28
Camila
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee envelops me.
For a few seconds, I savor the silence. There’s no longer a storm, no apocalyptic noises or thunder shaking the foundations.
All I can hear is the faint creaking of the wood, the shrill cries of the early-rising cockatoos, and the distant murmur of the animals slowly waking up after last night’s chaos.
I sit up straight in my wooden chair and take a sip from my cup before fixing my gaze straight ahead.
Darana has her back to me, standing at the counter.
Her hair is pulled back into a low, messy ponytail, with several unruly strands escaping to brush against her neck in an insultingly sexy way.
Her shirt sleeves are rolled up to her elbows, and she’s wearing tight jeans that still bear a few dried stains from yesterday’s clay-like mud.
Even so, she looks gorgeous. I can’t help but let out a huge, goofy grin.
“If you keep devouring me with your eyes like that, Bennet, I’m going to have to start charging you admission for the show,” she says without turning around, energetically slicing a loaf of bread.
I get up slowly, cradling the steaming cup in my hands and resting my hip against the edge of the table, enjoying the view of her jeans.
“Always so friendly and feisty in the morning, Calloway?” I reply with a crooked smile as I walk toward her. “I thought you needed at least two strong cups of coffee to be even remotely bearable and not bite the first person who walks by.”
She snorts, sets the knife down on the cutting board, and turns toward me, crossing her arms. Her honey-colored eyes seek mine with an intensity that takes my breath away and makes my knees go weak in a second.
“It depends on who I spend the night with and how much exercise we’ve had in the shower…” she murmurs, arching an eyebrow with such brazen mischief that it makes me swallow hard.
I set the cup down on the counter, completely ignoring the coffee.
I close the distance between us, stepping right into her personal space until I feel the warmth of her body.
My fingers trace her face almost instinctively, gently brushing aside one of those blond strands of hair covering her eyes.
Her skin is warm and a little rough from the desert sun, but it’s a delight to touch.
“Good morning,” I whisper.
Darana doesn’t answer me with words. Instead, she takes a step forward, wraps her strong hands around my waist, and pulls me close to her body.
The kiss begins softly, warmly, almost as if we were asking each other’s permission.
Nothing like the wild hurricane we unleashed last night.
This kiss is slow, savoring the taste of each other.
And it’s a thousand times more dangerous, because it means the armor is cracking and there are some serious feelings here.
When we pull apart by a millimeter, our breaths mingle and her forehead rests against mine for what feels like an eternal moment.
“This is a terrible idea, scientist…” she murmurs, though her hands grip my hips tighter, completely contradicting her words.
“A disastrous idea, Calloway,” I reply, sliding my hands to the nape of her neck to stroke her hairline. “One of the worst of my career.”
Neither of us moves. Finally, she clears her throat, breaks the spell with a sigh, and returns to the counter to hide the fact that she’s just as turned on as I am.
“Let’s eat this toast,” she announces, spreading butter as if her life depended on it. “If you don’t want to pass out, get your ass over here and help me with the dishes. And stop looking at me like I’m dessert—I know you too well.”
I burst out laughing and pick up the thread of normalcy she’s offering me.
“At your service, boss. Although I have to tell you, you look good enough to dip bread in, and the toast doesn’t have that cute little dimple you get when you start bossing people around.”
Darana glares at me, but her cheeks flush with a lovely blush that I love seeing.
We make breakfast together in a somewhat clumsy dance between the coffee maker, the bread, and the jars of homemade jam.
I open a jar of Vegemite and cut a slice of artisan cheese, and that intense aroma hits me full force with a wave of memories so vivid that I freeze, the knife halfway through the slice.
“The flood of memories that comes rushing back to me in this kitchen…” I say, unable to help myself, my gaze lost on the tiles. “Especially from when I first started dating Elijah. How it seemed like the whole world was ours and nothing could go wrong.”
Silence falls over the kitchen. I look up, startled. Darana has frozen completely, her arm suspended in midair. Her expression hardens instantly, and the tension in her jaw is so obvious that it kills the mood completely.
Damn it, Camila, you’ve got such a big mouth.
I set the knife aside and approach her slowly, measuring each step as if I were walking through a minefield. I place a hand on her shoulder, feeling her stiff muscles.
“If you’re worried about him or how I might feel, you really shouldn’t be,” I say, moving my hand up to her cheek so she’ll look at me. “I’m sure Elijah would want to see us like this. And I’m here with you, Darana. Only with you.”
She looks away toward the window, gazing out at the landscape with eyes clouded by an ancient pain.
“I hate the way he died,” she tells me. “Because of what happened, his lungs were affected, but he never told us. And the infection… He held on like a champ, fighting every day. Even longer than the doctors thought possible. And every damn afternoon, he asked about you, even though he tried to act tough.”
I feel a sharp, brutal pang right in the middle of my chest.
“Darana…” I whisper, feeling tears burning behind my eyes.
“Despite how things ended between you two, he always remembered you with a smile, right up until his last breath,” she continues, turning to look me straight in the eyes and laying my soul bare.
“He said you’d been the best thing that ever happened to him, that you had to fly high, and that your mind wasn’t meant to be locked away in some remote corner of the Outback. ”
The words pierce me like a sword. A tremendous lump forms in my throat. There are so many things I never cleared up with him, so much pain I caused because I didn’t know how to handle the fear I felt back then.
“I wish I’d had the guts to say goodbye properly,” I confess, lowering my head. “I wish I hadn’t been such a coward, running away from all this and leaving you to deal with the mess.”
Before I sink into the pit of guilt, Darana taps the table sharply with her knuckles, forcing me to snap out of it.
“Enough with the drama,” she says, though she grabs my hand for a second and gives it a comforting squeeze. “Get moving, Bennet. Breakfast’s getting cold. I don’t want any more ghosts in my kitchen today. We’re here. Right here, right now. Got it?”
I thank her for the rescue with a look of absolute devotion. We sit down at the table and dig into the toast, sharing knowing smiles over our cups of coffee as the tension of the past dissipates, giving way to a much lighter, more playful atmosphere.
When we step outside an hour later, Birdsong Hills is a veritable hive of activity.
Geoscience Australia has kept its word. The off-road trucks are lined up like soldiers ready for battle, loaded to the brim with copper mesh and electromagnetic shielding heads that contrast almost comically with the ranch’s wooden corrals and red earth.
My fellow scientists, in their lab coats and carrying their folders, mingle with Darana’s ranch hands in a bustle that three days ago would have seemed like a hallucination.
Ethan and Bert are perched on the four-wheel-drive tractors, skillfully maneuvering them to cut deep trenches into the clay soil. The massive wheels spin powerfully, churning up clods of wet earth as the blades sink in with precision.
“A little farther west, Ethan! Don’t stray from the magnetic vein, or it’ll be useless!” Kira shouts from the side, checking her tablet and gesturing with her arms as if she were an air traffic controller.
Ricky struggles to make his way through the mud, carrying a heavy roll of copper mesh on his shoulder with the help of two technicians from my team.
“Oh my God! If someone had told me I’d end up digging up metal as if I were searching for pirate treasure, I wouldn’t have believed it!” Ricky jokes, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.
I stop to take in the scene with my arms crossed, feeling an overwhelming sense of pride.
My team and these people work together perfectly.
At that moment, I sense Darana’s presence beside me.
She stands with her legs slightly apart, her arms crossed over her chest, and that cocky smile that drives me crazy.
“Hey, this isn’t half bad for a bunch of nerds who only know how to stare at screens in air-conditioned offices,” she says, nudging my shoulder.
“Admit it already, Calloway,” I retort, returning the nudge with a crooked smile. “We’re saving your ass. Show some respect for science.”
“Don’t get too big for your britches, Bennet.
My tractors are doing the hard work here,” she replies, but her eyes shine with genuine pride that makes my pulse race.
We lock eyes for a second too long, feeling the electricity from last night sizzle between us again.
“Come on, get a move on. We have to get the PDCE heads up to the northern hills before the heat becomes unbearable.”
Darana nods, slipping back into her role as a relentless drill sergeant.
“I’m going to saddle up Byron and your mare. And do me a favor and hold on tight to the reins—I don’t have time today to go picking up scientists scattered all over the cliffs.”
· · ·
The climb up to the hills is pure physical torture.
The ground is still slippery from the rainwater, and the midday Australian heat is starting to evaporate the moisture, creating a dense, sticky, unbearable atmosphere that makes your clothes cling to your body within minutes.
Darana rides ahead of me on Byron, moving in perfect sync with the horse as if she were born in the saddle—which she probably was.
I try to maintain my dignity on the mare, focused on not losing my balance and ignoring a most peculiar tingling sensation that’s starting to run through my arms.
“Do you feel it too?” I call out, breaking the silence of the trail as I watch the horizon grow strangely blurry.
Darana brings Byron to a sudden halt and turns in the saddle. Her face is serious, and her gaze is fixed on the highest cliffs of the ranch.
“Yes,” she replies. “I don’t like this one bit. It smells like ozone again. It’s as if the storm were watching us from above.”
We pick up the pace, and when we finally reach the top of the rocky hill, the heat hits us as if we’d opened the door to an oven.
“We have to install the heat sink right on that rock formation,” I say, pointing to a limestone outcrop that overlooks the entire valley. “From there, it will channel the energy toward the copper grids Ethan is burying down below.”
Darana doesn’t waste a second. She grabs the heaviest box, displaying a level of physical strength that—why lie?—I find extremely attractive. We move in absolute, harmonious silence.
“Hold this bracket. I’m going to drive in the last anchor screw,” she tells me.
Her closeness completely throws me off balance.
I feel the scorching heat of her body pressed against my back, her deep, ragged breath brushing the nape of my neck, and that damn scent of leather, sun, and lavender emanating from her skin.
I shudder all over, losing all sense of physics for a moment.
“That’s it… it’s secure now,” I murmur, though I’m unable to move even a single inch away from her.
Neither does Darana. The silence in the middle of the summit grows dense, thick, and so charged with sexual tension that you could almost cut it with a knife. The whole world disappears, and only the two of us exist atop this rock in the Outback.
Suddenly, Darana breaks the stalemate. She grabs my shoulders with a firmness that takes my breath away, spins me around completely, and pins me against the warm rock wall, planting her hands on either side of my body. Her eyes burn with a wild intensity that makes me hold my breath.
“I can’t keep playing this game, Camila,” she blurts out desperately.
“I’ve spent ten damn years running away from how I feel about you, trying to convince myself that I hated you with all my might.
And now you’re here, saving my business and looking at me as if I were the only thing that matters to you on this planet. ”
I grab her by the lapels of her shirt in a fit of passion and pull her toward me with all my strength.
“Well, you’re not wrong, Calloway.”
When her lips crash against mine, I know we’ve crossed the point of no return. My hands sink into her blond hair, pulling at her ponytail to undo it completely while she moans against my mouth, pressing herself against me with a possessiveness and tenderness that drive me wild.
“God, how I’ve missed you, smart-ass…” she murmurs between kisses, devouring my mouth as if her life depended on it.