Smoke unfurls in lazy tumbles over his head, drawing his eyes away from the spiked frenzy of the fire. The clouds had vanished in the steady winds. Now, the gap in the circle of trees is just broad enough to reveal the points of the Summer Triangle positioned perfectly overhead. Bats click in the surrounding trees. For the first time in his life, he is able to recognize the similarity in the steady hum of insects to that of automobiles on a distant interstate.
A small sigh pulls all of his attention downward to the bundled sleeping form protected within the circle of his legs. The camping trip had been her idea. When she proposed it to him a week ago, he'd choked a bit on his tea in utter shock. Abbie had never seemed particularly fond of the out of doors. He has heard her tirade on the evils of mosquitoes and snail slime enough to repeat it back to her, though he has refrained from doing so to avoid the gut punch that would surely interrupt him. They certainly had spent enough time in the woods, but always it was duty and obligation that had brought them there. Never fun. Never pleasure.
"Come on, Crane. It'll be…relaxing. Just what we need now." Her eyes were downcast, occupied suddenly with her neatly trimmed nails. Her impending departure for Virginia had weighed heavily between them, an ever-growing ache that they'd denied. In the end, both she and their work would benefit from her new training; they knew that. That did not make the prospect any easier.
Brows knitted together, he spluttered, "I—I am not…I just—"
"No phones, no distractions, no stress," she continued. Then, she lifted her face and gazed directly into his eyes. "Just you and I."
Ichabod stared back, riveted. As if he could say no, given how hard they had worked; as if he could say no, given that she was leaving the next week.
As if he could say no, given that it was Abbie.
When she had started to retreat, to pull her bottom lip shyly between her teeth, he released it gently with the pad of his thumb, fingers hovering under her chin. A smile curled the edges of his mouth. "I can think of no better arrangement, Lieutenant. When do we leave?"
With a rented truck steeped in modern supplies, Crane hardly considered this to be the "roughing it" that Abbie had termed it. Packaged food immune to bug infestation, a waterproof tent to protect them from the elements, and self-warming blankets to keep them comfortable were marvels to him still. When he had said as much to Abbie, she had taken special delight in pulling from her backpack a cloth-wrapped item, handing it off to him to start the fire: flint and steel. He could only shake his head as she tried to stifle her giggle.
They had talked all afternoon and through the evening, swapping stories of childhood idiocy and favorite meals and Disney movies—light and effortless, as it had been at the start. Real, full laughter fell from them in waves. Ichabod hadn't felt this good in a long, long time. From the warm light filling Abbie's eyes, neither had she. The only darkness that dare encroach upon them was that of the approaching night.
Now, she dreams. Her head lies in the crux of his hip, face upturned, eyes moving beneath closed lids. Both her hands are wrapped possessively around Crane's right, pressed to her chest as if making a wish. Ichabod's free hand knits soft patterns through her hair, prompting her to snuggle tighter against him and, with his reverent kiss to her forehead, breathe another airy sigh.
He had been about to shift his position, spine aching from hours hunched in the lumpy grass. With her movements, his discomfort evaporates. He will sit here all night.
He studies the swell of her cheeks, the straight line of her brows, the enticing bloom of her mouth. Her face, in slumber, transforms; with her defenses down, an innocence surfaces that her conscious self wipes away. It shows not as frailty, but as purity, her true heart that only he sees. If it is possible, it makes her even more alluring. He knows that this is what he will think of in the months ahead, what he will see each night in his own dreams, until she returns to him.