Page 17 (1/2)

“Why, you boys have been drinking,” Jenou drawls

“Why, yesh, yesh we have,” Jack confesses without sha over, takes Jenou’s hand, and kisses it

“Well, la-di-da, aren’t we fancy?” Jenou says

Jack moves to take Rio’s hand, but she deftly sidesteps and he winks knowingly at her On a previous occasion where too much drink had been consumed, Rio and Jack shared a drunken kiss Rio has tried since then to put it entirely out of her mind, to file it away under “irrelevant distractions,” but the er and more specific over time And now it takes the form of that first sketch, the happy one, the one where she isn’t holding a s rifle

Wet, freezing cold, and suddenly so warh, e kissed

Her hand reaches for the photograph of Strand Braxton but thinks better of it It would be too obvious that she was using it as a talishts of Jack

Inevitably the cohts Strand is taller, better looking, a pilot, a dashing figure, an officer, not to et married when the war is over, presumably to Rio

Maybe

If that’s what I want

Wh

ich it must be

Surely

Jack is tall enough without being striking, has reddish hair, faint freckles like her own, and he’s funny And char, but he lacks Jack’s quick and easy wit

I’ve kissed them both, and

Jillion and her damned pictures