“You should probably be thanking Otto for that. He was the one who brought you back.”
It lay there between us, the knowledge that for the better part of five minutes he had been dead. He glanced away from me and out the window. In the hills to the east, a full moon had begun to rise.
I said lightly, “Well, now you can start writing for the near-death-experience market if the whole UFO thing ever dries up.”
At that remark, he actually grinned. “That would make me a fraud, I think, because I didn’t get any of the good stuff. No white light. No loved ones waiting for me on the other side. Nothing…just the dark.”
“It wasn’t your time. That’s all.”
“I guess you’d know more about that than I would.”
True enough…except I’d never known anyone else who’d come back from the dead. “Then I suppose you’ll need to stick with UFOs.”
“Assuming my name isn’t mud in the UFO community after taking a powder from the symposium.” From the lift at the corner of his mouth, I guessed he wasn’t too worried about it.
“Oh, you must have material for at least two more books out of all this,” I replied. “I’m sure they’ll welcome you back with open arms.”
“You’re probably right.”
A little pause then, as he drank some more of his water, and I decided I might as well do the same.
Maybe it would be better to just go for broke. Having everything out on the table had to be better than dancing around the issue. “You don’t have to come back to L.A. if you don’t want to.”
His eyebrows went up. “Why wouldn’t I want to?”
“Well, we are practically halfway to Santa Fe, and — ”
He set his glass down on one of the nightstands and came to me then. The kiss was strong and firm and clearly intended to show he wasn’t going to listen to any nonsense about going back to New Mexico.
“Come here,” he said afterward.
Mystified, I followed him out of the bedroom and through the sliding glass doors off the sitting area to the little private courtyard attached to the cottage. The moon was fully up now, shining brightly across the red rocks, glinting in the shifting leaves of the cottonwood trees.
“You know how I said I thought this was a really beautiful place?”
I nodded, not certain where he was going with this. “And I agreed.”
“Perfect. So why not live in this beauty every day?”
At first I wasn’t sure what he was asking. Then it began to sink in, and I stared up at him, searching his expression, looking for the truth in it. And I saw it, saw my own dreams and desires mirrored in his features, and again that warmth surged through me, filling the center of my being.
But because it was still difficult for me to admit the truth of my heart, I had to answer his question with another. “You’d want to be here, so close to the base?”
He nodded, and smiled, albeit a little grimly. “Well, you know what they say. Keep your friends close — ”
“ — And your enemies closer.” I laughed then. “We’ve only known each other a few days. People are going think we’re nuts.”
His fingers wrapped around mine. “Persephone, I hate to break it to you, but you’re a psychic, and I chase UFOs. People already think we’re nuts.”
“Point taken.”
We kissed then, standing in the moonlight, as the cool night breeze ruffled our hair and brought with it the promise of another beautiful day yet to come. Then he pulled away slightly, but only so he could take me in his arms and hold me close to him. His heart beat beneath my cheek, strong and firm, soothing the last of my fears.
For a minute, neither of us spoke. Then he said, “You know, I’ve heard that Sedona has a pretty good school system.”
I pulled away slightly, stared up into his face. He met my eyes squarely. No secrets there, only a wish — and a hope that I shared that wish.
“Some people might say you were rushing things,” I remarked. My voice sounded a little breathless even to me.
His gaze didn’t flicker. “Would you?”
“No,” I said at once. “Oh, no.”
And his arms tightened around me once again, while I lifted my mouth to touch his lips. Let the world think we were crazy. None of that mattered.
All that mattered was Paul, and the future we’d already begun to plan together. And if that future included alien conspiracies and meddling interdimensional beings, so be it. Better that than a safe life lived without him.
Together, I knew we could face anything.
DESERT HEARTS
CHAPTER ONE
Peace and quiet. Kara Swenson had almost forgotten what it was like. June had come and gone, and July was almost over — peak season here in Sedona, despite the scorching desert heat. The crowds had just begun to thin out a little now that the monsoon storms had arrived, but the shop was still crazy-busy. Kara knew she should be glad, times being what they were, but every once in a while she began to wonder just how many people out there could really be that interested in aliens and UFOs. Maybe one day she’d figure out why those people found themselves compelled to buy an alien plushie or a paperback copy of Flying Saucers and Science before leaving Sedona and heading home to Chicago or Omaha or Portland or wherever else they came from.
Even now she felt as if she should be back at the shop, since Wednesday nights were usually reserved for conducting inventory or general tidying up. Kiki had shooed her away, however, saying, “Even big sisters need a night off every once in a while.” True, it had felt good to come home, kick off her shoes, pour herself a glass of chilled pinot grigio — already it was too hot for anything heavier — and turn on the television, but after an hour or so of that, the pleasures of a solitary evening had begun to pall.
Kara turned off the TV, and Gort, her wolfish German shepherd/keeshond mix, turned an inquiring eye toward her and wagged his tail a few times. He’d already had two walks that day, but maybe what she needed was some fresh air, especially now that the sun had been down for a while and the air had cooled somewhat.
Only a sip or two remained of the pinot grigio, so she finished it off and set the glass down on the coffee table. “Guess what, Gort? It’s your lucky day.”
Gort’s tail thumped against the floor again, and he scrambled to his feet and let out a low whine, dark eyes fixed on the side table where she kept his leash.
“I know, I know.” She stood and retrieved the leash, then clipped it onto his collar. The drawer was also a repository for the used grocery bags she and Kiki affectionately referred to as “poopie bags,” and Kara grabbed one of those as well and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans. Her house keys with the attached mini flashlight went into her other pocket; there weren’t many streetlights out here on the edge of town.
Not that she ever worried about walking alone after dark. She’d lived here in Sedona for almost twenty years now, in the house that had been her grandparents’ and had come to her after her grandfather died some six years ago. The store had been his, too. She’d gotten the whole kit and caboodle, as Kiki liked to say, without a trace of resentment. True, she hadn’t inherited the house or the store, but that didn’t mean their grandfather hadn’t taken care of her. On Kiki’s twenty-first birthday, she’d gotten her share of the inheritance: a hundred thousand dollars. And, despite prognostications to the contrary, Kiki hadn’t spent much of it yet.
Gort pulled Kara out the front door, tail wagging. She didn’t bother to lock up — she’d only brought the keys because of the flashlight attached to the chain. Even though the sun had been down for more than an hour, the temperature hovered in the low 80s. Kara had always loved the way the warm nighttime breezes played with her hair and flowed gently over the bare skin of her arms.
The stars burned overhead so brightly it seemed she could almost touch them. No moon yet tonight, though, and she flicked on the little flashlight and let it guide her past the end of the cul-de-sac and out onto the trail that
wound around the edge of the subdivision. Snakes and scorpions didn’t worry her too much, as she tended to wear jeans and hiking boots even on days like today when temperatures hit the upper 90s, but she still conscientiously ran the flashlight’s beam over the path ahead of her.
Gort lifted his leg against a manzanita bush, then tugged her forward. This being Sedona, she knew there were other things — things not of this world — hiding in the darkness, but sightings were rare in this part of town. No, you had to head out toward Boynton or up Schneebly Road to see the stuff that could really make your hair curl.
Or sometimes you just had it dropped right in your store. That had happened when Persephone O’Brien showed up four months ago, asking for help. Of course, it was Kiki and the rest of the gang who got to be out in the field while Kara held down the fort at the store, but still, the goings-on out in Secret Canyon and the rescue of Paul Oliver, the noted ufologist, had proved that all the years of tracking reports of alien movements and UFO activity in the canyons surrounding Sedona weren’t exactly pie in the sky. So to speak.
And now Persephone and Paul were here permanently, having decided to relocate from Los Angeles to Sedona. It was a good place for a psychic and a UFO researcher to end up, and the two were so blatantly happy that Kara couldn’t really begrudge them their good fortune, but….
But nothing, she told herself, and tugged on Gort’s leash when he seemed a little too interested in a spiky yucca plant. Being the well-behaved dog that he was, he trotted back to the center of the path without arguing.
“Good dog,” she said, and he panted, the white teeth of his doggy smile flashing at her in the darkness.
Well, Gort loved her anyway. She told herself not to be silly, that self-pity didn’t do anyone any good. So she was going through the mother of all dry spells in her personal life. That had happened to better women than she, and brooding over it sure wasn’t going to do her any good. Besides, everything else was going great — she owned her house and the store free and clear, had a great set of friends — Michael and Persephone and Paul and Lance —
At the thought of Lance, though, her mind skidded to a stop. Yes, he was a good friend. Too bad friendship wasn’t really what she wanted from him.
Gort whined then, and began to tug the leash back toward the house. Kara stared down at him, a little surprised. Normally he’d try every trick in the book to extend their walks, and they’d barely been out of the house for ten minutes.
“Okay, you crazy mutt,” she said, and allowed him to pull her homeward.
After all, she’d come out here for the dog. Otherwise, she would have just poured herself another glass of wine and luxuriated in the central air conditioning she’d installed a few years earlier. Her grandparents had always made do with a whole-house swamp cooler, but the A/C made the place feel so much better.
As they approached the front walk to the house, a rectangle of yellow light shone down the path, illuminating the stone pavers.
What the hell?
The front door stood open, allowing anyone standing on the walkway to see straight down the hall and into her living room. No, she hadn’t locked the door, but she had most definitely made sure it was firmly shut.
Just the wind, she told herself, or maybe you thought the lock had caught, but it really didn’t.
Gort let out a warning bark, followed by a low growl deep in his throat. When Kara looked down, she saw the fur along the back of his neck was bristling, and his luxuriant tail — definitely inherited from his keeshond parent — had curled itself tightly against his back.
The hair on Kara’s own neck prickled a little, but she forced herself to move forward. This was her house, dammit, and although she’d been stupid enough to go out without taking her cell phone with her, she was not going to stand here and shiver and shake on her own front stoop. The houses on this street had fairly big lots, but they weren’t so far apart that her neighbors wouldn’t hear her if she screamed.
Besides, a seventy-five-pound dog was pretty good protection.
Wrapping the fingers of her left hand around Gort’s collar, she moved forward and into the entryway. Almost at once she saw a set of dusty footprints on the gleaming terra-cotta tile, and she swallowed.
It wasn’t too late to turn around. She could stop, inch her way back outside, and run like hell to the Martinez’s place next door.
Then she saw him. At least, she thought it was a him. From this angle, it was difficult to tell, because he lay prostrate in the middle of the living room, half of him on the Navajo rug, and the other half sprawled across the tile floor.
Gort growled again, but there was the faintest hint of a whine in the sound, as if he didn’t know how he was supposed to react.
Well, that makes two of us.
She moved slowly toward the stranger, barely daring to breathe. As she drew closer to him, she saw he wore some sort of tattered jumpsuit that might once have been black but was now a dingy, rusty shade of dark gray. It was torn in a dozen places and spattered with dirt and dark stains that might be dried blood. And, to put it nicely, he reeked of stale sweat.
He must have been unconscious. Otherwise, he would have been able to hear the hammering of her heart.
Perfect. Just a few steps more to the dining room, where she’d left her cell phone lying on the table. All she’d have to do was call 911, and somebody would come over to haul the intruder away. That was the most reasonable course of action.
But something prevented her from taking those last steps. She stood there, staring down at him, and then he rolled over, gazing up at her with wide pale eyes from within a sun-ravaged face so smudged with grime she couldn’t get a clear idea of what he actually looked like. One hand reached out feebly toward her shoe and fell short.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please help me.”
* * *
Lance didn’t know why he’d agreed to meet Michael Lightfoot and Paul Oliver so they could go out to Boynton Canyon and observe the orbs. True, Paul hadn’t seen them yet — too busy giving lectures and writing his next book — but that didn’t mean the scientist really needed someone to hold his hand while he went out to the canyon. Kara could have given him a map. Hell, he could’ve looked it up on the Internet.
Besides, coming out here after everything that had gone on at Secret Canyon made no sense. Persephone said she hadn’t sensed any more of the human/alien hybrids, but that didn’t mean much. She’d pulled off a pretty good trick at the underground base, destroying the hybrids with one fell swoop, but when it came to hints and hunches, she was still just as fallible as any other psychic.
At least she hadn’t come along on the excursion. Lance wondered sourly how Paul was willing to give up even a few minutes of bliss with his bride, but apparently she was accompanying Linda Santos, a member of the local Mutual UFO Network group — MUFON for short — to a seminar on UFO field data collecting. Persephone had been making noises about wanting to assist Paul with his investigations, so going to the seminar was a logical start.
Anyway, it was just the three of them out here in Boynton, sitting in the warm darkness and looking for orbs. Lance had seen them plenty of times, but even he wasn’t quite able to brush them off as a commonplace.
Paul had brought along a fancy SLR. Whether or not he’d be able to capture anything on film was a crap shoot, given the uncertain nature of the orbs, but you never knew.
“Set off the flash,” Lance told him as they settled themselves on a large, flat rock.
The other man raised an eyebrow, but he lifted the camera as instructed and pushed the button.
A bright strobe illuminated the little dell where they had paused to take their observations. Tiny points of golden light glittered in the air all around them. It looked as if someone had shaken a child’s snow globe and shone a flashlight on it. A skeptic would have remarked that the dust could have simply been suspended bits of particulate matter…except that all those gleaming specks hung still in the air, no
t moving, even though a warm breeze rustled through the branches of the manzanita bushes around them.
“It’s beautiful,” Paul said.
“You must have read about it.”
“Yes…but reading’s not quite the same as seeing it with your own eyes.”
“True.”
Michael had been watching silently, his face tilted upward to watch the sparkles until the last of them died away. “There’s one,” he said quietly.
It drifted in out of the darkness, a sphere a little larger than a baseball, glowing in shades of pale gold. If you looked closely, you could see variations in the colors, shadings that some people claimed looked like faces. Lance had never noticed anything like that, but then again, he’d never been one to anthropomorphize. Wasn’t the presence of the orbs enough without having to give them human features?
Paul raised his camera. Lance heard a click, but there was no flash. He guessed that was on purpose; the ufologist knew his way around a camera pretty well. Must have adjusted the shutter speed for the darkness, knowing that the glare of the flash would fade the glow of the orb to almost nothing.
“It knows we’re here,” Michael said quietly.
Lance could sense it, too, a feeling of being watched. Nothing inimical, not like the cold malice that had radiated from the base in Secret Canyon, but even after all these years he found the sensation a little unnerving.
Whether or not Paul felt the same way, Lance couldn’t say. The man was a scientist, someone more centered on the left side of his brain. And although he had to be experiencing some level of awe, that didn’t stop him from snapping away methodically with the camera, or pausing to pull a small notepad out of his shirt pocket so he could scribble down some notes.
The orb drifted to the top of an especially tall juniper and seemed to linger there for a moment, as if surveying them one last time. Then it blinked out of existence — no gentle fading away, no flash. It was just there one second and gone the next.
“Amazing,” Paul said.
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