Vixen 03

6

Loren cleared away the supper dishes and carried a tray with two mugs of steaming coffee out to the balcony. Pitt was sitting tilted back in a chair with his feet propped on the railing. Despite the cool September evening air, he wore a short-sleeved sweater.

"Coffee?" Loren asked.

As if in a trance, he turned and looked up at her. "What?" Then, murmuring, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come out."

The violet eyes studied him. "You're like a man possessed," she said suddenly, without quite knowing why.

"Could be I'm going psycho," he said, smiling faintly. "I'm beginning to see aircraft wreckage in my every thought."

She passed him one cup and cradled the other in her hands, soaking up its warmth. "That stupid old junk of Dad's. That's all you've had on your mind since we've been here. You've blown its significance out of all proportion."

"I can't make any sense out of it either." He paused and sipped the coffee. "Call it the Pitt curse; I can't drop a problem until I find a workable solution." He turned toward her. "Does that sound odd?"

"I suppose some people are compelled to find answers to the unknown."

He continued to speak in an introspective way. "This isn't the first time I've had a strong intuitive feeling about something."

Are you always right?"

He shrugged and grinned. "To be honest, my ratio of success is about one in five."

"And if it is proven that Dad's salvage did not come off an airplane that crashed near here, what then?"

"Then I forget it and reenter the mundane world of practicality."

A kind of stillness settled upon them and Loren came over and sank into his lap, trying to absorb his body heat in the cool breeze that drifted down from the mountains.

"We still have twelve more hours before we board a plane back to Washington. I don't want anything to spoil our last night alone. Please' let's go in now and go to bed."

Pitt smiled and kissed her eyes tenderly. He balanced her weight in both arms and rose from the chair, lifting her as easily as he would a large stuffed doll. Then he carried her inside the cabin.

He wisely decided that now was not the time to tell her that she would be returning to the nation's capital alone, that he would stay behind and continue his search.