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obligations to pursue research was another nail in thecoffin of her growing distaste. In truth, she no longer had any interest in clinical psychology
or
teaching, so her dissertation topic was now irrelevant. Both fields were too repetitious, too mundane for Allie. No, what excited Allie was the prospect of investigating the mind itself and its limitless capabilities, every day, creating and congealing theories, confirming or disproving them, discovering what’s really there. Sadly, she’d just figured this out and had already completed the bulk of her course work, mostly on the clinical side. The seminal event in her change of heart had been a guest lecture on the unexplored powers of the mind. It had focused on dreams, their source and meaning, and how they happen. Her takeaway was that the experts know next to diddly-squat about what goes on in the mind, and the rest is either unproven theory or so up-in-the-ether it’s too abstract and tenuous to congeal into even rudimentary theory. How neat, she’d thought, that’s what I want to do. But it was too late. Yeah, she thought, the dream part was really stimulating, but I can’t remember who the lecturer was. Dreams . . . dreams. Hmm . . . neat stuff. Who were those people? That girl was sure pretty, and for some strange reason, I felt close to her.
    Well, what the hell. Guess I better get on with this. She picked up the top book and opened it to the table of contents. This is gonna suck.

    Allie’s finger shook as she dialed Erik’s cell. She pushed the
send
button and a second later, the
end
button. Do I really want to do this? She took a deep breath. Yes, I owe it to him. She hit
send
twice, held the phone to her ear.
    After the fourth ring, Erik’s voice said, “Hi, this is Erik. Can’t talk right now, please leave a message.”
    Allie waited five seconds, then pushed
end
.
    Two hours later she tried the number again, heard the voicemail click on. Okay, what am I gonna say? “Hi, Erik, it’s Allie. Wish I wasn’t talking to your voicemail, but I guess you’re tied up . . . wanted to tell you I’ve felt really lousy all day . . . because of the way I treated you lastnight . . . and . . . and I’m sorry, really sorry . . . give me a call when you can. I’d like to tell you in person . . . bye.” So there! Done!
    An hour later, when Allie emerged from the shower, she heard her voicemail chime. She grabbed a towel, quickly dried herself, rushed naked into the bedroom, grabbed the phone, and speed-dialed voicemail.
    The first message was from her mother. “Allie, been looking for your call. Want to visit some more. Call me when you can. Bye.”
    The second message was from Erik. “Hi, Allie. I’m not in the mood to talk to you right now. You really pissed me off last night . . . came across like you don’t give a shit. I know it wasn’t
all
your fault. But you made it f’ing clear you don’t want anything to do with me. So I’m outa here. You can find someone else. Maybe we can talk again someday. The pits of it is, I really like you and—” The recorder clicked off.
    She ended the call, sat on the bed, put the phone on the bedside table, then stared at the floor while tears slowly trickled over her lower eyelids, ran haltingly down her cheeks, and spilled onto the floor. Way to blow it, O’Shay . . . dingbat! He’s a good man, really like him . . . but he’s right . . . maybe with more time. She rolled under the comforter and onto her stomach, hugged the pillow, moaned. She felt mentally drained, numb, tired, ready to sleep. Wonder if I’ll . . .

Chapter 3

    T he pinnace had arrived shortly after first light, unloaded more people and baggage, then taken Governor White back to the ship to parley with Fernandez. Before leaving, the governor had instructed the colonists to collect the baggage then begin repairing damaged cottages and building new palisades in case his mission with Fernandez was unsuccessful. Emily, George, and twenty other