nearby car.

She knew who it was before she turned, and paused to light a cigarette before she approached the other car.

"Hello, Clare," she said qui-

etly.

"Hello, Dana. I was hoping you'd come out. I've been waiting a long time."

"Why didn't you come in? You'd have been welcome."

"No. No, I wouldn't have. And I was afraid-"

"Afraid, Clare?"

"Afraid that if I did go in, I'd never come out."

Dana drew deeply on her cigarette and stared at the flashes of lightning. Then she rested her arms on the open window of the car, her lean face close to Clare's.

"It's that bad?" she asked softly.

Clare rubbed her hands over her face wearily. "No, not really. Not after today. Dana, I-I wanted to see you before I left. I wanted to thank you for-"

"Don't, Clare. I'm only sorry I didn't understand sooner. If I had, maybe I could have-"

"Beaten Kovac for me, too? Maybe you could have, at that. But Kovac doesn't matter, Dana. Not now-not the way it turned out."

"No, Kovac doesn't matter. I'm still-where are you going, Clare?"

"I don't know. That doesn't matter, either. The coast, maybe." Clare turned her head and her lips rested against Dana's cheek very lightly. "I think I ought to be able to find someone like

Toni on the coast, don't you?" she whispered huskily against the dark, warm skin.

Dana did not move at all, she felt as though one of the jagged. forks of lightning had pinned her to the ground.

She

She hadn't understood. hadn't even begun to understand. And it had all been so simple.

With a tenderness that had nothing at all to do with Clare Emerson, she took the familiar and once loved face between her big hands and kissed the trembling lips.

"Yes," she said gently, "I think you'll be able to find someone. like Toni on the coast."

Dana had barely reached the doorway of the roadhouse when the rain came down in wind-whipped torrents. She stood for a moment looking out into it, watching the blurred lights of Clare's car fade swiftly down the road. When she could no longer see them she became aware of the blue nostalgia of an old song being played on the juke box inside. The noisy voices had stopped, and for a moment there was only the sound of the haunting old melody and the pelting rush of the rain. Toni Carver appeared beside her.

"Never mind, Dana, you can't win them all," she said.

Dana put her arm around the girl's slim waist and drew her close. She looked down at the dark face and her heart turned over as it always did when she looked at this girl.

"No, Toni, you can't win them all," she said. "But someone always wins. And sometimes, strangely enough, quite a number of people do.

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