That time was for them, for the work they did, and it tied them together in a way as profound as their love-making. When the sun fell only a few minutes later, he kissed her ear and gave her a gentle shake.
“Annie.”
“Mmmm,” she murmured, lazily opening her eyes and stretching.
A smile curved his mouth. She was going to get loved again, if she wasn't careful. It had happened more than once, and they'd lost a night's work.
“It's time, querida.”
In minutes, they'd thrown on some clothes and moved to the highest platform in their five-tiered tree house. Tonight was for panorama pictures, not for collecting. When the cameras were set up and ready, they sat down together on the edge of the deck. Walkways and ladders connected the tiers of the tree house together. Each platform was strung with ropes and, where necessary, safety nets. Each held its cadre of supply cabinets and lab equipment, food caches and cisterns.
Below them, on the forest floor, a silver ribbon of water wound its way to the horizon, illuminated by starlight. At the edge where earth gave way to sky, the river made a subtle transition between this world and the other, seeming to lift into the dark forest of space and flow into the starry wonder of the Milk River.
With Corisco dead and Fat Eddie busy counting his gold in Manaus, their lives had drifted into the quieter rhythms of peaceful days.
Slowly, as the night deepened, the forest of trees began more and more to resemble the Milky Way, thousands of small lights appearing where before they'd been outshone by the sun. Epidendrum luminosa, Annie's orchid, the Messenger in Tutanji's language. All plants talked, Tutanji had told them, but truly, he'd said, not all of them have a lot to say. The Messenger was different; its language more complex; its knowledge going back to the beginning, when it first opened its petals in the first misty morn of an Amazonian Eden, a gift from above.
Listen to the light, he'd said, and a lifetime's work had been born. A hundred flowers had been catalogued, the photons of light emitted by their DNA measured and graphed in anticipation of the day when the Messenger's message would be heard.
Until then, he and Annie would stay in the place time and the world had forgotten.
She reached over and slipped her hand into his, and he bent down to press his lips to her cheek. It was a sweet kiss in the dark, while below them, the wonders of the ages blossomed in the night.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GLENNA MCREYNOLDS has won numerous awards for her writing, including a RITA from the Romance Writers of America for Avenging Angel (1994), and a Career Achievement Award in Romantic Adventure from Romantic Times. She is also the author of the “dazzlingly sensual”* medieval trilogy: The Chalice and the Blade, Dream Stone, and Prince of Time.
Glenna and her family live in Colorado. She loves hearing from readers and can be contacted through her website at glennamcreynolds.com.
*Kirkus Reviews
River of Eden
A Bantam Book/February 2002
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Copyright © 2002 by Glenna McReynolds.
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For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49022-3
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