Page 86

Torres will call when she has something she can say. If she doesn't, I'll call her until she does.

"I drove back down to take care of the sorrel," she says. "Dax had already trailered him home to his owner, and he said to tell you the left front cooled out."

"You went back to the fairgrounds."

"I went to the barn, in daylight, and Dax was standing right there." She says it to the windshield. "The horse was yours to worry about, and you were busy."

I let the road run a full mile before I answer. "Next time, you let Dax do the driving."

She doesn't agree. She doesn't argue either, and with Morgan that's as close to a yes as I'm going to get.

"Dax also said you owe him a beer."

"I owe him more than that." She lets that one stand.

The motel is on the west side of town, a two-story stucco box with a pool nobody has filled in years. She's already checked us in under her own name. The room is on the ground floor at the end of the row.

When I set the chain behind us, I turn my back on the door and leave it there. She notices. She notices everything.

"Does your new officer know where you're sleeping tonight?" she asks.

"Kessinger cleared this address with New Mexico for tonight. I report in the morning." I lean back against the door. "He knows the room. He doesn't need to know who's in the bed."

"That sounds like something a man on parole should double-check."

"It sounds like something an agent under suspension should let go."

Her mouth curves. It's the first time since the fairgrounds I've seen her smile with nothing underneath it standing guard.

I sit on the edge of the bed and pull my boots off, left and then right, and set them side by side on the carpet.

The last time she saw me in a motel bed, I kept them on because I might have to leave in a hurry. Her gaze drops to them standing empty on the floor, and her breath goes out slow.

"Come here," I tell her.

She crosses the room and stops between my knees. The lamp throws gold down one side of her face and leaves the other in shadow. I reach up, pull the tie from her hair, and let it fall dark over her shoulders.

"Take your shirt off and take it slow."

She works the buttons one at a time from the top, and she doesn't hurry, because I told her not to. The shirt opens over her ribs. She shrugs it down her arms and lets it drop behind her.

The gauze is gone from her side now, and the burns have faded to small pink marks low on her ribs and at the point of her hip.

I put my mouth on each of them in turn. I press my lips to the skin beside every mark and keep them there long enough that she has to feel it. By the last one her hand has come up to rest on the back of my head, light, asking nothing.

"Nobody else puts a mark on you," I say against her hip.

"That's a big promise from a man on paper."

"It isn't a promise."

I unfasten her jeans and work them down to her knees before she stops me with a look at her feet.

"You're forgetting my boots," she says.

"I'm not forgetting anything tonight."

I kneel, pull them off one at a time, and set them on the carpet beside mine. Two pairs stand side by side at the foot of the bed.