Escape from Cabriz by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2013-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

7

Kristin’s sleep was fitful that night; she missed the warmth and substance of Zachary’s body lying next to hers. Several times she awakened and reached for him, only to remember that another rift had opened between them. And this time there would be no crossing the chasm.

Morning brought chilly fog and the welcome smell of something frying. Kristin sat up, drawn out of her sleeping bag by the almost-visible aroma. “Umm?” she muttered, hugging herself. “What is that?”

Zachary spared her a scant smile. “Corned beef mixed with freeze-dried potatoes and powdered eggs,” he answered. “It tastes better than it sounds.”

Kristin shook her head as he handed her a mug of his special camp-fire coffee. “You really are a marvel. Did they teach you this in secret agent school?”

Again he smiled, but there was something sad in the response that touched Kristin’s heart like the back of a cold spoon. “I learned it from my grandfather. He had periodic yearnings to return to the land, like his hero.”

“Who was?” Kristin prompted, taking a cautious sip of the hot, delicious coffee.

“Henry David Thoreau,” Zachary replied. He wasn’t looking at her then; he was busy dishing up his breakfast concoction. “Eat hearty, princess. I have a feeling today’s going to be a challenge.”

Kristin felt reasonably contented, except for a distinct case of heartbreak, as she accepted the plate he handed her. She thanked him automatically, but her brow was furrowed as she tried to catch his eye. “Why should this day be any worse than the rest?”

“Just a hunch,” he answered, his voice low, his eyes scanning the trees that surrounded the cave.

Because she was hungry and the food smelled so good, Kristin began to eat. “You know,” she said after swallowing, “if you ever get tired of teaching, you could always work as a short-order cook.”

Zachary chuckled at that, albeit reluctantly. He was pulling his familiar trick of distancing himself from her, and he was all too adept at the technique. “Thanks, princess. I’ll remember that.”

Kristin was lonely for their old bristly camaraderie, and she tried to fan the flames of the conversation. “Do you like teaching?”

He shrugged, chewing. “It’s all right,” he said presently.

“But it isn’t what you really want to do?”

His eyes linked with hers briefly, then turned away. “Sometimes,” he said in quiet tones, “a man can get his life so screwed up that nothing pleases him, no matter how good it is.” With that cryptic statement, he turned his concentration to his breakfast.

Kristin cleaned her plate, even though there was a lump in her throat, then got out of the sleeping bag to walk down to the stream and clean up. She yearned for a hot bath, clean clothes and a real bed, surrounded by solid walls, in a country with a stable government.

“How’s your knee?” Zachary asked when she returned to camp. She’d groomed herself as best she could and washed her plate so it wouldn’t appear that she had to be waited on all the time.

“It still hurts a little,” Kristin replied honestly.

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