LITMIR.BIZ

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might, she didn’t get the fascination with either sport or the men who played it. Most of them were no doubt here on some trumped-up scholarship and Cassie found that pretty annoying. Why was it that there was no money to support scientific research but somehow there was always cash for another track field?

      Gina sighed as a particularly buff guy leaned over, touching his toes, exposing the backs of his legs, his shorts riding up to reveal a peek at one taut buttock. ‘Now, that is a well put together arse,’ she murmured, her British accent even more pronounced in this very American setting.

      Marnie rolled her eyes. The blonde from the Deep South was as different from the Englishwoman as was possible. She was petite and perky, with an innocence about her that stuck out like a sore thumb next to Gina’s brash sexuality. But Cassie had seen Marnie come out of her shell over the course of the year, much like her, and a lot of that was owed to Gina and Reese’s differing but vibrant influences.

      Reese smiled at Gina indulgently. She’d been doing that a lot this last week, Cassie realised belatedly. Smiling. Gina’s assertion earlier that it had something to do with a certain Marine had been confirmed by Reese’s startling confession that said Marine was the one.

      Imagine that! After a week!

      Sometimes Cassie felt like an alien in their midst, and it was nothing to do with her Australian accent. Even at nineteen they all seemed sophisticated women of the world next to her, introverted geek girl—Marnie included.

      Reese had just dropped the bombshell that she’d fallen in love at first sight, Gina was slowly working her way through the entire eligible—and not so eligible—male population of the United States, and Marnie was sighing over her friend’s big white virginal wedding.

      It was utterly perplexing, but also interesting—from a behavioural science perspective. How much more could her friends achieve if they locked up their hormones and concentrated on their chosen careers like she had? Still, these three women had opened her up to a whole world that she hadn’t been aware of before, and all new experiences were beneficial.

      Back home in Australia she’d led a largely solitary existence. Either at home with her parents, shut in her room and absorbed in some research or other, or at university doing the same thing.

      There’d been no girlfriends. No boyfriends. No late-night drinking or ogling track teams.

      But here at Hillbrook her ‘gal pals’—yes, according to Gina they were gal pals—hadn’t taken her social awkwardness, lack of fashion sense or inept dancing as an excuse. They’d dragged her to nightclubs and frat parties, and to bars where they served cocktails by the jug and Karaoke was King. They’d loaned her dresses and shoes, done her make-up and styled her hair and, most importantly, they hadn’t taken no for an answer.

      She had a lot to thank them for. She would look back on her year in the US as a social experiment, with her as the subject, from which she had collected some very useful data.

      ‘One day, Gina,’ Reese said, interrupting Cassie’s train of thought, ‘you are going to fall hard and fast for some guy, and I hope I’m going to be there to tell you I told you so!’

      Marnie raised her glass. ‘Cheers to that,’ she said.

      Gina scoffed in her very English way with a toss of her glossy dark hair. ‘To hell with that.’

      The others laughed as they returned to their regularly scheduled programming—the track team. Cassie followed suit, smiling at Gina’s running commentary but perplexed by it at the same time. She was deeply thankful that jocks did nothing for her and that she was far too rational to be swayed by hormones.

      Sure, as a scientist she understood that human beings were under the influence of their biological imperative to mate, but she also believed in head over heart. Certainly Gina wouldn’t be in the quandary she was now if she’d been thinking with her brain instead of her ovaries.

      Sleeping with Marnie’s brother Carter last week had really rattled Gina. Cassie was generally fairly oblivious to nuances, but she’d have had to be deaf, dumb and blind to miss Gina’s edginess. Quite why Gina was edgy Cassie had no idea. What was done was done. And it wasn’t Gina who was engaged to be married, was it?

      Which was exactly what she’d told Gina when she’d confessed the transgression to her last week and Gina had sworn her to secrecy.

      It was at times like this that Cassie was glad she’d vowed never to fall victim to love. How could she when she simply didn’t believe in it? And, even if she did, she didn’t have time for the messy, illogical minefield of it all. Not while there was a big universe to study which was infinitely more fascinating than any man.

      A shout of triumph from the track brought Cassie back into the conversation flowing around her.

      ‘Mmm, that’s right, my lovely blond Adonis.’ Gina’s commentary continued. ‘Give your mate a hug, then.’ The men complied, as if Gina had yanked their strings. ‘Ding-dong,’ she cooed on a happy sigh, and Marnie and Reese laughed.

      Cassie watched the display of male camaraderie, rolling her eyes as they high-fived and man-hugged. They reminded her of gorillas. Next they’d be beating their chests and picking nits off each other. One thing was for sure: should she ever drop a hundred IQ points and end up with some man he would never be of the jock variety.

      ‘Tell us about the stars, Cassie.’

      Cassie glanced over at Marnie, whose head was dropped over the back of her chair as she pointed to the first star just visible in the sky. ‘That’s Venus, right…evening star?’

      Cassie smiled. Marnie was forever talking about the night skies over Savannah and had loved having her own personal astronomer at her beck and call. ‘Yep,’ she confirmed, looking at the pinprick of light in the velvet sky.

      ‘Will we be able to see Cassiopeia tonight?’ she asked.

      Cassie shook her head. ‘It’s too light here. When we’re on our road trip we’ll stop at the Barringer Crater in Arizona. We’ll sleep under the stars and I’ll show you then.’

      It was the main reason Cassie was going on the trip. Time with her gal pals would be great, but she’d always wanted to see the crater site formed when a meteorite had ploughed into the earth fifty thousand years ago, and that was her priority.

      ‘You speak for yourself,’ Gina butted in. ‘The only stars the Park Avenue Princess and I are sleeping under are of the five-star variety. Isn’t that right, Reese?’

      Reese nodded. ‘Er…yes,’ she said, looking quickly away and taking another decent slug of her champers.

      ‘Carter proposed to Missy under the stars at the Grand Canyon. Isn’t that romantic?’ she said, her voice dreamy. ‘Our families were on holiday together. Missy and I stayed up all night talking about how wonderful it was.’

      ‘Bless their hearts,’ Gina said, mimicking Marnie’s Southern drawl.

      It had taken Cassie a few months of Gina teasing Marnie over the quaint Southern phrase to realise it could be used to mock as well as to sweeten. Glancing at Gina’s tense profile, she guessed this was one of the mocking times.

      ‘Missy wants a star theme running through the reception,’ Marnie continued ignoring Gina’s sarcasm. ‘She’s spending a small fortune on this gorgeous black drapery that billows from the ceiling and twinkles with thousands of tiny lights…’

      Cassie didn’t really understand why you’d spend good money on creating the illusion of a starry sky when the real thing was up there for free. It certainly didn’t seem to be very effective budgeting. But weddings were as much a mystery to her as the notion of love, so she gave up trying to figure it out.

      She was just going to lounge here with her friends and watch the stars come out.

      One last time.

      ONE

      A

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