From Files 108:

"You'd better go to bed too, Nan," Ned said. "You've had a rough day." He gently caressed her cheek.

Nancy snuggled up to him. "I will in a minute, but first, what good is having a terrible fight if you can't kiss and make up afterward?"

"Nan, you are something else." He smiled into her eyes, then kissed her deeply.

It was quite a few minutes later before they finally went up to their bedrooms.

--

Her head was still pounding a little from her unexpected trip down the waterfall, and the pounding beat a fierce tattoo against her skull when Ned's lips touched hers, his hands glancing over her cheeks before he gathered her to him.

"You were gone, for a little while," he murmured, as she closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply, the pain so deep it surged with her every heartbeat. She felt bone-weary, but had been debriefed after so many head injuries that the symptoms of a concussion were as familiar to her as the alphabet.

Ned. Ned's face above hers, full of concern and worry.

"Did you kiss me and make it better," she asked, her eyes still closed. Her hand found his cheek and she stroked his jaw, tilting her head to meet his when he leaned down to kiss her again.

"Yeah," he whispered, and she shivered in his arms, weak with sudden longing.

"Go for a swim with me."

She opened her eyes to find him shaking his head at her. "Remember? Bed? I'll tuck you in," he said, his mouth quirking up.

She shook her head. "Someone said something today," she reminded him. "I need to go change," she said ruefully, looking down at her battered clothes, ripped and bloodstained from her fall, and winced when the throb in her head intensified for a moment. "And maybe you can help me figure it out. We'll just take a walk," she said, biting her lip, stopping just short of twisting a lock of hair around one finger.

Ned met her gaze steadily for a moment, then sighed. "Very briefly," he said reluctantly, and she flashed a thousand-watt grin at him, throwing her arms around him and kissing him on the cheek. "And take some aspirin, I can tell you're hurting," he admonished her, kissing her forehead.

"I will," she promised.

In her bedroom, remembering the skimpy bikini Becca had paraded around in earlier that day, Nancy laid out an abbreviated white ensemble before she gingerly peeled herself out of her clothes, every touch revealing another bruise. The doctor had made her promise to get plenty of rest, and she had nodded somberly, but the key to the entire thing was locked in her head somewhere and maybe Ned could help.

The troubled look on his face when she emerged told him that he had at least partially reconsidered agreeing to go with her on their walk, but she wore a loose gauzy cover-up of sheer blue that short-circuited whatever excuse he was about to give her. She smiled a little, reaching for his hand, and as they quietly made their way out of the house she noted yet again how easily it must have been for Rob Cutler's kidnappers to smuggle him out of the house, with no one the wiser.

On the patio they were still so close to the house that they were afraid to speak and wake anyone. The place looked so different in the moonlight, bereft of banquet tables and standing speakers. And no Becca, no jealousy simmering in Nancy so that when Manny met her eyes with his easy smile, she felt no qualms about gliding into his arms, fitting her body tight against his.

"Why?" she whispered, swinging her hips to maneuver around a low palm.

"Why what?" Ned whispered back, the leaves rustling as he brushed by them.

Nancy sighed. Officially their fight was over, but Nancy knew they would certainly see Becca the next day, and forgiving him wasn't the same as forgetting. "What did you find so fascinating about her that you don't about me."

Ned made a low, angry sound, irritated that she would bring it up again. "What do you find so fascinating about Manny?"

"He's there when you aren't," Nancy replied. The sound of the waves was closer here, and the seawall loomed in the distance, the tiny spit of sand before the claim of the water. "And he's exotic and passionate and... fun."

He grabbed her wrist in his hand, tight, but not enough to hurt. "And you don't feel that way with me."

"Not when you're dancing with her, hanging on her every word, spending every second you can with her," Nancy said, and she felt the bitter taste of her jealousy again, setting her head to throb. She raked her hair back, pulling her hand away from him. "Let's just talk about the case."

Ned stopped so suddenly that for a second she continued to stomp on toward the shore, until realizing belatedly that he wasn't beside her anymore. "And that's the trouble with you," he said.

She turned to face him, his expression unreadable in the deep shadows. She glared at him. "What's the trouble with me?"

"You can see everything but what's right in front of you. And youã" He started gesticulating angrily, taking a few steps toward her. "From the moment I came here, they were asking when you were going to get here, and I have to tell them that a counterfeiting case, for God's sake, is why you're missing out on a vacation with me. And once you get here you're the same... you can't ever take a break."

Nancy's mouth fell open. "You and David were the ones who told me about the case! You even... you even seemed excited when I said I was going to look into it!"

"Because that's what makes you different," he said softly, and dropped his hands to his sides. "That's what makes you exotic and special and fun. And me? You don't get that gleam in your eye when you look at me. You'd track RamÛn to the other side of the country to ask him about your damn case but when it comes to me, you won't even come over and ask me to dance when I'm looking at another girl."

Nancy rubbed her temples. "Iã"

"You just dance with Manny instead."

She stood there, shocked speechless, as Ned brushed past her and continued toward the seawall.

I was a jerk, she remembered him saying.

And she knew he had been interested, probably still was interested, in Becca, that his attraction to her hadn't been all for Nancy's benefit; but every time, every single time, she had just turned away, telling herself that he was a big boy, he could handle himself.

He could. But if her attraction to Manny was even partially genuine, a lot of it involved the potential to make Ned jealous, jealous and possessive and passionate. Instead, they had just succeeded in pushing each other further away, neither one wanting to be the first to break.

He was often all too willing to step up and fight for her. She hadn't realized that sometimes he needed her to do the same.

Her cheeks burning, she stripped off her cover-up and followed his faint path through the foliage. She found him at the seawall, gazing out at the water, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

"When she listens, it's like you're the center of her universe and she is completely fascinated, with me, stupid boring me," he said, still staring out, as though she wasn't even there. "And maybe she is like that with every guy, but you... you can't even give me that."

She put her hand on his arm. "Then talk to me," she said quietly. "Give me a chance."

He shook his head. "I held your life in my hands today," he said. "I breathed into you and I made your heart beat. Sometimes I forget you're mortal like the rest of us."

"And I forget that sometimes you don't know how much I love you."

He turned to her and she reached for him, pulling him down to her and standing on her tiptoes to kiss him, slowly, deeply, her hair tangled in windblown curls as he slid his arms around her. His skin was warm where it touched hers, slow as he brushed his palm over her hip, curling his thumb under the string at the side of her bikini.

"That much, huh?"

She nodded, holding his gaze, slightly breathless.

"I'm sorry I was a jerk."

"I'm sorry I was a bigger jerk for letting my pride stop me from dragging you away," she said, and he laughed a little.

"I would have loved to see you two fight over me."

"I'm sure you would have," Nancy said archly, running her fingers through his hair. "I may like her a lot, as a person who clearly isn't interested in stealing you away from me, but not that much."

"Hey," he objected. "You don't think she's interested in me at all."

"As a person who can see the signs, as someone who knows what it is to be interested in you... no. Although for a few minutes this afternoon I thought she intentionally fell into me because she wanted me out of the way, and wanted you all to herself."

"Thought you said you liked her," Ned said, smiling, but his eyes were speculative.

"I do. And I dismissed that idea pretty quickly. I know she doesn't love you because I know how I would act." She frowned a little. "How I should have acted. Did me hanging out with Manny actually make you jealous?"

He nodded, nuzzling his cheek into her stroking palm. "But I guess you wanted it to."

She reached up to kiss him again and he met her halfway, one hand warm at the small of her back, the sure confidence of his caress sending a shiver up her spine.

"We need to get in the water or head back," he murmured against her mouth when she pulled back, her head spinning, eyes closed. "Because you're either wearing too many clothes or not enough, and I'm too tired to figure out which."

"You're tired," she replied, tracing slow kisses against his jaw, under his ear, against his neck. "I'm the one who had a head injury."

He groaned. "If this thing ties at the side then I'm done for," he told her, tugging at the white fabric stretched across her belly.

She waited a beat, gone entirely still so she could feel every subtle shift of his fingers against her hypersensitive skin. "Sorry," she murmured into his shoulder. "Just the top, I'm afraid."

He sighed and sank to the ground with her still in his arms, until she was sitting in his lap, her legs loosely wrapped around his waist, and his touch and the humid breeze coming off the water turned her skin to gooseflesh when he pulled her to him and untied the thin strings knotted at the back of her neck. She slid her arms around his own neck and he didn't say anything, just held her as she shivered, her bared breasts pressing against his chest.

"I kept thinking about how romantic this place was," he said, tracing meaningless patterns against the small of her back. "And we've spent maybe five minutes alone together since you got here."

Nancy nodded, resting her head against his shoulder, and wondered if she took her bikini off and ran for the water, would he follow...

And then she said it, and his shocked silence and the sudden unmistakable heat between them gave her her answer.

"You're concussed," he said, his voice unnaturally calm. "And sometimes that brings on slight personality changes."

She yawned a little, snuggling closer to him, noting with some amusement that he shifted under her, avoiding the kind of contact he usually encouraged. "Slight personality changes," she repeated, brushing her lips against his neck. "I know what I'm doing."

"And I know what I'm doing. I need to take you back to the house and put you in bed, not take total advantage of you on a beach in Belize."

"What's the point of having a serious talk about the state of our relationship if we can't fool around after?" she said reasonably, and he had to laugh at her. "Although if you insist on taking me back to the house right now, I will tell you that I have a raging headache and won't be able to rest unless you're sleeping right beside me, making sure no one comes and abducts me from my bed tonight."

"If you insist," he said softly, and her eyes popped open when he gently cupped her breast, brushing his thumb over her nipple.

"I do insist," she said, holding his gaze as he continued his caress. "And I can't sleep in this swimsuit but I barely have enough strength to stand, much less change clothes, so you'll have to do that for me," she went on, pushing herself up to stand on her knees so that their faces were level, dim in the moonlight reflecting from the water.

"As your medical professional I'll have to insist that you sleep naked."

"As my medical professional," she nodded, and his mouth was warm and sweet under hers, possessing, urgent.

"I love you."

She gave him one last soft, sweet kiss as she swiftly retied her top, her hair brushing against his cheeks, his expression worshipful as he gazed up at her. "I love you too," she said softly. "I'll try not to let you forget again."