It fleetingly crossed her mind to pop outside and park the car somewhere else. But that was just a thought in the panic of the moment. For heaven's sake, hadn't he said-no, ordered her to have something to eat? Well, that was exactly what she was doing-obeying orders. He hadn't specified where she should eat, had he?

Yancie was profoundly thankful just the same that the waiter led her and Charlie to a table in a small alcove. At least she was spared having to look at the boss man while she ate. Though that too bothered her because, being unable to see him, she started to feel all on edge that any moment she would feel a hand on her shoulder and hear a cold voice request that she hand over the car keys.

She pushed Thomson Wakefield out of her head and made herself concentrate on Charlie Merrett. She had asked him out to dinner, so the least she could do was to play the game. Though in truth Charlie seemed happy enough just to be there.

'So what have you been doing?' she asked, and the next hour went by with the two of them catching up on the happenings of the last twelve months.

Yancie discovered that, while finding it impossible to lie to a friend, she was avoiding telling Charlie that she had left home and had a job-even though it was highly unlikely that he would bump into her mother and comment on it.

They were tucking into a fine pudding when Charlie looked across the table and suddenly recalled, `You never said what you were doing in my part of the world.'

Yancie took a spoonful of the fruit and meringue concoction while she thought how best to answer. `Someone I know was giving a speech at a conference centre up this way,' she smiled. `It was quite something.'

'That sort of thing-making a speech would terrify me,' he said. `Is your pudding all right?' No wonder they were all so fond of Charlie.

It was about half past ten, when they had drunk the last of their coffee, that Yancie told Charlie how super it was to see him again but that she'd been up early that morning and thought she'd go back to her hotel and her bed.