A Will and a Way

each other well, too well to speak of what had happened just yet. So they lay in silence as their skin cooled and their pulses leveled. Michael shifted to pull the spread up over them both.
    “Merry Christmas,” he murmured.
    With a sound that was both sigh and laugh, Pandora settled beside him.

Chapter Eight
    T hey left the Folley in the hard morning light the day after Christmas. Sun glared off snow, melting it at the edges and forming icicles down branches and eaves. It was a postcard with biting wind.
    After a short tussle they’d agreed that Pandora would drive into the city and Michael would drive back. He pushed his seat back to the limit and managed to stretch out his legs. She maneuvered carefully down the slushy mountain road that led from the Folley. They didn’t speak until she’d reached clear highway.
    “What if they don’t let us in?”
    “Why shouldn’t they?” Preferring driving to sitting, Michael shifted in his seat. For the first time he was impatient with the miles of road between the Folley and New York.
    “Isn’t that like counting your chickens?” Pandora turned the heat down a notch and loosened the buttons of her coat. “We don’t own the place yet.”
    “Just a technicality.”
    “Always cocky.”
    “You always look at the negative angles.”
    “Someone has to.”
    “Look…” He started to toss back something critical, then noticed how tightly she gripped the wheel. All nerves, he mused. Though the scenery was a print by Currier and Ives, it wasn’t entirely possible to pretend they were off on a holiday jaunt. He was running on nerves himself, and they didn’t all have to do with doctored champagne. How would he have guessed he’d wake up beside her in the cool light of dawn and feel so involved? So responsible. So hungry.
    He took a deep breath and watched the scenery for another moment. “Look,” he began again in a lighter tone. “We may not own the lab or anything else at the moment, but we’re still Jolley’s family. Why should a lab technician refuse to do a little analysis?”
    “I suppose we’ll find out when we get there.” She drove another ten miles in silence. “Michael, what difference is an analysis going to make?”
    “I have this odd sort of curiosity. I like to know if someone’s tried to poison me.”
    “So we’ll know if, and we’ll know why. We still won’t know who.”
    “That’s the next step.” He glanced over. “We can invite them all to Folley for New Year’s and take turns grilling them.”
    “Now you’re making fun of me.”
    “No, actually, I’d thought of it. I just figure the time’s not quite right.” He waited a few minutes. In thin leather gloves, her fingers curled and uncurled on the wheel. “Pandora, why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”
    “Nothing is.” Everything was. She hadn’t been able to think straight for twenty-four hours.
    “Nothing?”
    “Nothing other than wondering if someone wants to kill me.” She tossed it off arrogantly. “Isn’t that enough?”
    He heard the edge under the sarcasm. “Is that why you hid in your room all day yesterday.”
    “I wasn’t hiding.” She had enough pride to sound brittle. “I was tending to Bruno. And I was tired.”
    “You hardly ate any of that enormous goose Sweeney slaved over.”
    “I’m not terribly fond of goose.”
    “I’ve had Christmas dinner with you before,” he corrected. “You eat like a horse.”
    “How gallant of you to point it out.” For no particular reason, she switched lanes, pumped the gas and passed another car. “Let’s just say I wasn’t in the mood.”
    “How did you manage to talk yourself into disliking what happened between us so quickly?” It hurt. He felt the hurt, but it didn’t mean he had to let it show. His voice, as hers had been, was cool and hard.
    “I haven’t. That’s absurd.” Dislike? She hadn’t been able to think of anything else, feel anything else. It scared her to death. “We slept together.” She managed to toss it off with a shrug. “I suppose we both knew we would sooner or later.”
    He’d told himself precisely the same thing. He’d lost count of the number of times. He’d yet to figure out when he’d stopped believing. For himself. “And that’s it?”
    The question was deadly calm, but she was too preoccupied with her own nerves to notice. “What else?” She had to stop dwelling on a moment of impulse. Didn’t she? She couldn’t go on