Free You Can't Run From Love by Kate Snowdon

to the College of Art.” She narrowed her eyes at Jess. “I always thought farmers’ sons were more than happy to take a young girl’s flower?” She batted her eyelids.
    Jess laughed. “Flower, my God, I haven’t heard that term in years.” She looked seriously at Rachel. “You’re right. There were plenty of boys more than willing, but no…” Jess stopped. “Next to no girls. What’s your excuse?”
    Rachel nodded. There was something more in that pause of Jess’s. “The same. College was much more liberating.” She smiled at Jess, “I had guessed, well I was ninety-nine point nine percent certain.”
    Jess raised a querying eyebrow. “Really? I have to say I was pretty sure too. I mean about you. But it’s not something you go around asking.” She grinned. “And I have been known to get it wrong. Not good.”
    Rachel laughed and shook her head. She looked at Jess. “You don’t have to answer this, but can I ask you something?”
    “Yes,” Jess replied a little cautiously.
    “You said—next to no girls.” Rachel again saw that distant, even sad look. But as before, it was fleeting.
    Jess smiled softly. “Her name was Kirsty. I suppose it is like many stories. We were fourteen and unaware until then that you could be attracted to another girl instead of a boy. We’d known each other since kindergarten.” Jess chuckled. “The term lesbian I hadn’t even heard of, until Julie mentioned it afterward.” Jess smiled again. “Neither of us knew what to do about being in lust with another girl. It never went very far.” Jess remembered their few kisses and a little fumbling, then their embarrassed looks.
    “Was she your first love then?”
    “Yes and the last.”
    “Oh.”
    Jess chuckled at Rachel’s expression. “It’s not how it sounds. I’m not pining with a broken heart, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Jess suddenly felt anxious.
    “What happened?”
    “Um. I’m afraid she died.”
    “Oh, Jess, I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be. You can be for Kirsty, but not for me. It was a long time ago.”
    “Still, it can’t be easy.” Rachel thought of Jess’s family.
    “Actually, I dread to think where she might be now, if she had lived. She knew how to live life then.”
    “So you don’t think it would have lasted?” Rachel smiled. Jess was obviously trying to stop any gloom arising.
    “No. I might have got started earlier, but she would have soon gone on to pastures new. Even then, Kirsty wasn’t planning on staying around here.”
    “And you were?”
    “I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Why would I? Everything I want and enjoy out of life is here.”
    Rachel couldn’t argue with that, she couldn’t see Jess anywhere else either. She sighed.
    “So, a long-term relationship, is that something that has just eluded you, or is it because you don’t want one?”
    Jess sucked in a breath, she’d been given a reminder, and now a lifeline had been thrown. She had to make her position clear. Then without warning her mind betrayed her, conjuring up an image of closing the gap and easing Rachel to the ground and taking her slowly, over and over again. The heat rose so quickly throughout her body, she shook her head in an attempt to divert the throb that was settling at her center. Sighing heavily she said what she wanted to say. “No I have never wanted one and I can’t see that ever changing.”
    Rachel saw a multitude of emotions cross the face in front of her; apprehension, annoyance, resignation and unmistakably desire. She’d hoped that maybe Jess just hadn’t found the right person and at that moment in time, she felt it could easily have been her. The reply when it came was such a disappointment, not what she was expecting. She couldn’t believe her reaction to the admission either—she was too old to waste any more time on playgirls. Rachel was a master at masking her feelings. Something she had perfected over the years. “Well Jess, you’re honest if