2000 Kisses (35 page)

She stopped, the gold watch clenched in her fingers. Who was she kidding? It was a dream and nothing more. As soon as the case was closed, there would be no more reason for her to stay. They had lives on opposite ends of the continent. Sensual fireworks just didn't make the basis for a lasting commitment.

Regret lingered, burning in Tess's throat. But she put on a smile and went in search of T.J., determined to make the most of every minute they had. He stood in the courtyard, shaving beneath a mesquite tree with his shirt off. The sight made Tess's heart jaekknife, stirring her with sharp memories of how his skin had felt beneath her fingers in the long, sleepless night.

Business
, she reminded herself She had a project to complete for Mae.

Summoning all her willpower, she looked away from his bare chest and pulled out a notebook and pen. “I have some questions for you.”

“What, no kiss?” He slanted a slow look at her bare legs beneath her flirty skirt.

Tess gave him a quick peck, avoiding a layer of shaving cream. When his hands rose to hold her, she squirmed free. “Be serious. I have things I need to ask you.” She smoothed her jacket, tiying to remain focused.

“No, I am not, nor ever have been a member of a subversive political party.”

“Not that kind of question. I need to know about food.”

“I like my eggs over easy, my steaks rare, and my whiskey neat”

“Whiskey, steak, and eggs. I suppose those would constitute your three major food groups.”

“Well, I can take or leave the eggs,” he said with a devilish smile.

“This is serious.”

He put a hand on his heart. “You think good whiskey and a prime aged steak aren't?”

“I need to know about chiles. Mae wants me to promote a line of mail-order products, remember?” Tess tapped her pencil against her jaw. “First,-1 need to know where the best wild chiles grow, and how hot they are. I want to investigate authentic old recipes and how early pioneers—”

With a curse, T.J. tossed down his razor and pulled her into his arms. Tess's notebook dropped forgotten to the flagstones, followed seconds later by his razor.

From the west came a thrum of distant thunder. “Could be rain,” TJ. muttered. He managed a crooked grin. “Then again, it could just be my heart.”

“You probably ate too much of my meat loaf.”

His lips skimmed the curve of her jaw. “Where's your romantic side, woman?”

“I think I left it back in Albuquerque along with my last spare tire.” Tess slid her pen into her pocket. “I guess I won't be getting any work done this morning.” She stopped as her hand closed around a small object with sharp edges. She slipped it from her pocket, frowning. “I don't remember this. I must have picked it up at the ruins yesterday.”

She turned the shard over in her hand, studying its delicate white surfaces touched with fine black lines. There was something compeHing about the small, uneven piece of clay, which seemed to take on warmth at her touch. “Does it look familiar to you?” she asked T.J.

He stepped closer, bending over her shoulder. “It could be Mogollon. The design is careful and the color is
good, but it's hard to say without more to go on. Where did you find it?”

Tess continued to turn the piece over slowly. “I don't remember. It might have beeitwhen I was climbing the path along the cliff. So much of that is still a blur.” Feeling oddly shaken, sheclosediierfingers around the ancient piece of clay. “Do you tecognize the design?”

“An animal, probably—a lizard or maybe a bear. That's not too clear, either. I can take it-to Miguel for his opinion.”

“No.” Her hands tightened around the shard mid heat grew against her palm. Over the adobe wall she heard a muffled sound that might have been drums.

Galling her.

Warning her … before it was too late.

“Tess, can you hear me?”

Wind tugged at her hair and she felt different hands, a different voice.

Equally beloved.

“Dammit, Tess, snap out of it.”

The bell at the front gate clanged, and Tess shuddered at the sound, gripped by an unreasoning fear that made her drop the piece of pottery.

TJ. circled her shoulders and pulled her against him while she drew great, gasping breaths.

“It's okay. Everything's fine.”

There was a light step on the gravel walk. Tess looked up to see a slender man with a tanned, weathered face. He bent down and picked up her piece of pottery.

“You dropped this.” Carefully, he placed it on her palm.

TJ. pulled away with soft oath. “Miguel, I didn't hear you come in. Not that I ever do. Tess, I'd like you to meet Miguel Trujillo.”

Tess stared at the man, then at the piece of clay in her hands. “We've met before.”

The pale light of dawn seemed to cling to his silver belt buckle. “Yes, in the storm.”

“May I?” Miguel asked as he stared at her hand.

Without question or protest she opened her fingers, revealing the pottery fragment.

“It is very old, this piece. You found it in the hills?”

“At the old ruins. At least I think that's where it came from.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I can't seem to remember that either.”

The old man turned the shard over, studying it intently and watching the light touch the design. “Whoever made this had a light hand. They worked with brushes made of yucca fibers split many times. Even artists today find it hard to match such details.” He pressed the clay piece back into Tess's hand, watching her face. “If you carry it, it will become yours, sharing your heat, hearing all your unspoken thoughts. Perhaps it may even protect you.”

He made a small movement with his hand, and for an instant, sunlight seemed to gather over the fine white surface.

Then he coughed and stepped back. “We were to visit the camp in the mountains today, but I have come too early.”

“What? Oh, the survivalists.” T.J. jabbed a hand through his hair. “I got a little caught up.”

“It is easy for a man to forget when he is in the arms of a beautiful woman.” He bowed with grace to Tess. “I am glad you have recovered from the sun sickness. Your face now carries the glow of many dawns.”

“Thank you.” Tess tucked the pottery shard back in her pocket and turned to T.J. “So you have to go?”

T.J. sighed. “I'm afraid so Tom Martinez should be here any minute.” As he spoke, the bell in the outer courtyard chimed.

“I will greet your guest,” Miguel said. “You may wish to say your good-byes with privacy.” He made no sound as he crossed the gravel.

“How does he do that?”

“Don't ask me. I've been ttying to figure that out for years.” Again, he sighed. “I have to go, Tess.”

“I know,” she said softly. “Whatever it is you're doing, promise me you'll be careful.”

“Always.” T.J. traced her mouth. “I'd appreciate it if you stayed here with Tom until 1 get back. Not an order, but a request.”

Tess knew it cost him something to frame the words that way in spite of his concern for her safety.

“I'll be here. I want to wort: up some ideas for Mae's new project. Just you hurry back, because I've got a thousand questions to ask you.” She smiled. “About chiles. And about other things.”

“I'll be back,” T.J. said huskily. “To answer your questions about chiles … and other things.”

Leaving Tess was the last thing T.J. wanted to do.

He glared at the road, wishing this visit would keep and knowing it would not. He slanted a look at Miguel. “I appreciate your coming along. I'd like your help.”

Miguel's eyes flickered to TJ.'s face. “What is it that we look for?”

TJ. made a flat sound of irritation. “I don't actually know yet. Maybe for signs of drugs. You're the most
observant man I know. You'll see things that I won't, and any one of those things may be useful.”

T.J. turned off the main road, heading north. “If they're involved in killing coyotes, I want to know that, too.”

The old man nodded. “Why do they camp up here?”

T.J. smiled thinly. “Because they believe civilization is toppling. Jeffrey Graystone, their leader, has gathered his tribe to wait out the end of the world. It wasn't just on December thirty-first, you see. They believe the effects of the computer errors are only beginning. Markets will topple. Electricity will fail. You get the general idea.”

The old man nodded slowly. “It has been said before. Many of our old ones spoke of the world that ended in darkness because of the evil of man. Of course they are right.” His eyes glinted like polished obsidian. “This world will end.”

“Are you telling me to get my food bags ready and head up into the hills because the skies are about to split open?”

“Many will choose this way. Many burn with the fear of change. This is why the problem you call Y2K still brings such discord. It exists and yet it does not exist.”

“Run that one by me again,” T.J. muttered.

Miguel gestured slowly to the landscape before them. “All this will change. Among the old ones of Yucatan, the year of turning is given. The Mayan stones record that mankind will awaken from a long, bleak dream, and as our eyes change, the world around us changes and from our pain will come great joy.” He fingered his herb bag. “This is their prophecy.”

“Do you believe it?”

The old man stared into the desert sunlight and inhaled slowly. “Each will believe in his way and time. Those who choose darkness will see darkness.” He smiled, holding out his hand. “Will you have one?”

“Cactus candy?” TJ. felt as if he'd teen wrenched back sharply to earth. First the end of all human life, and now cactus candy. “I haven't eaten one of these since I was six.”

“Sometimes it is good to see things as a child of six. Perhaps our eyes were clearer then.”

TJ. took the bright red candy. As its sweetness filled his mouth, he sensed that Miguel spoke on many levels— most of which TJ. missed.

The old man rubbed his jaw. “Your woman will prefer the green ones. The ones that taste bitter.”

“How do you know she—” TJ. stopped, sighing. He didn't bother to question how Miguel knew such things. He simply did. “She's still not my woman.”

“A matter of opinion.” Gravely, Miguel re-shouldered his worn cotton bag. “Only the heart can speak, yet we live in such noise that we do not listen. You must be careful, for your time of choosing comes soon.” He nodded. “We are at our destination, I see.”

As usual, he was right.

Four children were playing on a rough wooden bench as T J. drove into the compound through a gate cut in a mud-brick wall. A dozen homes of adobe were completed and more stood waiting for roofs. Horses stood in a corral beside barking dogs. There was noise and activity, but the camp appeared to be well maintained.

Every inch was self-contained, TJ. had been told. There was no external electricity, no outside water lines. Everything began and ended here, stemming from Jeffrey Graystone's fanatical certainty that all civilization was
on the verge of crumbling and isolation was the only protection.

T.J. stopped his car in front of an unpainted building that appeared to be a social center. A woman with long braids and a baby on her back was sweeping the porch. She looked up warily as TJ. and Miguel emerged from the car.

“Sorry to bother you, Ma'am, but we're looking for Jeffrey Gray stone.”

She shielded her eyes, glancing at the official insignia on the side of TJ.'s Blazer. “Are you police?”

“Sheriff McCall. Could you tell me where to find Mr. Graystone, please?”

She put down her broom in a resigned gesture and pointed up the slope. “That's his house, but I don't know if he's there. We've had a lot of visitors here lately. They take up a lot of his time. His name is Adam now.”

“Adam?”

“Ask him; he'll tell you.”

It wasn't exactly a warm greeting. T.J. hadn't expected one.

The adobe up the slope was slightly larger than the rest. A dog lay sleeping on the front porch and a metal chime clanged in the wind. When no one answered their knock, TJ. moved around the side of the house, where a dusty Jeep stood with engine idling and hood raised. A man was bent under the hood, muttering as he worked on the engine. An interesting contradiction, TJ. thought. The survivalist who wouldn't depend on city water or the trappings of a dying civilization still ran a car and used gasoline.

“Excuse me. I'm looking for Jeffrey Graystone.”

The man straightened slowly. TJ.'s first impression was of rigid (tetennination. His next impression was of a
man whose eyes flickered because he had something to hide. “Who is asking for him?”

“Sheriff McCall.” T.J. showed his badge. “I'd like to ask him a few questions.”

The sun cast deep shadows over theman's face as he leaned back against the fender of the ear. “Who's your friend?”

“Miguel Trujillo. He's a naturalist.”

The man wiped his hand on the rag in his pocket. “I used to be called Graystone.”

“And now you're Adam?”

“A new name for a new social order. AH the old must be swept away, Sheriff.” His eyes narrowed. “Even the law will be useless when the storms come upon die land.”

“I guess I missed that particular weather report,” T.J. murmured.

The dog trotted around the corner and gave a low growl.