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"Aye? You’re sure? What time is it there?"

"I don’t know; it’s too dark to see the clock," she said, still sleep-addled A reluctant deep chuckle answered her

"I am sorry; I tried to calculate the tiot it backward Didn’t mean to wake you"

"That’s okay, I had to wake up to answer the phone anyway," she assured hi sainst the pillows, shoving tangles of hair out of her eyes, slowly adjusting to the here and now The feel of her dream was still with her, more real than the dark-shrouded shapes of her bedrooer," she said softly She was surprised at just how good it was His voice was far away and yet seemed much more immediate than the far-off whines of sirens, and the whish! of tires on wet pavement outside

"Yours, too" He sounded a little shy "Look--I’ve got the chance of a conference next ood way to say this Do you want to see ht on the receiver, and her heart jumped

"I’m sorry," he said at once, before she could reply "That’s putting you on the spot, isn’t it? I--look--just say straight out if you’d rather not"

"I do Of course I want to see you!"

"Ah You don’t ht --"

"No, you didn’t I’m sorry It was just--"

"It’s fine, I didn’t mean--"

Their sentences collided, and they both stopped, stricken with shyness

"I didn’t want to push--"

"I didn’t hed, a low sound of Scottish a over the vast distance of space and tiht, then," he said firmly "I do understand, aye?"

She didn’t answer, but closed her eyes, an indefinable sensation of relief sweeping over her Roger Wakefield was likely the only person in the world who could understand; what she hadn’t fully realized before was how i," she said "When the phone rang"

"Mhtened, just a little, whenever she spoke the word The sa happened when she said "mother," too She could still smell the sun-warmed pines of her dream, and feel the crunch of pine needles under her boots

"I couldn’t see his face I alking with hi hi to , trying to catch up, so I could hear, but I couldn’t quite e"

"But you knew the ht so because of hiking in the mountains I used to do that with Dad"

"Did you? I used to do that with my dad, as well If you co"

"You’ll take hed, and she had a suddenback the thick black hair that he didn’t cut often enough, reen eyes creased half-shut by his s the tip of her thumb slowly across her lower lip, and stopped herself He’d kissed her when they parted

"A Munro is any Scottish peak more than three thousand feet There are so many of them, it’s a sport to see how many you can climb Folk collect them, like staland?" she said, then interrupted before he could answer "No, let uess It’s…Scotland You’re in Inverness"

"That’s right" The surprise was evident in his voice "How did you know that?"

She stretched, scissoring her long legs slowly under the sheets

"You roll your r’s when you’ve been talking to other Scots," she said "You don’t when you talk to English people I noticed ent to London" There was noeasier, she thought

"And herrrrre I was beginning to think ye were psychic," he said, and laughed

"I wish you were here now," she said impulsively

"You do?" He sounded surprised, and suddenly shy "Oh Well…that’s good, isn’t it?"