"Check. We'll have to, if we expect to get any work done."
Belle could not conceal her surprise.
"Oh, not for the reason you think," Garlock went on, quickly. "Your record as a man-killer is still one hundred point zero zero zero percent. I've been in love with you ever since we paired. Before that, even."
"Flapdoodle!" she snorted, inelegantly. "Why, I...."
"Keep still a minute. And I'm not going to fight with you again. Ever. I'm not going to touch you again until I can control myself a lot better than I could last night."
"Oh? That was mostly my fault, of course. But in love? Uh-uh, I've seen men in love. You aren't. I couldn't make you be, not with the best I could do. Not even in bed. You aren't, Clee—if you are, I'm an Australian bushman."
"Perhaps I'm an atypical case. I'm not raving about your perfect body—you know what that is like already. Nor about your mind, which is the only one I know of as good as my own. Maybe I'm in love with what I think you ought to be ... or what I hope you will be. Anyway, I'm in love with something connected with you—and with no other woman alive. Shall we go eat?"
"Uh-huh—let's."
They joined Lola and James at the table; and if Lola noticed anything out of the ordinary, she made no sign.
And after breakfast, in the Main—