Hot Ice

back to practicality. “Whitney, we agreed to divide the treasure fifty-fifty.”
    “After you pay me what you owe me.”
    He gritted his teeth on that. “Right. Since we’re partners, it seems to me we ought to divide the cash we have fifty-fifty.”
    She turned her head to give him a pleasant smile. “Does it seem like that to you?”
    “A matter of practicality,” he told her breezily. “Suppose we got separated—”
    “Not a chance.” Her smile remained pleasant as she tightened her hold on her purse. “I’m sticking to you like an appendage until this is all over, Douglas. People might think we’re in love.”
    Without breaking rhythm, he changed tactics. “It’s also a matter of trust.”
    “Whose?”
    “Yours, sugar. After all, if we’re partners, we have to trust each other.”
    “I do trust you.” She draped a friendly arm around his waist. The mist was burning off and the sun was climbing. “As long as I hold the bankroll—sugar.”
    Doug narrowed his eyes. Classy wasn’t all she was, he thought grimly. “Okay then, how about an advance?”
    “Forget it.”
    Because choking her was becoming tempting, he broke away to face her down. “Give me one reason why you should hold all the cash?”
    “You want to trade it for the papers?”
    Infuriated, he spun away to stare at the whitewashed house behind him. In the dusty side yard, flowers and vines tangled in wild abandon. He caught the scents of breakfast cooking and overripe fruit.
    There was no way he could give her the slip as long as he was broke. There was no way he could justify lifting her purse and leaving her stranded. The alternative left him exactly where he was—stuck with her. The worst of it was he was probably going to need her. Sooner or later he’d need someone to translate the correspondence written in French, for no other reason than his own nagging curiosity. Not yet, he thought. Not until he was on more solid ground. “Look, dammit, I’ve got eight dollars in my pocket.”
    If he had much more, she reflected, he’d dump her without a second thought. “Change from the twenty I gave you in Washington.”
    Frustrated, he started down a set of steep stairs. “You’ve got a mind like a damn accountant.”
    “Thanks.” She hung on to the rough wooden rail and wondered if there were any other way down. She shielded her eyes and looked. “Oh look, what’s that, a bazaar?” Quickening her pace, she dragged Doug back with her.
    “Friday market,” he grumbled. “The zoma. I told you that you should read the guidebook.”
    “I’d rather be surprised. Let’s take a look.”
    He went along because it was as easy, and perhaps cheaper, to buy some of the supplies in the open market as it was to buy them in one of the shops. There was time before the train left, he thought with a quick check of his watch. They might as well enjoy it.
    There were thatch-roofed structures and wooden stalls under wide white umbrellas. Clothes, fabrics, gemstones were spread out for the serious buyer or the browser. Always a serious buyer, Whitney spotted an interesting mix of quality and junk. But it wasn’t a fair, it was business. The market was organized, crowded, full of sound and scent. Wagons drawn by oxen and driven by men wrapped in white lambas were crammed with vegetables and chickens. Animals clucked and mooed and snorted in varying degrees of complaint as flies buzzed. A few dogs milled around, sniffing, and were shooed away or ignored.
    She could smell feathers and spice and animal sweat. True, the roads were paved, there were sounds of traffic and not too far away the windows of a first-class hotel glistened in the burgeoning sun. A goat shied at a sudden noise and pulled on his tether. A child with mango juice dripping down his chin tugged on his mother’s skirt and babbled in a language Whitney had never heard. She watched a man in baggy pants and a peaked hat point and count out coins. Caught by two scrawny legs, a chicken squawked and struggled to fly. Feathers drifted. On a rough blanket was a spread of amethysts and garnets that glinted dully in the early sun. She started to reach out, just to touch, when Doug pulled her to a display of sturdy leather moccasins.
    “There’ll be plenty of time for baubles,” he told her and nodded toward the walking shoes. “You’re going to need something more practical than those little strips of leather you’re wearing.”
    With a shrug, Whitney looked over her