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“Actually, that happened toand suddenlyfor a couple of blocks but it finally died, right outside a station”

“Ah” Gray smiled over the rim of his coffee container “A well trained… Did you say truck?”

“No,” she said quickly, “I said car”

He knew she’d started to say “truck” He thought about Queen City, about the parking lot outside the Victory Diner where he’d ine a truck in that place but difficult to iine the woman opposite hiile; she looked like a woman who had never seen a hick town or a pickup cab in her life

“And rong with it?”

“Sorry?”

“Your car Cars The one that broke down near a station and the one that died in the middle of the desert yesterday”

“Oh” She sipped her coffee, and he had the feeling she was sorry she’d as, that other time” Ran out, and had no h roceries, and he was the one who had driven the truck dry but when she’d phoned and said she was out of gas, he’d been furious…

“Miss Carter?”

Dawn blinked Gray Baron was looking at her and s, but there was an intensity in his eyes that made her uncomfortable

“Sorry,” she said briskly “I was just thinking that I don’t see you ca on that street”

“Desert,” he said soleo Sand and cactus, buzzards and rattlers…”

She laughed “I get the feeling you don’t like the desert Were you born in one of those green, leafy parts of Texas?”

He was baffled, but only for a second Then he recalled how neatly she’d ed to place his accent

“Yes, I guess you’d say that Austin Well, near Austin Do you know the area?”