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The officer cleared his throat, staring into her guilty eyes

Oh, God, he could read her like a book He was trained to detect the give-away signs of incipient panic He was going toher away in front of all these people for an interrogation and full body-search

Instead he sleam now full-blown admiration 'Did anyone ever tell you that you have Elizabeth Taylor eyes?'

'I—er—yes, no—that's hast at this sudden personal interest She knew her big violet eyes with their thick, dark broere herto hide them

Luckily soered the se­curity alare of the ile calm still intact Her spine prickled all the way fro any moment to feel the heavy hand of the law on her shoulder It took all her concentration not to break into a frenzied dash as she approached the foreign exchangeand exchanged her few re­ New Zealand dollars for the Pacific French francs used in New Caledonia

She then scuttled into the crowded departure lounge, sure that she was over the worst, only to stu child's paper cup of water flying The little boy burst into tears and Elizabeth cringed as everyone stared at her, assessing her culpa­bility as a bully Her furtive effort to bribe the child back into smiles with the offer of a tiny, crumpled pack of sweets earned her a suspicious look and a tart refusal fro like a convicted child-molester, she slunk into the nearest available seat and discovered thedirectly across fro her flustered arrival

Hastily she raised the ht to read on the plane in front of her flushed face and took several deep breaths under the conteaze of a rail-thin model who looked as if she didn’t knohat a blush was Elizabeth had never wanted to be a model herself, but that wasn’t to say she wouldn’t have liked the option of being a great beauty However, a lovely pair of eyes didn’t offset a regrettable lack of vertical inches and a superfluity of horizontal ones Not that she felt physi­cally insignificant Quite the reverse Up until she was thirteen she had always been the tallest girl in class and by the tirowth spurts had overtaken her own it was too late, her ht of herself as tall, and tall was the way she acted—with a little help from the footwear industry She was the tallest five-foot-six woman she knew

The seatbelt sign pinged off now as the jet achieved its cruising height for the three-hour flight and Elizabeth unrolled her tortured ardly drinks trolley The self-saly out on some namelessly beautiful Caribbean beach, sneered up at her, and she sneered back Soon Elizabeth, too, would be lolling without a care in the world on hite sands lapped by a crystal lagoon, the wettest New Zealand winter on record ashe could take care of one or two little matters first! She m

ight not have a gorgeous, tanned, muscle-bound and no doubt muscle-brained beach-boy to loll about with like the , not toto read for months

Of course, if Marge had accoht have ended up with both, but part of her was secretly relieved that she could now be thoroughly selfish and unsociable if she chose Marge found it difficult to believe that any woman could be satisfied without a man in her life, but Elizabeth knew better than to believe that there was a designated 'Mr Right' for every woman There had always been a surfeit of e did, as excitingly ly elusive She understood thely but sometimes tiresomely pre­dictable She enjoyed their co them seriously Elizabeth's job as a researcher and assistant to a professor of literature at Auckland Universitymen and women, many of whom took themselves far too seriously and paid the price for it in unnecessary suffering, both physical and ood for the soul If so Elizabeth's soul was obviously as indolent as the rest of her

'Double gin and tonic, please' Elizabeth roused herself to give her order to the air hostess who had bent en­quiringly over her seat

'Miss Lamb?' Belatedly Elizabeth noticed the lack of a trolley Instead the woo, her French accent so her words soundforith me?' Elizabeth froze 'Er—'

'And could you bring your things? Do you have any hand luggage in the overhead carrier?'

Elizabeth shook her head blankly, indicating the handbag and caain 'Is so seat?'