I stepped away further, and Doc closed the door, trapping Cavallo safely inside.

Ice came to stand next to me. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be, I guess."

"Let's go, then."

After sharing quick hugs with Cowgirl and Cheeto, and a firm handshake with Montana, I climbed up into the high cab of the Jeep and settled myself in. My belly was a flaming ball of tension, and my head was pounding in time to the beating of my heart. Ice's face was unusually grim as she settled herself in the driver's seat and reached for the gear shift.

"What is it?" I asked, the tension in my body ratcheting up yet another notch.

"I don't like leaving them this way. I've never run from a fight." Her tones were clipped, her voice measured.

"And you're not running from one now," I replied, laying a hand on her wrist. "I have faith in Nia's word. Rio's death has changed her. For the better. And the police will make sure no harm comes to the women. There's a friend or two of Montana's on the force."

An eyebrow raised in clear surprise.

I just managed to bite back a smug grin. Though the chances were one in a million, I'd actually been able to bring my lover up short with information she didn't already know.

If the circumstances were any less grave, I might have taken the time to savor the once-in-a-lifetime event. "Though the cop/con dynamic sounds pretty cheesy, Paycheck's lover is an officer. As long as Nia does her part and tells the truth, Montana and the rest will be safe."

Jaw set, she nodded and slipped the Jeep into gear. The engine roared, and with no more fanfare than that, we were on our way.

To where, I wasn't sure. I don't even think Ice knew at that point. But at least we were moving, and as long as we were moving, I could convince myself that, somewhere on the road ahead, there'd be a light waiting at the end of a tunnel which had encompassed almost a third of my life.

PART 11.

EVEN THOUGH IT was winter, Ice elected to take the northern route back toward Pennsylvania. That involved heading up into the Flagstaff Mountains, which were a beautiful Faerie Wonderland of snow and ice, not to mention treacherous driving conditions. The Jeep was sure-footed and well equipped to brave the storm buffeting us as we drove along, but I kept my white-knuckled grip on the dashboard (a "mother-in law" clutch, my father used to call it) just the same.

Though it seemed like a year, maybe two, in reality only a few short hours passed before we were out of the snow and entering into the unsurpassed beauty of New Mexico's Painted Desert. Not that I got to see most of it, mind you. My neck seemed on a spring, the way I kept looking over my shoulder to try and see if we'd picked up a tail along the way.

Of course, my chances of actually spotting said tail were about as great as seeing Elvis singing "Blue Hawaii" next to a roadside Burrito stand, since I wouldn't know a tail unless it was sporting a "we're following you!" sign in the front window, but I had to feel like I was doing something.

Right before I would have spent the rest of my life with a crick in my neck, a cell phone and piece of paper was slipped into my hand. I looked over at Ice.

"See if you can get a hold of Donita at any of these numbers."

Nodding, I picked up the phone and started dialing. I soon realized that this task would be as fruitless as trying to spot a tail. Each attempt resulted in an infinite number of empty rings echoing back at me, like some sort of discordant curse.

With a sigh of frustration, I flipped the phone closed and laid it on my lap. "No luck," I said, though it wasn't necessary.

"Try again in a little while." Though Ice's voice was the epitome of calm, I could see her jaw muscles tense and bulge.

"Yeah, no problem. We'll get through this, right?" I gave her a sick little smile.

Her eyes, when she looked back at me, showed nothing but confidence. "Sure we will."

I laughed. "After all, what's driving around aimlessly with a kidnapped fugitive everyone seems to want dead compared with the things we've been through already, huh?"

There really should be a vaccine for 'Foot-in-Mouth' disease. And if one ever becomes available, I'll be the first in line.

"I'm sorry," I said softly, laying a hand on her thigh.

"So am I," she whispered, then lapsed into a silence which went unbroken until our first rest stop. It was an angry silence, but it was directed at herself and not at me. So I squeezed her thigh and loved her as best I could until I could think up something better to do.

Rest stops themselves, as I came to quickly find, were an exercise in creativity. Since ushering a bruised and battered Cavallo into the men's room at gunpoint seemed to be out as an option, only Ice and I availed ourselves of the conveniences of modern plumbing. Cavallo got to use the bushes by the side of more or less deserted roads.

Since Ice was much more adept at subduing a dangerous fugitive who wanted us both dead than I, I happily let her do the honors, all the while hoping that she would stuff him into a particularly virulent patch of poison sumac or something equally nasty.

He was actually quite complacent that first day. I think it was the combination of the Valium he'd been given and the fact that the woman who was escorting him to and from said bushes could, and had, beaten the living tar out of him, and wouldn't need much provocation to show off that particular skill again, should he wish a replay.

Rest stops aside, we continued to drive well into the night. The fiftieth attempt to contact Donita fared no better than the first, but I was able to reach Montana, which eased my mind considerably. It seemed that all had gone very well at the ranch. Nia had come through with shining colors, surprising everyone from the Amazons, to the police, to, especially, her husband. A husband who, apparently, came within a hair of going to the big-house for a very long time when the police heard the true tale of why Nia was where she was.

Montana had passed me off to Corinne, who, like me, hadn't been able to get in touch with Donita or anyone else who might know where she was. We commiserated for awhile, then hung up as Ice pulled into yet another in a long line of nondescript rest areas. This one was long and narrow, with a few parking spaces, a few picnic tables abutting a small evergreen wood, and a tiny clapboard building with a sign in front announcing that it held restrooms and vending machines within.

Aside from a sleeping trucker or two, the place was utterly deserted. A fact, I guess, which caused Ice to pull in there in the first place.

Knowing well my pea-sized bladder, Ice handed me a flashlight almost as long as my arm, and grinned. "Go on and take care of business. I'll get Mr. Personality here settled for the evening."

Which, of course, told me that there was to be no hotel bed in my near future. That made sense, really. Being trapped in a motel room with no chance of escape while the police or whomever else came swarming in like locusts wasn't exactly the brightest plan in the world. And Ice was known for being bright.

Still, after twelve straight hours, the last place I wanted to be right then was that Jeep, nice though it was.

Knowing well that beggars didn't really have choices, I accepted the flashlight gamely and returned her smile with one of my own.

At least her mood seemed to have brightened.

A definite plus, in my book.

Turning on the flashlight's powerful beam, I followed a narrow, trash-strewn path up to the building and hunted for the little silhouette that announced to all but the most criminally idiotic that a ladies' room was lingering about. Opening the splintered and graffiti-laden door, I was immediately assailed by the sickly sweet odor of faux strawberry barely covering the baser scent of stale urine and god only knew what else.

After turning my head to take in a deep breath of fresher air, I stepped inside, tried my best to ignore the way the soles of my hiking boots were sticking to the floor, and made my way to the first stall that didn't have five entire rolls of toilet paper stuffed into the toilet bowl.

"God, this is so disgusting." I could feel my whole face screw up as I relieved the pressure in my bladder while trying my best to stay as far off the toilet seat as I could. If I could envy men for one thing, it would be the ability to pee standing up. My mother's ageless warnings about the correlation between "diseases" and toilet seats rang through my head, and for the first time in my life, I believed there to be some small truth to her tales.

Task completed, I rinsed my hand (there wasn't any soap, of course) and didn't even bother trying to give myself the old "once-over" in the cracked and stained mirror which hung gamely over the sink on one loosening bolt.

Then I made my way back outside, breathing in the fresh, pine-scented air with a distinct feeling of relief. Walking down the trail with the beam of my flashlight leading the way, I caught the movement of Ice as she led Cavallo back to the Jeep.

His gaze met mine in what I assumed he meant to be a vengeful stare full of venom. However, since the eyes doing the staring were mere slits surrounded by swollen, blackened flesh and sitting atop and to either side of a squashed flat lump of flesh which might once have resembled a nose, I'm afraid all the emotion I could come up with was a mild revulsion. Certainly not the white-faced terror he no doubt was seeking from me.

Catching the look, Ice smirked and basically tossed Cavallo into the rear of the truck, then followed him inside. I finished my trek, and slipped into the back seat.

Though Ice and I had stopped at a McHeartAttack's for food, there was almost nothing on the menu to feed a man who couldn't open his jaw wider than a half inch, so we settled on a vanilla milkshake. When I handed the shake over the seat, the man glared at me as if I was handing him dog vomit in a cup. Shrugging, I made as if to pour it out, until a resigned grunt made me smile inside.

Using his cuffed hands, he took the cup, caught hold of the straw, and sucked that shake down in two seconds flat.

I guess even dog vomit tastes pretty good to the hungry.

When he was done, Ice eased him back down and chained him up. Then she unbuckled his pants, over his vehement, if badly garbled, protests, took out a syringe from the black bag I handed her, and sent him back into slumberland, courtesy of some really good drugs.

Dusting off her hands, she leapt out of the back of the truck and slid back into the driver's seat. "What're ya doin?" she asked, eyeing me over the headrest.

"I figured I'd put some pillows and blankets down," I said, shrugging. "It'll probably be better for you to sleep back here, since you're gonna need the extra space."

"Nah," she countered with a faint shake of her head. "I don't want either one of us that close to him. C'mon up here. We'll have plenty of room."

I looked at her doubtfully, but her smile was, as always, engaging, and whatever questions I might have had melted beneath the sweetness of it.

She was still grinning as I heaved myself back into the front seat. Reaching behind her, she grabbed one of the pillows and stuffed it into the well between the two seats to make the area more or less flat. Then she lifted the steering wheel to its highest, most out of the way point, reclined her own seat back, and patted her lap invitingly.

Though I knew that she meant for me to lay down and put my head in her lap, I just couldn't help myself. It took a good deal of wiggling, but the effort was well worth the pain when my lover found herself with a lapful of me, and I found myself the most comfortable seat known to man. Or woman, for that matter.

Grinning at her slightly stunned look, I planted a cheeky kiss on her nose, then snuggled in and rested my head atop one broad shoulder, nestling into the crook of her neck and inhaling her wonderful scent. "Mmm. You always smell so good."

Wrapping her arms around me, she hugged me tight and rested her cheek on my hair. "So do you."

I touched my lips against the pulsepoint in her neck, then felt the slow, steady beat pick up a little as my tongue took a little taste of her skin. Really, I couldn't help myself. She tasted so good, I took another sample, and then another, and smiled as her cheek lifted from my head, exposing the long, delectable length of her throat to me.

That was all the invitation I needed, of course.

As my lips explored the strong column of her neck, my hands certainly weren't idle. She'd worn a half-shirt which was incredibly easy to push up, even from my somewhat awkward position, and in virtually no time at all, I held the soft, warm, firm weight of her breast in my hand.

With that, her head lowered, and mine raised, and our lips met in gentle passion.

Having much easier access, her own hand found its way beneath my shirt, and soon my breasts were being deliciously loved, responding to her touch in a way that sent trails of fire to every point in my body capable of feeling.

Which was pretty damn much everywhere.

I tried to move with her caresses, but I was trapped against the glorious length her body to one side, the damnable steering wheel to the other, and the door behind. The entrapment, however, added a subtle erotic underpinning which helped further fuel my desire, as if that had ever needed any help where the fabulous woman who was my lover was concerned.

Knowing that the man sharing the Jeep with us was sleeping by the sound of his healthy snores, I relaxed further, and when her lips pressed more insistently against mine, I responded with everything in me, opening myself up to her all the way down to my soul.

The moans on her breath tasted sweet as honey, and I drank deeply of them while I loved her breasts and the searing heat of her skin with hands tingling from the blood surging through my veins.

Her own hands, so large and so relentless, made their way down my belly and quickly undid the button and zipper of my jeans.

I pulled back from our kiss as her hands reached their goal and began to stroke a raging fire into an all-consuming inferno. "God, yes," I gasped, leaning my head against the cool, moisture-condensed window. "Please...keep...oh...like that, love...yes...just...like that."

"God, I want you," she groaned in reply. Her long fingers delved deep, then retreated, then returned, filling me oh so wonderfully full of her. My hips moved and swayed to the tempo of her thrusts and I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming out my pleasure.

Moving her head forward, she buried it in the crook of my neck, then latched onto my flesh with her lips and teeth as her fingers kept up their never-ending dance within and without. The feel of her teeth hard against my flesh released a flood of passion within me so great that I thought we must both surely drown in it.

I could feel myself opening ever wider to her, my body greedy and hungry for her touch, my need for her almost insurmountable.

Her thighs splayed open and I slipped down between them to rest on the seat. Her hips rocked against the outside of my thigh and her low, guttural moans became grunts of both effort and sublime pleasure as she matched the tempo of her own body to mine in a rapturous dance surely composed by the heavens, so great was its beauty.

I almost yelled aloud when I felt her fingers withdraw, and my eyes popped open, dazed with bliss and shock. "Noooo....."

"I need to taste you, Angel."

"But... ."

"Now," she growled, somehow managing to slide herself out from beneath me and position me so that my entire back was pressed flat against the door. My knees were pressed up at the same time my jeans were taken, with no small force, from my hips and down my legs.

It might have almost seemed comical, watching as she somehow fit the long length of her body crosswise against the cramped front seat, but any thought of inappropriate laughter flew right out of my mind when her mouth descended upon me and her ravenous hunger followed. I could feel her lips vibrate against me as she hummed her delight. Her tongue, first silky soft, then firm and insistent, twirled and swirled through my wet heat, before sharp teeth latched on and she suckled lovingly.

I felt as if I'd been turned inside out. Though my eyes screamed out their need to close so that all I would know was the feeling of her loving me, I couldn't keep myself from staring at that glossy black head as she feasted. As if sensing my white-hot stare, she looked up, and her eyes were silver and glittering and completely enraptured.

My fingers twined in her hair and she returned to her task with a fervor only seen in the most devout of worshippers. My body was her altar, my wetness her font, and her mouth paid tribute in the most passionate of ways.

My hips ground against her and she pressed back, pinning me and taking me and loving me beyond measure until my eyes, finally, slipped closed, trapping me inside a body that could do nothing but feel, and pant, and pray.

When her fingers sheathed within me once again, I imploded until there was nothing left of me but a small pinpoint of brilliantly colored light, which grew larger and larger until I became that light and found the freedom to soar among the heavens for one brief, aching, transcendent moment.

And in that brief span of time, I truly knew what it was like to be immortal.

Tears flowed, and I let them, too weak and overcome with emotion to do anything else.

Somehow, I was eased, and turned, and wound back up within the warmth and safety of her arms. Her lips gently dried my tears, and landed, like butterflies, on each closed lid, until my eyes fluttered open and I looked at her wonderful face through a filmy haze of tears. "I love you," I said, my voice thick with the tears I'd shed. "So much. Sometimes, the feelings, they... ."

"Shhhh," she whispered, holding me close and resting her cheek atop my head. "It's alright, sweet Angel. I understand. Shhh."

She began to hum, softly, beautifully, and as her hand drew soft, lazy circles against my back, I felt my eyes drift closed once again. And though I fought against it for a moment, sleep won out, as it always did, and I felt myself relax by slow degrees, save within the circle of my lover's arms.

The second day started out much like the first, though both Ice and myself were a bit stiffer for the experience of the night before. Not that I minded, of course. Nor did she, if the grin on her face upon seeing me awake was any indication.

After quickly attending to our own needs and those of our rather reluctant guest, we started out again, traveling in a rather vague northeasterly direction with no definite sense of purpose. It was as if we were, like a circling jet awaiting permission to land, in some sort of holding pattern. But unlike such a jet, we didn't have the comfort of a control tower watching out for us.

As we journeyed, I stared out of the window at the passing scenery, and began to notice when the jagged edges of mountains gradually gave way to the more rolling plains that characterized the midwest. It was a homecoming, of sorts, and one that was by no means happy. Even if the circumstances had been different, my return to the general area of my birth would not have been met with welcome emotions.