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Those expressive eyes locked onto her face. She hadn't planned on saying it here, like this, but it had come out, just like that. What concerned her wasn't the environment, however, but his transfixed reaction. Had no one ever told him...

Oh God. No one ever had.

Lyda had said no one had ever fallen in love with Noah. Gen had assumed that meant there'd been those who'd said it to him but, like her first two husbands, they hadn't really known what that meant. Or lived up to what it was supposed to mean. Apparently she was the first person who'd ever said it, outside of family.

Dorothy touched him gently. "She's waiting for her drink, boy."

He started as if out of a sleep. Gen took the glass from him, along with the Cheese Nips. Regardless of their audience, she touched his face. She gave him a searching look. "It's okay," she mouthed, because his body blocked her from Dot. Lyda touched his other arm. He looked between them.

"Sit down next to your grandmother," Lyda said in a quiet, firm tone.

The command seemed to knock him back on his axis, but as he sank down on the ramp next to Dot, his gaze remained on Gen, his thoughts obviously a confused snarl. Dot laid a deformed hand on his shoulder, stroked the hair at his temple.

"You keep hanging out with them," she said. "I think they're pretty good for you."

*

They left Dorothy with plans to meet the following night for the walk Noah had warned them about. As they walked down the hill, Noah was quiet. So was Gen.

His reaction to her declaration had shifted things off the third member of their relationship, such that Lyda had never been required to answer the same question. But Lyda kept her own counsel on emotions that strong, and wasn't likely to be called out on them until she was good and ready. Gen wasn't sure if Lyda was the type of person who would say it at all. If she felt it, she'd probably express it a different way.

Would she be the type to show a permanent commitment with a collar? The way he'd reacted to Gen saying she was in love with him made her wonder if a gesture like that from Lyda might help resolve some of Noah's "choice" issues. Lyda had made it clear she preferred action to words, and that probably applied to symbols as well. But Noah might be worth a different strategy, right? Or Gen could be using pop psychology on a deeply rooted psychosis, a recipe for disaster.

"Chairlift," Lyda said, pointing at it. "We'll have dinner afterward."

Gen tuned in to the distant contraption. Wires strung between towering poles funneled the colorful chairs up and down the mountain backdrop for the town. When they'd been sitting with Dorothy, they'd watched the continuous loop, people carried up to the overlook and down again.

"Um...I'm not great with heights."

"You'll be with us, rabbit," Lyda said, unconcerned. "You'll be fine."

"So when the cable snaps, you'll use your super-Domme powers to fly us out of harm's way. Or Noah will parasail us safely to the ground with his shirt."

"Absolutely," Lyda responded. "Don't be such a girl."

"I am a girl. So are you."

"Thank God," Noah said. Gen glanced his way. It was his first attempt at levity since they'd left Dot's. Meeting Lyda's gaze, Gen saw the veiled message there. We need to loosen him up a little.

Fine. But a chairlift? She'd said she was in love with him. She wasn't sure if she was that in love with him.

"I'll do it if you both hold my hand the whole way. That includes you," she said to Lyda. "No playing the Domme card."

"Pussy."

"Yeah, I have one. You seem to like it."

Noah snorted. Lyda narrowed her eyes, though Gen saw her lips quiver. "Watch yourself. That cable isn't the only thing that can snap on your ass."

They returned to their cottage, retrieved the car and drove down the hill, working through the main strip traffic to get to

a parking area for the ride, which Noah pointed out was called Sky Lift. Gen found she preferred the generic term of chairlift, since "Sky Lift" only emphasized she was leaving solid earth to ride it.

After they paid for their ride, they hit another snag. "Only two adults per chair," the operator said, with apologetic courtesy.

Standing at the base, staring up the side of the mountain, Gen was all for using that as her escape card, letting Lyda and Noah go without her. She'd provide moral support with her feet on the ground. Lyda slid her arm through Noah's. "Can't you tell he's our child? His ass, superior though it is, probably isn't wider than a twelve-year-old's."

The operator gave a nervous chuckle, as flustered by Lyda's beauty as anything else with testosterone, but shook his head. "As much as I'd like to let you all go up all together, logistically it doesn't work. I can put one of you in the chair right ahead or behind, though. Whichever you prefer."

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