Chapter One

       The man startled Morgan, coming up beside her to match her pace, reducing the length of his stride to compensate for his longer legs. Her headphones had masked the sound of his footfalls, and she had been too preoccupied to be aware of anyone behind her. The running path was usually hers alone at this hour, when most souls were still snug in their beds or putting on the coffee pot. Few were willing to brave the cold dawn. Winter was coming, and the ranks of fair weather joggers, so resolute in April, had thinned with the autumn leaves.

       She shot him a look devoid of either challenge or allure, and kept her headphones on to discourage conversation. She didn’t care to race, and she wasn’t interested in hearing his well rehearsed pickup line. Her morning runs had always been a time of solitude and meditation, and she needed those things more than ever now.

       He just grinned back and cocked a finger in the air by way of greeting, then looked straight ahead and held his place beside her, not close enough to be threatening, but disinclined to renounce his post position.

      All right, she thought,I know how this game is played.

       As a child, she had often annoyed her older brother Robby with the echo game, imitating every one of his words and gestures. The game was the most fun for her when he became exasperated and began to threaten. Then she would shout his own words right back at him.

       “Stop that!”

       “I’m telling Mom!”

       “I mean it!”

       “It’s not funny anymore!”

       Eventually he found a way to defeat her. As soon as she began the game, her brother would drop to the ground and start doing pushups. She was a strong girl, but more than two or three ‘boy- style’ pushups, with only her toes and palms on the floor, were beyond her ability.

       Game over.

       That had been years ago, of course, when Robby was healthy.

       But running was her forte, and this cocky Lothario was about to learn a lesson. She guessed that he was new to jogging, his sweats had a fresh pressed look, and his shoes were barely scuffed. Perhaps he had seen her here on other mornings, and thought that this would be a clever way to meet her. She dismissed the thought as paranoia. She didn’t regard herself to be beautiful enough to merit a stalker, especially one handsome enough to meet women without subterfuge. Anyway, tending bar taught her to see trouble coming, and this one ranked low on the creep scale.

       So she would test his stamina and see what price her companionship was worth.

       It was three miles around the lake, an easy enough run at a moderate pace. The course was mainly level. A busy street paralleled the path on the left, with condos beyond. On the right was only water. She had been taking it easy, wanting to make the run last, but was capable of much more. So she picked up speed, and smirked as she saw him begin to drop back.

       Her triumph was brief. In a moment he erased her lead and drew alongside.

      All righty then!

       She stretched out her long legs, relaxing into the long lope that had served her so well in her competitive years. At such times, she felt as though she were being drawn forward by an invisible force, and the rhythmic slap of her feet against the earth was merely a metronome ticking off the miles. The music swelled in her earphones, carrying her along. It was a new age mix, heavy on the wind chimes and Gregorian chants, but selected for its steady beat. 

       Her companion drifted away from her side momentarily, as they purled past a fat man grinding along on a bicycle, then they flowed together again. She glanced at her silent companion, expecting to see him sweating and laboring to keep up, and was annoyed by the indifferent ease of his stride.

       A test of endurance began. Many runners could match this pace for a few hundred yards, but oxygen starved muscles eventually lose strength and falter. She expected to outlast him easily, yet they strode on for more than a mile, arms pumping, plumes of steam exploding from their mouths and trailing in their wake.

       As they made the last turn, she could see her finish line ahead, the bench where she had stripped away her sweatshirt and dropped it beside her water bottle and towel, ignoring the chill air on her bare arms, knowing that the run would warm her. When she saw the gym bag beside her gear,his gym bag, she reacted with a hitch in her stride, as she thought again of the possibility that this meeting had been no accident.

       Taking advantage of her moment of hesitation, the man began to sprint.

      Cocky bastard! She had nearly convinced herself that he had reached his limit, that pure stubbornness was allowing him to keep up with her. It was daunting to know that he still had unsuspected reserves.

       But so did she.

       Grimacing, she shifted into overdrive, feeling the thrust of her hips as they transformed each step into a bound. Just before he reached the bench, she flanked him, and was gratified to see his surprised sidelong glance.

       Laughing like a schoolgirl, she slapped a hand on the back off the bench and slid to a halt.

       For a time, neither of them spoke. They just paced and gulped air and grinned at each other, sharing the rush of oxygenated blood and endorphins pumping through their bodies. He was a good looking guy, after all, and she was slightly ashamed that she hadn’t spoken to him yet. She slipped the headphones off and draped them over her shoulders, threading her ponytail through the metal head band and fluffing her hair a bit, then abandoning the effort when she realized that she was unconsciously primping. As though to mock her, the music took on a romantic character, lush with strings and piano. She could still hear its ironic whispering.

       Angel on the right shoulder, devil on the left  her mother used to say.

       “Shall we call that a draw?” he said at last.

       She shrugged magnanimously, “Fair enough.”

       He opened his gym bag and brought out a towel, mopping his brow as he extended a hand. “Brian Boison,” he said.

       She stopped with her hand halfway up.

       “THE Brian Boison?”

       He let his hand drop. “I’m flattered that anyone remembers.” Morgan detected the accent then, that sort of mid-Atlantic polyglot only jet setters speak. He had roots in France and England, but the U.S. had awar