Training Days Read Free

shifted to face her fully. This was not the first time she had been beguiled by an accent. It was one of her failings, and a path her globetrotting career led her down many times. She nodded, noting the woman gave her a quick once-over before returning her gaze. Morgan answered the unspoken “I’m interested” with a sultry stare. “Very Aussie.”
    At that moment Mark, reeking of tobacco smoke, appeared at Morgan’s side. “Thanks, Mogs.” He reached around her for his beer, which was still sitting on the bar. “What’s very Aussie?”
    “We were just talking about our ‘no worries’ saying.” Morgan took a sip of her vodka and cranberry, discreetly checking the Frenchwoman’s reaction to the interruption. As feared, she totally misinterpreted Mark’s presence. The woman’s eyes flicked from Morgan to Mark and immediately her demeanor changed, tightening and closing.
    The little cardboard cup of espresso was held up. “I must go to my place. The coffee—it gets cold.”
    Morgan nodded a good-bye and dismally watched the woman fade into the crowd.
    “What?” Mark asked when Morgan glowered at him. Then he said, “Oh,” as he realized he had interrupted something. He slapped Morgan on the back and leaned toward her. “Just as well I came when I did then. Don’t forget where we are.”
    “I know, I know.” Morgan sighed a heavy sigh. The Australian-made closet she lived in to protect her public persona sure put the reins on her love life. “Come.” She downed her vodka and cranberry in a series of swallows and placed the empty glass onto the bar. “Let’s go mingle.”
    Forty minutes later and Morgan was desperate for a toilet break, the diuretic qualities of her drink of choice taking effect as she finished her third vodka and cranberry for the day. She excused herself from her present company—a very sweet old married couple from Adelaide—and worked her way through the crowd to Mark, who was in the process of protecting the galaxy from deadly invaders. After being stopped twice by people who had met her briefly and now assumed they had best-friend status, she finally made it to the bank of video games.
    She tapped Mark on the shoulder, told him she would see him at dinner and headed out of the carriage in the direction of the nearest toilet. To her dismay, but not to her surprise, it was engaged. A sign pointed to alternate facilities in the next carriage, so Morgan continued on.
    It too was occupied. Morgan figured the farther she moved from the lounge car, the more likely she would find a free toilet. She passed through to what was the first of the upright seating carriages.
    “What does a girl have to do to take a pee ’round here?” she muttered on discovering that, yet again, the toilet was occupied.
    She was at the stage of need where she’d have to cross her legs if she waited in the one spot, so she made one more desperate flee to the next carriage. The toilet was vacant. She ducked in.
    A few minutes later, with her kidneys now taken care of, Morgan was able to give her immediate surrounds a bit more attention. The seats were like those of most modern long-distance trains. They looked remarkably similar to airplane seating, and with not too much more leg room. Many of the seats in this particular carriage were littered with reading matter, rugs, pillows and other nonvaluable oddments that indicated they were occupied but temporarily vacated. Morgan surmised the passengers were either crowded into the lounge or diner cars, or trawling up and down the narrow corridors, stretching their legs.
    Morgan checked the number on the carriage door to see exactly where she was. Carriage four. Since she had been steadily moving toward the front of the train, that meant seat number twenty-seven in the next carriage was home for camera-wielding Marge. It was too close to dinnertime to become ensconced in another difficult-to-escape conversation, so Morgan retraced her steps. She would be passing