by Mina Carter
As she shucked her coat off, she hung it and her bag in the tiny staff “room,” aka the little closet behind the bar. Ducking through the door, she nodded to Larry wiping glasses by the register and started to pull chairs from the tops of the tables to get ready for opening. A hammering on the door made her jump. It was at least five minutes still to opening time. Taking a quick look around the bar, she caught Larry’s eye.
He nodded. “Yeah, let them in or we’ll have a damn riot on our hands. Huckby’s were laying off today so they’ll be wanting to drown their sorrows.”
“Crap, really?” She winced and reached up on her tiptoes to pull the top bolt down. Huckby’s cannery was the major employer in town. If they were laying off, there were going to be a lot of families looking at lean times coming up. “Gonna be a rough night then.”
“Yeah. Batten down the hatches. We’ll get through it,” Larry replied grimly as Jac swung the door open and headed behind the bar before the stampede started.
Sure enough, the first few customers were through the door in seconds. All Huckby men. All silent as they sat in front of the bar, downing shot after shot. Jac and Larry poured, keeping conversation to a minimum. With their long faces and general aura of hopelessness, it wasn’t hard to work out that these men had been given their marching orders.
Hours later, it was still the same story, multiplied. The bar had filled, as it usually did. It wasn’t that Larry’s was the most popular bar in town, although Larry claimed that. It was more that it was the cheapest bar in town, and in a town that lived from pay check to pay check, every cent counted.
On her break, Jac leaned in against the door of the staff entrance, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, and looked up. Even the weather was miserable, barely a hint of the stars she loved peeking through the murky clouds. She’d always loved the stars and wanted to travel. She’d even applied to the colonies once upon a time, but there wasn’t much call for wanna-be nurses with no qualifications. She hadn’t even qualified as a colony bride thanks to a history of heart disease and diabetes in her family, so looking up was as near as she was ever going to get to traveling the stars.
Movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see a guy walk across the parking lot toward the main entrance to the bar. No surprise there. Most of the male population of the town ended up in Larry’s eventually.
And that was the problem… He was definitely not local.
Tall and broad-shouldered, his long, blond hair flowed over his shoulders like a cape. And his muscles? Jac had never seen quite such a perfect specimen of masculinity in all her life. She blinked a few times to convince herself that no, she hadn’t accidentally nodded off in the doorway and yes, she really was seeing what looked like a modern-day Viking god striding across the lot.
That was it. Perhaps there was a movie filming nearby and this guy was one of the actors. As soon as the thought occurred to her, though, she dismissed it. If that had been the case, it would have been all over the local news. Hell, the level of the local paper was Old Man Jensen’s prize-winning pumpkins, so a movie set nearby? They’d have a twenty-four/seven feed set up.
That and the entire single female population of the town would be camped on their doorstep, probably half the married ones as well, all hoping to catch the eye of a famous actor and a meal ticket out of Dull-McDulls-ville here.
“Hey, handsome,” a raspy voice sounded out of the darkness by the main door as Betty, well known in the town for her… friendly ways, peeled herself off the wall by the main door. She dropped the cigarette she’d been smoking, crushing it underfoot as she blew smoke up into the air. “Fancy a good time?”
Most men, faced with Betty’s sultry makeup and in-your-face sexuality, had absolutely no defense. Either they made a run for it, or they were all up for Betty’s brand of friendliness against the wall at the back of the bar.
Tall, blond and utterly lickable stopped. Even from here Jac could see the ice in his gaze as he swept a glance down the woman in front of him. It was so cold she shivered in sympathy. Betty took a step back, her hand hovering in the air for a moment before she dropped it to her side.
“Sorry to have bothered you—” she murmured, barely audible to Jac in the shadows.
The guy leaned forward, bending down to whisper something in Betty’s ear. His voice was a deep rumble, but the whisper was too low for Jac to make out what he said. Betty’s shoulders stiffened and she leaned back to look into his face. When she lifted her hand again, Jac expected her to slap him, but she didn’t. Instead, she touched his cheek gently and smiled before walking off.
The guy watched her go, not moving as she walked across the lot and got into her car. The rumble of the engine starting up filled the night air and Jac expected him to turn and go inside but he didn’t. He waited until Betty had pulled out of the lot before he moved.
For a moment, he glanced toward Jac. She stopped breathing, shrinking backward into the shadows. Had he seen her? For some reason she didn’t want him to know she’d seen him and Betty. It felt like she’d intruded on something personal. Intimate.
What the hell had he said to her?
She stayed in the shadows until he pushed open the door and disappeared inside. Her mug empty now, she pushed off from the wall, only to raise a hand as a car pulling into the lot about blinded her. It slid to a stop diagonally in a squeal of brakes and she sighed, knowing who it was before the door was flung open.
Buck Johnson. Her ex. He was also a Huckby’s man, and if they were laying off… Buck was exactly the sort of pain in the ass employee who would make the first cut.
She ducked back through the door and emerged into the bar.
“Heads up. Buck incoming,” she warned Larry, just in case there was going to be any trouble.
She hoped not. She really couldn’t afford to lose this job.
Earth was not at all what Rynn had expected.
He sat at the rear of the entertainment facility, his back to the wall and a drink in his hand as he watched the humans interact. The drink was alcoholic, but nothing that would impair his responses if anything untoward happened. Although, even half drunk, his warrior’s training and sheer size would ensure he came off the winner against even the biggest of the human males in the place.
Copying the actions of a drinker near the bar, he took a healthy swallow. Then he resisted the urge to crunch his face up. It was weaker than kervasi piss and tasted like engine degreaser. He kept his face level and even managed to make a small sound of pleasure like the males around him had on their first swallows. It was all part of the act.
A master of blending in, he’d already switched out his warrior’s jacket for a top made of some stretchy material he’d pilfered from behind one of the dwellings. It had been attached to some sort of line arrangement with other garments. Figuring they wouldn’t miss one, he’d picked the biggest he could find, but still it strained across his heavier build. He was fairly sure he’d ripped the arm seams putting it on.
It had some kind of kervasi on it, but this one appeared to be deformed. Mounts on his world were six-legged apex predators with fangs and claws. Used in ground combat in the past, they could defend their rider if he lost his seat, and it was known that a well-trained kervasi could make the difference between life and death in a battle.
But this one looked rounder and softer than the war mounts of his home planet. It also only had four legs, which meant it would be slower, and its open mouth revealed blunt teeth rather than a predator’s fangs. Poor thing. In fact, the only thing it appeared to have in its favor was the sharp spike in the middle of its forehead. A formidable weapon indeed. Which must be how it killed its prey. Or it could breathe fire, he supposed, casting a glance down at the image. Fire-breathing would make up for its other shortcomings.
After another couple of swallows from his glass, he leaned back in his chair and looked around, playing the part of a normal human male, his thirst partially quenched and
paying attention to his surroundings for the first time. That appeared to be normal here but, he cast an experienced eye over the males around him, the local males didn’t appear to be warrior trained. Instead, they had the broken-down demeanor and expressions of menial workers. They looked the same the universe over, as did entertainment facilities.
This one was scruffy, heading into “dive” territory and the majority of the clientele appeared to be male. There were a few females, and that fact still surprised him even though he knew humanity didn’t have the procreation issues his people had. The Lathar had lost their women in a devastating genetic plague that had killed them all within a generation. Now the species only continued with genetically altered gestational “hosts.” The oonat. Beings of lower intelligence, cattle basically, used as walking incubators. But even they only carried male young to term. Pregnancies with female young were never viable.
The discovery of humanity had changed everything for the Lathar. Not only were they compatible for procreation, they were genetically related, descendants of a long-lost Lathar colony expedition. Even more surprising… they still held information in their DNA, which would allow the Latharian master healers to repair the damage done to Rynn’s race over the years. Which… was the reason he was here.
His mission was to collect the Lady Jessica’s sick sister and get her back to the healers on Lathar Prime. According to the emperor, she was the only other person, apart from Lady Jessica herself, with a unique section of DNA that could put back together the broken puzzle that was the Latharian genome. And hopefully save them all.
Which would mean that bars on his home planet might one day have women again, like this one.
He took another swallow of his drink—called a “beer” apparently, whatever that meant—and looked around again. He still couldn’t get over the fact the human women were just walking around alone and unprotected. Before they’d all succumbed to the plague, women had been so rare on his planet that they’d never been allowed out without an escort or protection of some kind. Kidnapping had been a common problem, women taken from their families and forced to breed, even when they were sick themselves. Something that only hastened their eventual deaths. It was sickening to read the historical records.
It was truly sickening to know his kind were capable of deeds like that… a sigh escaped him. To be fair though, he didn’t have to read the historical records for that. The purists were draanthic as bad as anything in history, and they were alive and kicking. A shudder rolled down his spine at the thought of any of those assholes getting to Earth. It would be a blood bath.
His glass tankard almost empty, he leaned back. Enough with the depressing thoughts. He was on a brand-new planet, had arrived without blowing his cover and had already located his primary objective ahead of schedule. It was a good day.
Although, of course, he really should have secured Lady Jessica’s sister and already been on his way. Getting his charge back to Lathar Prime was a mission of the utmost importance. But… the drives on his long-range shuttle had been battered in a solar storm on the way here and he wanted to let them run through a diagnostic pattern before starting back.
He snorted to himself at that one. Yeah, it was a thin excuse but… this was Earth. He’d been to many planets in his time serving the empire and seen many species from the feather-covered Altarians right through to the Drakchen who lived in the outer-wastes. Unless he was in disguise, every one of them either recognized him on sight or quickly worked out that he was Lathar.
Earth, though, was different. He was the first Lathar to ever set foot on her surface and, thanks to the contacts covering his vertically pupiled eyes, the people around him assumed he was human. Just like them.
In a way, he supposed he was. Humans were descended from Lathar, so they were like mini versions of his people—the same build but way smaller. Definitely the same attitude… he could already see a couple of obviously inebriated males squaring up on the other side of the bar. Take away the location, make them bigger, and put them in leathers and they could be any warriors he’d ever met.
But they were his secondary consideration. Most of his attention was on the delicate little female who appeared to be the barkeep. Her male partner had served him when Rynn had first arrived, but he hadn’t missed the woman bustling around, cleaning up dirty glasses but also serving drinks.
For a moment he wondered if she was for sale. Often the wait staff at such facilities were available… for the right price. He’d never bothered before. Usually they were oonat or another species that, while biologically compatible with the Lathar, he didn’t find remotely attractive. But the little female with her short dark hair and pale eyes roused responses in him he’d never experienced before.
He waited until she turned toward him, meeting her eyes, and smiled. Instantly he knew she wasn’t a pleasure worker. Her eyes widened as she sucked in a short breath, and a flush spread over her cheeks. It was pretty. He liked it. Especially when she ducked her head, letting dark curls cover her face for a moment as she made her escape.
He smiled as he swallowed the rest of his drink and stood, intending to make his way toward the bar and perhaps engage her in conversation. Just because she wasn’t a pleasure worker didn’t mean she wouldn’t be open to a night with him. His conversations with the human women on Lathar Prime had indicated human women weren’t backward about sex, and he couldn’t think of a better way to mark his visit to Earth than getting to know one of its inhabitants.
If he was lucky, getting to know her very well indeed.
Chapter Three
It was going to be one of those nights.
The moment Jac spotted Buck in the doorway of the bar, she knew there would be trouble. He had that look about him. The one that said half a pint and he’d be looking for a fight and didn’t care where he found it. The one that had led to him coming home at two in the morning once and trying to use her as a punching bag.
Only years of working in a bar and a healthy dose of oh hell no had saved her from a beating. It had cost her a four-year relationship, but she wasn’t anyone’s punching bag. Not anymore. She’d done enough of that when she’d been a kid.
Keeping a careful eye on Buck, she waited until he sat down in the corner near to another man. Chaz was a good friend of Buck’s. They’d known each other since childhood. She breathed a small sigh of relief. If anyone could keep her ex in line, it would be Chaz. He was good people, even if he did try and convince her every time he saw her that she should get back together with Buck.
Not a cat in hell’s chance, she thought, viciously wiping down the bar after serving a customer. Even though it was packed in here tonight, there wasn’t a lot for her to do. Huckby’s laying off had added a depressed tone to the evening, so everyone was just sitting quietly at their tables, staring into their drinks.
There was no anger, just a sense of finality and misery. They’d all known it was coming, but they’d all hoped and prayed. Huckby’s was one of the last big holdouts. A local firm run by local people for local workers. Even its size and history hadn’t been able to stem the tide. Large corporations driving down prices meant local employers just couldn’t compete.
Jac sighed and emerged from behind the bar to collect empties. With so few jobs around town now, it meant it wouldn’t be long until people were forced to look elsewhere for work. They would move away, forced to so they could feed their families, and Stanton would become a ghost town.
Crap.
She needed a second job. Like yesterday. Perhaps as a billionaire’s secretary or something. She wouldn’t even mind the sex—because they all seemed to be kinky, at least in the books she read—if he was good looking.
Speaking of good looking… her gaze slid sideways to the Viking wannabe at the back of the bar. Tall, blond and ripped, he had the attention of all the women in the room. Even Candy, ex-prom queen and the most popular girl when they’d been in school, had pulled her low-cut top down so far the girls were in
imminent danger of doing an impression of a baby bird and falling out of the nest. But he wasn’t paying attention to the gorgeous blonde.
Instead, his gaze was firmly pinned on Jac. When he spotted her looking his way, he smiled. And not just an ordinary sort of smile either. It spread slowly over his perfectly formed lips, revealing straight white teeth and turning his already handsome face into something breathtaking. He wasn’t a man, she decided, but a god instead, sent down to Earth to tempt her into sin. There was no way a mere mortal like her could resist. Lifting his glass, he saluted her and downed what remained.
Unused to being the object of such direct scrutiny, she almost squeaked and dropped the glasses she was carrying. Holy crap… why would he be looking at her? Some vestige of female survival instinct, aka the one that stopped her making an utter fool of herself, made her pause. She managed a small nod and smile, like he was any other customer, and scuttled off behind the bar to unload her empties.
As she did, she caught sight of herself in the mirror behind the bar, and lost all of the warm and fuzzy feelings she’d had at a guy like that paying her attention. Her hair was a frizzy mess. She kept it short into the nape of her neck for convenience, tucking the loose curls away behind her ears most of the time. Even if she wore Alice bands or clips, it managed to fight its way loose, and a bandana was too hot to work in, so she coped.
But the hair wasn’t the worst of it. With running from the Kallsons to here, she hadn’t bothered with a lick of makeup and her clothes… well, work chic wasn’t exactly the most attractive. Great. She sighed to herself as she dumped her glasses down and started to load them into the ancient washer crammed into the corner under the window. She’d long ago worked out how to load it just right to make the most of each cycle, so her hands moved on autopilot as she wondered if she could slip into the staff room and throw at least some lippy on. Then she remembered she’d run out of the stuff last month.
