“A beautiful name for a beautiful rock. Shell have a long life.”

The longer he looked at her, heard her … the more he wondered if someone might get the wrong idea about a fellow his age talking to an unaccompanied young woman.

Then again, her hair texture and the tone of her skin were not so far from his own. Eyes too light to be his (or hers) … his head ran numbers. That child would be old enough to have children of their own.

If anyone asked, she was his grandchild.

“Ropati,” he answered, perhaps too quickly for an untrained ear.

Her accent wasn’t, well, from here, nor did it seem woven with more familiar Spanish or German.

“Are your parents about?” he asked, friendly but for some carefully tucked away wariness.

Am I about to get charged with something?