Of course he wasn’t really going to hook up the solar panels to the wiring harness. Kamal just had to make it look as if he had. It was his djinn powers that would actually set the water flowing again on the property.
Since he’d made sure that Sarah wouldn’t look at his work too closely, he pulled some wires up to the solar panels, then wrapped them with black electrical tape. Nothing that would fool an expert, or even a halfway knowledgeable hobbyist, but good enough. As he worked, the skies overhead began to lower, growing darker, heavier. Because his element was water, he could sense the moisture in those clouds, the gathering storm. The season might have been mild so far, but he was certain that snow was on its way.
Well, let it snow. He and Sarah had done their exploring for the day, and could retreat inside where it was warm and safe. That suited him well enough, because then he could spend more time in close proximity to her. He was pleased by the way she’d worked with him this morning, carrying the heavy loads of those solar panels with not one word of complaint. Then again, after the past few months, she’d probably gotten used to doing what she needed to in order to survive.
He returned the tools to the maintenance shed, then began to walk back toward the hotel. As he went, the first fat flakes of snow began to fall, so light and insubstantial it hardly seemed they could be formed of water, must instead be drifting down from some celestial feather bed. They’d barely dusted his hair and shoulders before he was safely inside in the relative warmth of the Lodge’s kitchen. A faint trace of heat remained from the breakfast Sarah had prepared earlier, although he knew the lobby must be more comfortable. He could smell the wood smoke from here.
Sarah was standing by the fireplace, a heavy log in one hand. At his approach, she set it down and gave him an expectant glance. “How did it go?”
“Come see for yourself.”
Her head tilted slightly to one side, but she didn’t argue. In silence, she followed him into the kitchen. Her expression was skeptical — one eyebrow at a slight tilt, mouth not quite pursed.
Very well. He knew she had every reason to doubt him, but he also knew something she didn’t.
He reached over to the faucet and turned the tap. Water began to pour out, filling the pitcher he’d set there in preparation for this moment.
Sarah’s eyes widened, startlingly blue. “Oh, my God! You did it!” Clearly not skeptical now, she hurried over to the sink and put a finger under the tap, as though she still had to feel the water for herself to believe that it really was flowing, wasn’t just a product of her imagination.
“Well, I don’t know how much of a charge the panels are going to get this morning. It’s started to snow. So it’s probably better to play it safe.” He shut off the tap before turning to face her.
She didn’t appear too discomfited by his comment. “Still…you got it to work.” Her gaze shifted, moving toward one of the windows in the far wall. Outside, the snow had continued to fall, still not thick enough to coat anything, although Kamal could tell the temperature was cold enough that the precipitation should stick. “That’s more than I’ve been able to manage.”
He did not wish to see her deprecate herself. After all, he hadn’t managed any great technical feats of his own, had only made her believe that what he had done with his powers was the result of scientific knowledge rather than inborn talent. “You managed a lot,” he said. On impulse, he reached out and took her hands in his. Her fingers felt small and cold, and he wrapped his hands around hers, hoping he could warm her — and also hoping that she wouldn’t try to pull away. If she did, he wouldn’t stop her, for he would take such a gesture as a signal she was not quite ready for any sort of physical contact, even something as innocuous as holding hands.
However, she didn’t pull away. She stood there, her slender body quite still, as though she wasn’t sure what she should do.
Encouraged, Kamal went on, “You’ve survived here for two months, all on your own. You’ve kept yourself safe. That’s a lot, even if you don’t think it is.”
Her eyes met his. Such a clear, beautiful color, like purest aquamarine. “No, I’m a coward. I should have left. I should have gone to look for other survivors — ”
“There aren’t any,” he broke in. “I’ve looked, too. I’ve found no one except you.”
She seemed to falter then, her gaze moving away from him to focus on the slow-falling snow outside the windows.
“And if you’d left,” he continued, “I would have come here and found this place empty. If you’d gone down the hill into Tularosa or Alamogordo, if you’d continued to White Sands and on through the mountain passes into Las Cruces…I probably would never have met you.”
A long pause. Her hands were warming within his grasp, coming to life. She looked up at him, mouth set. When she did speak, her voice was so low, even his djinn ears had to strain to hear her words.
“Would that have been so awful?”
“Yes,” he said, knowing the word was no more than the truth. “It would have been terrible.”
This was the time. He bent, and touched his lips to hers. Gently — oh, so very gently, because he could tell that she was on the edge, might bolt if he was too forceful. But oh, how he had wanted to kiss her in that moment, her eyes wide and tragic, face pale but no less beautiful for all that.
And she accepted the kiss. She did not pull away, did not tear her hands from his and go running for the sanctuary of the suite she’d claimed as her own. She stood there, mouth warm and welcoming, and allowed him to taste her at last, to put his arms around her so he might pull her close.
They stood that way for a long moment, and then he did let her go so she could try to recover herself. She pushed her heavy brown hair away from her face and stood there in silence for a moment. At last she gave him a lopsided smile and said, “Wow, that was fast. I thought we’d at least make it two or three days before that sort of thing happened.”
“Do you mind?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Do I…?” She chuckled, although there was something forced about the sound. “I’m not sure ‘mind’ is the right word. I mean, it’s probably silly to get hung up on ‘should’ and ‘would’ when it’s the end of the world, right?”
“Right,” he echoed. “You just — you just looked so happy then, when the water came out of the tap. And then you looked sad, as though you thought you were somehow lesser because you hadn’t been able to do that hack on your own. Don’t put yourself down, Sarah. You don’t deserve it.”
One hand went up to play with the thin silver chain she had around her neck. It wasn’t a cross she wore, which might have been expected, but a small, stylized version of the Zia sun symbol that had once adorned New Mexico’s flag. A powerful sigil, with its four rays multiplied by four — the points of the compass, the stages of life, the seasons of the year, the times of day. He wondered why she had chosen it, rather than a more obvious symbol of faith.
“I guess,” she said after a long pause. “Or at least, I’ll try to tell myself that I shouldn’t think that way. I suppose I’m shaking my head at the universe. Here the world’s ended, and everything is awful, and then…and then suddenly Mr. Perfect shows up on my doorstep. My borrowed doorstep, anyway.”
“You think I’m Mr. Perfect?” Kamal asked, amused. He supposed that, to a mortal, a djinn would seem perfect…although he doubted his fellow elementals would ever assign such an adjective to him.
“Oh, God, that sounded terrible, didn’t it?”
“I don’t know about terrible,” he responded, then reached out so he could take her hands and pull her close to him once more. “I kind of liked the sound of ‘Mr. Perfect.’”
“Great. Now you have a swollen head.”
He could have made an off-color joke in answer to that comment, but realized that would not have gone over terribly well. Yes, they had kissed, but they weren’t quite at the point where they could bandy ribald words with one another. He settled for saying, “Not yet,” before he bent and kissed her again.
Sarah didn’t seem inclined to protest. She allowed him to hold her, to claim her mouth with his, and Kamal decided that was enough for now.
Cam was acting so…normal, like they hadn’t just shared a couple of fairly intense kisses. Then again, what was he supposed to do? Go down on one knee and declare his undying love for her? They barely knew one another.
No, he’d poured a glass of water for each of them, then led her out to the lobby, where they could sit by the fire and watch the snow float down gently, just beginning to cover the deck outside and the landscape beyond. This snow seemed more determined than the flurries she’d experienced so far this season, and she wasn’t quite sure how she should feel about that. On the one hand, there was something very cozy about being here by the massive fireplace with its gleaming copper hood, knowing that you were warm and inside and away from the weather.
And not alone. She’d begun to think she would never see another human being, and then…
…and then along came Cameron. Besides being handsome and smart and resourceful, he really knew how to kiss. Strong, yet tender. Passionate without being overbearing. He smelled good, too, like wood smoke and pine trees and all the things she liked.
Even with all that, she wasn’t sure she liked the idea of the snowfall. Something about it seemed so final, as though they’d lost their last chance to get off this mountain before winter really set in. Sarah had been fairly sure she had enough food to support her through those long, cold months, but with two of them here? She’d have to redo all her calculations, and hope to hell she could make everything stretch.
“Hey,” Cameron said, and she startled, realizing that she’d been staring at the fire and frowning fiercely. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she replied, an automatic response. “Just thinking about winter.”
“You’re worried?”
“A little.”
“Don’t be.”
His arm went around her, pulled her close. There was something awfully comforting about having such a strong shoulder to lean her head on. That had been the worst of it — to grieve alone, to have to come to grips with such a change in the world with no one there to talk to, no one to comfort her during the dark, frightening nights, when the entire planet seemed to echo with its emptiness.
Now someone was here…an amazing someone…and yet she was still worrying.
“I don’t have to worry because now you’re here to take care of me?”
“That’s not what I said.” He shifted on the couch so he could look down into her face. His dark eyes were intent, holding hers so fiercely, she didn’t think she could glance away, even if she wanted to. “It’s pretty clear that you’re able to take care of yourself. I just think…well, it’s usually easier if you don’t have to shoulder the load all alone. That’s all.”
How could she argue with a comment like that, when she’d just been thinking basically the same thing a few minutes earlier? “You’re right,” she said. “And it’s still early for the really heavy storms. Most of that seems to wait until after Christmas, even though we’ll get some before then. Which is good. It doesn’t feel like Christmas if it’s not snowy outside.”
Cameron was quiet for a moment, his gaze moving around the large room where they sat. “Did they decorate a lot for the holidays here?”
“Oh, yeah. Pine garlands on all the banisters, lights outside, a huge tree in the lobby.” Sarah could feel herself smiling as she recalled the Lodge in all its holiday splendor. “It looked like something out of a Hallmark Christmas special or something.”
Her companion nodded, although something seemed a little hesitant about the smile he wore, as if he didn’t quite know what a Hallmark Christmas special actually was. Well, she couldn’t give him too much grief over that. Hallmark tended to be kryptonite for guys.
“After the snow lets up, maybe we can do something about that,” he said. “I mean, I know the solar panels I set up won’t be enough to power a lot of exterior lights or anything, but we could go out and gather pine boughs for garlands, at least enough to decorate in here. Would you like that?”
Of course she would. Usually by now the decorations would have already been in place, but she really hadn’t been thinking about Christmas. Survival had consumed most of her thoughts. “I’d love it,” she replied. “God knows, the one thing we have plenty of here in Cloudcroft is pine trees.”
“All right, it’s a date.” He brushed her hair away from her face and kissed her again, this time softly on the cheek. “We’ll just have to see how long this storm lasts.”