Indy must have fallen asleep eventually. He also must have awoken, showered, and walked down the hillside and across the lawn to the restaurant at some point.

But his whole mind had been so taken with Nikki that he didn’t really remember a moment of it.

He had learned that when he made a mistake his perfect memory could be a curse. Again and again he would relive each instant of his error, replaying it in an endless loop of misery.

But if he thought bad memories were difficult to bear, he had no idea how tortured he might be by a good memory. Especially a memory as good as the one he had made with Nikki last night.

The exact instant of her surrender, every note of her cries, each pore of her skin, the rich tapestry of her scent, her exquisite taste - all of it was at his fingertips, as if she were still in his arms.

Of course Indiana was free to put those perfect memories aside, file them away for another time when he could better enjoy them.

But how could he possibly go through his day, knowing they were there and not replaying them?

And so in his mind, he pleasured her again and again, and held her in his arms, pressing his lips to her hair, reveling in the warm weight of her, the sleepy way she rested her head against his chest.

He hadn’t pressed her for more. She would come around, he was sure of it. She was his.

“Indiana, how are you, my boy?” Malik’s voice roused him from his trance.

“Hello,” Indiana said, trying not to notice how much less enjoyable reality was when compared to last night.

“Odd thing,” Malik threw an arm around Indy’s shoulders and walked him back toward the door to the lawn. “Mr. Travers called down this morning. He said you were to have the rest of the week off with pay. Something about needing you well rested for a job later in the week?”

“Oh,” Indiana said.

“Do I want to know?” Malik asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Indiana said, grateful that his employer had given him a choice about explaining.

“Good, then please don’t tell me,” Malik smiled. “Will you be okay without tips?”

“I’ll be fine,” Indiana said.

“Well then, enjoy your week, young man,” Malik said, giving Indiana a final pat on the back and heading back into the kitchen.

Indiana found himself back out in the sunshine.

The area was alive with activity.

A guitar class spread out on the lawn. Squealing children filled the pool and somewhere among them was Addy and maybe Remington, if he was teaching today. On the terrace by the lodge, several groups of older ladies gossiped under the brims of their sun hats while sipping tea or mimosas.

And the pavilion was teeming with movement.

Nikki must be teaching.

His feet began to carry him to her before he had made a conscious choice.

“Hi Indy,” Nikki said as soon as she spotted him, her happy tone letting him know his instinct had been correct, that she would not be disappointed to have her work interrupted.

“I came to see if you needed any help,” he said.

“Don’t you have work?”

“Mr. Travers instructed Malik that I was to have some time off,” he said with a wink.

“Oh,” she said. “Wow.”

“I thought maybe I could help you in some way,” he offered.

Nikki bit her lip and looked him over appraisingly.

“God yes,” a woman’s voice said from behind her. “We need all the help we can get.”

Nikki laughed and took a step back, revealing the speaker. It was the blonde woman Kitt had been helping with her lines for the play.

“I’m Violet,” the woman said, offering him her hand.

Indiana shook it. “I’m Indiana.”

“We just lost one of our actors,” Nikki said.

“Is he dead?” Indiana was horrified.

“No,” Nikki said, looking startled. “There was an emergency at his office, and he had to head back to the city early. So we’re missing the male lead for our performance.”

“Rumor has it that his daughter was schtupping one of the staff,” a middle-aged lady seated beside a gentleman about her age cackled.

“Tina,” the man scolded, patting her thigh firmly.

“Marcus, you know it’s true,” the woman laughed. “And in this day and age, I don’t understand why he wasn’t happy for his daughter to sow some wild oats.”

Indiana was most fascinated by this conversation and curious about why the father would not want his daughter to take up the noble profession of farming.

But Nikki quickly put a stop to it.

“Okay, everyone,” she said loudly.

There was immediate silence in the pavilion.

“This is Indiana,” she continued. “He’s offered to help us out temporarily while we look for a new male lead.”

Indiana looked around at all the eager faces.

“I’d like for you all to take a fifteen minute break while I bring him up to speed,” she went on.

The students began to gather their things and exit the pavilion.

“Thanks for helping out,” a rather forward young girl said to Indy, squeezing his biceps on the way past and blinking up at him in a way he thought might be meant to be sexy.

“Thank you, Julia,” Nikki said pointedly.

The girl got the hint and scooted out quickly.

And then Indiana was alone with Nikki.

“Hi,” he said softly to her, wondering what she would do next.

“Hi,” she replied. Her face turned bright pink and she looked down at her feet.

So he wasn’t the only one replaying the memories.

He smiled at her unsophisticated response, and wasn’t offended when she darted out of reach and over to her laptop which sat at a card table near the railing.

He followed her, leaning over her chair.

“What are you working on?” he asked.

Nikki started slightly as if she hadn’t been expecting him to follow her.

She quickly clicked the top right corner of the foremost document on her screen - an action Indiana knew would close it.

He wasn’t a snoop. It was only her haste to hide it from him that drew his attention to it at all.

In an instant it disappeared from the screen.

But that fraction of a second was more than enough time for Indiana’s brain to take a mental photograph.

Every word of that document would be indelibly printed on his mind, forever.

And that was a shame.

Because as soon as he thought about it, he could plainly see that it had been a list of notes about himself and his brothers. They were the kind of notes a reporter might make if she were planning to write a story about aliens to catapult her own career, without regard for her subjects’ safety… or their feelings.