"Don't quote me back to myself. Sometimes they do and sometimes they evolve mutant defects of their own."

"You're going to list for me your mutant defects now?"

"No patience, a sarcastic tongue, poor impulse control, and I smoke. I wish I had a cigarette right now. I know it's a filthy habit, you don't have to tell me."

"I wasn't going to."

"I've quit twice. I'm a backslider. And a dilettante. I have no stick-to-it-ivity. I can't finish my dissertation. I can't hold a job. I can't stay in one place for longer than a few months. I'm a flibbertigibbet."

"My phrase book's not handy. Help me out."

"Flighty and...flibberti...I don't know. Flighty."

He smiled. "I've known you were a flight risk from the first day we met."

Her eyes followed a ship pulling away from Kusadasi, embarking for Patmos or Kos or Rhodes, maybe even Alexandria or Beirut. Places she'd never been. She turned back to Thor. "I hate lutefish."

"Lutefisk."

"Whatever. And aquavit. It makes my teeth hurt."

"Akevitt is mother's milk to a Norwegian, but it's not a deal breaker."

"Small things matter," she said. "They add up."

"If you list them one by one, they do." He replenished her wine. "You haven't mentioned that you tend to jabber quite a lot, especially when you drink red wine."

She scowled. "I'm serious, Thor. I've crossed lines you wouldn't cross, done things you wouldn't approve of."

"What things?"

"I don't know. Broken faith, shirked duties, lacerated feelings." She drew the line at telling him about her Uncle Cleon's drug money in Panama. "I've lacerated a lot of feelings."

"Now you're bragging. Why are you running yourself down like this?"

"Before you ask a person to live with you, you should know. And you were right when you said I lied. I lie all the time."

"But not to people you care about, as I recall. I think I can live with the problems you've enumerated so far. Are there others?"

"One other and it's a doozie." She took a large swallow of red wine. "You'll have to rent a two bedroom apartment in Berlin. I've told K.D. she can hang with me for a while if her mother agrees to let her miss a year of school."

"Even after the kid lied to you about not being able to return to Atlanta because her mother had gone to Switzerland?"

"Particularly after that. I'm not the best role model, but I may be the best she can find in the short term."

"The short term seems to be your forte." His eyes grew serious. "Look, Dinah, I'm not dragooning you. This has to be because you want it, too."

This was it. Now or never. A bubble of fear floated up from her innermost depths. She flashed to what he'd said about her being the least cautious person he'd ever met. Maybe it was true. She closed her eyes and thought about Geronimo jumping his horse off a four hundred foot bluff into the unplumbed depths of Medicine Creek. Sometimes you have to take the plunge. If she didn't, she'd be asking herself "what if" for the rest of her life.

"Okay," she said. "Let's give Berlin a whirl."

More from this Author.

For other books, upcoming author events, or more information please go to: www.poisonedpenpress.com/Jeanne-Matthews.

end.