Burbling notes drew her back into the present. Joan was smiling, her eyes full of altogether too much fun. "I do declare, in another minute or two you were going to frisk that boy and read him his rights. Frisking I could understand. A smile to make you lie right down and die."

Rory found a lump of charred wood to fix his attention on, evidently uncomfortable with women his mother's age- or older-having impure thoughts.

"He was so fishy I thought he was going to sprout gills and swim away," Anna defended herself.

"Aw, he was just shy."

"He was carrying a half-empty frame pack."

"Maybe he lost his day pack."

"It was too full for a day hike."

"Maybe he's a photographer, carrying cameras, tripods, film."

"Maybe," Anna said, but she didn't think so. "Why the big interest in where we were going, where we were camping?"

"Because he's a niceyoung man and niceyoung men pretend to be interested in what their elders and betters are saying. Isn't that right, Rory?"

"That's true," Rory said with such sincerity Anna wanted to laugh but didn't for fear of alienating him.

"See? Proof," Joan said.

Anna didn't say anything. She was getting entirely too crabby over the whole thing. "Are we almost there?" she asked plaintively.

Chapter 3