"She knew he was telling the truth. "We've been a couple of lone wolves, haven't we?" Her irrepressible humour returned. "Do you think we ought to buy...the manual?"He shook his head. "Practical skills are learnt by practice not by words." The persuasive barrister. I suppose I'll just have to submit." She paused. "Often and lots and lots." That sounds fun." Do you think we should have a bit more practice now?"His hands went back to cup her head. Her arms went round his chest and once again their. ..” he stammered. “The Colonel just ... disappeared. Is that thing safe? Is he safe?” Morales asked, reasonably.“He’s her Prime,” Kayla responded with pride. “He might as well be part of her. I suspect that she would destroy Earth itself to keep him safe.”That took a moment for Morales to compute. Then, “But where did that thing come from, and what the hell is it doing here?”Diana turned to him. “She came from Earth. She usually sits, or hovers actually, in what is essentially our back yard. All I could do was keep my head down and not betray their trust in me.Our food arrived and we ate in silence. I wasn’t sure what to say to Theo at this point, and I didn’t know that he could say anything else to me. I was being cut out, and there really wasn’t anything more for Theo to say. When we finished, he paid for our lunches and we walked out of the restaurant.“Keep your head down and your mouth shut,” he said.“You know I will,” I said.He nodded and turned without a word to walk back to. But, spending this much time in a crowded, noisy room could make anyone’s head spin. I needed a breath of air. My friend had a wonderful rose garden in her back yard. She had gotten stonewalls surrounding the garden and a few Victorian benches to lounge in. She even had a stone fountain in the middle of the garden. It was a gift from her husband a short while after they had married. She had told me a fantasy of hers about making love surrounded by flowers and maybe that’s what brought her.