Free The Importance of Being Alice by Katie MacAlister Page A

shown her around, let her see the interesting side of Holland rather than a dry, uninteresting visit to a collection of moldy windmills. I could have gone with her today, and written during the night, while she was sleeping.”
    The memory of her snoring gently into her pillow the night before made him smile. She certainly had been exhausted, and although he had expected to find her presence in the cabin an irritation, it had been just the opposite—he had written late into the night, strangely comforted by the sounds of her sleeping just a few feet away.
    â€œRight,” he said, shaking his head and getting to his feet. The gull squawked its protest, and flapped its wings. “Those are borderline stalker thoughts. I refuse to be interested in her. She’s on the rebound, and vulnerable, and it would be ungentlemanly to express any sort of carnal thoughts about her. I will simply accompany her to dinner, and then let her go her own way without my attentions.”
    He held on to such noble thoughts until the last few hours dragged past, most of which he spent writing. When he finally did escape his laptop that evening, he found himself on the dock watching as Alice hurried toward him. Her walnut-colored hair trailed after her like a banner, the gauzy material of her dress molding to her body with the gentle caresses of the wind. He suddenly wished he was that wind, then reminded himself of the fact that he wasn’t interested in her, at least not in a physical way.
    â€œYour Majesty!” she bellowed, waving her arm in the air in a manner guaranteed to attract attention. Hesighed as several tourists, on the way to and from their own ships, paused to look curiously at him.
    â€œShe’s deranged,” he told the nearest group. They nodded and moved on.
    â€œAre you hungry? I’m starved,” Alice said, shoving a carrier bag at him, and pushing him forward. “Here, hold my souvenirs while I find the name of the place that Ricardo recommended. Hurry, or the others will see us and want to join in. I had a horrible time getting away from the group to get back here early. I thought Deidre was going to handcuff herself to me at one point, but I managed to get away. They were about to leave, though, so they’ll be here any second. Boy, you missed a great trip. The windmills were awesome, and then Anthony and Dahl and I went into this itty-bitty little town where they wanted to check out a distillery that made some sort of special gin.”
    He looked closely at her. “And did you sample the special gin?”
    â€œNope. I don’t like alcohol, as a rule. It doesn’t work with my body chemistry, or something. It all tastes like rubbing alcohol to me.” She gave him a blinding smile, then consulted a pocket notebook, riffling through the pages while she muttered to herself. “I know it’s in here—I’ve written all the cool places I wanted to see in here for the last year, ever since I started planning the trip. Oh, here it is. Hang on—let me pull up a map. . . .” She tapped the screen of her mobile phone, turned around to stare at the town, then finally nodded and pointed. “This way! I hope you like exotic food. Ricardo says that this place—it’s called Ladybug—has great Ethiopian food. I do love me some wat.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWat. It’s a stew, kind of spicy, but really yummy. TheEthiopian place in my town serves it with this great flat bread called injera. You use the bread to scoop up bits of the wat, and eat it. Oh, but only use your right hand.” Alice consulted her phone again, then led them down one of the streets that branched off from the dock. “I made the mistake of using my left hand once, and I thought the restaurant owner was going to have a conniption fit. Patrick got all bent out of shape when the guy told us to use only our right hands, but you know how he is—he