When she came around the bend, she found him sprawled facedown in the sand.
"Joss!"
Horrified, she ran to him, dropping to her knees by his side. Her first touch on his back assured her that he was not dead. The silky skin was damp with perspiration. He had fainted, and served him right, too! Anyone with a lick of sense would have known better than to go striding off in this heat, and with a head injury, at that.
She was glaring down at him when his eyes opened.
"What a charming sight," he muttered, the words snide, and shut his ey6s again. Lilah had to grit her teeth to keep from adding to his injuries with a hard box to his ear.
"I told you it wasn't a good idea to go marching about in this heat," she pointed out virtuously, hoping to annoy him. His eyelashes flickered, and for a moment two slits of green regarded her malevolently.
"Next time I'll let you drown," Joss said under his breath. Before Lilah could answer, he rolled over onto his back, his hand lifting to shade his eyes.
"Christ, my head aches!"
"I'm not surprised! I told you-"
"If you say that one more time I won't be responsible for what I do."
Silenced temporarily, Lilah rocked back on her heels. Joss lay unmoving, the stubbly growth of black whiskers on his cheeks and jaw and the thick pelt of black fur on his chest making him seem like some wild stranger. Her eyes ran over the breadth of his shoulders and down his arms… and suddenly she frowned. The exposed skin of his shoulders and upper arms and chest was an angry shade of deep brick red. Her own skin tingled faintly, but she didn't think she could have much of a burn with the long-sleeved, high-necked dress to cover her body and the deep flounce of the petticoat protecting her face.
"Joss."
The lack of hostility in her tone must have gotten through to him, because he lifted his hand a little to look at her. "Hmm?"
"There's shade up there at the edge of the palm trees. Do you think you can make it that far? It's just a few yards. You can lean on me, if you like. But you really need to get out of the sun."
"What, you mean your ladyship would actually willingly suffer the touch of a lowly slave? Why, I'm overwhelmed!"
Her affability was definitely not contagious, it seemed. "You are the most… Never mind! I'm determined not to quarrel with you anymore! Be as obnoxious as you like, I don't care! But you need to get out of the sun! Your shoulders and arms are as red as a lobster!"
"They're about the color of your nose, then," he retorted, but his tone was milder than before. "Actually you look rather fetching, with your nose like a cherry and that petticoat wound around your head. Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that you were human."
Lilah lost her patience and stood up, almost stamping her foot in exasperated annoyance. "You are really the most despicable…!" Her voice trailed off as her eyes happened to touch on something down the beach a bit. The outcropping of sand and scrub grass that interrupted her view of the horizon looked amazingly like the promontory she had climbed when she had first awakened and thought herself alone on the beach.
"What's the matter?" Joss followed her gaze with his eyes, but the promontory meant nothing to him. He'd been well to the west of it when she'd found him.
"I think we're right back where we started." There was a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"That's not possible! We couldn't have come full circle so fast! Unless…"He frowned. "What makes you think we have?"
"That little hill over there-I'm almost sure that's the one where I found the water."
"It can't be."
"Let's get you out of the sun, and I'll go see."
He demurred at first, determined to go with her, but at last Lilah managed to persuade him of the folly of taking a chance on aggravating his injury with sunstroke. As soon as he was upright his head started to swim again. Lilah quickly slid her arm around his waist as he swayed and staggered a pace backwards. Joss leaned heavily against her for a moment, unable to help himself as a wave of dizziness washed over him. Lilah was tinglingly conscious of the intimacy implicit in the way she was holding him, her arm around his naked waist, her hand pressing against the hard flat muscles of his abdomen. If anyone should see-but there was no one to see, no one to know, and if something happened to Joss she would be all alone. Surely it was no more than her Christian duty to do what she could to help him, under the circumstances.
Joss tried to stand on his own two feet without her support, but was hit with another, milder dizzy spell. It was obvious he had little choice: accept her assistance or fall on his face in the sand. With his arm wrapped around her shoulders and her arm around his waist, they hobbled over to where the changing angle of the sun sent shade stretching out across the beach. He was heavy and his skin was damp and warm and gritty with the sand that clung to it. His faintly pungent odor made her wrinkle her nose.
"Smell, do I?" he inquired, seeing her expression.
"Just a little. I imagine I do, too."
He shook his head. "No, you don't," he said. "If that does turn out to be your hill-bring back some water, would you?"
The faintly rasping quality of his voice told her better than words just how exhausted he was.
The promontory was the same one. Lilah climbed to the top of it, found the rock pool, greedily drank until her own thirst was slaked and then filled two shells with water. More than that she could not carry, but the shells were large and would contain sufficient water for Joss for the time being.
When she returned to Joss, he was on his back. The shade had crept down a little more so that it reached a good three feet beyond where he lay. To her surprise, Lilah realized that it must be late afternoon.
Bending to settle the shells carefully in the sand, Lilah knelt beside Joss. She called his name and gently touched his shoulder. His eyes opened, flickered once, then with what appeared to be an effort of will fixed on her face.
"I brought you some water."
With her assistance he managed to lever himself onto one elbow and gulp down the water. Then he lay back in the sand once more, his posture indescribably weary.
"Was it the same hill?"
"Yes." Lilah unwrapped the petticoat from her head, wadded it up, and pushed it under his head for a pillow.
"Mmmm."
She took that as a thank you. After that he was silent for a moment as he lay there with his eyes closed. Finally his eyes opened a slit.
"You realize what that means, don't you?"
"What?" Lilah frowned. She really hadn't thought much about it, except to be pleased that she had so easily found water again.
"We're on an island-no, not even an island, it's not big enough for that. An atoll in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We've walked all the way around it and seen not a solitary sign of life except for ourselves. Unless there's someone in the interior-and I don't think there is, or we would have seen evidence of that-we're all alone."
Lilah's eyes widened. "All alone?" She swallowed as the various ramifications played through her head. "Do you mean we're… marooned?" The last word was almost a squeak.
"Exactly," he said, and shut his eyes again.