AN ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME

Robin spent the week at Julie's house, staying well after he could have gone home. They slept together, ate together, walked together, talked together, and made love several times a day. His coughing had stopped, his strength fully returned, yet he stayed. A second week began and still he did not go. She filled him in a way he'd not known for, well, quite some time. That week passed, too, and their delight in one another did not abate. Then the rains came and he stayed because...he stayed. He wanted to, she wanted him to. It was as simple as that.

Even when he watched her across the room making tea, his hands tingled from remembered memory of her touch. He lifted his right hand now, looking down at his open palm, smiling slightly. There were several things his hand remembered, the fletch of an arrow sliding through his fingers, the ache after battle when the hilt of his sword seemed merged with his palm, the reins of his great white horse, but among all these familiarities now remained the softness of her skin, the curve of  breast, the long slope of thigh. A man's hand was like that, knowing both leather and metal, hip and breast. That was the way it should be.

Julie filled the tea kettle, watching him through half-lowered lashes. She'd not written, not on paper nor on the computer, since his coming. It was all in her mind, in her heart, and she overflowed with the words of him. It was not an impatient overflowing, not in any way, more of an endless fountain pouring into some vast reservoir. It was all there, all of it. There was no sense of hurry, no need. Hurry would be out of place, inappropriate, in these days of speaking softly, of meshing bodies. She wanted no more than him, his presence. Was there, in fact, any longer anything other than that remaining in the world? She neither knew nor cared.

They had just returned from a walk through her gardens when the phone rang. She handed it to him. "Maximus."

"Good day, Robin," the General greeted. They spoke a while about Robin's returned health, then Maximus continued, "I have been waiting for Alistair to recover sufficiently to suggest this to you, but now that is so and he wishes very much to meet the man who saved his life. If you would consider it, my wife and I would like for you and Julianna to come for dinner tomorrow evening. Alistair and Ahnna will be here and it may be that the time has come for you to meet some of your fellow residents."

His hand over the receiver, Robin looked up at Julie. "The General would like for us to come to dinner at his house tomorrow. The reverend and his wife will be there as well. What do you think?"

She nodded yes. An island out of time such as they'd been having could never last. Besides, she liked the General and knew Robin did, too. If they had to take an outrigger to the mainland, this would be the best place to land.

"It will be our good pleasure," Robin said into the phone. "I look forward to talking with you again and meeting Alistair."

So it was settled. For the first time since either of them had come to the Glen, they would be going to someone else's house. Well, Robin had been in Alistair's, but that hardly counted as a visit.