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the collision.
    Her voice wouldn’t come. She swallowed a few times and cleared her throat and was finally able to reply.
    “It’s okay. No problem. I wasn’t watching where I was going either.” The woman didn’t say anything more but smiled at her, maintaining eye contact even after she was almost behind her. A warm pulse tickled down Elizabeth’s spine.

    After fixing a light lunch, Elizabeth changed into her swimsuit, grabbed a towel, sunscreen, and the latest bestseller, and headed to the beach. Other than her trip to the grocery store that morning she had nothing exciting on her agenda today except soaking up the sun.
    Settling into a lounge chair and making sure every exposed inch of flesh was covered with SPF 30, she let her mind drift back to the surfer in Safeway. Her eyes were bold, almost brazen, as if saying, “I know you are and you know I am, so do we intend to do anything about it?” Elizabeth had remained where she was for several more seconds before another shopper jostled her and she moved to finish her shopping. As much as she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about the woman, her athletic body, and the confidence that filled the air around her. Elizabeth was completely attracted to her. Interesting.
    The sun was high in the sky and she adjusted her sunglasses. She wasn’t paying much attention to the people around her, but a group of kids in the water with surfboards caught her eye. They were obviously having a lesson, the instructor’s back to her. Even thirty yards away she knew it was the same woman. The one from last night and again in the grocery store today. It was a small island and simply coincidence that they kept running into each other. But her skin tingled.
    The woman spent an equal amount of time with each child with what appeared like words of encouragement and instruction, as well as heaps of praise when they accomplished what they had set out to do. The woman had more patience than she would in a similar situation, the lack thereof typically getting her into trouble. Patience with children was definitely not one of her strong suits.
    Throughout grade school, college, graduate studies, and her PhD exams and dissertation, she planned and accomplished each phase with complete determination. She thought out every step of the way almost ad nauseam before she took the next one. As a result, she was a nationally known scholar in seventeenth-century history, and she frequently received calls from other universities inquiring about her interest in joining their academic institutions.
    In the beginning she was flattered that people were seeking her out. In her typical methodical way she outlined the pros and cons of each offer, and several times went as far as visiting the campus and the surrounding area. Most of the times her decision to stay at Embers College was easy, but several times the pros almost outweighed the cons. Those decisions were the difficult ones. Her analytical brain told her one thing but her gut said something different.
    She liked living in Essington, a small town in eastern New Hampshire. She loved her job, the energy of the students almost palpable whenever she walked down the hall. She had a few good friends and many acquaintances, and she had worked hard to build what she considered a pleasant life.
    Sometimes when she saw a couple holding hands or sharing a coffee over breakfast at the corner café, she wondered if she was missing the desire gene or passion vein or whatever drove someone to be totally infatuated with another human being. As an academic she studied people and intellectually knew the body’s reaction and chemical reaction to someone. But she hadn’t really experienced it. She had been attracted to someone and had acted on it often, but she had never been totally consumed by a woman, experienced an overwhelming need to be with her, know everything about her, breathe her air.
    She had to have a much lower sex drive than her friends, at least