Hot Ice

and several feet into the air. It landed with an audible plop on the cave floor, then meandered drunkenly away.
    The spider hadn’t frightened her. She never considered the possibility that it might have been poisonous. It was simply ugly and Whitney had a basic disrespect for the ugly.
    Sighing in disgust, she sat up and combed her fingers through her tangled hair. Well, she supposed when one slept in a cave, one could expect a visit from ugly neighbors. But why hadn’t it visited Doug instead? Deciding there was no reason why he should sleep when she’d been so rudely awakened, Whitney turned with the full intention of giving him a hard shove.
    He was gone, and so was his sleeping bag.
    Uneasy, but not yet alarmed, she looked around. The cave was empty, with the rock formations Doug had spoken of giving it the look of an abandoned and slightly dilapidated castle. The cook fire was only a pile of glowing embers. The air smelled ripe. Some of the fruit was already turning. Doug’s pack, like his sleeping bag, was gone.
    The bastard. The rotten bastard. He had taken himself off, with the papers, and left her stuck in a damn cave with a couple of pieces of fruit, a sack of rice, and a spider as big as a dinner plate.
    Too furious to think twice, she dashed across the cave and began to crawl through the tunnel. When her breath clogged up, she pushed on. The hell with phobias, she told herself. No one was going to double-cross her and get away with it. To catch him, she had to get out. And when she caught him…
    She saw the opening and concentrated on it, and revenge. Panting, shuddering, she pulled herself into the sunshine. Scrambling up, she drew in all of her breath and let it out on a shout.
    “Lord! Lord, you sonofabitch!” The sound rang out and bounced back at her, half as loud but twice as angry. Impotently, she looked around at red hills and rock. How was she supposed to know which way he’d gone?
    North. Damn north, he had the compass. And he had the map. After gritting her teeth, Whitney shouted again. “Lord, you bastard, you won’t get away with it!”
    “With what?”
    She spun on her heel and nearly bumped into him. “Where the hell were you?” she demanded. In a blaze of relief and anger, she gripped his shirt and yanked him against her. “Where the hell did you go?”
    “Easy, sugar.” Companionably, he patted her bottom. “If I’d known you wanted to get your hands on me, I’d’ve stuck around longer.”
    “Around your throat.” With a jerk, she released him.
    “Gotta start somewhere.” He set his pack near the mouth of the cave. “D’you think I’d ditch you?”
    “At the very first opportunity.”
    He had to admit, she was sharp. The idea had occurred to him, but after a quick look around that morning, he hadn’t been able to justify leaving her in a cave in the middle of nowhere. Still, the opportunity was bound to come up.
    In an attempt to keep her from getting a step ahead of him, he poured on the charm. “Whitney, we’re partners. And…” He lifted a hand and ran a fingertip down her cheek. “You’re a woman. What kind of man would I be if I left you alone in a place like this?”
    She met his engaging smile with one of her own. “The kind of man who’d sell the hide off the family dog if the price was right. Now, where were you?”
    He wouldn’t have sold the hide, but he might have hocked the whole dog if it had been necessary. “You’re a hard lady. Look, you were sleeping like a baby.” As she had all night, while he’d spent a good part of it tossing, turning, and fantasizing. He wouldn’t forgive her for that easily, but there was a time and place for payback. “I wanted to do a little scouting around, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
    She let out a long breath. It was reasonable, and he was back. “Next time you want to play Daniel Boone, wake me up.”
    “Whatever you say.”
    Whitney saw a bird fly overhead. She watched it for a moment, until she was calm. The sky was clear, so was the air—and it was cool. The heat was a few hours off. There was a quality of silence she’d only heard a few times in her life. It soothed.
    “Well, since you’ve been scouting, how about a report?”
    “Everything’s quiet down in the village.” Doug drew out a cigarette which Whitney plucked from his fingers. Pulling out another, he lit them both. “I didn’t go close enough to get any real particulars, but it looks like business as usual. The way