Hot Ice

skimmed her of most of her cash. If she complained, he could do both without a qualm. As it was, she wasn’t slowing him down, and she was carrying her share of the load. It was only the first day, he reminded himself. Give her time. Hothouse flowers wilted quickly when they were exposed to real air.
    “Let’s take a look at that cave.”
    “Cave?” Shielding her eyes, Whitney followed his gaze. She saw a very small arch and a very dark hole. “That cave?”
    “Yeah. If it isn’t occupied by one of our four-legged friends, it’ll make a nice hotel for the night.”
    Inside? “The Beverly Wilshire’s a nice hotel.”
    He didn’t even spare her a glance. “First we’d better see if there’s a vacancy.”
    Swallowing, Whitney watched him go over, strip off his pack, and crawl in. Just barely, she resisted the urge to call him out.
    Everyone’s entitled to a phobia, she reminded herself as she walked a bit closer. Hers was a terror of small, closed-in spaces. As tired as she was, she’d have walked another ten miles rather than crawl into that tiny arch of darkness.
    “It ain’t the Wilshire,” Doug said as he crawled back out. “But it’ll do. They have our reservations.”
    Whitney sat down on a rock and took a long look around. There was nothing but more rock, a few scrubby pines, and pitted dirt. “I seem to remember paying an exorbitant amount of money for that tent that folds up like a handkerchief. The one you insisted we had to have,” she reminded him. “Haven’t you ever heard of the pleasure of sleeping under the stars?”
    “When someone’s after my hide—and they’ve come close to peeling it a number of times—I like having a wall to keep my back to.” Still kneeling, he picked up his pack. “I figure Dimitri’s looking for us east of here, but I’m not taking any chances. It cools down in the highlands at night,” he added. “In there we can risk a small fire.”
    “A campfire.” Whitney examined her nails. If she didn’t have a manicure soon, they’d look very tacky. “Charming. In a little place like that, the smoke would suffocate us in minutes.”
    Doug pulled a small hatchet out of his pack and un-snapped the leather sheath. “After about five feet, the place opens up. I can stand.” Moving to a scrawny pine, he began hacking at a branch. “Ever go spelunking?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Cave exploring,” he explained, grinning. “I knew this geology major once. Her daddy owned a bank.” As he recalled, he’d never been able to soak her for much more than a couple of memorable nights in a cave.
    “I’ve always found better things to explore than holes in the ground.”
    “Then you’ve missed a lot, sugar. This might not be a tourist attraction, but it has some first-class stalactites and stalagmites.”
    “How exciting,” she said dryly. When she looked toward the cave, all she saw was a very small, very dark hole in the rock. Just looking made the sweat bead cold on her forehead.
    Annoyed, Doug began to chop a respectable pile of firewood. “Yeah, I guess a woman like you wouldn’t find rock formations very exciting. Unless you could wear them.” They were the same, women who wore French dresses and Italian shoes. That’s why for pleasure he’d go for a fan dancer or a pro. You got honesty there, and some spine.
    Whitney stopped staring at the opening long enough to narrow her eyes at him. “Just what do you mean, a woman like me?”
    “Spoiled,” he said, bringing his hatchet down with a thwack. “Shallow.”
    “Shallow?” She rose from the rock. Accepting the spoiled wasn’t a problem. Whitney figured truth was truth. “Shallow?” she repeated. “You’ve a hell of a nerve calling me shallow, Douglas. I didn’t steal my way to easy street.”
    “You didn’t have to.” He tilted his head so that their eyes met. His cool, hers hot. “That’s about all that separates us, duchess. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. I was born to take it out and hock it.” Tucking the firewood under his arm, he walked back to the cave. “You wanna eat, lady, then get your high-class buns inside. You won’t get any room service here.” Agile and quick, he grabbed his pack by the straps, crawled inside, and disappeared.
    How dare he! With her hands on her hips, Whitney stared at the cave. How dare he speak to her that way after she’d walked miles and miles? Since she’d met him, she’d been shot at, threatened, chased,