If she could sleep she might have answers when she woke but that was out of the question. She never slept in a public place. Instead, she opened the new paperback she’d bought, anticipated boredom and quickly found it. At least the flight wasn’t full and there was an empty middle seat, allowing her to stretch out her legs.

“Can I get you a beverage?”

Back to civilization, Linda thought. “Diet Coke?”

The steward asked the same question of the woman in the aisle seat then efficiently decanted both sodas. He leaned over to give Linda hers and the woman in the aisle seat helpfully set the accompanying packet of biscuits on Linda’s tray table.

Linda smiled her thanks then braced herself as the woman did the familiar double take.

“You do know that you look like . . .” The woman had a clipped, pronounced Kiwi accent.

“Yes, I know. I’m often told.”

“Oh.” She brushed long, attractively highlighted blond strands behind her shoulder. “I guess that makes me unoriginal. I’ll have to try harder.”

Linda knew her smile was stiff and she tried to soften her response. “Sometimes I’m not sure I even look like me.”

“I’m always told I look like my Aunt Darea. She’s been dead thirty years so I’m never sure it’s a compliment.”

The mask of interest and flirtation slipped easily into place. “Your Aunt Darea must have been an attractive woman.” Even as she spoke, Linda felt herself step back, part of her watching their interchange. She’d done that with Marissa, at first. Then, without even noticing the loss of her detachment, she hadn’t been watching herself with Marissa, she’d been experiencing it.

“Oh, my. And they say Americans are rude and boorish.”

“We are.” Linda stretched slightly in the seat. “Rude, boorish and we suck up more resources per capita than everybody else. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know a gorgeous woman when we see one.”

“Tamryn Messiter.”

“Linda Bartok.” She shook the proffered hand.

“You’re a lesbian.”

“And I’m betting you’re not.” Linda grinned. “Yet.”

“Evil! I shall buy you a drink if you keep that up.”

“Doesn’t that encourage me to suggest you might want to join the Mile High Club?”

The flash of interest in Tamryn’s eyes took Linda aback. Then it felt quite normal to take all the discomfort she felt and channel it to the one thing that would create the greatest distance between her and Tamryn. All Tamryn saw was the legs, the body, the perfect nose. Sex could certainly happen but it would be the mask, the shell that touched Tamryn while the rest of Linda went away. That’s the way it had always been. It was quick and foolproof.

Until Marissa, her body reminded her. Until Marissa—it didn’t matter what Marissa thought or felt or knew or saw. You stayed. You let yourself climax in her arms. Dr. Kirkland would call that a major breakthrough.

The war between her inner pains started again, even as she flirted outrageously with Tamryn. Run away or go to Marissa? Stay with what had always been safe or take a chance that she could find that safe place in Marissa’s arms again? Escape or finally come back?