Feeling numb, she called, “Is it okay if I take a shower?”

“Sure, go ahead. The beds are really soft.”

The image of Linda on the bed ought to have sparked something in her hyperactive imagination but something else was churning inside, grinding in a place just behind her heart, too hard to be ignored. The hot spray eased her tight chest and the hotel soap and shampoo washed away the grime and sweat of the night.

What was it that had been in Linda’s eyes that had made her think she was in some way . . . desirable? She looked worse than usual and yet Linda seemed to think there was a reason to look at her. She liked herself as Linda saw her. But that wasn’t the woman in the mirror. Linda didn’t know the real her.

It was harder to look at her body wrapped in an inadequate towel, but this time she made herself take in every bulge and fold. Weren’t they accidents of nature, baggage some unseen demon had hung on her, appearing out of thin air?

I don’t want to be a helpless fat chick for the rest of my life.

She emptied her backpack and was grateful for the comb but ecstatic that most of the things in it were a little damp but had survived. Her mother had advised her to carry fresh underwear, a T-shirt and socks in her carry-on luggage in case her big suitcase went missing and for once Marissa vowed to tell her mother she’d been right.

She felt human when she left the bathroom. But she did not look in the mirror again.

Chapter 4

“This is the life.” Linda’s head lolled back on the pool steps as a soft breeze wafted over them both.

Marissa couldn’t help but study the half-submerged body—she hadn’t thought much about what sculpted meant but she was pondering it now. It wasn’t just the aesthetic beauty that kept her gaze on Linda, but the way Linda seemed to give herself to the water, as if all the anxiety of the last day was seeping out of her, never to return.

“You got that right.” Marissa sat on the edge of the pool, legs dangling in the clear water and wished for some of the calm that Linda seemed to find so easily. Her call home had been distressing and it was taking a little time to shake it off. “I am so glad I bought trip insurance. The lost books alone were worth a fortune.”

“A woman who can read,” Linda commented. “They’re all too rare.”

“There’s routines I’ll set up for the servers to run and while they do that, I read.” Marissa shrugged. “Might as well learn something or have a brief escape.”

“When I was backpacking through parts of the Alps I read the same book fourteen times.”

“Was it a good book?”

“I don’t remember. Some straight romance.” Linda grinned at Marissa’s shout of laughter. “Which probably says a lot about me.”