"He said for the past ten days there's been a war going on inside his head, and to tell you you've won. Something to do with poplar trees in the afternoon."

"s.e.x."

"I suspected."

"Not the most solid foundation for a long-term relationship."

"Sometimes the physical wall has to crumble before the healing process can get underway. I think feeling s.e.xual desire for you shocked Whit, and yielding to those urges -- "

"Caused a war in his head. But I can't get in there to fight, can I Judith?"

"You already have. By the way, congratulations on the furniture. Casually suggest that when he's able to get out, you might browse Reno furniture stores.

For the whole house."

"That was Rod's doing. Whit had to have a place to put the statue."

"I'm glad." A tightness in the words, and Kyla remembered Rod was Judith's brother. Her twin brother.

"I'm sorry I didn't know him, Judith."

A heavy sigh. "Anyway, I'd appreciate you coming and hearing Whit out, because if you don't he'll keep on pestering me, and I've got a house bursting at the seams with three families"

"I can't leave until two, at the earliest. I'm tired, I just drove in from Lake Tahoe, and every st.i.tch I own is dirty." Kyla kicked the heap of clothes. She could pick up the new slacks on her way out of town. "When Chase came after us Whit yelled, 'Run, Jenny, run!'"

"He'll ask your forgiveness, I'm sure. Remember, he wasn't thinking, just reacting. Did he call you Jenny when he made love to you?"

"No. But sometimes a distancing, and I worried he was thinking of her."

"The war in his head, Kyla. When you think over the events of the past ten days, keep that in mind. He went into the grave with Jenny and is just now climbing out. With your help."

"I don't want to be his therapist."

"But you are, in a way. Whit's mother once told me the worst thing that happened to Whit wasn't Jenny's death but the money. Hitting that jackpot gave him the wherewithal to bury himself. Instead of facing the world, he retreated."

"Then the world came piling in, in the form of hantavirus."

"And you. Don't forget yourself."

"And I'm not Jenny."

"No, my dear. You are as close to her opposite as a woman can be. And the right sort of woman for Whit. I think he's in the process of figuring that out. When I go to the hospital this afternoon I'll tell him that he must for a few months remind himself who he's talking to. Get the name right, until he breaks out of the old, bad habit. Now, I've got a lodger at my front door."

Judith hung up abruptly, Kyla waited three seconds before she pushed the off b.u.t.ton. She reminded herself that she had not totally committed herself to a dash across the state. In fact, things might be easier if she waited a day or two. Right now Whit was still in pain, distracted by unpleasant medical procedures. She could phone.

That's it. A long-distance relationship, pleasant conversations, treading cautiously, never promising -- The phone buzzed.

"Almost to Golden Gate Park. If you haven't left yet, you're gonna be late!"

"I'll run, Neil. See you."

Kyla grabbed her purse and raced out the door. The afternoon fog bathed the heights. She dashed back into her apartment, and changed from shorts to jeans, not too filthy. At the top of the stair she remembered she had not locked the door. Bad habits brought from Argentia.

Lucky for her that Neil had turned up. He would drag her out of the stew of emotions, return her to the reality of city life, work, and med school. A firm foundation upon which to base a decision about T. J. Whitaker. She caught herself running her hand down of the side of her purse, checking for the sharp corners.

Chapter Fifteen.

A white Jaguar double-parked just down the street from Buster Bronco's, waiting for a car to pull out of a parking place. Argentia has advantages, Kyla thought, recalling that Whit always found a parking place directly in front of the coffee shop.

"Kyla!" The driver of the Jag hung out the window. "Wait at the door. Be right there." But she had left the land of dusty pickup trucks, and isolation that gave men the opportunity to mourn for years. Neil would be good for her.

The gangling walk had matured into the stride of a man who knows where he's heading. The skinny adolescent frame had filled into a tailor's dream. He worked out, she remembered, and mountain biked.

"What'll it be?"

"Coffee." Kyla examined the menu board, and found far more than the three choices stocked by the coffee shop in Argentia. "Kona. No cream, no sugar."

"Not latte? Cappuccino?" She shook her head. "Find us a place to sit."

Buster Bronco displayed and sold every imaginable tool for the brewing and consumption of coffee. A tiny one-cup coffee maker caught Kyla's eye. Plastic wrap stretched over a china mug and an a.s.sortment of blends in small foil packets.

Stop thinking about Whit.

She found a vacant table far in the back, beneath a light fixture fashioned from a wagon wheel. Okay in Whit's house, but it looked fake here. On the wall hung a painting of six hard-faced cowboys standing in front of -- not a saloon -- a coffeehouse!

Neil arrived with a double mocha latte and a large cup of black coffee.

"Love this place," he said, noting the decor with approval. He leaned across the table, fingers twining, separating with nervous intensity. "Figure we should level with each other, and away from the office is best. Not that I'm not serious. Never do anything that doesn't lead where I'm going. Twenty-four, own two businesses. But the folks -- "

"How are your parents?" Kyla tried a sip of coffee, but found it too hot to drink.

"Fine. Except for worrying about their wayward son."

"You look extremely prosperous," she said.

He shrugged his superbly tailored shoulders with a jerk that suggested exasperation. "Dad's still ticked that I won't go to med school. Follow in his footsteps, take over the practice. And last month they sent Monica to sound me out on marriage. Neither Mom nor Dad will say 'gay,' but dear sister came right to the point. Simply haven't had time, up to now, to find a suitable woman and fall in love. Then, bingo! Your name came up on that list, 'Answer to your prayers, old boy!'"

"How?" Kyla asked.

"Why, marriage, of course. We already know each other -- "

"That was in high school. Things and people change."

He dropped his eyes to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Change for the better," he chortled. "Look, Dad will be thrilled that my wife's a doctor. He'll take you into the practice, if you want to move back to the old hometown. Mom will fall on her knees, blubbering when she finds out I'm not hauling home a stranger."

His blue eyes snapped with static electricity, as if he generated energy somewhere inside and it demanded a constant outlet. She looked at the painting to get away from the zapping.

"Isn't that a hoot?" he said. "Cowboys and a coffee shop. Love this place."

"There's a coffee shop in Argentia, Nevada. The first time I went in, I found a cowboy sitting there, and I come close to laughing out loud at the incongruity."

"You're kidding me?" Neil said.

Kyla shook her head, keeping her eyes on the picture. The cowboy's wore spurs.

She had not seen one horse on Plum Sky Ranch. They were all in the mountains, everything else done in a pickup or on a dirt bike.

"Way we do this, we'll spend every spare moment, next two months, together.

Relieve Dad's fears that I won't pa.s.s on the family genes and name, at the very least, and if we hit it off, this fall your folks can produce a full-scale wedding."

"I'm working for you, remember. Employees shouldn't date the boss."

He waved away her objection. "Can I confide in you, Kyla? Sure I can. We're not strangers. In high school I wanted desperately to ask you out, but..." A fading of words, out of place in Neil's rapid-fire delivery. "I've always been shy around women. I think it has something to do with Dad being a doctor and telling me the facts of life too soon. I figure, since we know each other, we can ease into a...relationship." He s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand. "You'll be understanding.

Compa.s.sionate. Forgive when I mess up." His eyes had stopped sparking. "What's wrong, Kyla? I've already messed up, haven't I?"

"No, nothing wrong. Just a shock, I guess." Just that for the second time in an hour she had been selected as the perfect therapist for an emotionally traumatized man.

"So many dreams, Kyla. Dad's right, I need someone to share them." He leaned across the table, his hand slid up her arm, his eyes sparked once more. "I come to Buster's because every since I was a little kid I've wanted to be a cowboy.

Totally unrealistic, because there's no money in it. Nowadays, you make your fortune in business andthen buy the ranch. Soon as Bay Bend's settled and grinding out the dough, I'll be fixed to buy a place. Not too big, but off in the middle of nowhere. Won't live there, naturally. Spend weekends riding my fences, herding my cattle. Live my dream and have a tax write-off at the same time. Even dreams -- " he made a wry face "-- have to fit into economic reality."

"Wives?" she asked. "They must fit economic reality, too?"

A thoughtful creasing of his brow. "Of course, live in the real world and all that. But there's another component. Emotions. Love." His voice rose a tone, as if saying the word hurt his throat. "Not too good there, am I?"

She couldn't help smiling at his anguish. She watched in amazement as his inexhaustible energy overcame his momentary concern.

"Unpracticed," she said. "That's all."

"I'll learn." He sprang to his feet. "Try one of Buster's jalapeno-cheddar rolls." He had revealed too much of himself, and needed a moment alone to regain his equanimity.

On the other side of the room stood a life-sized statue of a cowboy. Wide hat, coiled rope, booted and spurred, carrying a mug that said "I ride miles for Buster's coffee." Behind him, almost concealed by the ten-gallon hat, another painting, a cowboy on a bucking horse. Badly rendered. Jim and Vince would pick out a dozen mistakes in tack and horse anatomy. The clink of china, an odor of cheese and chilies, reminded her she had not eaten since breakfast at South Lake Tahoe.

"Thanks, Whit." Blue eyes, not dark, a sudden shower of sparks that might be anger. Or simply an automatic release of energy, like the jets from a black hole?

"Who's Whit?" Kyla toyed with the bun.

Run, Jenny, run.

"I'm sorry. Bad form to call you by another man's name."

"Who's Whit?"

"I don't know," she said. The bread tasted flat, as if her taste buds had lingered in the desert. "That's what I must decide in the next few days. Who he is? To me."

"You mean you're...in an emotional quandary?" No sympathy in voice or eyes. He tensed, ready to bolt.

"Rather."

"These episodes...do you experience them often? Emotional storms, I mean. I know women -- "

"Shut up, Neil. You're digging the ground from under your feet." She could distinctly hear the scritch, scritch of Chase digging beneath the rock. She saw Whit's shock as the dog leaped over him. There must have been noise, fulminating thunder, but she recalled only the fall of rocks, murderous hail. Only Whit could possibly understand how the moment replayed in her head, waking and sleeping. Last night in the motel, again this morning, a sudden speeding of pulse when she drove through a road cut. The breathlessness that seized her when she pa.s.sed signs that warned of falling rock.

Neil stared at her as a man stares at an unexpected snake. He drew back as far as the chair allowed. She shoved the plate to the center of the table. "Sorry, I've got to go. I've been out of town for ten days and have lots of catching up to do. Laundry, answer my phone messages..."

"Yes, I understand," he said hastily, as if glad to be rid of a woman who might at any moment come apart.

Love that results from trauma and stress is not a suitable basis for marriage.

The clerk shoved the credit slip across the counter for her signature, and bagged the little coffee maker.

But I loved Whit before the rocks came down. I simply refused to admit it.

"If you run," said the man in the blue blazer, "you might catch the next shuttle to Reno." He muttered a gate number; Kyla did not ask him to repeat it because he was writing it on the ticket envelope with a felt tipped pen as he spoke. She ran, hoping the zipper on her backpack held, because if it split open, dirty clothes would scatter from gate C-24 to D-25.

"In two or three months," she muttered toward her shoes, "when you're back on your feet, when we've both thought out the consequences of a commitment..."

The cabin attendant slammed the door while Kyla stood in the aisle. By the time she had composed herself, the plane seemed to skim the snow-flecked peaks of the Sierra, reflecting the last rays of the sun.

"We must not let ourselves be carried away by the emotions of trauma. If we see one another occasionally, perhaps a deeper understanding will emerge, affection not based on being hideously frightened and thinking we were going to die."

Should she kiss him before she started talking? Or simply say, "Hi," and display her gift? A peck on the cheek. Perfect. A distant, sisterly affection, a friendly concern, then the coffee maker to amuse him.

The high-rise casinos of Virginia Street came into view on the left. One roof -- she had no idea which -- covered the med center. Sheltered Whit. She clasped her hands in her lap so she did not chew her nails. She hoped Judith was at the airport to meet her. But if Judith had failed to check her message machine...She would be alone, lost...You'll take a taxi to the hospital, she told herself sternly, just like a grown up. And you'll comfort Whit, without losing your cool. You will laugh gently at his confessions of love, his unsuitable proposals.

Judith waited just beyond the gate. Thank heavens!

"Come on. You look exhausted."

"I feel like I've lived half my life in the past two days. How's Whit?"

"Fine, after I called and told him you were coming."

Kyla closed her eyes and leaned against the window of Judith's rickety truck, trying to s.n.a.t.c.h a brief nap on the journey through streets confused by neon.

Even in the dark, the parking lot radiated heat. It squirmed like little worms through the soles of her sandals.

She counted the numbers of the rooms, odd on the left, even on the right.