Chapter Twelve.

Whit steered onto the freeway ramp, a plastic coffee cup balanced in one hand.

"Got any thoughts?" he asked. Kyla waited until he merged into the traffic before she unwrapped the breakfast sandwiches. She placed his within reach on the dash, then hungrily s.n.a.t.c.hed a bite. Sausage, eggs a bit tough, but the biscuit freshly baked.

"Tasty," Kyla said.

"I didn't mean your thoughts about food. About Moira."

"They may have found her by now."

"Hadn't at midnight when I talked to Neligh."

"We said we'd forget Moira, remember? And get back to hantavirus."

"Answer a hypothetical question, then. Got any fresh thoughts about Moira?"

"In her glory days, Moira worked at the Jingling Silver as a high cla.s.s hooker.

Technically a lounge singer, but like the woman we saw last night, she performed little better than an amateur. The Jingling Silver puts women on display, like dresses on a rack, and if I hadn't been with you, the waitress would have shown you which b.u.t.ton to push for a keno runner and which would signal that you were willing to pay for a private session with the singer."

"Lacquered hair doesn't turn me on," Whit said.

Kyla laughed. "I thought we were talking hypothetical, not you. The women take the men upstairs, where the management keeps the rooms stocked for any request.

There's probably some way she can signal to the office which services she's providing. Maybe the locked cabinet contains a computer terminal, where she punches in codes, and the bill comes automatically. Itemized."

"What locked cabinet?"

"The one you were too sleepy to be curious about. Hotel d'Alain is not designed for drop-in business."

"You can say that again. All that well-watered vegetation blocks the entrance."

"No parking except by valet, no slot machines in the lobby. Mr. Escobar said the hotel was half a block from the casino, but in actual fact there's only the width of an alley between them. The casino elevator went below the main floor, if you noticed."

"I didn't notice," Whit admitted.

"B floor. Suitably indicating brothel."

"Okay, so Moira worked in a high cla.s.s joint."

"This isn't hypothetical anymore. I'm tired of Moira," Kyla said. She took a large bite of her sandwich and chewed thoroughly. "If we let ourselves get dragged into the Moira business, we won't have anything significant to tell the state health people," she said.

"This hypothetical hooker learns interesting secrets about her customers," Whit said. "Men from all over the world. She might see names and addresses on driver's licenses, and take a few notes."

"That could be very dangerous."

"So she transfers her written notes to film, and hides the film in a place where no one will look." Whit keep his eyes on the road while he pa.s.sed a truck, but after he swung back into the right lane he stared at her.

"The chip?"

"But," he added doubtfully, "that would bring the fellow who makes the chips in on the secret."

"Not a fellow," Kyla said, recalling the dented rubber mat in front of the work counter in that white room. "A woman. The mat showed the crescent marks of narrow high heels." Whit hissed. "This is all speculation, of course, until Neligh opens the chip. But what if some very powerful man learned that Moira kept track of his kinky tastes -- "

"He might have her kidnapped."

"I'm tired of worrying about Moira. It's distracting us."

"Sure is. For example, I'm ignoring the question: Am I, at the very moment, caught up in irrational pa.s.sion?"

Kyla sucked in her breath a little noisily, then decided to pa.s.s the remark off with humor. "You'll have to tell me. One can't always judge by outward appearance." She pretended to study him closely. "But the upper lip's not sweaty, no clenching of fists, no erratic movements of the hips."

"Please marry me."

Kyla kept her hands busy by wrapping what was left of the sandwich. Very stiff waxed paper, she said to herself, so the operation took all her attention. Whit stared at the road and said nothing, but his expression expected an answer.

"Whit," she finally said, "marrying you would destroy all my plans for the future. My life would become your life, and I have no great inclination to be a ranch wife."

"It doesn't have to be -- "

"I've seen women marry men whose jobs take them to far corners of the world. My sister, for example. Glenda was top in her cla.s.s at college, she had a great future as a clinical psychologist. Now she's so far out of touch she won't let her son have a computer, and she spends her time -- "

"It doesn't have to be," he said so insistently that Kyla felt a momentary threat, and pressed herself against the door.

"You've had contradictory experience?" she asked testily.

"My father was superintendent of the Castor Mine, but my mother taught history at Sacramento State."

"Glenda told me. But I don't see how -- " Kyla recalled Mark's words.Whitaker men like well-educated wives.

"Airplanes. Mom flew to Sacramento on Monday morning, Dad and I would bach it until Friday. As she got more seniority, she was able to schedule her cla.s.ses four days rather than five. Sometimes Dad and I picked her up in Sacramento, and we went to the beach for a long weekend. And she spent every summer in Argentia.

After I got older Dad confessed he rather liked the arrangement. 'Every weekend a honeymoon,' was the way he put it."

"That works with older kids, but when you were a baby?"

"I traveled back and forth with her."

"What a dreadfully disruptive life for a child?"

"What a wonderful varied life for a kid." Whit said in spirited reb.u.t.tal.

Kyla hated to think what character flaws Glenda would ascribe to such a mixed up childhood. An inability to settle down? But Whit seemed determined to spend his life on Plum Sky Ranch. A fickle heart? But six years devotion to a dead woman rather contradicted that judgement. Moodiness? But she never truly found Whit moody. Just thoughtful, sometimes quiet. A relief, really, to be with a man who found silence no threat. No need to keep up a line of senseless chatter.

But medical school was not at all like being a professor. And residency and internship. "We can talk about this when I'm through school and am job hunting,"

Kyla said.

"Too far in the future," he said. "Under the circ.u.mstances, with you in school, I'll do the dashing back and forth, of course. My work's much more flexible. I presume you have an apartment in San Francisco."

"A studio. You'd just about fill all the s.p.a.ce when the bed's pulled down."

"Apartments can be changed."

Kyla unwrapped the tag end of sandwich and took a bite to end the conversation.

Whit's foot came off the accelerator, and he stared into the rear view mirror, horror struck.

"d.a.m.n! But I'm not speeding." A siren screamed a short burst as the police car closed the gap between them.

"It's Neligh!" she said.

Whit slammed on the brakes the moment he hit the shoulder, forcing Neligh into an undignified, skidding stop. Whit jabbed at the b.u.t.ton that rolled down the window. "Give me a heart attack!" he yelled. "I'm not jumping out for him. Let him walk."

"Fake, huh?" Neigh grunted when he leaned in the window. "You figure Rod thought it was real, thought he had $100,000 in that statue?"

"I figure Rod was hiding the chip for Moira, who knew it was fake. But I could be wrong." Whit pulled out the pa.s.sport case, took off his hat, dragged the cord over his head.

"Here. It's all yours. Break the thing open and find out what's inside."

Neligh worked at the edges of the chip with this thick fingers.

"Not here!" Kyla yelled. "Carefully, at your desk."

"Give him your I.D. and badge," Whit said. Kyla dug in her purse for the wrinkled envelope, and Whit shoved the papers at Neligh.

"Now, leave us alone. We've got other things to occupy our time."

"A man can only do that so many times in twenty-four hours," Neligh said wickedly. "When you're ready for a break -- " The window shot up, Whit stomped on the gas and left Neligh dangling the pa.s.sport case from his hand.

We have other things to occupy our time, Kyla thought. Hantavirus and a debate over marriage. Marry Whit? Incomprehensible. Not because she doubted Whit's sincerity about a long-distance relationship. But because of what he had left unsaid.

Whit had never told her he loved her.

The papers lay scattered on the kitchen table, just as they had left them. The bronc rider reclined inelegantly on the couch, and only a thin stream of water trickled over the stones. "I'll fill the humidifier," Kyla said, "while you make the coffee. Then we'll study the map and decide our next move."

"I'll convert you yet," Whit said.

"Convert me to what?"

"Gourmet coffee. And my way of thinking," he added with a smile.

Kyla was dumping the tenth pitcher of water in the tank when Whit brought two steaming mugs into the family room. "I thought we'd sit at the table in the kitchen and go through all the papers one more time," Kyla said.

"Yesterday, I believe it was yesterday but it might have been a month ago, for all I know, I spent good money for a couch, which I haven't even sat on." He lifted the bronze and centered it carefully on the table.

Kyla filled the pitcher for the eleventh time. The tank seemed bottomless.

"I should figure out how to get the water running automatically."

"Yes, you should," Kyla said, dropping to her knees. "But this should hold it until this evening. I can't believe so much evaporates."

"The penalty of living in a desert. Now, come here and appreciate my inheritance."

Kyla sat down and grabbed the mug of coffee before Whit had a chance to embrace her. Delicious. The horse stood on his front feet, his back legs high. The cowboy sailed above the saddle, off balance, and would fall on the next buck. "A lovely thing. Too bad we got distracted yesterday."

"Too bad we got so distracted this morning," Whit murmured in her ear. He put his coffee mug, still half full, on the table. "I didn't want to stop."

"But you did, and I thank you."

"I want it like that soon," he whispered. "Not a d.a.m.n thing between us." Kyla ducked under his arm to get rid of her coffee.

"So you've figured it out, too," she said. "That naked pleasure comes only with monogamy." Whit nodded, at the same time following her lips to find a kiss. She dodged. "And you think it might as well be legal?" He nodded, and accidentally caught her mouth on the upswing.

His tongue eased past her teeth and explored the roof of her mouth. Her heart fluttered, turbulence in her belly, made worse as his hand crept under the leg of her shorts. She drew her tongue back, avoiding his, delaying the irresistible paroxysm caused by that intimate touch.

His fingers reached their goal, Kyla gasped, her tongue collided with his, and set off sparks that produced a lightning flash that illuminating her desire.

Naked. Pulsing. Please, Whit! Keep your senses because I'm lost in this fury of l.u.s.t. Let him in, learn if their nerves vibrated on the same wavelength, if she might feel the soft warmth of his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e bathing her? The ultimate mating.

He loosened the waistband of her shorts and pushed them down, past her hips.

"Not naked today," he whispered, "but soon. I can hardly wait."

She loved him for his restraint, and for the love he could not speak. She worked the silver buckle open, then the zipper, and released his strength to her embrace. His weight carried her down, the rough cushions ridging her back. He dug in the pocket of his jeans, somewhere down around his knees, and handed her the foil packet.

"Ky," he whispered as he penetrated her. Rea.s.suring himself of her ident.i.ty? She loved him for that, too. Whit made sure of the identify of the woman beneath him, so in the moment of frenzy he did not say the wrong name. He eased to depth, then came the lance thrust of a satyr, again and again. She wanted to object, to shriek, but the sound became pure energy, no voice or thought, and without line to separate them.

He lay upon her, so heavy her chest muscles ached. Half the cushions were on the floor, dislodged by the violence of their coupling. He panted so hard his chest hair rubbed on her nipples.

"Easy," he said, but his hips still probed, relieving the final dry spasms, transferring energy that echoed the memory of o.r.g.a.s.m. He lay still, satiated, limp.

A sunbeam tipped through the window, glittered on the bronc rider, and cast its shadow across their coupled loins. The shadow of the cowboy who had brought them together. After Whit's grief eased, after they found the source of Rod's disease, did she and Whit have anything in common?

Kyla thrust her fingers in his hair, lifted his head, lowered it, shocked by the expression of misery. No celebration of the most intense s.e.x they had every shared.

"We gave your new couch a mighty introduction," she whispered.