When I rejoined the other two the cake stand was empty! Aunt Mary was waxing lyrical about Bonnie Prince Charlie's tea room Apparently the cake stands...were perfect, they did indeed provide 'silver service' and she could hardly find adequate words to describe the waiter. I could have offered to lend her some of my words to describe him but I doubted that my 76-year-old aunt would want to use expressions like 'gorgeous hunk' or 'highly shaggable' so I just kept my mouth shut and left her. The runners were a good bunch and conversation flowed easily. I ended up (yeah, right, I had her in my sights from the start) sitting next to Jennifer in the sand by the fire leaning against a driftwood log talking, drinking some good Pinot Noir, and watching the fire burn. Quite aside from being sweet and friendly, she laughed at my warped sense of humor and held her own in a debate over the future of the Oregon Coast. In fact, she won a small bet with one of the other runners over the names. He had sent one squad, under the command of Captain Sloan, into the city to check defenses and to look for saboteurs. Another squad had been sent to find the ISIS command group, and sow a little discord where possible. The squad with him planned to do the same thing among the ISIS attacking forces. ISIS was a terrorist organization, and they were about to learn what real terror was."It looks like they are setting up positions," Caleb mentally sent to the squad. "Let's go play some games."The. “How are you feeling?” Zel looked back at Mike over her shoulder. Mike had stumbled again, placing his full weight on her withers. He stood still for a few moments, sucking in deep breaths.“Kinda shitty,” he admitted. Already, he had a strong urge to ask her for more of that recovery potion. “I’ll be fine for a few minutes, and then my body just wants to give out.”“That’s your cells going through a refractory period,” Zel explained. “Since your body is regenerating so rapidly, you’ll get hit.