“How’d you ever talk Bess into it?” Ned asked. “Lost River must be hundreds of miles from the nearest Neiman-Marcus.”

Nancy dipped into a bowl of popcorn that Hannah had made for them before she’d gone to bed. “It wasn’t easy,” she admitted. She looked at Ned. He was wearing his light brown hair a little longer than usual and his face was darkly tanned. She wondered if he had been spending time at the college swimming pool-and if so, whether he’d been alone or…

She put her hand on his arm. “How about you?” she asked softly. “Could I talk you into a white water trip?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. As in you and me. And George and Bess, too, of course.”

Ned pretended to look stunned. “I-I hardly know what to say. This is all so sudden. I…” Grinning, he ducked the pillow that Nancy tossed at him. “Yeah, sure, I’ll go, Nan. Summer school will be over next week, and I won’t have anything else to do.”

“Well, I must say you don’t sound all that wild about it.”

Ned’s grin faded. “I guess I’m just surprised,” he said quietly. “Let’s face it, Nancy. We’ve seen each other only two or three times in the last couple of months, and even then I was taking you away from your detective work-from something I felt you’d rather be doing. In fact, during a couple of your recent cases, I’ve gotten the idea that I wasn’t a very important part of your life. We’ve patched things up, but who can tell whether the patch is going to be permanent? After all, maybe you’ve changed in the way you feel about me.”

Nancy swallowed painfully, remembering how she had felt during the Flash case when she had seen Ned holding Sondra in his arms, when they had learned that Sondra’s brother Mick was in trouble. “I guess that’s a logical conclusion,” she said, “but it’s not the right one. I know I’ve been awfully busy, but that doesn’t mean you’re not important to me, Ned.” She leaned back against the sofa pillows and clasped her hands behind her head. “You’re so important to me that I can sort of relax knowing you’ll be around, without having to worry about it a whole lot.”