He startled awake and sat up.  “This is what happens when you spend time with a woman.  Out on raids, we bathed in ice cold streams, rode hard, slept little, ate nothing.  And now look.”

“Go bathe in an ice cold stream,” she said.

“I just might,” he said.

<>

There was no fire.  The sun set and the moon rose, only the faintest sliver of white.  The stars came out.  Chace returned on his horse.

“No one.  They’ve gone on, whoever they are.  No tracks since yesterday afternoon.  No stopping.  No fires.”

“And you mean it, one more day?”

“It’ll have to be the last, but yes, one more day.”

“You’re not finished with this yet, are you?”

“One more day is for you but I also want to give that someone time to get farther along on his travels.”

They went through their nightly routine.  Settled in the darkness, Charlotte lay on her back gazing up at the million stars.  She had made up her mind.  A tiny light suddenly streaked across the sky.

“Did you see that?” she said.  “A shooting star!”

There was nothing.  And then she became aware of the silence.  Slowly she turned on her side, the wrong side, toward him.

“All I’ve ever been good for,” she said into the darkness, “is doing things I’m not supposed to do.  You can choose whether you want to suffer for that like my father does or not.”  Having warned him, she reached out and took his hand.  Slowly she turned it over and traced her fingers along the palm.  Even more slowly, she picked up the hand and held it to her cheek, the one he’d touched before, the one another’s hand had broken.  She turned her face into his hand and pressed her lips there once, then again.

He had already shifted to face her.  His hand went back to the softness of her cheek.  He closed the space between them and kissed her mouth tenderly, gently, tasting her for the first time.  He kissed her again, another gentle kiss that lingered.  She moved even closer, curving into his body. He brushed his fingertips over her face, her closed eyes, ran his thumb over her mouth then down over her throat.  She made a small sound.

He paused.  She opened her eyes and reached out to touch his own mouth, his brow, his hair, then kissed him in the same way, slow, lingering.  Each kiss that followed was an exploration, some soft and sliding, some more urgent, others deep and never-ending.  To know his mouth this way was all she asked.  His arms went around her and she held him tight and the kisses kept coming over and over again, sweet, hungry, effortless, blotting out the stars, the night, time, fear, memory, everything.