"Headache's gone," she replied. "But it may come back."
"Not if I can help it," he told her and she took his arm in hers and squeezed it to show her appreciation. Rolf might be a barbarian, she thought, but he had been kind and helpful.
"Thanks for the crumb anyway," he told her and her confusion grew almost to tears. They rode back to Mother Weedon's in silence.
Because of her fear at finding herself becoming so dependent on Rolf she flirted outrageously with Alan Waters, the team replacement, after dinner. When he followed her out into the garden and told her he was madly in love with her she didn't exactly discourage him. Just then her soul and body alike craved appreciation.
A furious Ray Cornell interrupted their third kiss. He strode through a gap in the hedge-wall and pulled Waters from her roughly and said, "They told me I'd find you two out here."
"What right have you to interfere?" countered Waters.
"This!" snapped Ray, throwing a clumsy punch at his rival, who threw one back in return.
Lynne let out a gasp of alarm and tried to move between them but was brushed rudely to the ground. So hard did she land that for a moment the world seemed to swim.
She shook her head to clear it, felt the alarm gongs she had come to know preceded a return of her headache. Then she saw a third taller male figure take Ray in one hand, Alan in the other and pull them apart by the collars of their bolo packets as if they were a couple of dogs squabbling over a bone.
"You men are supposed to work together," he said quietly. Then, his voice rising a half-tone and increasing in force, "Why in farb don't you?" With which he cracked their heads together with stunning force, tossed them to the turf like a pair of sacks and came over to help Lynne gently to her feet. She collapsed into his arms, for the first time let his lips seek hers, responded to them.