Well, I guess it won’t be that bad, she muses. This thing starts at quarter to seven and it should be wrapped up by no later than nine. After I chas... the kids out of here, I can find a real party to go to! Plus, the caterers are going to set up everything, so it’s minimal work for me. The wine is already casting her plight in a warmer, softer glow. They’re good kids, and I already know most of them. Heck, I’m on a first name basis with most of them! A little rowdy, maybe, but typical teenagers.. Ginger was still sitting in the seat beside me completely topless. It was still disappointing to me that there weren’t more cars on the highway.We drove past Banks Lake on our left and vertical, thousand-foot rock walls on the right. At one point, we stopped and looked up the bluff at another dry waterfall, a tiny draw coming down the rocks with a deep V in the stone just past a little flat spot, no doubt from heavy thunderstorms. It was really cool-looking. Would be magnificent with water. Derek had been her first – her first kiss, her first love . . . her first lover. Being wrapped in his arms again was like coming home. Her cell phone rang and Derek set her down. She grabbed the phone out of her purse and looked at the display. ‘Sorry, I’d better get this. It’s my mother. I called her and left her a message saying to call me. She’ll be worried if she can’t reach me.’ She felt like she was babbling so she accepted the call and started picking up her packages as she spoke, ‘Hi,. And she now knew that I know that she knew it.Gods what a mess.The room was quiet, while she considered her options. I relaxed into the chair while she thought. I liked her, she was honest and true, but her Empress or Mage Guildmaster screwed her, over leaving her to deal with the fallout.“If you didn’t want me to come here all you had to do was say so. It’s not like any of the other countries wouldn’t welcome me. I have killed no one since I came here nor harmed anyone that hadn’t come at me.