Page 70 of Tempting as Sin
“You float, man,” the bloke said. “Like the sign says.Afteryou take a shower, because I don’t want to say anything, but…”
“Yeah,” Rafe said. “Horse.”
“I got that,” the bloke said. “That’s why I’m not down on the farm anymore. Here’s how it works. You’ve got a thousand pounds of Epsom salts dissolved in water that’s heated to your body temp, and you float in it. That’s it. That’s the whole deal. Closest thing to being back in the womb you’re ever going to experience.”
Rafe considered telling him that his desire to get back to a womb was limited to getting as close as possible to Lily’s, but he didn’t think the joke would go over. You had to read the room. “Right,” he said. “And the fact that I’m closed into a giant egg in the dark?”
“If you get scared,” the bloke said, “you get out. Or you could lie there, let the silence and the darkness fill up the spaces in your mind that you usually fill with stimulation, and see what happens. Your choice. Lily paid for two floats. I wouldn’t give anybody else’s money back, so don’t spread it around, but I’ll do it for her.”
“You like her, eh,” Rafe said, possibly because he was stalling.
“Man,” the bloke said, “I’d do just about anything for Lily.”
That one made Rafe blink. “You would?”
Intensity, now, instead of chilled-out serenity under the dreadlocks. “You kidding? Yeah, I would. When my girlfriend lost our baby last year? Everybody else maybe said they were sorry and moved on like it never happened. Lily brought me eggs for her, and a card. After that, when I told her how hard Gwen was taking it, she brought other things. A homemade lavender scrub. Honey. A beeswax candle she’d made. Not just the first day. For a whole week afterwards, she brought some little thing over here every single day for me to take home for Gwen. She asked me howIwas doing, too. She gets it, man. There aren’t too many hearts like that in the world.”
“True,” Rafe said. “I guess I’d better do this thing, then, and make her happy. How hard could it be?”
Pretty bloody hard, he thought when he’d taken his shower, climbed into the warm water, and closed the pod on the light. The foam earplugs blocked any sound, and the darkness, as he slid down and tested the flotation power of the water in a gingerly fashion, was absolute. The worst part, though, was his skin. It stung like fire wherever he had a graze, not to mention a burning sensation from the chafing on his inner thighs that made his eyes and mouth open in shock. He may even have yelped.
Serenity? Not so much.
Pain is temporary,he reminded himself, gritting his teeth. Sure enough, it eventually subsided, and he took some deeper breaths and let it go.
The floating part was weird, but nice. You couldn’t go under, he discovered, and unless he spread out like a starfish, he couldn’t feel the sides of the egg. He’d have to trust that it would help with the soreness.
What were you meant to do in here for an hour, though? He sang in his head for a while, all the songs he’d sung to Lily on the trail, and remembered how she’d sounded when she’d joined in, and the tears in her eyes afterwards. He thought about what it would feel like to watch a grizzly charging you, and what you’d do if it attacked. Especially if you had somebody else with you, somebody you loved. That led him to the new role, his sheriff, and made him think about whether a combat veteran would find physical danger easier to cope with, or harder. He didn’t think the answer was as obvious as it seemed.
Both, judging from Jace’s experience. Easier at the time, of course, because you’d know what to do, and uncertainty was the scariest thing in the world. Action would always feel better than hiding or running away, even if action was more likely to get you killed. Witness Lily’s remembered fear. It wasn’t the jumping out she remembered, it was the hiding in the closet.
It would be harder afterwards, though, especially for that trained combatant, when you added the latest blow on top of what you knew very well was a pathetic illusion of safety, and it triggered the memory of every other danger you’d faced. Every other death you’d seen. Every other death you’dcaused.Death left a mark, and death by your hand? That left a scar.
If you were a good man, all of that would make you quieter, surely. Harder skinned on the outside, and more thoughtful underneath. And if a woman got under that hard skin and into your heart all the same, after all those episodes of frozen horror, those explosions into action had turned you into that kind of man? Surely, if she got there, she’d tend to stay there.
A woman, or a child. You’d hold harder to what mattered most, become more protective of those souls you loved, because you’d know exactly how fragile life was. You’d know what was in your control and what was out of it, and you’d seize hold with both hands to the things you could hang onto. You’d know that dying for something important—somebodyimportant—wasn’t the worst thing, because everybody died. Failure wouldn’t be the worst thing, even if you survived. Everybody lost sometimes.
Surely, the worst thing would be knowing you hadn’t tried hard enough. That you’d chosen wrong. That you’d chosen yourself.
Pain is temporary. The man in the mirror doesn’t go away.
His mind circled around it, and then, because there was nothing to distract it, no sound, no sight, not even the touch of solid surfaces on skin, it dove deeper. Into the walled-off places.
After the snakebite. A twelve-year-old Jace in khaki shorts, sitting by Rafe’s hospital bed, looking awkward, saying, “I should’ve grabbed the snake, mate.” And Rafe, drugged up as he’d been, mumbling, “I was the one who saw him, though.”
He hadn’t wanted to be a hero. Anyway, he’d known he wasn’t. He’d just wanted to go home.
Another memory, too. The sound of his mother’s voice before he’d opened his eyes, day after day, and the way his whirling, confused thoughts had settled every time to hear it, like she could reach inside him, put her loving hand straight onto his fear and pain, and send them packing. And the security of knowing that she’d be there the next time, too.
A woman, or a child.
What mattered most.
Even when the soft light came on inside the tank, it took Lily a while to wake up. Her consciousness floated to the surface the same way her body was floating in the warm water, and all she wanted was to stay there. She sighed, stretched, then opened the door, climbed out, and headed into the shower, moving slowly because there was no other choice. She didn’t seem to have any muscles left.
Stroking over her warm body with lotion, feeling her thirsty skin drink it up, then a brief stint with the blow drier to get some of the water out of her hair, and finally, she was putting on the new pieces she’d picked out, then fastening her dress over them.
She thought for a moment about the extravagance of buying things she didn’t need, then opened her hands and let that worry go. It was worth it. Rafe had provided the trail ride, and she’d provided the float, and having it that way felt good. Felt…mutual. She hoped he’d loved his float as much as she’d loved riding with him. Bear and all.
