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Sidney settled down on the sleeping bag, folded her legs lotus-fashion, and tried to come up with something to quell his suicide urges, something tender that he’d reflect upon and change his mind. She came up with “You don’t have a parachute. It would be messy at the bottom. You’re big. Think of the cleanup,” she said.

He’d drawn up one knee, closed his arms around it. “Mmm. I don’t think I want to jump just yet. Maybe I wasn’t going to anyway. So what’s the story of your life?”

Get personal, make an attachment, that’s what Bulldog had said about men who were weary of life. “Oh you had the look all right. I’ve seen it in combat zones—sad, alone, as if nothing else mattered…So, what’s your name?”

“So, what’s your story?”

She took a deep breath. “You’re being difficult. One of those. The name is Sid Blakely.”

“Sid,” he repeated softly, almost like a caress, with just that lilt of accent. She stuck out her hand and he considered it before taking it, enfolding it with his large one. “Danya.”

“Sounds foreign.” Now she recognized that slight inflection. He was still shaking her hand, slowly, as though he were studying the fit of it within his own. Just maybe he was wondering if he could drag her to the edge, and—

“Russian. My father and uncles immigrated, and I was born here.” He was looking at her hand in his, studying it. “You have good hands. Working hands. Small.”

Sidney withdrew her hand, but the feel of his remained—warm, rough, big. She fought the little unexplained shiver that shot through her. “Ah. See there. You have family. They probably worry about you. Think of them.”

“Okay, I will. What’s your story?”

“First, I want your promise that you won’t jump off that cliff after I tell you. Promise, and that’s a direct order.”

“Yes, sir.”

She thought she heard humor in that tone, and then dismissed it. “That’s better—Danya. You have a last name?”

“Stepanov.”

“As in the Stepanov family who lives here? Mikhail, who manages the Amoteh Resort, and Stepanov as in Stepanov Furniture? But then you have a family here. I’ve heard about them, and they’re hard to miss. You’re not alone.”

“I have just moved here last fall with my father, so that he can retire and relax near his brother—that is Fadey Stepanov, the owner of the furniture line. I’ve gone into business with my brother, Alexi. We’re builders and remodelers.” His smile was slow and thoughtful, as if he loved the ones who would go on living without him…. “Tell me your story. Maybe I can help you? Ships passing in the night and all that?”

She shook her head. “Keep the roles straight. I’m the one saving you, got it? You just go along and everything will be fine. You’ve got to realize that you’re not alone, that’s the first thing.”

“But you are here with me—so I am not alone, is that not so? Are you always this bossy?”

Sidney frowned as she ran through her day in hell. “Like I said, it’s been a rough day. I’m shooting a calendar, not my usual gig. I’m not into commercial portraits, but I wanted out of what I usually do—you know, to try something different. The pay is good, the work stinks—especially the off-hours when the models want to chum it up with me. We’re staying at the Amoteh Resort, doing some beach shots, and at night, they want to play pajama party. They want to include me. I’m hiding out now. There’s nothing worse than a bunch of women moaning over their boyfriends, talking lipstick and hair, and waxing their legs. You have no idea how bad that hurts. To shut them up, I let them do it…almost killed me. It doesn’t stop at the legs, you know—they have to worry about their bikini lines. Now, that really hurts.”

“Ouch.”

Sidney nodded; Danya seemed to understand about bikini
pain. She could tell by his slight grimace. Communication was progressing; soon he would forget about jumping. She decided to find out the reason for his crossing-out-life-tonight gambit. Touching was always good, according to Bulldog, so Sidney reached out and patted Danya’s jeaned thigh. It was hard and muscles tightened beneath her hand; Danya was in really good shape. He sucked in a breath and his hand had locked over hers, his thumb caressing her palm. It was probably because he needed human touch; Sidney allowed her hand to be held captive. “So, buddy, what’s your story? I’m a good listener—at least, my boyfriend used to tell me that.”

The mention of Ben took her backtracking to his choice of Fluffy, the blond bimbo, and Sidney was unfolding her whole miserable tale before she knew it. “His name was Ben. We’d been on a few photo shoots together, in some pretty tight places. I’d watch his back, he’d watch mine, that sort of thing. We camped together, went through land mines together, stood on the cusp of a lava river together, shooting away. It was great. He’s a photojournalist. You may have seen our stuff in magazines. Though a lot of people really don’t care about the photographer’s credits.”

“And?” He rubbed her hand slowly up and down his thigh, but then, she justified, the guy probably had a muscle ache.

“And sex. We had that—oh, maybe twice a year…when there was time. Nothing like whole hours or anything—you just don’t play around when you’re out there shooting stuff. You get the job done and go on. So, anyway, we had a thing going for oh, six or seven years, and then he meets Fluffy-baby. They got married a month ago. That’s why I don’t want to take any freelance jobs where I might cross paths with Ben. Fluffy-baby hangs all over him. It’s disgusting.”

“I see,” Danya said softly. “So that would hurt you?”

“It would make me mad. Fluffy hadn’t got a thing to offer. Some little sweetie pie who hasn’t been anywhere or done anything, but that isn’t bad—it’s just that we had done all those great, exciting things together and then he up and dumps me for her.”

Sidney lay back on the sleeping bag and her hand was released. As the wind riffled her hair almost playfully, she inhaled the damp scents of night, mingled with the earth and trees. A short distance away, a small animal rustled through the underbrush, and she carefully moved through memories before speaking. “Bulldog never liked Ben. So at least I don’t have to listen to lectures from sweet old Dad anymore.”

Grass brushed her feet and clung to them. She kicked slightly to dislodge the damp blades, and he noted the action. “Did you hurt your feet when you walked over the rocks?”

Danya reached to take her foot and draw it into his hands. He smoothed her arch and insole very slowly. A woman who knew how to take what she could get in a single moment of life, because it could be gone the next, Sidney relaxed slightly. She wanted to give him something back. “Hey, want a candy bar?” she asked as she dug into her pants cargo pocket.

“No, thanks.” He carefully drew off her thick workman’s sock, and continued to slowly, carefully rub her feet.

Sidney unwrapped the chocolate bar and munched on it, contemplating Ben’s defection while having her feet warmed and soothed. “I loved him—Ben, I mean. We shared film and lenses and hardships. A thing like that doesn’t go away easy. Now he’s with her, the six-foot-nothing-but-legs-and-boobs blond bimbo. I don’t know what he sees in her. They are planning to multiply and raise ducks. He’s all excited, Mr. Rabbit, so fast you never know he’s been there before he’s gone. Now, I’ve got a reason to jump off that—er, to eat a lot of these candy bars.”

She plopped her other foot into his hands. “Do that one. Talk. Pick up the pace.”

His hands moved slowly, carefully over her feet; his voice was husky and uneven. His thumbs cruised over her arches. “You’ve got small feet.”

She hoped he wasn’t getting ready to cry. She didn’t know how to handle tears, not even her own. Right now, thinking about Ben and Fluffy, Sidney’s eyes were burning. But a
Blakely never cries. Bulldog would be shamed. That was why she carried the candy bars and why she’d put on weight—whenever she started to tear up, she’d grab something chocolate and focus on that. “Yeah. Hard to get the right kind of combat boots for my size, but I’m wearing hiking ones now. So what’s your story?”

“My wife died in a car wreck. I was driving,” he said simply.

Sidney swallowed the bite of chocolate. “You feel guilty.”

“Because I lived and she didn’t. A drunken driver met us head-on and crossed in front of us at the last minute. I didn’t come to for days, and when I did—Jeannie was gone. We were both twenty-three.”

“That’s a heavy load. When did it happen?”

“Nine years ago. I still see those headlights…every night when I close my eyes.” Danya lay down, put his hands behind his head and stared at the night sky.

“Wow. And I thought I had it bad.” The companionable thing to do would be to lie quietly and wait for him to talk, so that’s what Sidney did. She had to lie close because it was a single sleeping bag.

She needed to distract him from his grief and refocus him on something else. “I detest being closeted every day and night with these models. I’ll be glad when this gig is over. They won’t leave me alone. I’m just not into girly talk and she-she.”

“You could stay somewhere else.” He reached for her free hand and eased it beneath his shirt. The poor guy needed human touch, she thought as he rubbed her hand over his muscled stomach, and he felt good to touch, she decided.

“Do you ache—I mean, do you have some physical problem that might cause you to want to end it all? If you do, there are all sorts of counselors for pain—and for grief, by the way. Have you tried that?”

“No to the second part, but yes, now I do ache. Your hand feels good. Do you mind?”

“Not if it helps you. I’ve done massage when needed. I’ve
been in lots of make-do situations, and most of the time it’s just people helping people, letting them know that someone cares. But I would sure like to escape those models. That’s why I brought my sleeping bag up here—to get away from them since there’s nowhere else to stay besides my room at Amoteh. Where are you staying? With your family?”

“In my family’s cabin along the beach. It’s quiet, private, except for the wind chimes and the waves. It’s pretty plain, one room, no luxuries like at the Amoteh Resort.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

The mist had turned to a gentle rain and Sidney knew she couldn’t stay all night—a photographer with a bad cold could ruin a shoot. Then she sneezed. “Look, I’ve got to go. Come down off this hill with me? We’ll go someplace for a beer and talk some more.”

“Everything is closed.”

“We could go to my room and raid the refrigerator there, but those models would be on you like flies on sugar. They’re man-hungry and you’re in no emotional shape to fight them off. They’re already half mad at me, so I’d have to let them have you—for the sake of the shoot. Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you? A bunch of sex-starved, booby bimbos chasing you?”

He chuckled softly, deeply in the night. “No, I sure wouldn’t want that.”

At least his humor was there. Maybe she had done some good after all. Sidney sat up and looked for her socks. Danya took her foot and slowly slid one sock on and then the other. Sidney had the strangest sense that she was being tended somehow.

It was a gentle, but uneasy sensation that caused her to jam on her hiking boots and lace them tightly. “You want to talk at your place, or what?” she asked abruptly as she stood. “If not, then I’m going to have to go back into that bimbo hell and try to find a quiet corner where someone isn’t sobbing over some girly movie, or someone isn’t wanting to give me
a facial or pluck my eyebrows. The light won’t be good for shooting tomorrow, so they know they can stay up late—hunting me.”

He handed her the sports bra and her cotton briefs. There was nothing intimate about it, only one buddy helping another. She stuffed them into her sleeping bag and Danya stood. He bent down to roll her bag and lift it over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“I can carry that. Who do you think waits on me?”

“I don’t doubt it a bit. It’s just that you’ve helped me tonight, and I’d like to return the favor…so I wouldn’t be in your debt. You understand.”

Sidney did understand. She never liked to be in anyone’s debt and Bulldog had taught her to be self-sufficient. But if Danya needed that link to keep him off that cliff, she could sacrifice. He carefully led her down the rocky trail from the chieftain’s grave site. Around her smaller one, his hand felt good, strong, and companionable. Maybe he needed that link with her. Maybe she needed it with him. Ships in the night, Sidney reminded herself. At least she wasn’t at the mercy of the models.

Danya held her hand as they walked in the night, down Strawberry Hill and a long walk to the Amoteh Resort’s steps. From there, they moved across a small worn path and down to the shoreline and Amoteh, the town. In the distance behind them, a huge jagged rock jutted up into the night, the waves crashing around it; she recognized the landmark as Deadman’s Rock where boats had been smashed upon the rock and people had died.

She glanced at the man whom she had rescued. He looked big and lethal, hard and soulless, the wind catching his hair. He kept on one side of her, breaking the wind, and handling her sleeping bag as if it were nothing. Sidney hurried to match his long stride, but then she noted that it had shortened, and that he moved with her. She only reached his shoulder, her hand small within his.

The guy was a toucher, needing and giving touches and she could handle that—if it would help him deal with his pain. She’d talk him through the night and in the morning, he’d feel much better.

They passed docking piers, the boats moving in the waves, gently bumping at their moorings, then the long tourist pier filled with shops that were now closed, flags trembling above them.

Then, just as they passed a long margin of driftwood piled on the shore, Sidney decided that maybe Danya really only needed to have sex to make him see that life was worth living.

But not with her. She stopped, jerked her hand away from his, and plopped down on a log. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute—”

Danya loomed above her, the sleeping bag propped over his shoulder. “Problem?”

“I just want to get something straight. No sex. No way. Not with me. You’ve got to promise to think of me as a friend, a buddy, not a woman.” She patted a driftwood log. “Sit.”