The Adventurer

promise me you won't run off like that again."
    Her leaving had shaken him, she realized. He really did care for her. But, then, she had been certain of that the moment she saw him standing in her doorway.
    "What made you come after me?" she asked softly. "You must have left shortly after I did." She was consumed with curiosity now, needing to hear every detail of what he had been thinking when he made the decision to pursue her. "When did you finally realize you couldn't let me go?"
    "Sarah?"
    "Yes, Gideon?"
    "Just promise me you won't do that again. Please."
    She sighed, resigned to the fact that Gideon was never going to find it easy to talk about his emotions. "All right. I promise."
    "I could sure use a cup of coffee."
    She collapsed against him in a fit of giggles. "What a romantic."
    "I try." His smile was slightly lopsided, his eyes bemused as he played with her hair. "But I'd better warn you, there are probably going to be times when I'll mess up."
    "You think so?"
    "I keep telling you, I'm no hero. But you won't run off again if I do occasionally fail to live up to your expectations, will you? Sarah, I don't want to have to be afraid that every time I screw up, you'll leave."
    Sarah's amusement slipped away in an instant as she saw the seriousness in his steady gaze. She shook her head vigorously. "No, never. I won't run off."
    "You did this morning."
    "That was different."
    "How?"
    "This morning I was feeling depressed. I knew somehow that I'd gone as far as I could. It was up to you to make an effort or give me some sign. If you were never going to be able to let yourself love me or trust me I had to find out now. I knew I had to leave." Sarah smiled. "And you came after me."
    Gideon moved his head slightly on the cushions, his eyes warm. "I think you're a little crazy, but that's all right." His gaze shifted to the room around them. "So this is your place? It looks like you. I knew there'd be unwashed cups on the coffee table."
    "Thanks a lot." She rose reluctantly from his thighs and reached for her clothing. "Look at the bright side. Now that I've got you, I'll be able to let my weekly cleaning service go, won't I? I'll make you some coffee while you get dressed. The bathroom's down the hall. Give me a minute and then you can have it." She clutched her shirt and looked down at him. "Gideon, I'm so happy."
    He smiled slightly, his eyes very intent. "The cats will be pleased. They didn't approve of your running off the way you did this morning."
    "You'll all just have to understand that I had my reasons."
    Gideon's eyes hardened. "It was more than depression, wasn't it? We could have talked about that. And more than wanting me to give you some sign that I cared. It was Savage finding you on the beach that made you give up on me."
    "I didn't give up on you."
    "He upset everything. You were all right until he showed up again. You were adjusting to being with me. Getting used to it. But then he cornered you on the beach and it was all over. He always had a knack for being able to throw a spanner into the works."
    "That's not the way it was at all. My feelings had nothing to do with Savage. I left because I wasn't sure I was getting through to you. It was time to give you a strong nudge."
    "You'd have gotten through to me a lot faster if you'd let me make love to you instead of trying to build a relationship without sex," Gideon muttered. "It wasn't natural, Sarah. I felt you were trying to manipulate me by withholding yourself and then when Savage popped up again, I—"
    "
Savage
." Sarah's eyes widened in belated anger as reality came back with a thud. "Good grief, I almost forgot. How could I? The man's a thief."
    "I'm in agreement with you on that point. But you didn't really believe all those things he was saying about me, did you?"
    "Of course, I didn't believe him. But that's not why I'm furious with him now. I'm mad because he broke in here and stole all my extra copies of the map, Gideon."
    Gideon's eyes hardened. He reached slowly for his shirt. "The bastard."
    "He's going to dig up the earrings," Sarah said with a sigh. "I know he is."
    "He won't find them."
    "Gideon, I keep telling you, I can almost feel him finding them. My intuition tells me he's very close to getting his hands on them. Maybe he couldn't get close without the map, but now that he's got all ten copies of the thing he's bound to figure it out."
    "Sarah, be reasonable. Ten photocopies won't do him any more good than one. They're