She wanted to ease into it, at her pace and on her own terms. With the luxury of no longer being a fugitive, she could take her time acclimating to life back on US soil. So she began her return in Hawaii. It’s America, yet far away enough from the mainland to still give her peace of mind. Peace also came in the form of lazy afternoons in a beach hut in Kauai, where the only major task was collecting fresh fruit around the hut. Maybe paying the local boys to crack some coconuts, and return later with the day’s catch. Fresh fish like ahi tuna, gutted, cleaned, and marinated already in garlic and butter. Macy handled the fire to cook it with herself. She didn’t mind that. For a change, it was nice to be able to enjoy a fire in a leisurely way, and not depend on it for her very existence. This wasn’t the windswept outskirts of a Sudanese desert, where she would huddle all night next to a pile of coals to keep from freezing. It was just another Tuesday night, early evening with a book, lying in a hammock and listening to the sound of waves crashing ashore. She could even fall asleep out here, in open air, in plain sight until the sun dipped below the ocean.

Macy could do other things at night, private things inside the hut after Tucker arrived a week later. During the day, too. His arrival also meant having another pair of hands around, allowing Macy more time to relax and recover from his attentions. In the sleepy lulls in between making love, Tucker would take over the tasks of her island boys. He’d become her island man, climbing down off a tree and returning home with a machete in one hand and net of coconuts in the other.

She would hear his footsteps, bare sandy feet on the wood planks. By now she knew the exact sound of them. She lay in bed without a worry, without her customary one-eyed sleep. Even at his touch, when he crawled onto the bed, she knew. The feel of his hand, the size of it, his strength, had been etched in her mind, deeper with every application. With every session in bed, and on the floor, and in the sand.

Tucker was here with her now, running his hand from her ankle to knee, and then folding warmly around her thigh. He lay in close to her, against her back, his warm lips on the nape of her neck pulling her away from the clutches of sleep.

“It’s okay,” he said when she stirred. “You can keep sleeping.” But his hand didn’t stop. And neither did his mouth. When he finally pulled his soft kisses away from her bare back, he whispered, “I just need to take care of something.”

She felt his hand drop to her hip, around and behind, squeezing firmly on her bare ass. Massaging. Despite closed eyes and pretended sleep, Macy couldn’t help herself, her groany anticipation. Neither could she help rolling over for Tucker, her island man. She closed her eyes, and felt him. And he took care of her.

* * *

“How long do you think we can keep this up for?”

“You tell me,” she said, rolling over to see his tanned face. “You seem to be keeping it up just fine.”

Tucker grinned. “Well, I’m sure that could go on forever. That’s the problem, though. We won’t be able to leave here.”

The sun had set a half hour ago and it was time for the next phase, to go outside to enjoy the night breeze. They could toss a few more logs on the fire and watch it get nice and big. The whole night awaited them. A slow glass of wine, lingering conversation. Maybe a whole month of Hawaii, if they wanted. And maybe a whole life after that.

“We’ll keep it up,” she said, her fingers tracing down his stomach, “for as long as we want.”

“Except I can’t exactly work remotely. Jackson will want me back, eventually.”

“Yes, you can.” She grazed her hand over his cock through his shorts and felt him grow hard again. “You’ve been doing it so well. And we’re halfway across the Pacific, almost as remote as it gets.”

“That’s not work,” he said.

Her hand kept teasing him. He was so dependable that way. “It’s pleasure,” she said. “But seriously? We’ll have to move on eventually, won’t we? It’ll be years before I see any money from the courts. Months, even if I publish my story.”

“And you still have to finish it,” Tucker said.

“Huh?”

“The book,” he said. “At some point you have to actually write it.”

She laughed, drawing her hand away from him. “Yeah, well, that’s also why we’re here.”

Tucker grinned. “Sure.”

That hand would eventually have to start doing another kind of work. Sometime much more boring. Typing. Macy shrugged. “You can support us in the meantime, while I finish the masterpiece.”

“How? With coconuts?”

“And hauling wood,” Macy said. “And fixing the wind damage on the front thatching. And learning how to reel in a daily supply of ahi tuna.”

“That’s all?”

“No,” she said, turning her back to him, offering herself again. She wanted to feel his touch.

“That reminds me,” Tucker said. “I should get started on that fire.”

“Exactly.”

He moved away, his weight leaving the bed. “Hey,” she cried, listening to his footsteps slap quietly out of the hut, down the steps and onto the sand. Macy called again, “Hey!” But all that she could hear, aside from the wind and the waves, was the quiet thudding of fire logs. And then moments later, his ax, splitting them.

After the ax and the wood had gone quiet, and after another ten minutes following that, Macy finally felt alone—and not the good kind of alone. For the first time since Africa, she’d felt it again. A certain nervous energy. A sense of foreboding.

She’d done just fine the whole time before Tucker arrived. Even alone at night, when she could only hear the noises of the beach and of the wildlife around her. But now that Tucker was here, she’d made herself vulnerable again.

It was healthy to be vulnerable.

Macy told herself that again as she waited to hear from him.

“Tucker?”

She was sitting in bed now, a sick feeling in her stomach.

No, it was healthy. It was okay.

She was adjusting.

She knew there’d be a lot of work to do. On her book, on their new relationship. But most importantly, she would have to work extra hard on herself. That was also part of the rationale for Hawaii. She hoped the peace and positives surroundings would draw inward. And so far, they had.

Except right now, when she focused on the sounds outside the hut, the footsteps drawing near. It was an unfamiliar sound. Unfamiliar footsteps. A pair of them.