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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 you 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 knewjust 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.”
    “What makes you think I grew up in Texas?” The waitress had placed a dark glass of bourbon in front of him, and he took a slow, appreciative sip, his eyes never leaving her.
    “I’m good at accents. You must have left Texas early, because there’s some California overlaying it.”
    “Good God,” he said disgustedly. “Just what I always wanted to hear.”
    “Not too much though. I grew up in California so I’m sensitive to the accent.”
    “Well, your ear has let you down this time. I never lived in Texas. I did, however, have a best friend who came from Port Arthur—maybe I picked it up from her.”
    “Her?”
    “Her.” He didn’t elaborate. “And the time I spent in California was when I was with the Why, and most of us were so stoned we didn’t talk much. Guess again.”
    She took a sip of her warm, vinegary wine. “Not the East Coast, definitely. You don’t really look rural, though that may be the result of the last few years. But I’d guess you were from a city. A big, nasty