"Does it matter?" she asked in a soft voice. "I know."
He couldn't deny it. She'd known so many impossible things, what was one more? And this one ... Hell, he wanted to believe her. "Entrada Pass, huh?"
"Yeah. There's a small stream and a grove of cottonwoods?"
"I know what it looks like. Okay, we'll go as far as the caves tonight and make camp."
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"Thank you, God," she breathed in a voice that sounded as tired as he felt.
He almost smiled. "You're welcome."
In spite of herself, Lainie laughed. No doubt it was lack of food and water. Her brain was eroding; it had to be if she thought Mr. Macho was funny.
She stared straight ahead, trying to make him out. He was a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette, a black horseman against the lavender slash of sky that lay beyond the entrance to the canyon.
They rode in silence for another hour, through one winding, stream-lined canyon after another. And even though she was exhausted, she couldn't close her eyes.
This place was incredible. At one moment, jet black and freezing cold; a second later, moonlit and magical. It was so much more than she'd expected. She'd read about the rock formations that filled the American Southwest, from Monument Valley to Arches to Canyon de Chelly. She'd studied them all when she created this landscape, her fictional "The Ridge" hideout.
She'd seen photographs, literally thousands of them at all times of day and night. She'd seen the colors, the curves, the canyons .. . but never had she seen the majesty. Everything about this place was more than she'd expected, bigger, taller, redder, hotter, colder. The sky went on forever, the canyon walls rose into heaven itself. It was a place worthy of the greatest writer, a place that had to be seen.
They emerged at last from the series of canyons and entered a huge, sweeping mesa. Lainie gazed around and drew in a sharp breath. The land was unlike anything she'd seen before. The earth stretched out before her, an endless, moon-drenched plain dotted with black shrubs and twisting towers of smoke-colored stone.
"My God," she murmured, feeling suddenly cold.
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"The Ancient Ones called this place the Valle de Muerte," Killian said quietly.
"Lovely. You've picked the Valley of Death as our campsite."
Killian dismounted, then turned around and reached a hand up for her.
She looked down at him, surprised by the gesture. He stood there, silently, staring up at her, his face half-shadowed by the night, half-touched by the moonlight. She crossed her reins over the horse's mane. Then, uncertainly, she reached out and placed her cold, aching hand in his gloved palm. The coarse, warm leather folded around her fingers, gave her an anchor in the darkness.
She lifted out of the saddle and swung her right leg over the horse's huge, red-speckled hindquarters. At the motion, her left leg wobbled in the stirrup and gave way, unable to support her full weight. With a shriek of horror, she fell to the dirt in a bone-crushing thud.
He had the gall to laugh.
She glared up at him and staggered to her feet, wiping the dirt off her jeans. "That wasn't funny."
He grinned. "Yes it was."
Lainie thought about it, tried to imagine what she'd looked like, shrieking and flailing and falling. She had to admit it was a little funny. She might have smiled if she hadn't been dead tired. Slowly, clutching her lower back in fingers that had gone numb ten miles ago, she hobbled away from the horse. In some distant, hazy part of her brain, she thought that she should tie the horse up first?she'd always have a character do that. But frankly, she didn't give a shit. If the horse ran from here to Texas, she'd wave good-bye.
She staggered forward. Her foot landed in a hole,
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twisted her ankle hard. She gasped as pain shot up her shin.
"Christ," he cursed. She heard the utter disgust in his voice, but she didn't care much about that either.
He moved toward her, his footsteps crunching quickly through the pebbly dirt. Suddenly he touched her, swung her around, and swept her up in a movement so fast, it left her dizzy and breathless.
God help her, she wilted at his touch. An exhausted sigh escaped her lips. She knew she should kick and scream and rip his eyes out?it's what all those feisty heroines did at a high-handed macho move like this. But she couldn't. Didn't even want to.
All the energy she'd fabricated evaporated. Without it, she felt suddenly as weak as a newborn kitten. She brought her arms around Killian's neck and let her head loll against his chest. Her eyes fluttered shut.
The even in-and-out rhythm of his chest rocked her gently. She frowned sleepily. There was something almost sadly familiar about this moment, as if once?long ago?she'd been carried by him. Everything about him was familiar: the sweat and dust smell of his clothing, the threadlike softness of his hair as it touched her cheek, the loose-hipped rhythm of his walk.
They'd done this before, the two of them... .
She realized her own foolishness and forced a weary, tired little laugh. She was hallucinating again. Of course there was something familiar about Killian. She'd created him, for God's sake. Everything about him was well-known to her.
He set her down on a rock beside the stream. The gurgling rush of the water was a thread of normalcy in the shifting strangeness of the desert. Here, at last, was something she recognized.
"Can you make a fire?" he asked.
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She looked up at him. He was a looming, faceless shadow against the moon-bright sky. "If you've got a Bic lighter or a blowtorch."
She felt his gaze on her face and she knew, even in the utter darkness of shadow, that he was frowning. As usual, he didn't know what to make of her. Finally he looked away and then let it go. He searched through his baggy duster pockets and pulled out something, tossing it at her feet. A metal box hit the ground with a tiny clang.
She stared down at the little tin box, feeling a ridiculously overblown sense of relief. She recognized it from the 1895 Montgomery Ward catalog. It was a pocket match safe.
"How about that?" he said in a barely controlled voice. "Can you make a fire with matches?"
She reached out and grabbed the box, curling her blistered fingers around the cool metal, then she tried to stand up.
It felt as if someone had kicked her in the crotch. She made a gasping, wheezing sound of pain and started to fall.
Killian was beside her in an instant, his arm curled around her shoulders to help her stand. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice rich and disembodied in the darkness.
"Did I give birth a few minutes ago?"
There was a long pause. "No."
"Then I'm definitely not okay. I feel like shit."
"You're not used to riding?"
"Give the man a teddy bear. No, Killian, I am not used to riding."
He leaned closer, tightened his hold. "It hurts in the beginning," he whispered in a rough, Scottish-tinged
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growl that caused a surprising spark of response in Lainie's blood.
When she was steady, he drew away from her, leaving her colder and lonelier than she'd been a second before. "You make the fire. I'll get us something to eat."
She watched his shadow glide through the grayness of the night as he set about the chores of preparing the horses for the evening.
Lainie limped around the clearing, gathering sticks and roots. Then she piled them in a perfect Girl Scout heap and set it afire. Within moments, a hardy puff of smoke spiraled into the night. She felt as if she'd just won the Pulitzer.
"I did it!"
He glanced over at her, and even in the darkness, she could see the surprise on his face.
"Okay, okay," she said, feeling like an idiot, "so it's not brain surgery, but for a woman from the city, it's pretty good. After all, I haven't used anything but Presto logs in years."
There was a long silence, then, "I think it's best if we don't talk." He tossed his bedroll down by the fire. It landed with a dusty smack and rolle
d sideways.
Lainie felt a sharp sting of longing. She stared at the sleeping bag, imagining its warmth around her aching body. She thought about stretching out, going to sleep, waking up. ...
Then reality hit. She realized what she was looking at?and what she was not looking at. "There's only one."
He shrugged. "That's all I ever need."
One sleeping bag: two bodies. Perfect. She shook her head. "Just my luck. This dream turns hot and sexy when I feel as if I've been run over by a Mack truck."
"Nothing's getting hot and sexy, lady."
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Lainie laughed bitterly at his response. It was a new low; even men in her dreams found her unappealing. "Don't sound so scared, Killian. I'm not going to rape you."
"I didn't think you were."
"A gentleman would offer his bedroll to a lady."
This time it was he who laughed.
"It's not funny," she snapped.
"We can share it."
"Yeah, we could...." The words tasted bitter on her tongue. Lainie frowned. She didn't want to bed down with Mr. Macho. She wanted to stretch out and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep?a sleep from which she could wake up.
He untied the bedroll and flipped it out along the cold, bumpy ground.
Lainie winced. She had trouble going to sleep on her Serta. This was going to be impossible. "That's it?" she said with an irritated sigh. "Just a sleeping bag on the dirt? Where's your tent?"
"I only bother with a tent when it rains. Now ..." He patted the bag. "You want the top or the bottom?"
She ignored his ill attempt at humor and glanced again at the makeshift bed. Her choices were limited. It was either kill him or share his bedroll.
She wondered how she could kill him.
She couldn't sleep with him. She couldn't sleep with anyone; she never had been able to. It was one of the by-products of a lifetime of being alone. Oh, she'd had sex with men?more than a few, and for most of them, men was a ridiculous compliment. But she hadn't slept with them.
The thought of sharing a bedroll with Killian made her feel queasy and unsettled. She chewed on her lower lip, looking away from the thin bag and the large man.
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"I won't be there long... ." she said, trying to make the idea palatable and failing miserably.
He set a pan on the fire and dumped a can of beans into the blackened inside. "What do you mean?"
She frowned, still thinking. "Once I go to sleep, I'll wake up."
"Uh-huh."
She warmed to the idea. It felt right. Once she went to sleep, she'd eventually wake up. And this nightmare would be over. "Then I'll be back in my bed on Bain-bridge." She looked at him. "No offense, but I'm getting tired of you. I want to go home."
He stared at her, his eyes narrowed and assessing, his mouth drawn into a frown. "You're not going anywhere until we talk, lady."
"Lainie," she said.
"Huh?"
"My name is Alaina Costanza. People call me Lainie."
He snorted. "Whatever. The point is, you've got some talking to do, but I'm too damn tired and hungry to bother with you tonight."
"It's just as well," she answered. "You wouldn't believe me anyway."
He gave her a hard look. "You better hope I do."
Lainie felt a shiver of apprehension slide down her back. She crossed her arms and glanced away from him, unable to keep staring into the threatening darkness of his eyes. He was exactly the man she'd created?hard, uncompromising, selfish, and cruel.
She stared out at the dusky, inhospitable valley and suddenly felt small and frightened and alone.
Jesus, she hoped the dream ended before his questioning began.
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God, it was dark out here. Really dark.
Lainie stood at the edge of the now-slumbering fire. The small hump of sticks had burned down to a glowing, throbbing coil of red-gold embers. Remnant scents of supper?baked beans and coffee?clung to the cool night air, lending an impossible homeyness to the desolation of the desert.
"You gonna stand there all night?"
Lainie didn't look at him. He'd asked her the same question five minutes ago. She hadn't answered then, either. She couldn't say precisely what was wrong, but something was. She felt .. . disconnected and vaguely afraid. As if something were hovering out there, in the endless darkness, waiting for her to close her eyes.
"That's crazy," she murmured, trying to sound strong and resilient. Even to her own ears, she failed. Out here in the great alone, all she sounded was weak.
"You're crazy, lady," he said, slowly kneeling beside the fire.
She was careful not to make eye contact. She didn't want to look at him right now, didn't want to see her obvious neuroses reflected in his brown eyes. She just wanted to be left alone. She wanted to wander to some lonely place with a queen-sized bed and tumble into a dreamless sleep.
The kind of peaceful, restless sleep she'd never experienced in her life.
She needed that now. Needed it with an intensity that frightened her. She crossed her arms tightly and spun away from the fire, pacing.
All she had to do was crawl into the bag and go to sleep. It sounded simple enough. Hell, it couldn't be any simpler.
But it didn't feel simple.
She shook her head. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."
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"No one would argue that point with you."
Lainie ignored him and kept pacing. His attitude was really starting to irritate her. When she woke up, she was going to seriously revise his character.
The sharp, familiar scent of cigarette smoke wafted on the breeze. For a bittersweet moment, she thought she was home again, waiting for Kelly. . ..
But that was the crudest dream of all.
Slowly she turned around. Killian was sitting cross-legged beside the fire, his hat tossed casually aside. Moonlight caught in his long, unkempt hair and turned it to brilliant strands of sterling silver. The night shadowed his face, re-formed it into a plane of sharp angles and sunken hollows. A cigarette dangled from his mouth, a disembodied, hovering red dot in the darkness.
A cigarette. Thank God. She moved toward him, close enough to feel the fire's heat against her shins. "C-Can I have one of those?"
He looked up sharply, surprise stamped on his features. One black brow arched mockingly upward. "A lady doesn't smoke."
She tried to smile. "I've never been much of a lady. And I started smoking when I was eleven."
"Eleven?" There was a softness in his voice that surprised her. "That's young."
She laughed, a bitter, snorting sound. "Yeah, it can be."
"Your folks didn't mind?"
"They never said." The acid words, neither true nor false, stung. She forced a smile and looked away.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his tobacco and papers. Slowly, still looking up at her, he rolled her one and handed it to her across the fire.
She took the cigarette in trembling fingers and lit up, inhaling deeply. Without a filter, the smoke scorched
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her throat and hit her lungs hard, reminded her of how rarely she actually smoked. It should have tasted searing and awful, but for once, it tasted good.
He watched her intently and took another drag. Smoke swirled across his face, masking it for a moment. "You're a strange one, lady."
She kneeled down beside the fire, welcoming the waves of warmth against her body. "So I've been told."
"Tomorrow we'll make the ridge." He brought one knee up and dangled his arm across it. "Then we'll talk."
"I won't be here tomorrow."
"Uh-huh." He took a last drag and flicked the wasted cigarette into the fire. Then he slid into his bedroll and looked at her. "Come to bed."
Coughing, she tossed the remainder of her cigarette into the fire and tried to make herself stand up. Her legs felt like pudding and her heart was thumping so fast, she couldn't hear anything else.
What
in the world was wrong with her?
Everything she wanted and needed was lying over there, waiting for her. All she had to do was crawl into that sleeping bag and go to sleep and this nightmare would finally end.
She forced herself to a stiff-legged stand and walked beside the fire. At the bedroll, she stopped and looked down at him.
Arms crossed behind his head, hair a tangled silver mess, he lay there, looking unconscionably handsome. Arrogantly male.
He grinned. "Ready for bed?"
She winced, feeling another sharp stab of fear. It wasn't that she was afraid of him. That, she could almost understand. It was something else; something she couldn't put her finger on, something just out of reach.
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"Move over."
He sidled an infinitesimal amount to the right.
She crossed her arms, tapped her foot impatiently. "Very funny."
He shrugged. "That's all the room there is."
Lainie peeled out of her boots?and knew instantly that she wouldn't get her swollen feet back into them without a crowbar. Forcing a smile, she crawled down alongside him and wiggled into the narrow, sheepskin-lined bag.
They lay there, side by side, without moving. She could feel his presence beside her, warming her. His breathing, slow and regular, filled and emptied the air between them, a heartthrob of sound in the desolation.
She stared up at the diamond-strewn velvet sky. It seemed so huge, this endless night sky. And suddenly she felt very small, very alone, even though she was pressed closely to Killian. The sky seemed to push down on her, the night to close around her. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Take me back, God. Please, let me get back....
The wind laughed at her feeble prayer.
And the truth came at her like a blow to the heart. She knew then what she'd been afraid of, what formless terror had caused the quickening of her heart.
She never slept well, and never on command. She'd been an insomniac since childhood. She worked and worked and worked until, finally, depleted, she fell into an almost coma-deep sleep. Otherwise, the nightmares came, preyed upon her sleeping mind and drew her into a terrifying world of thunder and shadows and evil.
She wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. She knew it suddenly with a bone-chilling certainty. It would be like all the other restless nights in her life; nights when she lay awake in her bed, her eyes wide and gritty and aching, her thoughts drawn into a quagmire of hopelessness and despair.
She wouldn't be able to sleep. There would be no escape from the dream.
And she needed it, needed both the respite from the dream and the oblivion of sleep. Sweet Jesus, she needed it....