by Susan Grant
The man dug in his coat pocket for a pack of “smokes.” He lit one and sucked on it, long and hard. Then, in between bouts of coughing, he told Cavin about the war and his role in it.
For a long time afterward, they watched the sun reach its zenith and then track down the other side. Sunshine spilled over the grass. They sat in silence, enjoying the odd camaraderie veterans had. It transcended culture, race and apparently planets, as well.
After a while, Cavin went in search of food and brought back dogs and cans of drink for them to consume.
“Ten hot dogs?” the man asked in obvious surprise.
“I’m hungry.” Cavin was starving, actually.
“I am, too, but…ten?”
Cavin shrugged. Jana never seemed to require much food, but that was not the case with him. “What we don’t eat, you can keep.” He bit into one of the bread-wrapped dogs. “Tasty,” Cavin murmured in appreciation. “Better than lattes.”
“Where’s home?” the man asked.
The answer, for Cavin, was an easy one. “I don’t have a home. I never did, not really.”
“You got a woman?
Jana’s scent, her face, the sweet feel of her, it filled his mind, and a familiar ache of missing her followed. “Yes, I do.”
“Home is where your woman is, man. Ain’t no home without her. I don’t have mine no more, so, I ain’t got no home.
Home is where your woman is. Cavin nodded. He knew without a doubt that it was true. With one simple sentence, the old soldier had summed up the entire reason he was here.
The soldier lifted his cigarette, pointed. “That’s her.”
Sure enough, Jana had arrived under the tree that was their meeting place. Cavin rose and lifted a hand to catch her attention. Jana grinned at him but held her wave to a discreet flutter of her hand. “Yes, it is her,” he said. “You could tell?”
“It’s all over your face, man. And I see why. She ain’t bad to look at. Ain’t bad at all.”
“I must go. But, first…” To Cavin’s surprise and the soldier’s, he grasped the man’s wrist and pressed his gauntlet to the man’s thin arm in a modified Coalition handshake, and handshake of soldiers, but this one would be so much more.
The man’s eyes rounded. “You got a weapon under there. I can feel it.”
“Not a weapon. A…computer.” The man tried to wriggle from his grip. Cavin held on. For a split second, he turned on the gauntlet. A split second more, and he’d deposited a stream of nano-meds into the man’s bloodstream.
The man jerked away. “What you do?”
“Thanked you for your help.” Cavin secured the gauntlet. The risk of the REEF detecting what he’d done was small. Especially now that Jana had arrived, they wouldn’t be sticking around for the assassin to find them.
“What help? I didn’t do nothing.” The man rubbed his arm.
“You kept me from arrest. And then you shared your afternoon with me. Consider our handshake my thanks to you.” Cavin backed up and gave the soldier what he knew from his studies of Earth culture was a salute. Then he strode to Jana’s side.
Her face lit up. Seeing the look in her eyes, a look reserved only for him, made his heart leap. Nothing had changed in twenty-three years. She still made him come alive inside. She made him feel as if anything were possible. “Squee,” he greeted her in a quiet voice.
“Boy, am I glad to see you,” she said back.
It was a struggle for both of them not to fall into an embrace. The struggle worsened when he breathed in the scent of her skin. But he fisted his hands, clenched his abs, anything to keep from pulling her close and crushing her to him. The intimacy they’d shared the night before hadn’t come close to taking the edge off his desire to have her, to make her his, fully. He’d managed to stay alive through years of combat, but now that he’d arrived on Earth, he lived in doubt of surviving another moment without making love to Jana.
“Why were you shaking that man’s hand?”
It occurred to him that she’d asked a question. Maybe twice. “Ah, yes, the man. Like a fool, I was patrolling the grounds, waiting for you, and he alerted me to the fact that I’d gained the suspicions of the local police force.”
“He deserves more than thanks. He deserves a medal.”
“I gave him something better than a medal. I put nano-meds in his bloodstream—microscopic computers programmed for medical purposes. A short burst, a few million or so. I couldn’t risk keeping my gauntlet turned on for longer. But over time, perhaps in weeks and months, the meds will erase the cancer from his lungs.” He rubbed his forearm, near where he wore his gauntlet. “My own supply is low, but I have enough for my basic health needs.”
She gazed up at him, her eyes luminous, almost glowing. “You give so much, Cavin. To me, to others. To this entire planet. What’s in it for you? What do you get in return?”
“I get you. Or, I hope I do.”
“You hope?” Laughing softly, she shook her head. “Baby, you had me from greetings, Earthling.”
He pulled her close. Lights flashed. At first he thought the gods in the heavens were cheering their love for one another. Then Jana jerked away. “Tabloid photographers. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“No privacy on this planet,” he growled.
“See why I’m so protective of you? Now bored people on supermarket checkout lines everywhere will be able to see us together. Only they won’t know who you are, or what our relationship is, and I intend to keep it that way. Oh, but they’ll speculate.” She made a face and rolled her eyes. “But I’m bringing you home tonight. That’ll end any speculation on my grandfather’s part, at least.”
He slowed his steps. She tugged on his arm. “Hurry. I have to get out of this place. I had the day from hell. And I just got done with the press conference from hell.”
“Press conference?” His translator offered no solution.
“A press conference is where journalists ask you questions and no matter what answer you give, they don’t like it. Then they print their own version in the newspaper. Or at least that’s how it went today. On the plus side, they’re finally talking about more than my social life.” She paused, winced, casting a pained backward glare at the photographers they’d encountered. “Maybe not.”
She pulled him across the street to where they would obtain a vehicle for hire. “Rewind, Jana. The part about bringing me home. Do you mean your family home?”
“Yes. The ranch. It’s time to tell my grandfather what you’ve told me. He knows a man who might be able to facilitate getting you to Area 51. My father won’t be home, but everyone else will be.”
Gods. He was going to meet her kin. He didn’t know what worried him more, convincing Earth that they were in danger, or convincing Jana’s family he was good for her.
SPEEDING ALONG the highway in a rented white Ford Expedition, Jana gnawed on her knuckle until it stung.
“It will bleed, Squee.” Cavin lifted her sore knuckle to his lips and kissed it. Then he kept her hand pressed to his hard thigh, protectively. Possessively. She liked that he took pains to take care of her. Since childhood, she’d sought independence with fervor. After being so doted upon, so worried about, she never wanted to be anyone’s problem again. But Cavin’s care was different. It was equal parts affection and respect. Nonetheless, it was there, his wanting to keep her safe, and their argument over it had been going on nonstop for a half hour while they waited for Brace Bowie’s appearance on The Tom Kennedy Show to begin.
She turned off the radio.
“Jana…”
“No. I don’t want to listen to it. My nerves are shot. It’s just going to make me upset.”
“He may reveal information you don’t have.” Cavin turned the radio on. “Moreover, how can you be so certain the man is going to say negative words about you?”
She looked down her nose at him. “Is the grass green? The sky blue?”
“Not on all worlds, no.”
�
��You are so literal sometimes.” Jana smacked the heels of her palms to her forehead.
“Keep your hands on the wheel. Your vehicles are not designed for hands-free use.”
“You drive then.”
“I can’t. It’s not the driving itself that holds me back—I have an aptitude for vehicles of all kinds. But I can’t read your numbers.” He pointed to the dashboard. “Not the primitive dials that you use to crosscheck your speed, nor road signs. They’re gibberish to me.”
“I didn’t see a single road sign the other night driving in the fog, but somehow I still drove. ‘Go right, go left. Slow down, speed up…’” Revenge will be sweet, she thought. Then she remembered the terrifying sight of the assassin bearing down on them as she raced through the streets. “How does the REEF do it if he can’t read?”
“He’s equipped with visual scanners that allow him to translate written language. My equipment is inferior to his.”
“Trust me, baby. There’s nothing wrong with your equipment.”
They exchanged a heated glance. “You’re distracting me, Jana,” he warned.
“That’s because I don’t want to listen to this creep call me a dishonest, self-serving nepotistic bribe-taker.” She shut off the radio.
Cavin turned it back on. “To be able to fight your enemy, you must understand him.”
“I do understand him. He’s a mean, vindictive whiner. I’d say asshole, too, but I think you’ve learned enough bad Earthling language for the time being.”
“I have every swearword in every major language loaded in my translator. As well as most jokes, insults and colloquial phrases.”
“You’re thoroughly corrupted is what you’re saying.”
A flash of sexy mischief glinted in his eyes. It told her he had in mind a very different kind of corruption when it came to her. Little good her nun’s toes did her.
“The mere fact that you once agreed to marry this man proves he cannot be as horrible as you claim.”
She snorted and turned off the radio. “I can’t believe you’re defending him.”
“I’m not defending him so much as I’m complimenting your judgment. I agree that your former fiancé was wrong to say the things he did. He should have gotten more facts before blaming you for his arrest on poaching charges.”
“Instead of accusing me of strong-arm techniques to uphold my so-called Fish and Game empire. My cousin told me the Russian community thinks I run a gang of thugs. Thugs! Well, those so-called thugs are about to crack a major poaching ring. The investigation’s been going on for the better part of two years. Any day now and they’ll move in and make their busts. Everything up until now has been small stuff. This one’s going to be big.” And it would be a major victory for her, for the state. It would punctuate her resolve to defend the environment with more than rhetoric. No way would she let anyone intimidate her into backing down. And especially not Brace Bowie. She swerved off the highway to cut across town.
“We’re taking a slight detour,” she said. “A detour to the radio station. It’s about two miles from here. If Brace has something to say to me, he can say it to my face.” Her hands squeezed the steering wheel until her fingers throbbed. Brace would be dealing with a different Jana this time around. A new and improved, tough-chick Jana. Being good does no good. “If today taught me anything, Cavin, it’s that taking the high road doesn’t always work.” Maybe the only way to get her enemies to shut up was to get down in the mud with them and fight.
Chapter Nineteen
“ARE YOU SURE YOU NEVER served in the Coalition officer corps?” Cavin’s tone was a loaded mix of surprise, admiration and amusement at her decision to show up at the station.
“No,” she said, scowling at the sound of the host encouraging callers to phone in their questions. Brace was coming on after the next news break.
“See, this is self-preservation on his part,” Jana tried to explain to help Cavin understand. “If I look bad, he looks good, and voilà, his reputation is restored.”
“I’ll give you that. But why go after your family when he could have focused on only you?”
“I don’t know…” It was a very good question. She’d suspected Brace may have been behind the attacks on her family because he’d gone after her. But what if that wasn’t true? “Still, why grab an appearance on a talk show the day a scandal hits if not to pull me down further? He got those pictures in the paper, and now he’s going to capitalize on his coup.”
“Don’t assume Brace gave those photos to the newspaper. To recognize your true enemies, you must be able to see through their deceptions and diversions.”
“If it wasn’t Brace, then who…?” She frowned at the road ahead. Viktor, maybe? Then she remembered Alex’s face, the frightening look of hatred. “Yesterday, Brace’s partners came after me pretty hard…Maybe it’s all three of them with Brace as ringleader.”
“Or, it’s not Brace at all.”
“You want me to match you two up? Clearly, you love this guy.” She offered him her cell phone. “Or here, call the show and tell him what a great human being he is.”
Cavin ignored her. “You said yourself he was a financial backer of the restaurant but had no day-to-day interest in it. You said, too, that he’d done it as a favor to your cousin while you were engaged to be married. Perhaps he wanted to leave the venture once it became apparent you would not marry.”
“It would be devastating to their business if Brace pulled his capital. They’re struggling. They told me so yesterday.”
“So your cousin and his partner looked to illegal means to bolster their profits—and encouraged chaos between you and Brace to distract you from their activities. It makes sense, does it not? You and Brace are the two main threats to criminal activity. Defuse the threat and they can operate as they please.”
“Are you serious?” One look at his expression answered the question. “Alex and Viktor masterminding a feud between me and Brace to deflect attention from their illegal activity? That is so convoluted, so farfetched.” And not entirely impossible. “Good Lord, Cavin, how do you think of this stuff? How can your mind work this way?”
“Survival. Compared to the Coalition officer politics, this is child’s play. A puzzle. I enjoy figuring it out.”
“Glad you’re having fun,” she said sarcastically, squeezing the life out of the steering wheel. If it were true, what Cavin suggested, what would Alex and Viktor be trying to hide?
Caviar smuggling, for instance, or poaching. The answers came to her disturbingly fast, because the suspicions already lurked in the back of her mind. Knowing that a Fish and Game special operations team was closing in on possibly their biggest smuggling and poaching bust ever, Jana wondered if when they pulled in their net, her cousin would be caught in it.
Fish were known to struggle desperately when pulled from the water. They fought for survival. Were Alex and Viktor fighting for survival in an environment increasingly unfavorable to smuggling and poaching? It was entirely plausible. But pit Brace against her for the purposes of distracting him from his investments, while making her look bad so she couldn’t get her strict policies approved—or so she’d lose her seat entirely? Well, it was too diabolical to contemplate.
But still plausible.
A sick feeling lay coldly in the pit of her stomach as she careened into the parking lot of KBFK. The moment of truth had arrived.
She shut off the motor and shoved open the door. “Come inside with me, Cavin.” Her voice softened. “For moral support.”
His hand lifted to her cheek. His eyes told her everything she needed to know.
“If anyone asks, you’re my security detail,” she said. “If they ask you anything about your identity, make up something.”
They got out of the car. She was shaking. That she was doing this at all underscored how averse to risk she’d been through the years. But everything had changed. She’d changed. If she was going to live up to what destiny was asking of her, she had
to start somewhere. She had to start now.
She walked up to the doors, and her courage wavered. She girded herself against it, forced her feet forward. At the very minimum, she was going to make sure the public heard both sides of the story. And on a grander scale, she’d shore up her reputation, which was her single greatest asset in convincing the world to listen when she announced an alien invasion was on the way, and that all she needed to do to stop it was allow an alien to hot-wire a spacecraft that didn’t exist at a place no one was allowed to visit. Suddenly, what she was about to do seemed a hell of a lot easier.
Jana threw open the door and strode inside. A receptionist sat behind a desk. Understandably, Cavin drew her attention first, but when she saw Jana, her eyes lit up. “Jana Jasper. Senator Jana Jasper.”
Jana thrust out her hand. “So nice to meet you.”
The woman shook her hand, beaming.
Cavin had taken up a strategic spot by the door with a view of the studio room. Behind the soundproof glass sat Tom and Brace, whose back was to the glass. The On Air light wasn’t illuminated yet. Jana’s stomach churned.
“What can I do for you, Senator?”
“Let Tom know I’m here if he has any questions regarding Mr. Bowie’s statements.” She tried to utter Brace’s name without spitting it.
“I’ll tell Tom you’re here.” The woman spoke into her headset. The host made eye contact with Jana and nodded, his eyes going round with surprise. To Jana’s delight, he didn’t say anything to Brace. Heh, heh. The element of surprise was a beautiful thing. Let Brace see what it felt like to have your guts pulled out without warning. Let him know what she’d felt like this morning when she saw the photos in the newspaper.
The OnAir illuminated. Jana’s heart kicked her ribs. The receptionist flipped a switch that allowed her to hear the voices inside the studio. Jana had sat in that chair many times, interviewed by Tom and others. Now she was on the outside looking in, which seemed dismally apropos considering the day she’d experienced. No, don’t feel sorry for yourself. Stand up for yourself.
