Death is Forever

wind scoured over the ground, where Abe had made an informal dump for station trash. Beer cans went bouncing and flying out of the yard, only to become tangled in bunches of spinifex.
    When Cole was finished with his preflight check, he gestured Erin over. His mouth flattened when he saw that she carried only her old camera bag. Photography was not just her profession, it was her passion—yet she wouldn’t even ask Lai where to find the rest of her camera equipment.
    That told Cole how angry Erin was, which told him how little she trusted him despite her whispered protestations of love. Her mistrust goaded Cole’s emotions even as his mind told him not to lose his temper again.
    Don’t let Uncle Li get away with it, Cole told himself savagely. Divide and conquer is the oldest game of all.
    Because it worked. Especially in the hellish climate of Western Australia in the time known as buildup.
    But even knowing his opponent’s tactics didn’t change the emotions snaking through Cole, testing his control. Uncle Li had an uncanny instinct for the jugular, the crotch, the Achilles’ heel.
    Cole hadn’t known that he was Erin’s vulnerable point.
    He’d just found out she was all three of his.
    God damn Uncle Li.
    “Buckle up and put on the headset,” Cole said curtly over the helicopter noise. “There are sunglasses and sunscreen in the seat pocket. Use them.”
    She stepped up into the chopper, put on the safety harness, and began looking over the headset. There was no switch for speaking.
    “Voice activated,” he said loudly as he put on a pair of dark glasses.
    She nodded, put on the headset, adjusted it, fished out her own sunglasses, and settled them on her nose. The relief from the intense light gave the illusion of coolness. Unfortunately, it was only an illusion. She reached for the sunscreen, which was also an industrial-strength insect repellent.
    “Ready?” he asked.
    His voice came clearly through the headset. She nodded again.
    He cursed silently at her refusal to talk to him, but he didn’t push her. His own temper was still too raw. He hadn’t been this angry since Lai had aborted his child.
    The realization shocked him.
    He brought the revs up until the helicopter was quivering like a racing greyhound waiting to be released. He let it go.
    The chopper leaped into the burning sky.
    When Erin finished applying the sunscreen, she sat and stared out the window, seeing nothing of the land and too much of a delicate, extraordinarily beautiful face, eyes like black tears watching Cole, worshiping him—and his hand caressing the graceful line of Lai’s neck, touching her as though she was made of fire, touching and watching her burn.
    With a sense of bafflement and surging anger, Erin wondered if all males were untrustworthy or if she simply had wretched taste in men.
    Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself angrily. Cole doesn’t owe me anything but his expertise as a diamond prospector. He didn’t make any promises, not even the implicit one of saying he loves me. He didn’t talk about what would happen after we found the mine or gave up looking for it.
    Fine, it’s rude of him to lust after another woman while I’m in the house, but it’s hardly the first time in history something like that has happened.
    Nothing new.
    No big deal.
    A close brush, but this time I got away intact. Once I get out of this hell-ridden climate and get a full night of sleep, I’ll laugh about the whole thing.
    Beneath her bracing thoughts, she sensed darkness condensing, depression growing one slow drop at a time, draining light from her. Knowing that her response was irrational didn’t change it, any more than knowing she’d been the innocent victim in an undeclared war seven years ago had changed the extent of her psychic and physical injuries afterward.
    At least Cole doesn’t keep score with a switchblade. Any scars he leaves on me won’t show.
    There was little comfort in the thought, but the past had taught her to accept small comforts. Better she found out about Cole now than later. Better the dreams stop now than later.
    Better if she’d had the sense never to dream at all.
    “We’ll fly the east edge of the station first,” Cole said finally, breaking the silence. He dropped a map in her lap. “Then we’ll do the north leg. Dog One is on the northern edge. I’ll keep the chopper at about a thousand feet and go slow.”
    He paused.
    She didn’t say anything.
    “I’ve never had a