Claire blushed fiercely after she had heard the conversation between Elijah and Kate. She pressed her face against Kate’s shoulder as if to escape and hide from the consequences of the nightmare. It took her a while to realize she was pressing herself against the person who made her want to sink into the earth to begin with. 

She didn’t actually want to hide from Kate, but how was she supposed to react to the two of them talking about how they had kissed in some strange shared dream. Elijah probably knew Claire had returned the kiss as well, since he’d been there watching. They probably thought it was funny. Claire had found it funnier when Kate had been so bothered about groping her in her sleep and lied about how she hadn’t done it intentionally.

The thought made her very aware of how their two bodies were touching one another. Claire lay on top of Kate, gravity pressing her body down on the other woman’s body. Their bosoms were pressed together, and their legs were intertwined. It wasn’t the first time she’d slept with Kate, but now it took on a whole other meaning. She’d never slept with Kate like a man would sleep with a woman. Women weren’t supposed to be doing such things with each other, were they?

She wondered when Kate had first realized she wanted to touch and kiss her. Had it been when they were younger? They had had more than a few sleepovers in each other’s wagons, laughing and having fun. Claire had compared her body to Kate’s, because she thought it was more attractive and she seemed to be attracting more attention from boys. She blushed when she remembered asking Kate if she thought she was attractive, as she had been wearing nothing else than her nightgown.

Maybe the rumours about the two of them being involved like that had never been Claire’s fault as she had assumed. People always talked more about her than Kate as far as she could tell, so it had been logical to assume they thought Claire was a pervert. They said she slept with her big cats after all, but maybe they had known something about Kate she had not.

A stranger thought made her feel warm inside, because someone wanted to touch and kiss her. No one had confessed to wanting to do that before. She was scared of what would happen if anyone else found out about it. She shouldn’t be having such thoughts about female friends, but now she knew Kate was and had been thinking about her like that.

Claire kept her eyes shut though, as all these thoughts rushed through her head, so she figured she could continue pretending to be asleep. She soon begun to fake her snoring, as if to make the other two believe she was fast asleep.