Gale Force Page 0,36

truck for hours, since we'd left it behind at the gas station.

We were alive. It had been a dream . . . no, not a dream, a goddamn nightmare, so real it still ached in every muscle. My heart was thumping so fast it felt as if it were on the verge of needing a shock to bring it back to normal rhythm. I was damp with cold sweat.

David was looking at me with worry in his eyes. His hand was on mine, just as it had been in the dream. Exactly as it had been. I twisted around, sure I was about to see the specter of the truck rising up behind us, but no.

Nothing but road, and early-morning mist, and the traffic of another normal, busy day. I recognized the road. I'd traveled it before I'd met David, driving non-stop through the night, heading for Lewis's last-known address in a desperate bid to save myself from a death sentence.

Why did it feel as though I were still on the run?

David chose not to ask about my all-too-obvious freak-out, for which I was extremely grateful. He downshifted the Mustang and blended smoothly into the traffic as he reached down between the seats and came up with a smoking hot cup of coffee. Not a word spoken. I cried out in relief, grabbed it, and found it was exactly right - just hot enough, not one degree over, although I would have gladly chugged it if it had been the same mean temperature as lava, damn the burns and blisters. I felt badly off balance and unsteady.

When I'd taken enough in that I felt part of the world again, I sighed, tilted my head back against the seat, and asked, "So how far do we have to go?"

"Couple of hours," he said. "We'll be there on time. Do you need a comfort stop?"

Of course I did. We found a small roadside diner with clean facilities and a pretty spectacular breakfast. Probably not too smart to order the Heart Attack Special, given my earlier cardiac fibrillations, but damn, eggs, biscuits, and gravy all sounded like heaven. If heaven came with a side of bacon.

David watched me consume with a lazy sort of pleasure in his expression as he nursed a cup of coffee and a bowl of mixed fruit. If he noticed that the waitresses kept whispering and looking him over, he didn't mention it. "That was some dream," he said. "What happened?"

I didn't want to talk about it. Unlike most dreams, this one remained vivid and terrifying. "We died," I said. No explanations. His eyebrows climbed, and I saw him think about asking for details, and then think better. "That truck. Did you ever see - "

He was already shaking his head. "There was nothing weird about the truck, Jo," he said. "It turned off and went its own way a little after you fell asleep. It was a Peterbilt, carrying a load of television sets. The driver was a Haitian immigrant. Want to know his name?"

I paused, studying him. A forkful of eggs cooled on my upraised fork. "You really did pay attention."

"Of course I did. He has six kids, a wife, and an elderly mother. I know everything about him, everything about the truck, everything about its cargo. I wasn't taking any chances. Not with your life. I've nearly lost you too many times." He said it without any emphasis, but it went straight to my heart. I lowered my fork and put it down, and fought to catch my breath. He leaned forward, cup cradled in both hands with exquisite care. "Nothing will happen. You have to trust me on that."

I held his gaze. "And you have to trust me that everything may not be as simple as you think it is."

"You're talking about the package." I nodded. "Jo, I promise, I'll try to keep an open mind. No matter how . . . unlikely all this seems to me."

He really was trying. More than that, I knew it wasn't easy for him to devote so much time to me; there were constant demands in the Djinn world, just as in the human one. He had a day job, after all.

"I love you," I said. "More than chocolate. And you know how much that means to me."

"Eat your eggs," he said, and gave me that slightly off-kilter smile, with an intriguing tilt of his head. "Wouldn't want you to faint like a girl later and blame it