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Kyna stopped in the middle of the parking lot and stared at her feet. After a few seconds she looked up and said, "Look, I'm sorry. I've been under a lot of pressure." |
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"I figured something was eating you. You want to talk about it?" He gave her a lopsided grin. "Bodyguards are almost as good as bartenders at listening to people's problems." |
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She stared at him long enough that he thought she might actually open up. But then Kyna shook her head and smiled. "It's nothing. Just work." |
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Boy, Cyrus thought, she's got more walls than Fort Knox. |
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"Are we dressed for this nature trail?" he asked. |
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"Sure." She looked down at her candy-striped shorts and sneakersthen at his high-top street boots and cutoffs. "Jeans and those boot thingies are fine. It's not like we're climbing the Matterhorn, or anything." |
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Five miles down the highway, they turned off onto a gravel road that took them to an unpaved parking lot. They pulled up in the shade of a cottonwood tree, in the center of an arid depression between low hills of red, tightly packed dirt and plates of shale rock. Kyna jumped out and ran to the sign that marked the trailhead while Cyrus was still fumbling with his boot laces. |
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"I don't think we're going to have time to do this," he said when he caught up to her. "It's almost six." |
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Kyna finished reading the sign and examined her watch. "Come on, please! I want to see the petroglyphs. The trail is only a little over two miles. We should be able to do that in less than an hour." |
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Cyrus took a long look at the sun resting two fingers above the hills to the west. Then he glanced at the parking lot. Other than the Lincoln, there was only a battered red pickup truck. "Okay, but I'm not lugging this cannon." |
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He went back to the car and locked the pistol and his jacket in the trunk. |
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He trailed Kyna down a dusty creek bed between hills dot- |
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