Her heart began to pound. She ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip and inhaled deeply as her coach emerged from a break in Alpine mountain range. She approached her destiny. She'd never been surer of anything. On the opposite bench seat, an older man in a dignified gray houndstooth greatcoat stared at her mouth then into her eyes. A thrill of challenge raced through her, and she refused to look away. She sent him a suggestive smile and swallowed a chortle of delight when his pale face went red. Beside him, a middle-aged woman sent Amelia a scathing scowl then squeezed the man's arm. The chortle made a second attempt into Amelia's throat, but she kept her lips closed to keep it from escaping. Yasmine would be scandalized by my boldness. The coach tipped onto the mountain-pass road into the Rift River Valley. They passed through a cloudbank and came out the bottom into bright sunlight. Each minute of their steep descent saw a rise in temperature by a full degree. By the time they reached green, flowering hills outside her friend's town, Amelia was desperate to get out of her cloak.
