Romana lit upon a quaint little bookstore off the high street. "Oh, look. This is my favorite bookstore. I used to come here all the time with Mother. We have to go inside, for just a minute. Say you'll come with me." Jordie acquiesced and let Romana lead her inside by a gentle handle on her wrist.

They roused the children and set them up in the designated children's corner where the books were brightly-colored and the titles were all in block letters. Troy was rubbing his eyes under his spectacles, already gravitating toward the history section. Dawn sat on a wooden chair turning the pages of a book about an adventurous teddy bear and his toy animal friends residing in the Hundred Acre Wood. Madeline tucked herself up against Daniel's side whilst he began to read her The Secret Garden from page one.

Romana peeled off, ostensibly to find one of Bronte's works for her private library, and came back with A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. "For you," she said to Jordie, handing her the slender tome.

"Why?"

"I don't know, I suppose everything I read from her makes me think of you."

Jordie looked quickly around the bookstore and only found several other women intently perusing their own prospective purchases. None were paying them any mind.

"You think me an ardent sapphist?" An arrant feminist, surely, but this was a beast of another color.

"I think you're like me, a lover of women. Does the depth of it really matter when we have that in common?"

"Romana, you cannot say that." Jordie's marriage, her children, her freedom depended on her preference for the fairer sex remaining secret.

"I'm only saying it to you." Romana seemed less certain. "Are you going to have me tried and imprisoned?"

"You know I won't."

Romana nodded, tersely, the color of spoiled milk departing her complexion. "You aren't the only one, I told you. You've nothing to fear from me."

Jordie traced the book's leather spine. "I have a copy at home. I keep it in my box of sewing. Elliot wouldn't think to go pawing through there." 'If you can suture a wound, you can stitch a tear,' he said. Jordie loathed him for how his putdowns made mockery of the skills she had worked all her life to attain.

"Then, we'll have to try something new." Romana picked primly through the shelves, leaving behind her a trail of mischief like the scent of freshly baked scones. Jordie tottered, trembling in her wake. "Have you read Radclyffe Hall by any chance?"

Jordie flushed and hurried to shush her. "Romana!"

"I was only curious." Jordie followed her between two discreet shelves where such literature was kept, available but out of easy reach. Conspicuous by its very presence.

"Are you trying to have me arrested?"

Romana regarded her with frustration. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm trying to get you to smile."

Jordie, in her haste to get them out of common sight, had sandwiched Romana between the sparsely populated bookshelf and her own body.

"I'm not sure scaring the life out of me is the way to do it."

She dropped a hand on Romana's shoulder, ostensibly to put space between them though it didn't work out that way. She brought Romana nearer. Her pupils were blown wide. Her breasts brushed Jordie as her breath quickened.

"I'll be more careful."

Jordie gulped. Her hairline prickled with sweat. Her skin felt tight. Romana licked her lips, and Jordie was struck by how close two people could be without being naked or entwined.

"You can't say things like that in public."

Romana fixed her eyes on Jordie's mouth. "All right," she said, though Jordie was certain as the hour of the day was waning that it was anything but.

They took the train home after an early supper. They had a cabin to themselves.

The children slept piled across their adjoining seats like a litter of puppies tumbled into a wicker basket whilst their mothers watched on.

Jordie and Romana took seats side by side. Every inch of Jordie touching Romana seemed to pulse with heat, a fever Jordie yearned for. She played with the hem of her skirt, fiddling with a ragged stitch that would need repairing soon. Romana skimmed a fingertip over the back of her hand. They didn't look at each other, only touched.

"What did you mean when you said you're like me?" Jordie asked Romana.

"I told you."

"Tell me again." She turned up her palm; Romana traced her name into Jordie's skin, over and over, tattoing herself on Jordie in invisible ink.

"Do you remember when I sat beside you in the park and couldn't keep from exclaiming over how beautiful you are?" It was something Romana continued to do. Repetition of her admiration didn't stop Jordie from flustering at it, each time more intensely. What did it mean?

"I thought you were being kind."

Romana's fingers dipped between Jordie's to tickle to sensitive flesh there. Jordie breathed a little faster. Heat prickled the back of her neck.

"How about the time I held your hand during our stroll through the Christmas Market?" Romana had rustled the snowflakes from Jordie's fringe and grabbed her hand to lead her out from the ensuing flurries. They'd drunk hot toddies and giggled like schoolgirls over anything that came to mind. They hadn't let go of each other till it was time to return to their respective homes.

"I thought you were being...friendly?"

"Do you remember when I kissed you outside the BWI, under the mistletoe?" Romana had taken care to check nobody was nearby before bestowing a bevy of kisses on the high arch of Jordie's cheekbone. Jordie had cupped her own cheek, giddy as a child, unwilling to analyze why Romana's kisses made her smile.

"I only thought you were being sweet." She had wanted more than words for there to be more there. She hadn't seen what was there; Romana kept her secrets too well. Perhaps even better than Jordie.

"I'm all sweetness when it comes to you. I was positive you saw right through me." Romana fitted her palm over Jordie's, entwining their fingers in a display of subtle possessiveness that made Jordie ache.

"I didn't see anything." Only what she'd wanted to see, having deluded herself that anything else was fiction.

"We can call it a misunderstanding, if you prefer, and we'll say no more about it." Romana turned to stare out into the darkening day. What little sun there had been was behind them now. "I don't want anything but what we already have." The high colour blooming on her cheeks said otherwise. Her touch said otherwise.

Jordie was different. Jordie couldn't think of a moment since they'd met when she'd been content not to move the goalposts, to claim more ground in Romana's life as Romana had claimed room in Jordie's heart.

"How did you know...that about me? Was it something I did, or said?" She brought their hands to her lips to kiss the delicate skin inside Romana's wrist. There was still a musky hint of perfume. Romana stared at her lips, eyes afire. She swallowed audibly.

"You were...you and I just knew. Jordie, how you'd look at me, touch me. Embrace me. I knew. You didn't have to say anything."

Jordie had been stepping with care since she returned, around the landmines of her memories and Elliot's fury. She had been blown back to the real world, to this fictive bubble of a life she scarcely wanted and could scarcely live. It was all she had before; now, she had Romana.

Jordie pulled the shades down on their cabin windows and drew Romana into her arms.

"Jordie..." Romana went silent at a finger pressed gently to her lips.

"Hush now, the children are sleeping."

When Jordie kissed her, desire pouring forth in roaming hands and near-silent impassioned murmurs, Romana kissed her back. Again. And again. And again

It was a glorious ride home.