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crossed one tributary of that well-known stream when she made the appointment, but the river itself was still ahead. She could back out, even now.
    Chris had tried to talk her out of it. “I must have been crazy to suggest it. Subconsciously, I counted on your refusing. Do you have any idea of what you’d be letting yourself in for?”
    He had proceeded to tell her. Jacqueline had brushed his warnings aside. She could handle publicity, no one better. She had enough ego to remain unscorched by the withering winds of abuse that would undoubtedly assail her, however good a book she produced. What readers and critics wanted was another
Naked in the Ice,
and it was impossible for anyone, including Kathleen Darcy, to write that book again.
    She had spoken the truth when she assured Chris that the opinions of others didn’t worry her. Her own opinion was another matter. Could she live up to the standards she had set for herself? The answer was a depressing, “Maybe not.” She had no illusions about her talent. It was a good little talent, honest and more than adequate for the purposes toward which it was bent. To write a sequel worthy of its predecessor would take more than the talent she presently possessed. But what the hell, Jacqueline thought; a writer’s reach should exceed her grasp… or what’s an agent for?
    Reasons are never single or simple; decisions are reached by weighing a multiplicity of positive and negative factors. One factor that had unquestionably influenced Jacqueline’s turnabout was the number and nature of the rival candidates. The news had been announced barely a week earlier, and already there was a long line of volunteers. Thanks to the unclassifiable nature of
Naked,
they covered a wide spectrum: fantasy writers, historical novelists, romance writers, and authors of blockbuster best-sellers. Among them were Jack Carter, author of
Red Flag, Red Blood
(a Soviet plot to assassinate the President of the United States is foiled by a beautiful Russian agent who falls in love with her handsome CIA counterpart) and Franklin Dubois, who specialized in sleaze and kinky sex on Wall Street and who declared that the political and financial complexities of prehistoric culture demanded a writer versed in such areas. But the name that had raised Jacqueline’s hackles and tipped the scales for good was that of Brunnhilde Karlsdottir.
    Until Jacqueline made her debut, Brunnhilde had been the undisputed Queen of the Savage Bodice Ripper—“savage” referring not to the quality and content of her prose (though that interpretation had been expressed more than once), but the historical periods in which she specialized. Dark Age Britain, Iron Age Gaul, Bronze Age Anyplace; all were grist for Brunnhilde’s mill, but her real forte was Vikings; perhaps, as Jacqueline was not the first to point out, because she resembled one of the larger ones.
    Brunnhilde had not attended the convention that was Jacqueline’s initial encounter with the queens of romance, whose names were legion, because the promoters of the affair had awarded the prize for The Best Romantic Novel Set in the Sixth Century to someone else. The two had not met face to face until after Jacqueline’s first novel had pushed Brunnhilde off the
Times
list, but it was not entirely professional rivalry that had fired the feud between them. It was hate at first sight, clean, pure and strong as grain alcohol. Rather than see Brunnhilde defile
Naked in the Ice,
Jacqueline vowed, she would give Booton Stokes twenty-five percent, and/or go to bed with him.
    She studied the innumerable photographs of Stokes that covered the walls of his outer office. Booton with Liz Taylor, with Mr. T., with last year’s Superbowl quarterback (“author” of
Slaughter at the Superbowl
), with a former White House staffer whose kiss-and-tell book had sold half a million copies. Stokes’s stable of writers was undoubtedly impressive, in monetary if not literary terms. And he owed