“I agree. It’s not ideal but then Mother Nature doesn’t really give a hoot about scientific expeditions or anything we humans get up to. She’ll roar through if she feels like it. I’m worried about the rather primitive, slow evacuation plan. Harold and Mia riding back and forth on dirt bikes, and slower on the way back with two riders, isn’t exactly ideal.”

“Do you think we should just assume the worst, pack up and head out in the morning?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s see what things look like when we wake up. If we do go with Harold’s plan, we can send Pam out on the first run, since she obviously has shut down about this whole adventure. Then I suppose we can pull names, or maybe there’s someone who wants to leave more than the rest—like Norm. And, of course, we’ll go out on the last ride.”

I took the next plate to dry. “Sounds like a plan.” Jack was staring into the tub of soapy water. “You’re disappointed, aren’t you?”

“A little. Although after our lengthy discussion about how to make the perfect s’more, I wouldn’t mind getting back to real food, and by real, I mean laden with fat, salt and sugar—you know, everyone’s favorite nutrients.”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t mind a long hot shower or possibly even a bubble bath.”

Jack stopped and turned to look at me. “Never pictured you as a bubble bath type, Lo.”

I shrugged. “That’s because you only ever picture me as your nemesis, and it’s hard to think of a nemesis sitting in a floaty pile of iridescent, fragrant bubbles.”

Jack rolled his eyes up in thought.

“Oh my gosh, you’re trying to picture it right now, aren’t you?”

A sly smile crossed his face.

I whipped him with the dishtowel.

“Sorry, only human,” Jack said and turned back to the wash bin. He paused and looked over at me. “Lo, were we—not even sure if I should say this out loud—were we flirting just now?”

“Momentary lapse of sanity that I’m blaming on blood loss, the heat and the feeling of impending doom.”

Jack pushed the frying pan into the water. “Not sure if you bled enough to call it ‘blood loss,’ really. And, of course, the one thing that Brimley would frown on more than the two of us as adversaries, is the two of us as—well—as whatever the opposite of adversarial would be.”

I hadn’t meant to laugh so abruptly, but the whole notion just seemed so outlandish. Jack’s expression changed. “It wouldn’t be that comical,” he said curtly.

“Oh, come on, you and me, together? Pretty comical,” I said and realized I was digging a bigger hole. Had he actually been considering it? Stranger yet, had I actually been considering it, and now I was fully in defensive mode about the notion?

Instantly, I sensed tension coming off Jack.

“Jack,” I said in a softer tone. “You can’t stand to sit in the same lunchroom with me. You scowl the instant you see me in the hallway or the building or on campus, for that matter.”

“Get over yourself, Lo. It was a joke.” Soapy water splashed over the side of the wash tub as he yanked the frying pan out and dunked it into the rinse tub. He shoved the frying pan toward me and kept his gaze averted.

“Fine, I’m over myself. Can’t say the same about you.” I dried the pan and put it on the shelf and walked out without another word.

Robyn and Pam were both sound asleep when I reached the hut. I changed to the shorts and T-shirt I’d been wearing for sleep and sat down on the cot. I stared at my injured hand and couldn’t help but smile at Jack’s first aid handiwork. For a second there it seemed the two of us might become friends, but now that possibility seemed as remote as ever. We were both always on defense with each other. I had no idea why, but I was in no mood to puzzle it out.