Kitty Takes a Holiday

to even consider. Sitting in the mid­dle of the desert at dawn, me in pajamas, him naked. But it didn't feel strange. Sitting beside him, pulling him into my arms, felt right.

'You're afraid it's just the lycanthropy. That 1 wouldn't be here if we weren't both werewolves. You should know, I wouldn't have come after just anyone. I wouldn't have taken care of just any new werewolf that showed up on my doorstep. I wouldn't have sat out in the desert all night with just anyone.'

He leaned his head against mine. 'You're not just say­ing that to make me feel better?'

'1 don't know, do you feel better?' He made an indecisive grumble. 'Ben, you're naked. I can't lie to a naked man.'

He took my hand, where it rested on his thigh. He studied it, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. 'If you can't lie, this is when I should ask you anything. Anything I want to know, now's my chance.'

This was the kind of conversation new couples had the morning after sex. I was sure I had no secrets from him— he was my lawyer, for crying out loud. But conversations like this were also tests. Uneasy, I said, 'Sure.'

'Did you and Cormac ever get together?' He gave a little shrug.

'No. Got close a couple of times. He kept running away.'

He nodded, like this didn't surprise him. Like it was the story of Cormac's life. Then he asked, 'If I hadn't come along, would you two have eventually gotten together?'

These were questions 1 was afraid to ask myself.

'I don't know. Ben, why do you need to know this?'

'I'm afraid I've messed things up for him. Again. But it's all 'what ifs' now, isn't it? No way to tell what might have happened.'

No. No way at all to tell. Those 'what ifs' followed us our whole lives, didn't they? What if I hadn't been at that hiking trail on a full moon night. What if I hadn't met Cormac. What if he hadn't brought Ben to me but shot him instead. What if I'd invited him back to my apartment that one night…

I had Ben here with me, not 'what ifs.' Had to move on.

'You didn't mess anything up. Cormac never had the guts to say anything about it to me.'

'Ironic. He's always been the tough one.'

Ben had his own kind of toughness. I smiled. 'What about you? Are you with me because you want to be, or because you're a victim of circumstance?'

He kissed me gently, a press of warm lips. Took my face in his hands, holding me for a moment. And I felt safe with him.

I stood, rubbing the pins and needles out of my legs, and rugged on his hand. 'Come on. We've got a long walk back, and you have no clothes.'

He covered his eyes and groaned. 'It's just one damn thing after another, isn't it?'

Slowly, he got to his feet, and we walked back, side by side, arms around each other.

We found his clothes on the way back to the motel, which was good. Then we discovered that we'd both left our keys in the room.

Just one damn thing after another.

Chapter 17

We spent the morning replacing the tires on Ben's car. Then, he wanted to run an errand. He asked me to come along, and 1 did. He drove, and I didn't bother to ask where we were going or what he was doing until we ended up on yet another dirt track that led us miles into the desert. We stopped at the bottom of an arroyo, covered with tall scrub, more vegetation than I was expecting to find. Lots of places to hide. This was the kind of area where ranch­ers grazed herds of sheep, and where wolves liked to run.

I'd never been here, but I recognized it. He didn't have to tell me where we were. He stopped the car, shut off the engine, and looked out, staring hard. He gripped the steer­ing wheel like he was clinging to a lifesaving rope.

'Is this where it happened?' I said.

'Up past the curve there. Cormac drove the Jeep into the clearing. I don't really recognize it in the daylight.'

I couldn't guess what he was thinking, why he'd wanted to come here. Wanting to come full circle, hoping to find closure. Something pop-psychological like that.

'You want to get out?' I said.

'No,' he said, shaking his head slowly. 'I just wanted to see it. See if I could see it.'

'Without freaking out?'

'Yeah, something like that. I wondered if there'd be more to this place. If I'd feel something.'

'Do you?'

He pursed his lips. 'I think I just want to go home.' He turned the ignition and put the car in gear.

On the way back to town I said, 'I've never been back to the place where it happened to me,' I said. 'Just never saw much point in going back.'

'That's because you've moved on.'

'Have I? I guess it depends on what you call moving on. Sometimes 1 feel like I'm running in circles.'

'Do you want to go back? I'll go with you if you want to see it.'

I thought about it. I'd replayed that scene in my mind a hundred times, a thousand times, since that night. I real­ized I didn't want to see the place, and it wasn't because I was avoiding it, or because I was afraid.

Ben was right. I'd come so far since then.

'No, that's okay.'

We had lunch at a local diner before heading back to Colorado. We'd be caravanning back in separate cars. I was half worried that Ben might take the opportunity to drive through a guardrail and over a cliff, or into oncom­ing traffic, like he was still regretting not making Cormac shoot him.

But he seemed okay. He was down, but not out. Some life had come back into his eyes over the last week or so. Even though we were leaving New Mexico with stories, but no hard evidence. Statements, but no witnesses. Noth­ing to keep Cormac out of court.

Ben slouched in his side of the booth, leaning on the table, his head propped on his hand. 'Everybody he's killed—every thing he's killed—deserved it. I have to believe that. I have to convince the court of that.'

With a sympathetic judge, a less gung-ho prosecutor, or just one person from Shiprock willing to come testify, this probably would all go away. Lawrence had called us lucky, and maybe we were, but only to a point.

What it all came down to in the end: Cormac had shot an injured woman dead in front of the local sheriff, and nothing we could say changed that. And my opinion of Cormac was definitely colored by the fact that the first time we met, he'd been coming to kill me.

'Cormac's not clean, Ben. We both know that.'

'We've spent half our lives looking out for each other. I guess it blinds you. I know he's killed people. The thing is, you drop a body down a mine shaft far enough off the main drag, nobody'll ever find it. And nobody's looking for the people he's killed.'

Like what Lawrence said about bodies in the desert. Every place had its black hole, where people disappeared and never came back again. It made the world a dark and foreboding place.

'That's how the pack took care of things,' I said. 'T.J. ended up dumped in a mine shaft somewhere. I hate it.'

'Me, too.' He stared at nothing, probably mentally reviewing everything we knew, everyone we'd talked to, every fact and scrap of evidence, looking for something he'd missed, waiting for that one piece to slide into place that would fix everything. The check arrived, and I took it—Ben seemed to not notice it. I was about to go pay it when he said, out of the blue, 'I should just quit.'

'Quit what?'

'The lawyer gig. Too complicated. I should go be a rancher like my dad. Cows and prairie.'

'Would that make you happy?'

'I have no idea.'

'Don't quit. It'll get better.'

A slow smile grew on him. '1 won't quit if you won't.'

'Quit what?' Now I just sounded dumb.

'Your show.'

1 hadn't quit. I'd just taken a break, why didn't people understand that?

Because it looked like I quit. Because if I wasn't mak­ing plans to go back to it, it meant I'd quit.

'Why not?' I said, feeling contrary. 'They have Ariel, Priestess of the Night, now. She can handle it.'

'There's room for both of you. You love your show, Kitty. You're good at it.'

We were both leaning on the table now, within reach of each other, our feet almost touching underneath. Prox­imity was doing strange things to me. Sending a pleasant warmth through my gut. Making me smile like an idiot.

It was getting very hard for me to imagine not having Ben around.

1 bit my lip, thought for a moment. Grinning, I took a chance. 'Better be careful. You keep saying nice things about me I might fall for you or something.'

He didn't even hesitate. 'And you're cute, smart, funny, great in bed—'

I kicked him under the table—gently. 'Flatterer.' – 'Whatever it takes to keep you coming after me when I go around the bend.'

1 touched his hand, the one lying flat on the table. Curled my fingers around it. He squeezed back, almost desperately. He was still scared. Getting better at hiding it, at overcoming it. But still scared, at least a little.

'Of course I will. We're pack.'