Love, Lust 'n Geology (1ST DRAFT)

Chapter 21: "I love you, too!"

This chapter is dedicated to @jennifer007 for her interest in, enthusiasm for, and support of this novel :-)! Thank u so much, Jennifer! It's readers like u who motivate me to keep writing this story :-)!

She is an author as well & has 4 novels on WP. Please check them out!

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Chapter 21: "I love you, too!"

Samina heard Tom's positively giddy laughter. The last time she'd witnessed such hilarity on his part was when they'd been watching The Party. Her lower lip trembled, entirely against her will. She was willing to admit that she was pathetic but was she a joke as well? Was she really as funny as Peter Sellers? Here she was, crushed to nothingness and literally dying inside, and he ... he was making light of her feelings! Oh, she knew how she must appear to him, like a silly, little school girl with a crush on (by far) the cutest boy in the class! But still, it seemed most indelicate, no, insensitive of him!

Tom took a break from his merriment to cry out, "I dropped my paddle and nearly tipped my canoe! Oh, baby, you know I love you too, don't you?"

Oh, no. She didn't know! "You do?" she squeaked. And then louder, "You do?"

"Yes! Of course! Probably from the first time I met you!"

"Oh," she mumbled wonderingly as her brain took a moment to process the information. As soon as it had, although she still had difficulty believing it, her head began to bob up and down in ecstatic acknowledgment of the news. She erupted into nervous, uncontrollable giggling. But it wasn't sufficient to express the relief, the joy, the excitement that she felt. More tears sprouted and began to trickle down her cheeks. She'd always suspected that the parts of the brain that controlled expressions of happiness and misery resided side by side, but now she was certain of it. There was no reason for her to cry. Tom loved her! He loved her! But she couldn't help herself.

On the heels of such sensations, a smidgen of vanity entered the picture, too. As far as she was concerned, it was no small matter to be loved by a man who possessed all the wondrous qualities that Tom did. While she didn't go so far as to flip her hair, she did pinch it and pull at it a little.

Continuing to chuckle, Tom shouted, "Can you help me out here? Shine the flashlight this way?" She was fairly certain that if she had almost capsized under near pitch black conditions, she wouldn't have taken it nearly so well!

"Sure!" she replied elatedly. She was willing to do anything for him. Anything! (Well, perhaps there was that one matter that was still under debate ...) After all, he was hers, wasn't he? Oh, God. Tom? Hers? She put a hand out against a tree to steady herself as she switched on the flashlight. It was powerful, more so than any that they had lying around in camp, for despite Tom's distance, it framed him and the canoe within a bright halo. The canoe, which had been directed towards the opposite shore, was now angled towards it. She saw it rock as Tom reached down on the opposite side of it.

Turning and looking over his shoulder at her, he held the paddle above his head and shouted, "Got it!"

"Good!"

"I love you!" he yelled.

Giggling, she cried, "I love you, too!" Chris, Phil and Grant, conveniently forgotten as she did.

And then she saw Tom start to circle the canoe around. Oh, umm, what was he doing? "What are you doing?" she asked loudly.

"Coming back, of course!"