“Maybe you could teach me the rudiments when we’re back in the States,” Halo said.

  There! He’d said it. He wanted to see her back home. Norfolk to D.C. was only four hours.

  That thought was like champagne in her blood, bubbling up while she held her breath. Tension and excitement. It felt like she was underwater, and when she looked up, she could see the sun, knew there was air, and wanted so badly to pull herself toward that.

  Was she ready?

  Yes. Yes, she was. With Halo, she was.

  “Did you ever bag on an idea?” Halo’s question pulled her attention back from her champagne bubble thoughts. Mary was actually feeling a little strange—out of her body. She had to focus very hard to understand what he was saying.

  “Like you went in willingly to a new experience, but you immediately thought – nope, I’m not doing this twenty times. Just not.”

  “Once.” How brave was she? How much did she trust this man?

  “What was that?”

  “I … am uncomfortable sharing that.” She held up her free hand as if bracing herself. “But I’m going to tell you because I’m practicing being brave about my truth rather than caring about your perceptions of me.” She turned her head and took a deep breath of the lemon, enjoying the boost of calm.

  “That’s a challenge,” he said kindly. Will it make it easier if I promise not to judge?”

  They were shifting their weight back and forth as they moved forward. “Is that a promise that is possible to keep?”

  “No. You’re right. Some judgment is always there, either pro, con, or neutral. Okay, would it help if I promised to listen with a charitable ear?” he asked.

  “Interesting, okay. I don’t think I need charity as much as I’m afraid of the pictures this might paint for you.”

  “Something about … no, I can’t imagine what.”

  “I thought I might try to be a lesbian.”

  He canted his head. “Which means you aren’t a lesbian but somewhere on the spectrum?”

  “No. I’m hetero, pretty much through and through.”

  He licked his lips and looked like he was trying very hard not to smile. “But you thought you’d give it a go?”

  “Well … no. Not in the way I can imagine you might be picturing it.”

  He gave her a wicked grin. “Are you sure? Because It’s a lovely picture, I have going.”

  “Stop.” She used her mother voice.

  “Okay. So, How did you give being a lesbian a go?”

  “I played thirty questions and stared into her eyes for fifteen minutes.”

  “You’ll have to fill me in. I’m at a loss,” Halo said as they bobbled along the path, keeping to the higher, drier areas where they could. Pointing, he said, “That’s the pool I swam in if you want to try.”

  “You’ll guard me?”

  He put his hand on his heart. “With my life.”

  And Mary giggled. This whole thing. All of it was outlandish. And she was feeling drunk on it. “Filling you in. There’s a list of thirty questions that they’ve studied scientifically. And they’ve proven that if you sit across from someone and answer each question, you will come to love them.”

  “And the staring part?”

  “Is part of the falling in love.”

  “I see. And the science was wrong?”

  “No, it was right,” Mary said. “I love her dearly - but like a sister. She’s fostering my foster cat while I’m away. It’s a mean cat, by the way. He hates human contact and hides all day long, only coming out to eat and use the litter box. Fostering cats was a first attempt on a twenty-try-it thing that I think—for me—will also be a hard no going forward. So I guess that’s two things that didn’t work out.”

  Halo laughed.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He laughed again. “Sorry.”

  “Stop snort-laughing and tell me what.”

  Halo rested his hand on Max’s head.

  Max was staring at Mary with a singular intensity, and Halo followed the look from Max to her and back to Max as if he was trying to read some hidden communication. “It would be ungentlemanly,” he said—something just a bit off in his tone.

  Mary sniffed her bouquet, enjoying their banter. “I give you permission to be a momentary creep. Thirty seconds. Go.”

  “You thought maybe your thirty questions friend could take care of your pussy, and now she’s taking care of your pussy.”

  “Okay, nice, you got that in with ten seconds to spare.”

  “Did you want me to finish the ten seconds?”

  “Nope. Now you’re out of creep-time.”

  “Good thing.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  They had reached a little tree next to the pool that Halo had pointed out to her. It was on a slight rise that was a little less wet and mushy. She sat down and pulled off the bog shoes, then her pants.

  “So not just twenty things but twenty things for twenty hours?” Halo whispered, taking a full step back, both hands on Max’s lead as her shirt and then her bra found their way to the little pile.

  “Except for being a lesbian, that was a single hour of questions.”

  “And then the staring.”

  “Exactly. And worth it.” She sent a look over her shoulder and then slipped out of her panties. “Now, I love a new person. But I’m not doing anything physically intimate with her.”

  Halo turned his head, doing a sweep of the area. Mary thought he might be making sure that she wasn’t naked in front of strangers. Or maybe he was trying to give her some privacy to get in the water.

  “Was she sad?” Halo asked. “Because this woman already knew she enjoyed being with other women, right? Or were two hetero women trying to go lesbian together?”

  Mary lay on the sphagnum moss, inching her way backward into the water. It felt like cool silk brushing over her skin. But it was still kind of scary in its opacity. She met her comfort zone when her chest was out of the pool, and her legs floated behind her. She folded her arms and rested her head on a pillow of glorious Labrador tea and sphagnum moss. “She’s a lesbian. And she loves me, but the chemistry isn’t there for her either, so she’s my —”

  “Cat lady.”

  “Dear friend.”

  “Same thing.” Halo smiled down at her.

  “You know, in a way, you’re right about that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Okay, I’ve talked about that to the extent of my comfort zone,” Mary said. “Let’s talk about something else. You said you’d just come in from Helsinki, Finland. Tell me something you learned there that you didn’t know before.”

  Halo was watching Max. From his posture, something had him braced. Maybe he didn’t like that Mary was in the water by herself.

  “Sauna is pronounced sownah. And they would very much like everyone to pronounce it properly. According to our tour guide, it’s the single Finnish word that most of the world knows.” It was a natural thing to think about. He was at work fully clothed in his uniform, guarding a naked woman, the same as he had been back in Helsinki. It was a good reminder of the role he was playing right then.

  “Sowna, okay.”

  He was glad she was facing downward, though, her bottom sinking under the water. Everything about Mary’s body turned him on, and this was just an inappropriate time and venue. He’d admit it was a struggle to be professionally platonic around Mary. “Also, they are hardcore about their saunas. They are ubiquitous, and by that, I mean everywhere imaginable and unimaginable. For example, I was told that there’s a fast-food chain that has a sauna in it. One can order a burger and go back and steam.”

  “Makes sense,” she said, her words came slowly. “You replace the salt from your sweat with the salt on the fries.”

  “There’s a Ferris wheel that has one of the cars as a sauna, so you can spin and sweat at the same time.”

  “With a lovely view,” she said.

  Max lay on the water's edge, the sphagnum moss giving a little under his weight. His gaze was glued on Mary, hard-focused. There was something about Max’s response to Mary, starting when they first saw each other at the airport.

  The only time Halo had seen Max respond like that before was at the shelter when Max uncurled from the corner of his crate as a tiny pup, caught Halo’s eye, and began their lifelong bond.

  And Halo trusted his dog.

  Max had picked Halo out for a lifelong partnership. Had he picked out Mary, too?

  There was a peace that settled into Halo’s chest at that thought. And something else, a longing maybe or—yeah, the word “sentimentality” was coming to mind.

  The bond Max felt, Halo got that. He felt it, too.

  Halo just wasn’t sure how to interpret the intensity and concern Max was displaying right now. Not environmental. It was something about Mary. He untied his boots, getting ready lest he need to go into the water after her. “Not sure about the view. Once you pour the water on the heating element in the sauna, the car fills with steam, hey?”

  “And you can’t get out,” Mary said. “That actually sounds nightmarish for a sauna novice. I guess the pain thing would apply there. If you knew that the heat wasn’t going to kill you, maybe it would be relaxing? I just can’t imagine it. You could not get me on the sauna Ferris wheel. Could not.”

  “Here’s another point. Public saunas, one wears swim togs. In private saunas, one goes in starkers.” He pulled off his socks and stuck them into his boots to keep them dry.

  “I’ve been in a ladies' sauna. We were all naked, going in wrapped in a towel. Then everyone just gives you mental privacy.”

  “Yes. Well, As far as I saw, there were no gender separations in the saunas.” He unclasped his backpack.

  “There’s more to that story.” She pushed away from the edge of the pool, rolling on her back and floating. Around her, the mirror-like surface reflected the marbled swirl of gray clouds overhead.

  “As it turns out, many businesses have their own saunas to help their workers stay relaxed.” When he was doing his planning this morning, he’d done the requisite weather checks, and the radar had been clear. Maybe Max was picking up something in the weather? Halo leaned back to assess. He remembered being on the mountain looking for Mrs. Haze. Halo had looked at the sky and didn’t see anything ominous. Aries looked at the same sky and had furrowed his brow.

  “Uh oh. That sounds like a private sauna situation,” Mary smiled.

  “Indeed. And as it turns out, when you are new to a team, it is polite—or so it was explained to us—for the office to host a sauna to welcome the new member.” He pulled his phone from his thigh pocket, and as expected, he had no cell tower bars.

  “Like, I don’t know anyone here, so let’s get naked and hang out in a very hot room kind of welcome?”

  “Yes. Exactly. That.” He pulled his sat phone from his pack, raised the antenna, and tried to call Nutsbe to get the current read on the weather and check in. But the cloud cover was too thick to make the connection.

  Max’s tongue was out, panting and chomping the way he did when he was stressed.

  Glancing around and not seeing animals of any kind, Halo decided to unclasp the lead so the leather wasn’t soaking in the water.

  Max’s behavior primed Halo’s nervous system. He just didn’t know why. His whole body was yelling for him to act, act now. But he saw nothing to act on.

  “You were working close protection. Did you go into the sauna with your client, or were you outside of the door?”

  “If I were outside the door, I wouldn’t be protecting my client.” She had floated toward the center of the pool, and Max was inching closer, front paws in the water, barely resting on the vegetation.

  Mary raised her brows. “Did you do this naked?”

  “When on duty, I’m required to be in full uniform.”

  “In the sauna.”

  “Quite warm.” He decided to go ahead and get his pants off. If he were going in, the survival supplies in his pocket would weigh him down.

  “With your naked client. Female?”

  “I was with my client. And the rest of the office workers, both male and female.”

  “Hell of a way to get to know your boss.”

  “For my client, yes,” he was picking over his words like produce, making sure that there were none in his basket with bruising or blemishes, nothing that would give away a client’s private information. “Culturally a non-issue for the others, it was quite a shock to my client. They were very uncomfortable throughout but tried to mask it.” He dragged his pants over his feet and piled them on top of his boots. Mary didn’t seem to notice.

  “And you were melting like butter.” Was she slurring?

  “That would be a fair description.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yes. It was quite wow, especially for an American. Other countries are less timid with nudity. Australians, in general, don’t mind much. How are you doing in there? Everything okay?”

  “It’s nice.” She offered up a contented smile. After a moment said, “Yeah, I don’t know about myself. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation outside of the gym or that females-only sauna I mentioned where I was challenged with just pulling off my clothes in front of strangers.”

  “You did to save that family.”

  “Not naked and no room for ego,” She said as she started twirling around and around in the water like a ballerina. “To be honest, there wasn’t even room for thought. My body began moving, and I began to freak out whenever I started processing things. So I did what I trained myself to do in the ER.”

  “Which was?” Her words sounded cogent and intelligent. But something wasn’t right. Halo thought if he could keep her talking, he might figure it out. In his mind, he was working his way from the point where they got on the trail forward. Had he missed something along the way? What was happening here?

  “Get out of the way of my brain. My brain had the training and a broader ability to observe and know the right action. This messed me up so much in school. I would answer the question, then second guess myself and change the answer when it was the first one all along, the one my brain sprang forward. But I guessed that if it came easy, it had to be wrong. Things needed to be hard. I worked on not doing that all through nursing school. But the test came when I was an emergency room nurse. With lives on the line, I had no time for second-guessing. Just let the brain do its work. That’s the mantra.”

  “Let the brain do its work.” He repeated as he thought that through. “Right, well, that’s what we do, too. Lean into the training; don’t second guess. Hesitate and die.” He stood up and cast an anxious gaze around him. “And feel the fear later.” Suddenly, the smell of ozone tickled his nostrils.

  That wasn’t good. Time to go.

  Mary was treading water. “Oh, yum. Can you taste that?” she asked.

  “Taste?” Smell ozone, yes. Taste?

  She licked her lips. “Yes, your words taste like cinnamon chocolate.” Her face crinkled with concentration. “Halo,” she whispered. “Didn’t you tell me there were no animals in the pools?”

  “Yes, too acidic.”

  “There …” She paused. “There’s …” Her face froze in horror. “Something wrapping around my legs.”

  “Our guide, Marilin, said that there were plants. Let me look it up.” He reached for his bag and flipped to the book they’d been provided about the various things one might encounter on the bog. “Yes, just plants, Mary. But how about you come out?”

  “Oh, wow. Look at you!” Mary called, her words filled with awe. “Look! I see why they call you Halo.” She lifted a hand in the air to circle her head and slid down deeper into the black water. “The halo. The wings. You are my guardian angel.”

  Max stood up and was leaning in toward her. “Mary, come back over here now, please.”

  Her eyes opened wide, her brows to her hairline. She started screaming. “Snakes!”

  Max bunched up his muscles and, on what little surface he had, was able to extend his leap out, arriving beside Mary.

  The sound of horror rose through her throat and echoed across the landscape.

  Halo, too, was in the water. Three powerful strokes brought him next to her.

  Max had already caught hold of her messy bun and was swimming toward the edge, but that was the most he could do.

  There was no land. There were no sides to press into and climb out. There was only water-saturated moss. It wasn’t like a swimming pool rescue or a shore like a lake. Here, the water was deep, and there was nothing solid.

  Halo commanded Max to release Mary’s hair. The moment Max complied, Halo stuck his palm under his dog’s bottom—kicking powerfully, a hand under Mary’s head—he heaved Max toward a drier mound.

  There was a scramble and splash, a bicycling of hind paws, but Max, with the momentum of Halo’s push, was able to scramble himself up under the tree where things were a little drier and, therefore, a little more solid. There, he gave himself a shake.

  Mary was thrashing and fighting something that terrified her. In her fright, she was pushing Halo under, drowning him.

  Bobbing in the water, sucking in a breath every time he rose over the surface, Halo worked to straitjacket Mary with his arms. As he nudged her onto the moss, her weight forced the little floating island down below the water. It was inch by difficult inch that he moved her closer to the tree, up to Max, who whined and stomped and seemed frustrated that he wasn’t helping.

  Suddenly, the screaming stopped, and Mary reached for the tree trunk and pulled herself up. She sat there, dazed.

  “Mary, it’s Halo.”

  She looked into the pool where he was treading water.

  She said nothing to him. She looked high as shit.

  “Mary, when we were walking in here, did you eat a mushroom?” Halo patted over the moss as he asked, testing out a place to work on his own exit. Everything here had been agitated by Max and Mary, and now the edge was loose and pulled away like cotton candy.