Death is Forever

that she wasn’t alone.
    “Wear the damned hat,” he said. “When you’re taking pictures you don’t think about anything else. If I hadn’t been here, you’d have been wonky from sunstroke before you had the faintest idea something was wrong. Get it through your stubborn head. This isn’t Alaska. Out here, the sun is your enemy. Hear me?”
    “Quite clearly.” She hesitated, then asked, “How long were you standing there?”
    He looked at his watch. “About seven minutes.”
    “But you didn’t interrupt me. Why?”
    “You weren’t in any immediate danger. I’d rather wait than take a chance on ruining another ‘Uncertain Spring.’”
    For an instant she thought he was joking. When she realized he wasn’t, pleasure rippled through her, disarming her. “I doubt if there’s another ‘Uncertain Spring’ in that lot, but thank you.”
    “Can you always tell in advance what you’ll have?”
    She shook her head. “No. That’s why I protect the film so carefully. Each shot is unique and unrepeatable. I could have spent the rest of my life in the arctic and never taken another shot like ‘Uncertain Spring.’ Just as I could spend the rest of my life in the Kimberley and never have the same reaction to it that I’m having now, take the same photos I’m taking now.”
    “That’s what I figured.” He gave her a look that was half amused and half irritated. “All the same, the next time I find you in the sun without your hat, I won’t wait until you run out of film.” Without warning he pressed his thumb against her upper arm and watched to see how long the pale circle remained. “When was the last time you put on sunscreen?”
    “When you stood over me after dawn.”
    “Then you’re overdue. Even inside the Rover—”
    “—reflected sunlight will burn my Scots-Irish skin to toast,” she finished. When the line of Cole’s mouth flattened, she said, “I know it’s not a joke. I won’t forget again.”
    He let out his breath in a rush of sound and said tightly, “Sorry. I’m not usually so irritable, even during buildup. You have a way of shortening my fuse. Come on. Let’s get out of the bloody sun.”
    “Pity we can’t prospect in the dark,” she said as she walked beside him to the Rover.
    “For all that I’ve found, we might as well.”
    “What were you doing, anyway? A vendetta against small segmented beasties?”
    Cole swiped at a nearby mound with the pick end of his rock hammer and caught the crumbling bits of earth. He smeared them across his palm and held it out to Erin.
    “Dirt,” she said.
    “Every bit of it,” he agreed, leading her toward the Rover.
    “So?”
    “So I know that the first forty to one hundred feet of earth around here is a fairly homogeneous layer of finely packed soil. Nothing interesting, although I’ll look at it through the microscope eventually to be certain.”
    She blinked. “Those bugs go one hundred feet deep?”
    “It’s the only way to beat the climate.”
    “I’ll keep it in mind. What were you looking for that you didn’t find?”
    “Indicator materials that would reveal a diamond pipe, or rounded grains of silica that would hint at old beaches or riverbanks.”
    Erin eyed the shapeless, ugly termitorium. “Is picking at mounds a reliable way of prospecting?”
    “It’s how Lamont found the Orapa diamond mine in Botswana.”
    “You sure he didn’t just consult chicken guts in the dark of the moon?”
    Smiling crookedly, Cole wiped his palm on the seat of his shorts and climbed into the Rover. “This is science, not voodoo.”
    She gave him a sideways glance and smiled in return. “Science, huh?” she said, opening the Rover’s passenger door. “And I’m the tooth fairy.”
    “You can slip things under my pillow any time you’re in the mood.”
    She tried not to respond to his retort but couldn’t help it. Shaking her head, she snickered, then gasped when her bare thighs met the Rover’s sun-baked seat.
    “Lift up,” he said.
    When she did, he spread his discarded shirt on the seat. As he withdrew, she felt a breath of a caress over the back of her thighs.
    “Try that,” he said.
    She sat down cautiously.
    “Better?”
    “Yes. Thanks.” She looked at him. Except for dark patterns of hair, his legs were as bare as hers. “How can you stand it?”
    “Same way you took the cold in Alaska. I’m used to it. That doesn’t mean I like it. I’d trade buildup for a dog and shoot the dog.”
    Erin