Death is Forever

beneath the cool moonlight.” She gave him a sideways look. “I suppose you were about six when you started walking out with girls.”
    He laughed softly. “Enjoy it. When we get to Australia, you won’t even want to stand close to another person, moon or no moon.”
    “Why?”
    “Too bloody hot. The Kimberley is in the upper part of the continent. The tropical part.”
    “Tropical? The pictures I’ve seen of the Kimberley look more like desert.”
    “Oh, it’s dry all right. Most of the year. Then the buildup begins, and great rivers of clouds pour in from the Indian Ocean. You sweat and the sweat just stays on your skin, making you hotter than ever, because sweat can’t evaporate into air that’s already saturated. The body can’t cool itself, and the sunlight is a razor slicing into your skin. The temperature goes way over a hundred, and the humidity gets right up to the point of rain and then it sticks there and sticks there until men literally crack up and go berserk.”
    She made a sound of disbelief.
    “It’s true, honey. The Aussies even have a name for that kind of madness. They call it going troppo. I’ve come close a few times myself. It taught me something. I avoid the buildup now.”
    “You make it sound irresistible.”
    “Oh, that’s not the worst of it,” he said, taking a deep breath of the cool, brine-scented air. “When the wet finally comes, the country is swamp. For months at a time you can’t travel except by plane.”
    “What about four-wheel-drive?”
    “Not unless it floats.”
    “No bridges?”
    “Only on the one major highway,” Cole said. “When the wet is really on, those bridges are under water a lot of the time. They’re built low and with removable railings so that trash doesn’t get caught and create a dam. Even so, they wash out a lot.” He looked over at Erin. “That’s what ConMin is trying to do by offering to fly you all over the world to photograph diamond mines. ConMin knows that if you don’t get into Crazy Abe’s claim in the next few weeks, you’ll have a hell of a time getting in at all until summer dries things out. I should be in the Kimberley right now, prospecting before the temperature goes to a hundred and twenty and the air is too wet to breathe.”
    “Then we shouldn’t go to London at all.”
    “It will keep Faulkner and van Luik off our backs while Wing sets up things on the other end.”
    “Wing?”
    “My partner.”
    “Oh. That’s right. BlackWing. Dad said something about that.”
    “Yeah, I’ll just bet he did.” Cole looked down at Erin. “Don’t worry, honey. If your mine can be found, I’ll find it for you.”
    “Yes. Dad said that too.”
    Cole walked in silence for a time before he stopped and very gently pulled Erin toward him. When there was no resistance on her part, he bent and brushed his lips over hers.
    “Don’t go to Australia. You’ll be safer with your father. He may have gray hair, but he’s one tough bastard.”
    She started to object, only to be distracted by the gliding caress of Cole’s tongue over her lips and the warmth of his breath as he spoke urgently.
    “The climate and the land have killed men who were much stronger and more experienced than you are,” Cole said simply. “The Kimberley Plateau is no place for a white woman.”
    “People told me the same thing about the arctic.” Curious, she tasted his chin as she’d once tasted the green diamond. “Salty. Male. Warm. You taste good, Cole.”
    His breath came in with a ripping sound. Swiftly he caged her face between his hands. “Woman, you do love to take risks, don’t you?”
    “Risks?” She looked up at him with eyes made dark and mysterious by moonlight. “How so?”
    “I could make you stay home. I could crowd you sexually until you turned and ran for cover.”
    Erin went very still, searching the hot silver gleam of Cole’s eyes. Then she sighed and smiled almost sadly. “Yesterday you could have, when I didn’t know you. But not today. Today I found out that you’re a hard man but not a cruel one. You’re not at all like Hans.”
    “There’s a world full of people who would disagree with you,” Cole said flatly.
    “I’m not one of them. I’m the woman you had laid out like a lamb for slaughter, but all you did was stroke my hair while I cried, and then you kissed me so gently I felt like crying all over again. I was certain I’d never trust a man after Hans. I was wrong.” She touched Cole’s