Hot Ice (24 page)

Absently, she smiled at two children racing across the field to her left. Perhaps their parents were working on the plantation, perhaps they owned it. Still, their lives would be simple, she thought. It was interesting how appealing simplicity could be from time to time. She felt the cotton dress rub uncomfortably over her shoulder. Then again, there was something to be said for luxury. Lots of it.

They both jolted at the sound of an engine behind them. When they turned, the truck was practically on top of them. If they’d had to run, they wouldn’t have gotten ten yards. Doug cursed himself, then cursed again when the driver leaned out and called to them.

It wasn’t a new model like the truck that had passed them earlier, nor was it quite as rickety as the Merina jeep. The engine ran smoothly enough as it idled in the middle
of the road. The back was loaded with wares, from pots and baskets to wooden chairs and tables.

A traveling salesman, Whitney decided, already eyeing what he had to offer. She wondered how much he wanted for the colorful clay pot. It would look rather nice on a table with a collection of cacti.

The driver would be a Betsimisaraka, Doug calculated, both from the region they were traveling in and the European touch of his derby. He grinned, showing a mouthful of healthy white teeth as he gestured for them to approach the truck.

“Well, what now?” Whitney asked under her breath.

“I think we’ve just hitched a ride, sugar, whether we want to or not. We’d better give your French and my charm another try.”

“Let’s simply use my French, shall we?” Forgetting to look humble, she walked to the truck. While she peered from under the brim of her hat, she gave the driver her best smile and made up a story as she went along.

She and her husband, though she had to swallow a bit on that one, were traveling from their farm in the hills to the coast where her family lived. Her mother, she decided on the spot, was ill. She noticed that his curious dark eyes roamed her face, pale and regal under the simple straw hat. Without breaking rhythm, Whitney rattled off an explanation. Apparently satisfied, the driver gestured to the door. He was traveling to the coast, they were welcome to a ride.

Stooping, Whitney gathered up the pig. “Come on, Douglas, we’ve got a new chauffeur.”

Doug secured the baskets in the back, then climbed in beside her. Luck could play either way, he knew that well enough. This time he was willing to believe it had played on his side.

Whitney laid the pig on her lap as though it were a
small, weary child. “What’d you tell him?” he asked her as he nodded to the driver and grinned.

Whitney sighed, absorbing the luxury of being driven. “I told him we’re going to the coast. My mother’s ill.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“It’s very likely a deathbed scene, so don’t look too happy.”

“Your mother never liked me.”

“That’s beside the point. Besides, it’s merely that she wanted me to marry Tad.”

He paused in the act of offering one of their few cigarettes to the driver. “Tad who?”

She enjoyed the scowl on his face and smoothed the skirt of her dress. “Tad Carlyse IV. Don’t be jealous, darling. After all, I chose you.”

“Lucky me,” he muttered. “How’d you get around the fact that we aren’t natives?”

“I’m French. My father was a sea captain who settled on the coast. You were a teacher on holiday. We fell madly in love, married against our family’s wishes, and now work a small farm in the hills. By the way, you’re British.”

Doug played back the story in his head and decided he couldn’t have done better. “Good thinking. How long’ve we been married?”

“I don’t know, why?”

“I just wondered if I should be affectionate or bored.”

Whitney narrowed her eyes. “Kiss ass.”

“Even if we’re newlyweds, I don’t think I should be that affectionate in front of company.”

Barely smothering a chuckle, Whitney closed her eyes and pretended she was in a plush limo. Within moments, her head was snuggled on Doug’s shoulder. The pig snored gently in her lap.

She dreamed she and Doug were in a small, elegant room washed with candlelight that wafted the scent of
vanilla. She wore silk, white and thin enough to show the silhouette of her body. He was all in black.

She recognized the look in his eyes, the sudden darkening of that clear, clear green before his clever hands ran up her body and his mouth covered hers. She was weightless, floating, unable to touch the ground with her feet—yet she could feel every plane and line as his body pressed against hers.

Smiling he drew away from her and reached for a bottle of champagne. The dream was so clear that she could see the beads of water on the glass. He pried the cork. It opened with an ear-splintering blast. When she looked again, he held only a jagged bottle in his hand. At the door was the shadow of a man and the glint of a sun.

They were crawling through a small, dark hole. Sweat rolled from her. Somehow she knew they were winding through ducts, yet it was like the tunnel to the cave— dark, dank, suffocating.

“Just a little bit farther.”

She heard him speak and saw something glitter up ahead. It was light beaming off the facets of an enormous diamond. For a moment, it filled the darkness with a wild, almost religious light. Then it was gone, and she was standing alone on a barren hill. “Lord, you sonofabitch!”

“Rise and shine, sugar. This is our stop.”

“You worm,” she muttered.

“That’s no way to talk to your husband.”

Opening her eyes, she looked into his grinning face. “You sonofa—”

He cut the oath off, kissing her hard and long. With his lips only a breath from hers, he pinched her. “We’re supposed to be in love, sugar. Our friendly chauffeur might have a grasp of some of the cruder English expressions.”

Dazed, she squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “I was dreaming.”

“Yeah. And it sounds like I didn’t come off very well.” Doug hopped out to retrieve the baskets in the back.

Whitney shook her head to clear it, then looked through the windshield. A town. It was small by any standard and the air had a scent that brought fish to mind rather sharply. But it was a town. As thrilled as if she’d woken in Paris on an April morning, Whitney jumped from the truck.

A town meant a hotel. A hotel meant a tub, hot water, a real bed.

“Douglas, you’re wonderful!” With the pig sandwiched and squealing between them, she hugged him.

“Jesus, Whitney, you’re getting pig all over me.”

“Absolutely wonderful,” she said again and gave him a loud, exuberant kiss.

“Well, yeah.” He found his hand could settle comfortably at her waist. “But a minute ago I was a worm.”

“A minute ago I didn’t know where we were.”

“You do now? Why don’t you fill me in?”

“In town.” Hugging the pig against her, she whirled away. “Hot and cold running water, box springs and mattresses. Where’s the hotel?” Shading her eyes, she began to scan.

“Look, I wasn’t planning on staying—”

“There!” she said triumphantly.

It was clean and without frills, more along the lines of an inn than a hotel. It was a town of seamen, fishermen, with the Indian Ocean close at its back. A seawall rose high as protection against the floods that came every season. Here and there, nets were spread over it to dry in the sun. There were palm trees and fat orange flowers growing in vines against clapboard. A gull nestled at the top of a telephone pole and slept. The straight lines of the coast prevented it from being a port, but the little seaside town obviously enjoyed a smatter of tourist trade now and then.

Whitney was already thanking the driver. Though it surprised him, Doug didn’t have the heart to tell her they couldn’t stay. He’d planned to replenish supplies and see about transportation up the coast before they went on. He watched her smile at their driver.

One night couldn’t hurt, he decided. They could start out fresh in the morning. If Dimitri was close, at least Doug would have a wall at his back for a few hours. A wall at his back and a few hours to plan the next step. He swung a basket over each shoulder. “Give him the pig and say good-bye.”

Whitney smiled at the driver a last time, then started across the street. There were shells crushed underfoot mixed with dirt and a stingy spread of gravel. “Abandon our first-born son to a traveling salesman? Really, Douglas, it’d be like selling him to the gypsies.”

“Cute, and I understand you might’ve formed a bit of an attachment.”

“So would you if you hadn’t been thinking with your stomach.”

“But what the hell are we going to do with it?”

“We’ll find him a decent home.”

“Whitney.” Just outside the inn, he took her arm. “That’s a slab of bacon, not a Pomeranian.”

“Ssh!” Cuddling the pig protectively, she walked inside.

It was marvelously cool. There were ceiling fans lazily circling that made her think of Rick’s Place in
Casablanca.
The walls were whitewashed, the floors dark wood, scarred but scrubbed. Someone had tacked bleached, woven mats to the walls, the only decoration. A few people sat at tables drinking a dark gold liquid in thick glasses. Whitney caught the scent of something unidentifiable and wonderful drifting through an open door in the back.

“Fish stew,” Doug murmured as his stomach yearned.
“Something close to bouillabaisse with a touch of— rosemary,” he said, closing his eyes. “And a little garlic.”

Because her mouth watered, Whitney was forced to swallow. “It sounds like lunch to me.”

A woman came through the door, wiping her hands on a big white apron that was colored like a parade flag from her cooking. Though her face was creased deeply, and her hands showed work as well as age, she wore her hair in gay braided rings like a young girl. She scanned Whitney and Doug, looked at the pig for only a moment, then spoke in quick, heavily accented English. So much for Doug’s disguises.

“You wish a room?”

“Please.” Struggling to keep her eyes from drifting beyond the woman to the doorway where scents poured out, Whitney smiled.

“My wife and I would like a room for the night, a bath, and a meal.”

“For two?” the woman said, then looked again at the pig. “Or for three?”

“I found the little pig wandering on the side of the road,” Whitney improvised. “I didn’t like to leave it. Perhaps you know someone who’d care for it.”

The woman eyed the pig in a way that had Whitney hugging it tighter. Then she smiled. “My grandson will take care of it. He is six, but he is responsible.” The woman held out her arms, and reluctantly Whitney handed her erstwhile pet over. Hefting the pig under one arm, the woman reached in her pocket for keys. “This room is ready, up the stairs and two doors on the right. You are welcome.”

Whitney watched her go back into the kitchen with the pig under her arm.

“Now, now, sugar, every mother has to let her children go one day.”

She sniffed and started for the stairs. “He better not be on the menu tonight.”

The room was a great deal smaller than the cave they’d slept in. But it had a few cheerful seaside paintings on the wall and a bed covered in a flashy floral print that had been meticulously patched. The bath was no more than an alcove separated from the bedroom by a bamboo screen.

“Heaven,” Whitney decided after one look and flopped facedown on the bed. It smelled, only lightly, of fish.

“I don’t know how celestial it is”—he checked the lock on the door and found it sturdy—“but it’ll do until the real thing comes along.”

“I’m going to crawl into the tub and wallow for hours.”

“All right, you take the first shift.” Without ceremony, he dumped the baskets on the floor. “I’m going to do a little checking around and see what kind of transportation we can get heading up the coast.”

“I’d prefer a nice, stately Mercedes.” Sighing, she pillowed her head on her hands. “But I’d settle for a wagon and a three-legged pony.”

“Maybe I can find something in between.” Taking no chances, he pulled the envelope out of his pack and secured it under the back of his shirt. “Don’t use all the hot water, sugar. I’ll be back.”

“Be sure to check on room service, won’t you? I hate it when the canapés are late.” Whitney heard the door click shut and stretched luxuriously. As much as she’d like just to sleep, she decided, she wanted a bath more.

Rising, she stripped off the long cotton dress and let it fall in a heap. “My sympathies to your former owner,” she murmured, then threw the straw hat like a Frisbee across the room. Over her naked skin, her hair cascaded like sunlight. Cheerful, she turned the hot tap on full and
searched through her pack for her cache of bath oil and bubbles. In ten minutes, she was steeped in steaming, fragrant, frothy water.

“Heaven,” she said again and shut her eyes.

Outside, Doug took in the town quickly. There were a few little shops with handicrafts arranged in the windows. Colorful hammocks hung on hooks from porch rails and a row of shark’s teeth were lined on a stoop. Obviously, the people were accustomed to tourists and their odd penchant for the useless. The scent of fish was strong as he wandered down toward the wharf. There, he admired the boats, the coils of rope, and the nets spread out to dry.

If he could figure out a way to keep some fish on ice, he’d bargain for it. Miracles could be accomplished with a fish over an open fire if one had the right touch. But first, there was a matter of the miles he had yet to travel up the coast, and how he was going to go about it.

He’d already decided that going by water would be the quickest and most practical way. From the map in the guidebook, he’d seen that the Canal des Pangalanes could take them all the way to Maroantsetra. From there, they’d have to travel through the rain forest.

He’d feel safer there, with the heat, the humidity, and the plentiful cover. The canal was the best route. All he needed was a boat, and someone with the skill to guide it.

Spotting a small shop, he wandered over. He hadn’t seen a paper in days and decided to buy one even if he had to depend on Whitney to translate. As he reached for the door, he felt a quick flash of disorientation. From within, he heard the unmistakable tough-rock sound of Pat Benatar.