Hot ice - By Nora Roberts Page 0,57

it with him. Whitney reached for her own before she followed him. “What’re you going to do?” Doug asked.

She glanced at the spare Pierre rolled out. “Just stand here and look helpless, of course. Unless you’d like me to phone Triple A.”

Swearing, Doug crouched down and began to loosen lug nuts. “The spare’s bald as a baby’s ass. Tell our chauffeur that we’ll walk from here. He’ll be lucky if this gets him back to the village.”

Fifteen minutes later, they stood in the middle of the road and watched the jeep bounce over ruts. Cheerful, Whitney linked her arm with Doug’s. Insects and small birds had begun to sing as the first stars came out. “A little evening stroll, darling?”

“As much as I hate to turn you down, we find cover and camp. In another hour, it’ll be too dark to see. Over there,” he decided, pointing to a jumble of rocks. “We’ll pitch the tent behind them. We can’t do anything about them spotting us from the air, but we’ll be out of sight from the road.”

“So, you think they’ll be back.”

“They’ll be back. All we have to do is not be there.”

Because she had begun to wonder if there were trees in any quantity in Madagascar, Whitney was pleased when they came to the forest. It helped ease the annoyance of being awakened at dawn. The only courtesy he’d given her had been a cup of coffee shoved in her face.

The hills going east were steep, peaking up and dropping down so that walking had become a chore she was ready to swear off for good.

Doug looked at the forest as welcome cover. Whitney looked at it as a welcome change.

Though the air was mild, after an hour of climbing, she was sticky and out of sorts. There were better ways to hunt for treasure, she was certain. An air-conditioned car would be the first choice.

The forest might not have been air-conditioned, but it was cool. Whitney stepped in among fanning fern trees. “Very pretty,” she decided, looking up and up.

“Travelers’ trees.” He broke off a leaf stalk and poured clear water into his palm from the sheath. “Handy. Read the guidebook.”

Whitney poked her finger into the puddle in his hand, then laid it on her tongue. “But it’s so good for your ego to spout off knowledge.” At a rustle, she glanced over and saw a furry white shape and long tail disappear into the brush. “Why, it’s a dog.”

“Uh-uh.” Doug grabbed her arm before she could race after it. “A sifaka—you’ve just seen your first lemur. Look.”

As she followed his pointing finger, Whitney caught a glimpse of the snow-white-bodied, black-headed lemur as it dashed through the top of the trees. She laughed and strained for another look. “They’re so cute. I was beginning to think we’d see nothing but hills and grass and rock.”

He liked the way she laughed. Maybe just a bit too much. Women, he thought. It had been too damn long since he’d had one. “This ain’t no guided tour,” he said briefly. “Once we have the treasure, you can book one. Right now, we’ve got to move.”

“What’s the hurry?” Shifting her pack, Whitney trooped along beside him. “It seems to me the longer we take, the less chance Dimitri has to find us.”

“I get itchy—not knowing where he is. In front of us, or behind.” It made him think of Nam again, where the jungle hid too much. He preferred the dark streets and mean alleys of the city.

Whitney glanced over her shoulder and grimaced. The forest had already closed in behind them. She wanted to take comfort in the deep greens, the moistness, and the cool air, but Doug was making her see gnomes. “Well, there’s no one in the forest but us. So far we’ve been one step ahead of them every time.”

“So far. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Why don’t we pass the time with conversation. You could tell me about the papers.”

He’d already decided she wouldn’t let it go and that he’d give her enough information to stop her from nagging him. “Know much about the French Revolution?”

She shifted the hateful pack as she walked. It would be best, Whitney calculated, not to mention the quick look she’d had at the one page already. The less Doug thought she knew, the more he might tell her.

“Enough to get me though a French history class in college.”

“How about rocks?”

“I passed on geology.”

“Not limestone and quartz. Real rocks, sugar. Diamonds, emeralds,

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