(eng) Nancy Kress - Yesterday's Kin 01 by Tomorrow's Kin

Author:Tomorrow's Kin [Kin, Tomorrow's]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

S plus 4 years

Who could live in this heat?

“You’ll like Albuquerque,” Marianne had told Sissy. Sissy could tell it was a brave try at being cheerful, which Marianne definitely wasn’t. “The desert is gorgeous, in an austere sort of way. And our hotel is right on the Rio Grande.”

Well, Marianne was wrong. Sissy didn’t like Albuquerque, not from the second she and Tim and Marianne stepped off the jetway into an airport where the AC was broken. At eleven in the morning it was ninety-one degrees outside, even hotter inside. And never mind all that shit about it being dry heat—ninety-one degrees was ninety-one degrees, and all three of them were sweating like stinky waterfalls by the time they reached the hotel.

Which did have working AC. It was cranked up so high that the sweat dried instantly and Sissy rooted in her bag for a sweater. Fortunately, she’d brought the heavy purple one with the pink sequins. The Rio Grande, visible from their sixth-floor hotel suite, didn’t look like much of a river, even if Marianne did say that it was classified as “exotic” because it was a river that flowed through a desert. Sissy had seen creeks with more water in them. Also, the Rio Grande looked just as hot as everything else outdoors. Not that Sissy planned on going outdoors. Marianne’s speech would be in the grand ballroom right in this hotel, which also had two restaurants and a dance club on the top floor. Sissy had brought her dance clothes. She wasn’t setting foot outside.

But their suite was nice, two small bedrooms and a big central room with sofas, a bar, dining table, big wall screen. Sissy and Tim’s room had a balcony outside French doors. She slung their suitcase on the bed and started to unpack.

Tim, who’d been prowling around the suite, checking locks and window ledges, strode into the room and said, “Come on, Sis. We got that desert trip this afternoon.”

Sissy eyed him. Tim looked so hot—the good kind of hot!—in jeans and tight tee and a cowboy hat he’d bought first thing. Weather never bothered him, the bastard. “I’m not going on a desert trip.”

“Sure you are. It’ll be fun. Some professor is taking Marianne to see the—that thing. The ecoregion.”

“She can see it. You can see it. I’m staying right here.”

Tim put his arms around her. Even in the chilly room, his body radiated its own special heat. He crooned in her ear, “You my baby, I need my baby, my one and only baby.…”

“You’re out of tune,” Sissy said severely, “and I told you that I’m not a ‘baby.’” But she knew she would go with him. When Tim was like this, there was no resisting him.

“That’s my old woman,” Tim said, and she swatted him, not gently. He laughed.

* * *

The car had AC, but they didn’t stay in it. Marianne didn’t, Tim didn’t, Dr. Lopez didn’t, and so that meant Sissy couldn’t either. If Tim’s job was to

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