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all right," he said quietly, picking up her left hand.
    "Why do you say that?" she asked, puzzled by the sudden solemn look on his face. Then she followed his gaze to her hand. There on her third finger was a very definite strip of untanned flesh. Now, why didn't I see that before? she wondered in confusion. It was apparent that until recently She had been wearing a ring on that finger. Third finger, left hand. The wedding ring finger.
    Married! The thought settled heavily on her brain like a dark, ominous cloud and suddenly, for the first time, she was frightened.
    She didn't want to be married. Ever since she had come fully awake yesterday she had been filled with the most delicious sense of freedom. She felt alive and open . . . and free. She didn't want to give that up. The thought of being tied to—of being controlled by—some faceless man from the darkness of her past was untenable.
    Her chaotic thoughts didn't allow for her possibility that she could have cared for the unknown man. She only knew that she had enjoyed the experiences of her last two days, that they were the only past she cared to remember. She had no wish to trade the instability of her known world for whatever beckoned to her from the threshold of yesterday.
    Staring down at her finger, she saw that the strip of flesh was lighter in color—as though the missing ring had been a part of her for a long time.
    She rubbed at the spot, reluctantly at first, then with a growing urgency, as if she could wipe out the disturbing evidence somehow.
    Lifting her head slowly, she stared at the man seated across from her, her eyes wide. "No," she whispered. Then, raising her chin belligerently, she quickly placed her napkin on the table and stood up.
    "I've changed my mind. I don't want you to find out who I am." Smiling politely, she took the remaining breadsticks and shoved them into her pocket, then murmured, "Thank you for the lunch and your time," as she passed him on her way out of the cafe.

Three
    For one stunned moment, Ben simply sat and watched her walk away. Then he forced his limbs into action, swearing violently under his breath when he saw the line in front of the cash register. Reaching impatiently around a startled young couple, he thrust a bill into the cashier's hand, then moved quickly out of the cafe.
    Glancing up and down the street, he searched the sidewalks and felt the muscles in his throat constrict unexpectedly when he saw no sign of the beige trench coat. Then suddenly, at the end of the block, a group of teenagers moved away from the display window of a small pawnshop. He felt the emptiness that had been settling on him lift as he spotted the unmistakable coat and the glint of sunshine on her golden hair.
    "Sunshine!" he called when she began to walk away. "Sunny, wait!"
    Running to catch up with her, he watched as she bent to pick up something from the sidewalk, then turned back to the pawnshop.
    "Wait," he said again as he reached her, almost breathless.
    God, he thought in disgust, I've got to get more exercise. Six months ago the short sprint wouldn't have taken anything out of him. He leaned against the brick wall beside her until the stitch in his side eased, watching her watch him.
    "What in hell do you think you're doing?" he said finally, annoyed at the reminder that he was out of shape, annoyed at the way he had reacted to the thought of losing her, and—unreasonably— annoyed that he was thirty-nine and she was twenty-five at most. "Do you think you can spend the rest of your life sleeping in bus stations and depending on strangers to feed you?"
    "I'll think of something," she said, glancing away from him to stare curiously at the pawnshop window. "Like I said before—I no longer require the services of a private investigator."
    "That's good because I'm not." He held himself stiff, waiting silently for her to react to his blunt admission, but for a moment she didn't seem to take the words in.
    She studied the window in