"I know that. It was good of you to want to help with Shiloh's expenses, to stand in for Jim that way." He relaxed a little. "It was the right thing to do."

"And it's not always easy to do the right thing in a hard situation. I guess I'd worry bringing lawyers in might murk it up even more. At least right now."

"It doesn't hurt to talk. Everybody should do whatever's best for the baby, right?"

"They should. I ... I'm probably the wrong person to ask about something like this. Maybe, I don't know, Matt, if your mother came out ... if she and Mrs.

Brakeman talked about everything, they could work out what's best, what's right."

"Maybe. She looks like a Brayner, you know? The baby? Even Lynn said so.

I've got to think about it."

She supposed they did, Rowan decided when he headed out for his run. Matt, his family, the Brakemans, they'd all have to think about it. But she knew what it was to be the child everybody was thinking about.

It wasn't an easy place to be.

CHAPTER 22

Rowan watched Dobie painfully swallow shot number ten. His eyes had gone gla.s.sy on eight, and now his cheeks took on a faint, sickly green hue. "That's twenty."

"Count's ten, Dobie," Cards, official scorekeeper, told him.

"I'm seeing double, so it's twenty." Laughing like a loon, he nearly tipped out of his chair.

Janis, official pourer, filled shot number eleven for Yangtree. "Experience," he said, and knocked it back smooth. "That's the key."

Rowan smirked, licked salt off the back of her hand, then drank hers down.

"I'd like to thank the soon-to-be loser for springing for the prime." "You're welcome." Gull polished off eleven.

"I got another in me." Stovic lifted his gla.s.s, proved he did-before he slid bonelessly to the floor. "And he's out." Cards crossed Stovic off the board.

"I am not out." From the floor, Stovic waved a hand. "I'm fully conscious."

"You leave your chair without calling for a p.i.s.s break, you're out."

"Who left the chair?"

"Come on, Chainsaw." Gibbons got his hands under Stovic's arms and dragged him out from under the table.

Dobie made it to thirteen before surrendering. "It's this foreign liquor, that's what it is. Oughta be homegrown bourbon." He got down, crawled on his hands and knees and lay down next to a snoring Stovic. "Rookies." Yangtree got number fourteen down, then laid his head on the table and moaned, "Mommy." "Did you mean uncle?" Cards demanded, and Yangtree managed to shoot up his middle finger.

Rowan and Gull went head-to-head until Janis split the last shot between them. "That's all there is, there ain't no more." "Shoulda bought three bottles." Rowan closed one eye to focus and click her gla.s.s to Gull's. "On three?"

Those still conscious in the room counted off, then cheered when the last drops went down. "And that's a draw," Cards announced.

"I'm proud to know you." Janis dropped a hand on each shoulder. "And wish you the best of luck with tomorrow's hangover." "Gull doesn't get 'em."

He smiled, a little stupidly, into Rowan's eyes. "This might be the exception.

Let's go have lotsa drunk s.e.x before it hits." "'Kay. Drunk s.e.x for everybody!"

She waved her hands and smacked a barely awake Yangtree in the face.

"Oops."

"No, I needed that. Everybody still alive?"

"Can't make that much noise dead." Rowan gestured to snoring-in-stereo Stovic and Dobie as she swayed to her feet. "Follow me, stud." "I'm with the blonde." Gull staggered after her.

"We can do this." She fumbled at his shirt when he booted the door shut on the third try. "Soon as the room stops spinning around." "Pretend we're doing it on a merry-go-round."

"Naked at the carnival." On a wild laugh she defeated his shirt, but started to teeter. When he grabbed for her, she took them both onto the floor, hard.

"I think that hurt, but it's better down here, 'cause of the gravity." "Okay." He shifted off her to struggle with her clothes. "We should do naked tequila shots. Then we wouldn't have to take them off after."

"Now you think of it. Alley-oop!" She held up her arms to help him strip off her shirt. "Gimme, gimme." She locked her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, then latched her mouth onto his.

The heat burned through the tequila haze, fired in the senses. The world rolled and turned, yet she remained constant, chained around him. Caged, he met the desperate demand of her mouth, rocking center to center until he thought he'd go mad.

The chains broke. She rolled on top of him, biting, grasping, lapping, then rolled off again. "Get naked," she ordered. "Beat ya."

They tugged at shoes, clothes in a panting race. With clothes still landing in heaps, they dived at each other. Wrestling now, skin damp and slick, they rolled over the floor. Knees and elbows banged, and still her laughter rang out.

The moonlight turned her dewed skin to silver, glowing and precious, irresistible.

Breathless with pleasure, crazed with a whirling, spinning need, she threw her head back when he plunged into her. "Take me like you mean it."

And he did, G.o.d, he did, filling her up, wringing her out while she pushed for more. Catching fire, she thought, leaping into the heart of the blaze. She rode the heat until it simply consumed her.

"Merry-go-round," she murmured. "Still turning. Stay right here." This time she drew him close before they slept.

ANOTHER FIRE WOKE HER, the fire that killed, that hunted and destroyed. It growled behind her, pawing at the ground as she ran. She flew through the black, yet still it came, stalking her to the graveyard where the dead lay unburied on the ground. Waiting for her.

Jim's eyes rolled up in the sockets of the charred skull. "Killed me dead."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Plenty of that going around. Plenty of dragon fever. It's not finished. More to come. Fire can't burn it away. But it can sure try." From behind her, it breathed, and its breath ignited her like kindling.

"HEY, HEY." Gull pulled her to sitting, shaking her by the shoulders on the way.

"Snap out of it."

She shoved at him, gulping for air, but he tightened his grip. He couldn't see her clearly, but he could feel her, hear her. The shakes and tremors, the cold sweat, the whistle of air as she fought for breath.

"You had a nightmare." He spoke more calmly now. "A bad one. It's done."

"Can't breathe."

"You can. You are, just too fast. You're going to hyperventilate if you keep it up. Slow it down, Rowan."

Even as she shook her head, he started rubbing her shoulders, moving up her neck where the muscles strained stiff as wire. "It's a panic attack. You know that in your head. Let the rest of you catch up. Slow it down."

He saw her eyes now as his own vision adjusted, wide as planets. She pressed a hand to her chest where he imagined the pressure crushed like an anvil. "Breathe out, long breath out. Long out, slow in. That's the way. Let go of it. Do it again, smooth it out. You're okay. Keep it up, in and out. I'm going to get you some water."

He let her go to roll to her cooler, grab a bottle.

"Don't guzzle," he warned her. "We're in slow mode." When she gulped the first swallow, he tipped the bottle down. "Easy." "Okay." She took another, slower sip. She stopped, went back to breathing, with more control, less trembling.

"Wow."

He touched her face, leaned in to rest his brow on hers. The shudder he'd held back rocked through him. "You scared the s.h.i.t out of me."

"That makes two of us. I didn't scream, did I?" She glanced toward the door as she asked.

Trust her, Gull thought, to worry about embarra.s.sing herself with the rest of the crew. "No. It was like you were trying to and couldn't get it out." "I was on fire. I swear I could feel my skin burning, smell my hair going up. Pretty d.a.m.n awful."

"How often do you have them?" Now that the crisis had pa.s.sed, he could coddle her a little-a comfort to himself, too. So he touched his lips to her forehead as he shifted to rub her back and shoulders.

"I never used to have them. Or just the usual monster-in-the-closet deal once in a while when I was a kid. But I started having them after Jim. Replaying the jump, then how we found him. They eased off over the winter, but started coming back at the start of the season. And they're getting worse." "You found another fire victim, someone else you knew. That would kick it up some."

"He's started to talk to me in them-cryptic warnings. I know it's my head putting words in his mouth, but I can't figure it out." "What did he say tonight?"

"That it wasn't finished. There'd be more coming. I guess I'm worried there will be, and that's probably all there is to it." "Why are you worried?"

"Well, Jesus, Gull, who isn't?" "No, be specific."

"Be specific at half past whatever in the morning after twisting myself up into a panic attack?" The irritation in her tone settled him down. "Yeah."

"I don't know. If I knew, I'd ... Dolly and Latterly, obviously that's connected.

The odds of them both running afoul of some homicidal arsonist are just short of nil. If we were dealing with random, that would be cause for some serious worry. But this isn't, and they're probably going to bust Brakeman for the whole shot. But ..."

"But you're having a hard time buying he'd set fire to his own daughter's body.

So am I."

"Yeah, but that's what makes the most sense. He finds out Dolly's not only lying but s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the preacher. They fight about it, he kills her-in a rage, by accident, however. Then panics, does the rest. It broke something in him."

Tears running down his face, she remembered. "He shoots at us, kills Latterly.

Case closed." "Except you don't quite believe it. Hence-" "Hence," she repeated, and snickered.

"That's right. Hence you have nightmares where Jim-who's connected to you and to Dolly-verbalizes what you're already thinking, at least on a subconscious level." "Thanks, Dr. Freud."

"And your fifty minutes are up. You should catch the couple hours' sleep we've got left." "We're still on the floor. The floor was most excellent, but for sleep, the bed's better."

"The bed it is." He rose, grabbed her hand to pull her up. Then, to make her laugh, swept her up in his arms. Laugh she did. "I may have shed a few this season, but I'm still no lightweight."

"You're right." He dropped her onto the bed. "Next time, you carry me." He stretched out beside her. "One thing, it looks like your nightmare blew any potential tequila hangover out of me."

"Always the bright side."

He snuggled her in, gently stroking her back until he felt her drop off.

AFTER THE MORNING BRIEFING, she got in her run, some weight training and power yoga with Gull for company. She had to admit, having someone who could keep up with her, and more, made the daily routine more fun.

They hit the dining hall together where Dobie slumped over a plate of toast and what Rowan recognized as a gla.s.s of Marg's famed hangover cure.

"Mmm, look at these big, fat sausages." Rowan clattered the top back on the warmer. "Nothing like pig grease in the morning." "I'll hurt you when I can move without my head blowing up."

"Hangover?" she asked sweetly. "Gosh, I feel great." There might have been a dull, gnawing ache at the base of her skull, but all things considered, small price to pay. "Hurt you, and all your kin. Your pets, too."

She only grinned as she sat down with a full plate. "Not much appet.i.te this morning?" "I woke up on the floor with Stovic. I may never eat again."

"How's Stovic?" Gull asked.

"Last I saw him, his eyes were full of blood, and he was crawling toward his quarters. If I ever pick up a gla.s.s of tequila again, shoot me. It'd be a mercy."

"Drink that," Rowan advised. "It won't make you jump up and belt out 'Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,' but it'll take the edge off." "It's brown. And I think something's moving in there."

"Trust me."

When he picked up the Tabasco Lynn kept on the table for him, Rowan started to tell him he wouldn't need it-then smiled to herself as she cut into a sausage.

Dobie doused the concoction liberally, gave a brisk, bracing nod. "Down the hatch," he announced. Closing his eyes, he drank it down fast. And his eyes popped open as his face went from hangover gray to lobster red.