"Where'd that come from?"

"Your mouth," she said, shaking under him as she chuckled. She rubbed her hand on the sheet, then wrapped her arms around Larry and gave him a powerful squeeze. It was as if the hug used up the last of her strength. After a moment she released him and sprawled out limp.

Then he eased away, sliding out of her.

He pulled the sheet and blanket up and scooted closer to her. He rested a hand on the warm curve of her thigh. Under his fingertips was a smear of stickiness. "Ooo, yuck," he said.

She laughed softly. "Don't complain, buster. I've got the wet spot."

"Want to trade places?"

"It's my wifely duty to sleep on the wet spot." Her hand covered his, caressed it, fooled with his fingers.

In the silence he began to worry that Jean might ask about his problem. He doubted that she would, though. Their sex life was something they rarely discussed. Besides, he'd made a rather spectacular recovery.

"Well," he said, "I'd better go to sleep or I won't be worth a damn tomorrow."

"You'll have to write like a dog to pay for Lane's new wardrobe."

"Bought out the store," he muttered, rolling away from Jean and curling up on his side.

She laughed, then surprised Larry by snuggling against him. Normally they slept at opposite sides of the bed.

But it felt good. Her breath warm on the nape of his neck. Her breasts and belly pressing his back. Her lap against his rump. The soft tickle of her pubic hair. Her thighs smooth against the backs of his legs.

An arm came down over his side and fingers curled tenderly around his penis.

"You still horny?" he asked. She kissed his back. "Wiseguy. I just want to be close to you."

"Well, I guess that's all right."

"Thanks."

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "I guess so. How about you?"

"I wish we hadn't gone there today."

"Me, too. I've never seen anything so horrible." She pressed herself more tightly against him. "On the other hand, you're always looking for material."

"I could do without that sort of material."

"The real thing's too much for you, huh?" she teased.

"Darn right it is."

"Your fans would be appalled, you know, if they ever found out how squeamish you really are. Nasty Lawrence Dunbar, master of gore, pussy."

"Pussy, huh? You've been around Pete too much." She laughed again. "Go to sleep, tough guy."

GOING FOR IT.

Seven

"Happy trails to you," Dad said, and swatted her butt as she stepped out the door.

She smirked back at him.

"Say hi to Roy and Dale," he added.

"You should look so good," Lane said, then turned away and hurried toward the car. The red Mustang gleamed in the early morning sunlight. She stepped around to the driver's side, feeling fresh and eager in her new clothes: the mottled pink and blue T-shirt; the tie- dyed blue denim jumper with its white lace trim and pink flowerbud decorations on the bib, straps, and hem; and the white, fringed boots.

Dad was always poking fun at her clothes. She supposed this outfit did make her look like a cowgirl.

One hot, radical cowgirl, she thought, and grinned as she climbed into the car.

At least he hadn't made any remarks about the length of the skirt.

Sitting down, she could feel the seat upholstery high on the backs of her legs. As she waited for the engine to warm up, she leaned close to the steering wheel and looked down. The skirt was short, all right. Any shorter might be embarrassing.

This was just right.

Sexy, but not outrageous.

She especially liked the lace around the hem of the skirt, the way its long points lay like frilly spearheads against her thighs.

I'm going to drive Jim nuts when he sees me in this.

As if he needs any help along those lines.

Laughing softly, trembling just a little with the anticipation of being at school on such a fine day in such a grand outfit, Lane backed out of the driveway. She turned the car radio to "86.2 A.M., all the best in Country twenty-four hours a day!" Randy Travis was on. She turned the volume high and poked her elbow into the warm stream of air rushing past her window.

God, she felt great.

Seemed almost criminal to feel this great.

She leaned her shoulder against the door, tipped her head and felt the wind caress her face, tug at her hair.

To think that she'd put up such a fuss about leaving Los Angeles.

She must've been crazy, wanting to stay in that lousy apartment in a city full of filthy air and creeps. But she'd grown up there. She was used to it. She'd known she would miss her friends and the beaches and Disneyland. This was so much better, though. She'd made new friends, she loved the river, and the clean, open spaces gave her a constant sense of freedom that made each day seem rich with promise.

Best of all, she supposed, was the release from fear. In L.A. you had to be so careful. The place was crawling with rapists and killers. Not a day went by when the TV news didn't broadcast stories of such horror and brutality that you dreaded stepping outside. Kids missing. Their bodies usually found days later, nude and mutilated and sexually abused. Not only kids, either. The same thing happened to teenagers, and even adults. If you weren't kidnapped and tortured, you might be gunned down at a restaurant or movie theater or shopping mall. And hiding at home was no guarantee of safety, either. There were plenty of nuts who simply drove around town, shooting into the windows of houses and apartment buildings.

Nowhere was safe.

Lane's joy slipped away as she suddenly remembered the chopping crashes of gunfire in the night. They had been home in their ground- level apartment in Los Angeles, sitting close together on the sofa, watching Dallas on TV Lane had a tub of popcorn on her lap. Mom sat on one side, Dad on the other. All three were reaching in, hands sometimes colliding. The first blast made her jump so hard that the tub flew up, flinging popcorn everywhere. Then the night exploded as if someone on the street had opened up with a machine gun. Mom had screamed. Dad had shouted "Get down!" but didn't give Lane even an instant to respond before he grabbed the back of her neck and nearly broke her in half as he rammed her forward. The edge of the coffee table skinned the top of her head. She wept and held her head and shuddered as the roar pounded her ears. Then all she heard was a ringing. The gunfire had stopped. Dad still clutched her neck. "Jean?"

he'd asked in a high, strange voice. Mom didn't answer. "Jean!" True panic. Then Mom had said, "Is it over?"

They stayed on the floor.

Then came sirens and the loud whap-whap-whap of a police helicopter low overhead. The front draperies were bright with flashes of red and blue. Dad had crawled to the window and looked out. "Holy Jesus," he said, "there must be twenty cop cars out there."

It turned out that the shots had been fired at a family in a duplex across the street. Both parents, and three children, had been killed by automatic fire from an Uzi. Only an infant had survived the shooting.

Lane hadn't known the family. That was another thing about L.A.- even most of your neighbors were strangers. But the fact that they'd been gunned down, right across the street, was shocking.

Just too damn close.

Dad had reminded them about a family gunned down by mistake a few years earlier. It was a drug hit. The killers had gone to the wrong house, the one next door to the residence of their intended victims.

"We're getting out of here," Dad had said, even while the street outside was still jammed with police cars.

Two weeks later they were on the way to Mulehead Bend.

They knew the town from having vacationed there just a month before the shooting. They'd spent a night in a motel, followed by a week in a houseboat on the river. They'd all enjoyed the area, it was fresh in their minds, and it seemed like a good place to find sanctuary from the mad, crowded hunting grounds of Los Angeles.

Sometimes the wind and heat were enough to drive you crazy. You had to watch out for scorpions and black widow spiders and several varieties of poisonous snakes. But the chances of catching a bullet in the head or getting abducted by a pervert were mighty slim.

Lane looked upon L.A. as a prison from which she and her family had escaped. The freedom was glorious.

She swung her car onto the dust and gravel in front of Betty's place and beeped the horn once. Betty lived in a mobile home, as did the majority of Mulehead Bend's population. It was firmly planted on a foundation. A porch and an extra room had been added on. It looked pretty much like a normal house from the outside, though the interior always seemed narrow and cramped when Lane visited.

Betty trudged down the porch stair as if laboring under the burden of her weight-which was considerable. She managed to raise her head and nod a greeting.

Leaning across the passenger seat, Lane opened the door for her.

Betty swung her book bag into the backseat. The fabric of her tan shirt was already dark under the armpits. The car rocked slightly as she climbed in. She shut the door so hard that Lane winced.

"Well, look at you," Betty said, her voice as slow and somber as always. "What'd you do, mug Dolly Parton?"

"Who'd you mug, Indiana Jones?"

"Yucka yucka," she muttered.

Lane steered onto the road. "We picking up Henry?"

"Only if you want to."

"Well, is he expecting us?"

"I suppose."

"You two aren't fighting again, are you?"

"Just the usual grief about my culinary preferences. I told him he's no prize himself, and if he thinks he can do better, he should go ahead and try, and good riddance."

"True love," Lane said.

She swung around a bend and accelerated up the road to Henry's house. He was out in front, sitting on a small, white-painted boulder next to the driveway, reading a paperback. When he saw them coming, he slipped the book into his leather briefcase. He stood up, ran a hand over the top of his crew cut, and stuck out his thumb as if hoping to hitch a ride with strangers.

"What a dork," Betty muttered.

"Oh, he's cute," Lane said.

"He's a nerd."

That was a fact, Lane supposed. In his running shoes, old blue jeans, plaid shirt, and sunglasses, he could almost pass for a regular guy. But the briefcase gave him away. So did the rather dopey, cheerful look on his lean face. And the way his head preceded the rest of his body made him look, to Lane, like an adventurous turtle.

He was a nerd, no doubt about it. But Lane liked him.

"Good morning, sports fans!"

"Yo!" Lane greeted him.

Betty climbed out, shoved the seat back forward, and ducked into the backseat. Henry got in after her. Hanging over the seat, he managed to pull the door shut. Then his head swiveled toward Lane.

"Foxy outfit there, lady."

"Thanks."

" 'She had a body like a mountain road,' " he said. " 'Full of curves and places you'd like to stop for a picnic' "

"Mike Hammer?" Lane asked.

"Mack Donovan, Dead Low Tide." He dropped backward, or was yanked by Betty.

"You never talk to me that way," the girl grumbled.

He whispered something that Lane couldn't hear over Ronnie Milsap.

She turned the radio down, and heard a giggly squeal from Betty.

Making a U-turn, she headed down the hill.

"So, you have a big weekend?" Henry asked after a while.

"Okay," Lane said. "Nothing special. I went shopping yesterday."