Allie must have caught it too, she quickly switched the station. God I love this woman. But all I wanted so badly right now was to put my boot up Alan...and Miranda's asses.I had had several fistfights with Alan in the past, he seemed to like to pick fights with me. It was not my fault that Aden treated me more like a brother than he did Alan. Alan was never there for him, not even when their mother was dying of cancer. I was there. I left work for a month to be able to help him and his father. "So, I guess we have a new family member?" Mandy asked.I shook my head. "She didn't have my mark. I don't know why either."Mandy looked back at the door as if doing so helped her memory. "You're right. I don't remember seeing your mark on her." She turned back to me. "I mean, she's not exactly small up top," Mandy said off-handedly. It was something she didn't like to think about, the shape of Monique's body. It had never honestly crossed Mandy's mind to want to share a guy with her sister or. . So, what are you doing here? Working on something interesting?”Mark nodded. “I think so. It seems the interface has made a small incremental boost to my access authority. I found a high-level file system for long-term resource planning. I have access to the top folder.”“Oh wow! That sounds useful!”“Yeah, or at least it would be if I had access to any of the sub-folders. There are hundreds of them, and they all have very interesting titles. Unfortunately I’m locked out of everything I’ve tried. Somehow I knew intuitively that he would never leave me, not even when I was old and gray and he was still in his prime. The twenty years that separated us didn't matter. I was totally in love again, when I thought that I would never be. I felt loved again when I was certain that I would never again have a man that loved me unconditionally. Randy had just gone in the kitchen to mix up a batch of spiked eggnog where the doorbell rang softly. It was almost midnight on Christmas Eve. Lousy.