“What the hell are you doing?” His imperturbable calm had begun to shred. “It’s just slightly distracting to have you bouncing around the backseat. If you can’t come up with a rescue, you could at least hold my hand.”
“Shut up,” she muttered under her breath, ripping open her suitcase and tossing clothes all over the car. “I’ve just had a brainstorm. Where the hell is the Jack Daniel’s?” She pulled it out with a cry of triumph. It was half empty, which suited her purposes even better. She paused long enough to take a long pull off it, and then set to work with feverish haste.
“I hate to be touchy, Maggie, but this is no time for a drink.” Mack yelled. “The Little Hustler is getting impatient.”
As if to emphasize his point, the big RV crept up on them, tapping them lightly on the fender. The car lurched forward, and it took all of Mack’s professed expertise to keep it on the road. “Maggie!”
“Shut up, Pulaski. I’m making a Molotov cocktail and it’s tricky business.”
“I don’t care how tricky it is. If you don’t speed it up, we’re not going to need it.”
“Damn, I wish I had something a little more … I’ve got it.” She rummaged back into her suitcase, holding on tightly as their car was once more rammed from the rear. Grabbing her nail polish remover, she soaked her favorite pair of silk panties, poured the rest of the contents into the whiskey, and stuffed the underwear in the top. “Got a match?”
“Christ, no!” He was sounding definitely ragged at this point. “I gave up smoking years ago.”
“Hell and damnation! Plug in the lighter.”
“The lighter! You’ve got to be out of your mind—” Once more they were rammed, and Mack’s language grew colorful indeed. Enough so that Maggie stopped a moment to listen respectfully.
“You’ve got a way with words, Pulaski,” she said coolly. “Hand me the lighter.”
She finally got the panties to light. “When I count to three I’m going to open the rear window. You just drive like hell. Ready?”
“Okay, Maggie. Do it.”
She was both amazed and awed. To her Molotov cocktails were only theory, and the real thing was impressive indeed. The front of the Winnebago was coated in a sheet of flame. It fell back immediately, veered off the road, rolled over twice, and came to a stop in a forest of flames by the side of the road. Maggie watched long enough to see three figures scramble away before it blew up.
“Very satisfying,” she murmured, neatly folding her clothes with shaking hands. “Just like television. No one gets hurt but the bad guys get vanquished.”
“It would be nice if it always worked like that,” Mack said from the front seat. “You okay, Maggie?”
She met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “I’m just fine.” She kept the shaking hands out of sight. “I do this all the time.”
“Sure y
ou do, Maggie. Sure you do.” And he drove on down the road.
four
“Chicken-fried steak?” Mack’s voice was thick with loathing disbelief. “Are you seriously intending to eat chicken-fried steak?”
Maggie ignored him, flashing her brilliant smile at the tired waitress. “And a glass of red wine and a large Tab,” she added.
“You’re a barbarian,” he said the moment the waitress was out of earshot. “No one in their right mind would order chicken-fried steak.”
“I would. We’re in a diner in rural Texas, and I intend to immerse myself in the experience.” She cast a deceptively casual glance around the diner, at the flat, twilight landscape outside the dirty windows. “I’ve read about chicken-fried steak for years, and now’s a fine time to try it.”
“Read about it? What the hell kind of books do you read?” He took a healthy swig out of the coffee that every self-respecting Western waitress served first.
“Anything and everything. Mysteries, romances, science fiction. Everything but spy books.” She ran a casual finger through the layer of grease coating the gray Formica tabletop.
“Why not spy books?”
She grinned at him. “I’m afraid they’ll give me bad ideas.”
He shook his head, and Maggie watched in interest as the fading sunlight played over his face. She was getting used to that face beside her day and night. Hell, she might as well admit it. She was getting to like it. Those hazel eyes of his were a peculiar combination of cynicism and warmth, as if he knew just how rotten life could be but still liked it immensely. His mouth was turned up in a half-smile more often than not, and the broken nose added character to a face that Maggie remembered as being almost angelically beautiful when he was younger. He could no longer be called angelic. If anything, there was a devilish streak about him that Maggie was finding more and more attractive. And she was old enough and smart enough to know better.
“Just because you grew up in Texas and take things like chicken-fried steak for granted,” she said, her wayward thoughts completely hidden, “doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the exotic local cuisine.”