Martha's voice was firm.
"Whatever questions you have, they'll wait. Right now, I need to speak with him alone."
Sofia and Dane exchanged a look loaded with reluctance and approximately forty different objections. But something in Martha's expression stopped the arguments before they started. She was not asking.
They went out. Sofia paused at the tent flap and looked back at the young man with an expression that was half warning and half reverence. Then the flap fell closed behind them.
Silence.
Martha and the young man looked at each other across the small space of the tent.
Outside, she could hear her team moving around the camp, checking equipment, trying to act normal. She could hear Sofia and Dane's voices, low and urgent, undoubtedly arguing about being excluded.
Inside the tent, it was just the two of them.
