"No need to rush, ladies," the tour guide called from the bus doorway, her yellow uniform jacket glowing in the bright sun, "there's a seat for everyone."

Colin rather hoped not. He hoped they'd over-booked and he could gracefully withdraw and get his money back.

"Mr. Redesdale?" the guide asked, looking at him quizzically as though doubting his existence.

"Yes," said Colin, his heart sinking. If she knew his name, it was probably because he was the only man on the bus.

"You're a lucky man," she said with a slightly malicious grin. "You have what every red-blooded male dreams of, being surrounded by beautiful women and no competition."

The few remaining pensioners waiting to board the bus eyed him suspiciously, twittering like birds with a cat on the prowl nearby.

Colin smiled weakly and handed his case to the driver who stowed it into the vast hold that ran almost the length of the coach. He stepped into the bus, looked down the length of its aisle, which was bordered by white and blue rinsed perms, and thought for one glorious moment his wish had come true. He couldn't see a spare seat.

"There's a seat right at the back, Mr. Redesdale," said the guide brightly, motioning him on like a Tricoteuse at the foot of the guillotine.

Colin stumbled forward past the rows of curious eyes until he found the one empty seat.

"Is this seat taken?" he asked the young woman in the window seat. He thought 'young' because she was probably his age, late twenties, maybe thirty. They both seemed very young in these surroundings.

"Obviously not," the woman snapped and went back to looking out of the window.

Colin sat gingerly beside her. Just his luck to get the only woman on the bus who didn't want a male companion, or not one she hadn't chosen for herself anyhow. At least he'd get his book read, he thought with a sudden flash of silent humor. So far, his trip had been so busy, he'd only read two chapters, and it had to be back to the library the day after he got home.

The driver settled in his seat, the guide introduced herself as Kathy and started telling them about the trip. Colin listened dutifully. He noticed the young woman beside him didn't, she stared ferociously out at the street determined not to give him any opportunity of speaking to her.

As the bus pulled out of the station and into Sydney's busy traffic, crawling forward, Kathy had ample time to describe the buildings they passed. Architecture wasn't Colin's thing so he dug his book out of his knapsack and opened the cover to read again the author's biography. The author was an historian he admired but, with this book, he was having doubts. The man just wasn't holding Colin's interest as he'd expected. Colin checked the return date and confirmed next Saturday was the day the book was due back. He sighed, turned the pages to chapter three, and noticed the young woman's eyes flick back to the street. Briefly, Colin wondered what had caught her attention in a book of Lancashire history but the thought passed and he once again tried to follow the intricacies of cotton trading in the early nineteenth century.

Alexandra settled back into the coach seat and pretended to watch Sydney's urban sprawl, as it swept by the window, while she watched her travel companion from the corner of her eye. He seemed a nice enough man, she'd watched him assisting the old women with their bags and letting them board before him. He was attractive, in a scholarly way, though he was also tall and fit and seemed well off. His clothes were good anyway, so he wasn't poor. What was the failing that had brought him to this low pass, sharing a bus with a bunch of old women?

Probably drink, she thought morosely. In Alexandra's admittedly limited experience, there were only two kinds of men, those who drank too much and those who hadn't yet started drinking. In her small village that was men and boys. And there were only three kinds of drunks, the amorous sort, like old Mr. Cuthbert who was always 'accidentally' touching her blouse. Or the violent sort, like Ed Connery who, if he couldn't get a fight in the pub went home to beat his wife, and the sad sort, like Mr. Allison who cried into his beer.

Alexandra wondered if men had only recently become useless or were they always that way and hid it by pretending to run things. Certainly the men she knew didn't measure up to her idea of a man. There were no heroes in Wadeville, no explorers, pioneers, soldiers, sailors, writers, artists, or leaders. She glanced again at her companion. He didn't look like a drinker; quite the opposite, he looked like a runner, lean, greyhound-like. A marathon-running professor, she decided.

Despite Colin's best efforts, Lancashire history wasn't absorbing him and he couldn't help noticing the woman was sizing him up. Well, too bad. Her response to his politeness was enough for him; the famous British reserve would protect him for the rest of the trip. After Tracy left he'd enjoyed his solitary state so much he'd come to the conclusion it wasn't just Tracy who didn't suit him, it was all women.

Alexandra regretted her early ungraciousness; she wanted to ask him something and she'd made it difficult. Mulling over her best approach for a few minutes only made her angry with him. Her rude reply, if it was rude, was his fault after all, pointing out to the whole bus her single status. Why didn't he just put up a sign? Here Sits a Spinster, a Failure among Women!

That thought made her smile at the injustice of it. Poor man, all he did was sit in the last seat on the bus, after asking politely if it was taken, and she'd spent nearly twenty minutes heaping all the failings of life and mankind on his head. She decided the best way to repair the damage was to use some famous Aussie bluntness.

"Are you from Whalley?" she asked.

Colin, who had finally begun to get into the chapter, was momentarily unaware she was addressing him. He looked at her and found she was.

"Yes," he said at last, "do you know it?"

"I've never been there but I know of it," Alexandra said. Since her Mum died, she'd wondered if any of the story was true. It had begun to blur, shifting in her mind, until she doubted even the place names. Seeing one of them, Whalley, on his library book stamp brought Gran's tale back sharply to life.

"My Gran said we were descendants of a noble family from near there," Alexandra continued. "Do you know a village called Ashton de Cheney?"

"No," Colin said slowly, "but I'm not a local in the area. I only moved there a few months ago after my divorce." He frowned. Why had he said that? His divorce was no business of anyone but him. He hoped it wasn't because she wasn't wearing a wedding ring? He'd already established he was cut out for the monastic life but, if he were to change his mind, this woman would be interesting. She was attractive, neatly dressed in tasteful clothes and her brown eyes and full lips suggested a sense of humor, though he couldn't quite say how based on their acquaintance so far.

"I'm Alex," Alexandra said, holding out her hand.

"Hi, Alex," Colin said, shaking her hand, "I'm Colin." Her hand was soft but her handshake firm. Despite his first impression, Colin felt himself thawing. "Are you from around here?" he asked.

"No," Alex said, "I come from Victoria. Wadeville, it's a tiny place about a hundred miles inland from Melbourne."

"I've just come from Melbourne," Colin said. "It's a lovely city."

"I wouldn't know," Alex said, "apart from the airport, I've never been there."

"Never?" Colin asked.

"We didn't get off the station much when I was a kid," Alex said, "then when Dad took off, and we had to move into town, Mum, Gran and me couldn't afford to go anywhere."

"I'm sorry," Colin said. "Still, the country round there is so beautiful you can't have missed much growing up."

Alex considered her reply. He was right, the country was beautiful and what would be the point in telling him of their poverty. A poverty of mind as well as body, and made worse by Gran's belief they were Quality and had to keep themselves above their neighbors. Even Mum, whose resolve was much less than Gran's, believed they should behave like they were superior. What was the use of telling him about her lonely childhood, the teasing and bullying at school that drove her to leave early and miss out on college? How she'd lived all her life in a tiny village of fifty people and hadn't a relative or friend in the whole place? How Mum would say, 'a pretty girl like you will soon get a good husband, not one of these yokels' while she had to run home from school to stop the yokels from pawing her, not because they fancied her but because they wanted to hurt and humiliate her.

"It is pretty round there," Alex agreed. "Living there, you forget. It takes a stranger to remind you of things sometimes." She fell silent. An incredible thought had entered her head and, never having thought or done anything spontaneous before, shaken her confidence in her sanity. Could he have any way of knowing what she'd just thought? She glanced furtively at him and was reassured. He wasn't wearing the smug expression of a man who had mastered his woman. This was really bizarre. First, her mind was considering asking him to take her back to Lancashire when he went, now it was as 'his woman'.

Colin decided she'd run out of ideas and it was his turn to further the conversation, so he asked, "Was your Gran from Ashton de Cheney?"

Alex shook her head. "No," she said. "It was my Grandad who was the de Cheney. Gran was just a regular girl. They met in the war but he was killed before Mum was even born. And so were his parents, by a bomber unloading its bombs. Gran said the Jerry was afraid of all the flak over Liverpool so he dropped his bombs early and scampered back to Germany. She says it happened a lot. The Jerries were cowardly like that, not like our boys who flew right into the thick of it." She paused, and then added, "Her husband was a bomber pilot and he was killed over Germany. That may have clouded her judgment."

Colin smiled; her wry honest comment confirmed his earlier suspicion of a latent sense of humor.

"Perhaps," he said, 'but still I prefer simple national pride to the modern fashion for revisionism."

Alex got the sense of his comment but realized she may not have the education to keep up if the conversation continued this way. Not for the first time, she wished she'd had more courage and stood up to the other kids when she was at school. A lifetime of reading could only take you so far. After that you needed to discuss and debate with other people and she'd never done that. Mum and Gran didn't need debates; they knew what they knew was right and everything else was wrong.

"I do too," she said, "I just feel the pilots on both sides were incredibly brave though I never told Gran that. She'd have skinned me alive."

"It's always a mistake to run down your enemy," Colin agreed. "It devalues your victory if you win and humiliates you further if you lose."

"Exactly," Alex said returning his grin. Then she blushed, for the idea of returning to Lancashire with him flooded back into her mind with a whole host of other feelings she barely knew she had.

"Was your Gran so fierce?" Colin asked.

"Too right, she was," Alex answered with a barely repressed shudder. "And the older she got the worse she got."

"Grandmothers are either kittens or tigers," Colin said, "and I've always had a soft spot for the tigerish ones."

"You're welcome to them," Alex retorted. "My guess it's because yours were the other sort."

Colin nodded warily. It was obvious he was treading into dangerous territory.

"Mine were, but my friend John's Gran was a real so-and-so. She'd whack us with a wooden spoon or her slipper if we annoyed her," Colin said with a laugh.

"And you liked that?" Alex demanded.

"When it first happened I complained to my Mum about child abuse," Colin conceded. "Mum laughed, and said, 'Colin she's seventy years old. How much abuse could she do?'"

"And what did you say to that?"

"I said it wasn't that she hurt us, it was just embarrassing."

"Your Mum would be impressed by your case, I'm sure," Alex said.

"She was. She said if I didn't want to be embarrassed I shouldn't give John's Gran any more trouble."

"Sounds like your Mum wasn't in tune with modern parental practice either," Alex said disapprovingly.

"She was really," Colin said. "I don't remember Mum or Dad ever hitting me or my sister. It's just they didn't think it a big deal if other people had different ways of dealing with things. So long as we weren't going to be seriously hurt, I think they were willing to let John's Gran get on with it. After all, her kids had turned out all right."

"You're very forgiving," Alex retorted.

Colin shrugged. "Actually," he said, "the old lady turned out to be a lot more fun than my parents. They would always be saying things like 'Don't do that, it's dangerous.' John's Gran would say, 'What are you, a man or a mouse?' My parents would have a fit if I got in a fight and lecture me on civilized ways to resolve arguments. John's Gran would say, 'You're as big as he is, punch him on the nose.'"

"She sounds as bad as mine," Alex said sullenly. Colin's cheerful account of the old lady's peculiarities confirmed her opinion he was just like other men, brutal. Colin might think being hit with a wooden spoon was just embarrassing but Alex knew better. It hurt and so did a wooden hairbrush. She couldn't imagine ever dismissing such treatment so lightly.

Kathy's voice boomed suddenly on the PA speaker above their heads and Colin and Alex's attention was turned to her commentary. "The city of Sydney's suburbs have grown enormously in the past twenty years..."

Colin was relieved by the interruption. He and Alex had talked for fifteen minutes and he could sense she was quickly returning to her original state of anger with him. How this could happen based on a conversation about Grandmothers, he didn't know but so it was. No wonder she was traveling alone. He smiled at Alex, briefly taking leave, and picked up his book. He'd let the guide's commentary calm her down.

Alex too was relieved and she made a conscious effort to be interested in the sights being picked out by the guide. She craned her neck to look at new shopping Malls and sports grounds, letting her rancor slip away. After years of living inside herself, pushing people away, she desperately wanted to connect with Colin. Living day-to-day, as she had, drifting aimlessly through her teenage and twenties' years, now suddenly she'd discovered a purpose, a Quest. Life, so lately awakened in her, was drawing her forward through this man and the strange coincidence of his home and her history.

She would research her roots. It wasn't unusual; lots of people returned to their original homelands to see what they were made of. Her savings, and as a Legal Secretary to Wadeville's only lawyer she had managed to put money aside, would be enough for one big trip and she was going to take it. It wasn't the unfamiliar yearning she felt deep inside that made it imperative, it was the history. He was interested in local history and she'd need someone like that when she got to Lancashire.

Alex let the guide's canned speech flow over her, soothing her jangled nerves, restoring her calm. She would give Colin a few minutes then start again and this time she would not allow herself to become angry with him. She would not! Mentally, she gave herself a hard slap. For once, she would force herself to reach out to someone and not push them away.

Colin tried to read but couldn't. He stared at the pages in dismay. He was stuck for two days with a woman who alternated between apparent friendliness and barely repressed rage and he had no idea what pushed the buttons for either state. His predicament reminded him of the last weeks with Tracy, which was what he was here to forget. Though, he'd noticed, in dreams he was remembering his first few weeks with Tracy more and more, those days and nights when they couldn't keep their hands off each other.

He decided he would respond if she spoke to him but otherwise comment only on the weather or the scenery, the old standbys of polite people everywhere, and hope she hadn't a phobia about them. This resolution was intended to settle his mind, but it failed miserably and he took to skipping through the book's few illustrations as a way of avoiding looking past Alex through the coach window. He wouldn't see much of the Blue Mountains this way, he thought morosely.

"Are you interested in Lancashire history or do you work as a historian?" Alex asked when she felt confident she'd mastered her nerves.

"I teach history," Colin replied.

"So your reading is really for next year's students?"

Colin hesitated. Did he want to explain and risk another return to her 'Mr. Hyde' personality or just be brief? He decided to cautiously explain and hope she loved history.

"No. For my students I have to follow the syllabus in class," he said. "I'm researching a thesis I'd like to do for a Master's degree. I've had the idea for a while and Lancashire is one of the regions I think supports my thesis. This book, and some others I've been reading lately, is research to see if it in fact does. You seem interested in my book, do you enjoy history?"

"I hated school," Alex said shortly, feeling her hackles rise, "and history most of all."

Great, thought Colin. That's just frigging wonderful.

"Most of my students would agree with you," he said with a nervous smile. "We're getting out into the country now," he continued quickly. "I like natural scenery so much better than cities, don't you?"

Alex looked out the window at the fields dotted with cattle and sheep. They were just like Wadeville and this short holiday, the first she'd ever taken, had taught her she didn't like the place she called home. She didn't want to go back to empty meadows and empty minds; she wanted to live. She wanted to be re-born as a new Alex, one without a past that weighed her down.

"I've really known no other kind of scenery," she said at last. "My few days in Sydney have been so busy, exciting even, I can't altogether appreciate the country any more."

Then why the hell did you come on the trip? Colin thought savagely, wishing she hadn't. Or if she had, she'd sat with one of the old biddies somewhere else on the bus.

"Was it the mountains that caught your fancy then?" he asked desperately.

"More the opal fields," Alex replied. "I heard of someone who makes a good living out of finding opals." One of the lawyer's clients had tried it on with her once, bragging of his wealth. She'd quelled his pretensions but remembered his tale of an adventurous uncomplicated way of making money. Seeing the advertisement for the trip had reminded her. The re-born Alex could easily prospect, sleeping rough out in the bush, and then negotiate with prospective Asian buyers in shady motel rooms.

"Are you interested in gem stones?" Colin asked, seeing this conversation was relatively safe. If she was, it didn't show on her person. Apart from a heavy gold ring on her middle finger, which she fiddled with continuously and was probably her Mother or Grandmother's wedding band, she wasn't wearing a piece of jewelry anywhere.

"I was more interested in finding and selling them," she said at last.

"A friend of mine I visited," Colin said, "who lives down in Adelaide, does that. It seems a hard life."

"You can get rich at it," Alex said defensively. What right had he to criticize her dreams, even if they were foolish fancies?

"I'm sure you can," Colin said and fell silent. She was heading down the snappish path again; it was time to get back to his book.

Minutes passed, Alex stared out of the window embarrassingly aware she'd once again turned him off. Would the re-born Alex be able to talk to people without feeling they were attacking her? Not if the past half-hour were an indication, she wouldn't. Mentally, she slapped herself again; then the thought Gran would approve of her newly discovered belief in discipline made her smile.

"I shouldn't have to worry about getting rich," Alex said. "According to my Gran, I'm the rightful heir to the de Cheney estate back in England."

This was different, Colin thought. Throughout his trip, he'd heard some strange stories about the horrors of 'back home' but this one was the best.

"So why didn't Gran claim it for you?" he asked, hoping she would see his question in the light of inquiry and not as a personal attack.

"Because her husband died before his parents did and never got to pass it on to her," Alex replied. "Presumably the inheritance passed to some other branch of the family."

"That's bad luck," Colin agreed.

"I think so," said Alex seriously, "but I imagine it happened a lot in history, all those wars and plagues and things."

"Probably it did," Colin agreed again.

"What would happen if there wasn't another branch of the family?"

"I'm not a lawyer," Colin said, "and I'm sure it depends on the circumstances but I'd guess it goes to the State."

"What if someone claimed it years later?"

"I've no idea," Colin said, "probably a successful claimant would inherit but, again I'm guessing, there must be a time period allowed. You couldn't go back too long after or the State would have disposed of it. Are you thinking you might have a case?"

"Lately," Alex said slowly, "I've been wondering. Since Mum died I've been on my own and I thought a trip to England might ... you know, well, you wouldn't because I don't know..." Alex let the sentence dribble away into embarrassing gibberish. He'd think she was an idiot if she didn't pull herself together but she hadn't quite got her own mind around this sudden urge to visit England. Her present trip to Sydney, where her Father lived, was supposed to be the one that lifted her out of the gloom that had settled across her life when Mother died. Now, she was thinking of England. But the trip to her Dad's had brought about a different transformation. If her Dad could go from a 'work-shy layabout who drank the farm's profits' to being a regular family man, maybe Alexandra could stop being an anti-social recluse and become a normal woman.

"Ladies and gentleman," Kathy's voice burst once again into Alex and Colin's small world, "we will be stopping in five minutes for refreshments. I must ask you to be no more than fifteen minutes or we'll be late at our first sightseeing stop, Katoomba and the Three Sisters..."

Kathy's voice was almost drowned in the rising chorus of twittering from the elderly women all around, as they hunted for purses and jackets. Colin grimaced. Normally, he was sympathetic to the aged; he had aunts and uncles of his own, but so many so close was too much.

"Are you getting out?" he asked Alex who seemed to have retreated back into her pouting persona.

"No," she said shaking her head, "I'll stay on the bus." She'd had a lifetime spent in the company of old women. It would be a treat to get away from them.

"I think I'll get out and stretch my legs," Colin said. It had been too simple really, whatever she'd decided he had only to do the opposite for his escape.

The bus rolled to a halt at a modern roadside service area and the old people sprang to their feet, belying their frail appearance, in an effort to be first in line. Colin let them go. He knew too well that standing between a geriatric and their next meal would result in bruised ribs, their sharp elbows would see to that. A paper on how evolution had provided the elderly with dangerous weapons, in the form of sharpened joints, came to mind and made him smile.

Still smiling, he said to Alex, "I'll see you later then. You can look through my library book, if you like. See if your family gets a mention."

"Thank you," Alex said stiffly, not sure she liked him smiling when she didn't know what he was smiling about. Was he laughing at her social clumsiness?

Colin stepped out of the air-conditioned coach and was surprised at the heat. Thank God it's only early summer, was his invariable thought. He could never emigrate; England's warm summers were perfect for him.

"Mr. Redesdale," Kathy said, "Isn't Miss Holroyd joining us?" She walked alongside him, like a sheepdog escorting the last straggler into a pen.

"No, she's staying on the bus," Colin said. He looked back to see Alex watching him. Before he could wave, she'd looked away. "My name's Colin," he continued, shaking her hand.

"So how are you and Miss Holroyd getting along, Colin?" Kathy asked.

"Fine," Colin answered, "fine." He held the door for Kathy and she preceded him into the restaurant.

"It isn't often we get younger people on our trips," Kathy continued as Colin rejoined her.

Colin was pleased she thought of him as 'younger'. Beside her freshness, her honey-blonde hair, sparkling green eyes, and the band of freckles sprinkled across her tiny nose, he felt like an old, grizzled veteran.

"Have you been a tour guide long?" he asked. She couldn't be much older than twenty-one or two.

Kathy laughed, displaying white, even teeth. "Every summer since I was eighteen," she said. "Daddy owns the company so, when I'm not at University, I get to help in the family business." She pulled a comically sad face and added, "I'd rather be on the beach with my friends."

"Who wouldn't," Colin agreed, though personally he'd rather be boiled in oil instead of being fried in it on a beach. Australia's love affair with 'the beach' had been pointed out to him on a number of occasions during his trip and he'd dutifully taken part when necessary. It was the sight of all the lithe, toned, tanned young bodies that had started him dreaming of his early days with Tracy. Where did lumpy Australians go on their days off, he wondered briefly, before turning his attention back to Kathy and deciding she would look very nice in a thong bikini.

"At least you're getting paid and having your living expenses covered," Colin said, remembering his own struggle to make his budget fit his lifestyle when he was at University.

"True," Kathy said, tucking her arm into his as they joined the back of the line for coffee, "and I get some rest. The house I share is one long party in the summer months."

"Must get tiring," Colin agreed, feeling pleasurably uncomfortable at the touch of her hand. "You haven't been able to find alternative, quieter, accommodation, I presume."

Kathy laughed, her face lighting up and almost stopping Colin's heart, "I haven't looked," she admitted.

"Thought not," Colin replied.

"The parties aren't so bad," Kathy said, "it's more the boyfriends. Some nights the house sounds like a wildly popular bordello."

"Very disturbing," Colin said. "And you don't have a boyfriend? I find that hard to believe."

"Not a steady one," Kathy said. "I'm still looking." She squeezed his arm and gave him another one of her devastating smiles.

Colin's nerve began to fail. This Aussie frankness would never do for him. They'd talked for only five minutes and already they were talking about her sex life--in public!

Alexandra took the opportunity of having no one behind her to push the seat back into a more relaxed horizontal position while she scanned the index of Colin's book for places and names she might recognize from Gran's story. Her mind, however, kept flitting back to the way Kathy had pounced on Colin as he left the bus. Nor did she miss Kathy standing so close to him in the queue. She wanted to run after them and join the line, push the two apart, but she knew it wouldn't happen. Kathy was young, beautiful, full of life and confidence; she could have any man she wanted. Even the newborn Alex would be a very poor second in that race. She blinked hard to suppress the prickling she recognized as the onset of tears and tried to focus on the index again.

But it isn't fair, her mind screamed. Colin was the kind of man Mum and Gran meant when they said she'd get someone better. He was a gentleman and they were hard to find nowadays, particularly in Wadeville. Kathy should stick to her sort and not steal Alexandra's. The book seemed peculiarly heavy and she laid it gently on her tummy while she stared angrily out the window at her fellow tourists in the café. The book's weight pressed heavily on her belly and its spine, a hard straight line, ran curiously from her navel to...

Alex scrambled to her feet, snapped the book shut and dropped it on Colin's seat. The vision that had filled her mind was so shocking she trembled from head to toes. Sweat beaded her forehead and the palms of her hands, what was happening to her? Was she ill? She had to get outside where she could breathe; in here she was breathless. She stumbled down the aisle, her legs felt like jelly, and out into the heat.

"Miss Holroyd has decided to come out after all," Kathy said to Colin as they took a window seat with their drinks.

Colin watched Alex pace agitatedly back and forth beside the bus before answering.

"She must have changed her mind," he said. "Do you know her at all?"

"Not at all," Kathy grinned. "She was just a bit strange when she checked in."

"How so?"

"I called her Ms. Holroyd, as we're supposed to do nowadays when we aren't sure, and she said, very sarky, 'she was not divorced and she preferred Miss.' As if I cared," Kathy replied with another mischievous grin.

"She is very prickly," Colin agreed. "We've chatted briefly, two or three times, and each time it ended with her clearly about to give me a good telling off and I have no idea why."

"As people get to know each other, they often swap seats," Kathy said. "You might escape that way. Otherwise you're stuck with her."

"Thanks," said Colin wryly. "Only remember what I said if I'm found dead, stabbed with a hat pin or something."

"You can imagine her wearing a hat pin, can't you?" Kathy replied watching Alex whose pacing was now calmer, more the walk of someone taking the air rather than a fugitive from fright as she'd appeared before. "She reminds me of pictures of old Australia, genteel and repressed."

"Thanks again," Colin said. "Now, I'm even more nervous about going back on the bus. It's always the repressed ones who dunnit."

Kathy smiled and squeezed his hand. "If you behave yourself with Miss Holroyd, bring her out, get her involved with the rest of us," she said, "I'll buy you a drink tonight when we stop."

Colin smiled weakly. This was the part of relationships where he always got low marks. Was her offer a kind gesture signifying a general feeling of shared humanity or was it a come-on? He never could read the signals right and this time was no exception.

By the time Colin returned to his seat, Alex was back in hers. He smiled at her and said, "You decided to come out after all."

"I needed to stretch my legs, that's all," Alex replied coolly. His defection to Kathy rankled, though she knew her anger was unfair. Then the 'vision' returned, filling her mind. She was 'stretching her legs' and Colin was ... Alex blushed furiously and turned quickly to the window to hide her confusion. She had to get a different seat; sitting so close to a man, something she'd never done, except very old men sometimes at home, was obviously an experience she would have to take more slowly.

Colin stared at the back of her head in bewilderment. What had he done now? He lifted his book from the seat and sat gingerly on the edge, leaving as much space as he could between his hip and hers. She could really spoil his trip, even his life, if she did something as wild as her nervous behavior suggested she might. He must get into this damn book and shut her out until she got the message and went away.