The Secret Path by Karen Swan (summer beach reads TXT) 📕

in a hammock, opposite the person she hated most in this world, with a giant herbivore snuffling underneath her.

Alex must have felt something similarly bleak because he rose with a sigh, checking his boots and scooping out a very large millipede before he put his feet in.

‘There’s some bananas for breakfast,’ he said, going over and pulling one from a large banana hand that had been put on the tree stump. When exactly had he foraged those? she wondered in disbelief as he came over and held one out for her. ‘Eat as many as you can. You’ll need the energy today.’

As many as you can? She took it with a bemused look. Did he think she was going to eat five bananas for breakfast? As if.

She watched in silence as he picked up the pan and bowls, grabbed the camping towel and headed in the direction of the river. She began to eat. Lucky for her, she loved bananas. Rory hated them. She thought of him as she chewed and wondered whether his hangover had gone, or if he’d decided to overlay it with a fresh one. He was going to be livid with her when she finally got back, she knew that. This wasn’t the holiday he had signed up for – nor her, of course – and he wasn’t going to be persuaded by her argument of finding leaves on a remote mountain spot in order to treat a child who quite possibly needed a liver transplant. She was going to be going back to a fight, she knew that.

The banana eaten and the tapir long gone, she swung her legs awkwardly out of the hammock; it was harder than it looked, and she was stiff as hell. She checked her boots too, before sliding her feet in. She itched at her arm absently – in spite of the net, plenty of mosquitoes had still found her, it seemed – and winced as she caught the edge of the nasty scratch again. Peeling back her shirt cuff, she took another look. It was even redder than before and definitely showing the first signs of infection. It was very hot to the touch, swollen and had what seemed to be tiny pustules or cysts developing in the most tender part of the wound. The humidity, no doubt, was accelerating her response.

She went to reach for the antibiotic cream in her kit, remembering only as she rummaged fruitlessly that Holly still had it for Dev’s foot. ‘Ugh, bugger,’ she groaned. Just her luck. She would need to get it treated the moment they got back. The irony wasn’t lost on her that she’d brought a dozen boxes of the stuff over for the clinic, but still had none for herself.

Her hands found something cool and unfamiliar in the bag, and she pulled out the small leaf-wrapped anti-mozzie ointment the Awa had given her yesterday morning. She had forgotten all about it, but the mozzies had found an easy target in her last night; something had to be better than nothing, surely? And if it was anywhere near as good as his headache drink . . . She realized her head was still clear – no vice-like grip at her temples, no stabbing pain behind her eyes.

He had told her to put the cream on before getting dressed. She glanced round but she was alone, Alex still at the river. Nonetheless, she turned herself so that her back was facing that direction as she quickly took off her shirt and bra. There was still a full bucket of water that she’d collected last night and, kneeling down, she splashed water onto her face, neck and torso, trying to wash herself as best she could.

It felt so good, even if only for a few moments, to have her skin clean and cool. She opened the parcel of leaves wrapped with vines; the ointment inside was thick and pungent and she rubbed it over her skin quickly. It was sticky and she waited impatiently for it to absorb into her skin. She couldn’t wait long. The man who had once known every last inch of her body would be coming back any moment.

Sure enough, after several minutes, she heard the sound of footsteps coming through the bushes again – twigs snapping, leaves brushing – and she just had her bra clipped back on as he emerged with the clean pans. She kept her eyes down but she heard him stop at the sight of her, back to him, shrugging on her shirt. Her fingers kept fumbling with the buttons, not quite fast enough, but she reminded herself this was nothing he hadn’t seen yesterday. She had reintroduced herself to him in exactly this look.

The fabric clung in patches to her sticky skin, hardly appealing when the shirt was already a day old. Finally, she looked up with defiant nonchalance, to find his dark hair was wet and slicked back like an otter’s; she wasn’t the only one who’d cleaned up. Unable to stop it, an image of how he used to look coming out of the shower, a towel around his hips, flashed through her mind.

Without a word, he took the now gleaming cups and pan over to his rucksack and began carefully repacking everything. They dismantled their tarps and hammocks, wound the rope back in. He collected the red twine and made sure the fire was completely out. Tara was struggling to fold her hammock down to a small packable size.

‘Let me.’ He held out a hand.

‘No, it’s fine, I can do it,’ she replied, snatching it away from him.

‘I know you can. But it’s just a question of how quickly you want to get this done.’ He stared at her evenly and after a moment’s reluctance she handed it over, watching with intense irritation as he got it down to the size of a pillowcase again.

‘Okay then,’ he said several minutes later, with what she thought sounded like a note of weariness. ‘Ready?’

Their backpacks