Free Blooming in the Wild by Cathryn Cade Page A

“Guess you’ll never know.”
    Joel adjusted himself surreptitiously in his shorts, groaning silently. He’d known she was trouble from those first few moments. Now, instead of going peacefully to sleep, he was going to lie in his sleeping bag and imagine her offering him not guava but passion fruit.
     
    As they reached the camp, another shadow moved out to meet them. It was Frank.
    “What’s up?” he asked. He might be a lot smaller than Joel, but there was an edge in his voice. The older man had obviously caught on that he was attracted to Bella and was feeling protective.
    “Bella heard something and wanted to make sure everyone’s all right,” Joel said quietly. “I heard her and followed.”
    “It was, um, just Camille and Li,” Bella muttered. “Being…private.”
    Frank grunted in acknowledgement, obviously uninterested in the photographers’ midnight wanderings. “Well, I can’t sleep. Want to sit?”
    “Sure,” Joel agreed. He was wide awake now, and conversation was a lot better idea than trying to get in Bella’s pants.
    The three of them settled into camp chairs by the dark fire pit.
    “Look at those stars,” Joel said, tipping back his head to admire the brilliant panoply above. “There’s Orion, with his bow and arrow.” He smiled at the familiar group of stars. The Hunter had always been his favorite constellation, a beacon calling him to adventure since he’d been a boy in the forests of northern Idaho. He’d posed with his first bow and arrow, imagining he was the legendary hunter.
    “Our people have been navigating by those stars for a thousand years,” Frank mused. “Imagine being out there a moana, on da sea on a night like this, riding the huge waves in an outrigger, food and water dwindling, wondering if you’re gonna make it to a place you can make a good life, or if Kanaloa will take you down to your death in his kingdom below.”
    “It must have been something,” Joel agreed.
    “You’ve been lot of places,” Frank commented. “Where you like da most?”
    Joel shrugged. “I don’t know. Lot of places I haven’t been yet.”
    “You journey as the Hawaiians once did,” Bella said. “Are you looking for a home, as they were?”
    Her soft voice was like a chill breeze of accusation down Joel’s back. He moved his shoulders restlessly, old anger stirring in his gut. “Not me, Princess. I’m a rolling stone.”
    No hanging on to a building and a piece of ground for him while the money ran out and the town died around him, the other residents either moving away or huddling down to subsist on a monthly assistance check and what they could hunt or fish. That had been his parents’ life in a north Idaho timber town, but it would damn sure never be his. Unless—no, he wasn’t going to let worry sap his strength. He’d get through this rough patch and the show would be picked up for another year. Had to be. He wasn’t the only one depending on it. Jorge and Al and all the studio production crew had to make a living too.
    To throw off the dark mood that threatened, he lay back in his chair, stretching his arms up and then lacing his fingers behind his head, gazing at the stars. “We’ve been talking about filming an episode of The Zone in the Arctic. Now that would be something. Take kayaks up among the ice floes.”
    “Enjoyed da show up in Alaska,” Frank said. “You hiked right through those big Kodiak bears. Au’e! Never seen anything li’dat.”
    Joel grinned at him. “Yeah, you have. Tiger sharks here—now, those are impressive.”
    “I suppose you’re going to swim with them next,” Bella muttered. Then she yawned, covering her mouth with one hand.
    “You betta get to bed, Nani,” Frank said. “You gotta whip us all into shape in da morning.”
    Her head moved as she glanced at Joel. “Um, good night.” She shot out of her chair and scurried off across the rocks to her tent.
    Joel watched her go, grinning to himself at Frank’s choice of