Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,43

learn about Viking bards?”

“While I was living in the Bay Area I used to take all kinds of classes,” she said. “One class was on early epics. Wow, those old eddas and epics were bloody-minded.”

He waited for her to say why she’d been taking those classes, but she stopped there. As usual.

If she needed to steer clear of the personal, then that’s what they’d do.

He admitted that the best musical ballads he’d ever heard were all in Spanish, and yep, most of those were either revenge tragedies, or romantic tragedies, but for great melodies strummed by a bunch of guitars, they couldn’t be beat.

They talked about those until they saw Kingman’s lights appear between dark mountain slopes.

He chose the first likely-looking motel. When he pulled their cases out of the trunk, he saw she had her purse at her side and her wallet in hand, and she didn’t relax until they got inside and he asked the bored night clerk for two rooms.

Outside the rooms, which were next to each other, he wished her a good night and let himself into his. The motel room was like motel rooms everywhere, smelling of various cleaning solvents. He opened the windows wide to the soft summer air, took a shower to get rid of the dust of the drive, and climbed between cool sheets. His phone blinked, and he found the expected text from Alejo: How’s it going?

We reached Kingman. Tomorrow Route 66 and Grand Canyon. It wasn’t really an answer, but Rigo figured, either say everything, or just wait.

He dropped the phone onto the nightstand and lay there alone in the bed, as he had for uncounted years. He wondered if she was doing the same—no, he wouldn’t go there, even in mind. He hadn’t earned back the right.

He closed his mind to the homing instinct, punched the pillow, turned over, and was soon asleep.

Morning brought heat pouring in through the windows, driven by the sun. For a few seconds he forgot where he was, then he remembered Godiva in the next room. He got up and hustled through the shower, his intent to have everything ready to go as soon as she appeared. Make it as easy as possible for her, in hopes she wouldn’t have second thoughts and feel abandoned in the middle of nowhere.

He’d abandoned her once. He wasn’t going to do it again if he could possibly avoid it.

He shoved into some fresh clothes, and ventured out. Then hesitated. Should he knock on her door, or not?

A hot breeze sent a tumbleweed skittering across the rutted gravel parking lot. The motel was a one-story adobe building with tile roofs and a diner at the far end, and jutting mountains beyond. As he lifted his eyes to their hazy purple shape, the sunlight abruptly dimmed. In the distance, thunder muttered, a low sound like a cosmic bowling ball rumbling across the heavens.

Fat drops of rain spattered on the ground, and one hit his face.

He decided the easiest course was to scope out the diner. If it looked terrible, he’d do some exploration on Yelp for suggestions. He crossed the parking lot in a few strides, entered the diner, and met the smells of ground coffee and fresh bread.

He picked up a menu and was halfway through scanning it when he felt a presence at his side.

Here she was, a straight-backed little figure dominated by those expressive black eyes, now framed by white hair. She wore a loose floaty thing in that shade of green-blue he’d sometimes heard call teal, over loose black linen pants and sandals, with her painted toes peeking out. The color matched her top. A shiver ran through him, he wanted so badly to take her into his arms, warm and soft and vital.

But he reached for a polite smile. “Sleep well?”

“Like I was bonked over the head and dropped like a rock,” she said. “Now I’m starved.”

“I was just checking out the menu. They don’t offer much, but from what I see, everything is fresh, and smells good.”

“Lead me to it,” she said.

They were the only ones in the small diner. Godiva ordered an omelet, coffee, and fresh fruit slices, then leaned her elbows on the table and peered across the table at Rigo.

“Okay,” she said, taking him once again by surprise. “Fair’s fair. You haven’t asked me a damned thing, outside of have I read Raymond Chandler. Go ahead. Shoot.”

“I figured you’d talk when you were ready,” he said, easing his way along