sedona files - books one to three

by Christine Pope

  Damn. And they’d been going on so well there for a while, discussing things as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t held her in his arms just a few short hours ago. How long had it been, actually? From where she was sitting she could squint and just make out the digital clock on the microwave in the kitchen. Two forty-four. Somehow it felt much later than that.

  “Maybe we should just worry about that later,” she said.

  “How much later?”

  The question sent a small spark of fury along her veins. What a thing to be asking, considering everything that was going on. She had no idea how she even felt about Grayson, and there were aliens outside town plotting God knows what, and the man she’d been hopelessly in love with for years had finally gotten the balls to admit that he cared for her as well, and what the hell was she supposed to do with that information?

  She was so wrapped up in her thoughts she didn’t even realize at first that Lance had gotten out of his chair and now stood next to her.

  “Kara.”

  A look upward, and those keen eyes caught her and seemed to hold her, seemed to keep her from moving or speaking. He reached down and took her hands, drew her upward. Then his mouth was on hers, his hands in her hair, his body crushed against her. She could feel so much more of him now that she wore only the tank top, feel his taut muscles against her breasts, the strength of his fingers and the warmth of his flesh. There was her own heat as well, working its way from the pit of her stomach down between her legs, the need, the ache, the desire for something she’d dreamed of for so many years…

  Somehow she managed to back away, to put a few inches of distance between them. Lance did nothing to stop her, as if he knew she needed to claim that space for herself.

  Oh, she was in trouble. Big trouble. Even though she’d wanted this for so long, some part of her had hoped that when Lance kissed her, it wouldn’t do all that much, and she could dismiss the infatuation as simply that, and no more. But…

  Kissing Grayson had been amazing. No doubt about that. God only knew how a human/alien hybrid with no experience of women could manage to be even half that talented, but wherever he’d learned his technique, it was damn good.

  Kissing Lance, though…

  Kissing Lance was like coming home. It felt right, more right than anything ever had. He was too old for her, scarred and ironic and distant, and yet she knew now that what she’d felt for him all these years had been her soul crying out for its mate, for the person who understood her and knew everything about her and still loved her anyway.

  She stood there for a long moment, staring up at him. Still he didn’t move, but only watched her with those steel-gray eyes of his, eyes that had seen far too much and yet lingered on her with a sort of wondering joy, as if he couldn’t quite believe that they had come to this moment.

  Somehow she found her voice. “Is this crazy?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “Probably.”

  “Well, as long as we’re in agreement on that.” Her body ached with need for him, but, as right as things felt with Lance, she knew she couldn’t take the next step, not until she had time to let Grayson know how things stood between them. And Lance would just have to understand. Stumbling over the words, she continued, “I want to, Lance. But not yet. Not before — I should talk to him, let him know — ”

  “It’s all right.”

  Startled, she stared up at him. The lighting made it difficult to read his expression clearly, but he just looked resigned and possibly a little amused.

  “I’ve waited this long to say anything, Kara. Do you think a night or two is really going to make that much of a difference?”

  She wanted to smile back at him. Instead, she planted her hands on her hips and tilted her chin. “How do you know it’s going to be only ‘a night or two’?”

  “Wild guess.”

  And then they were kissing again, bodies locked in an intimacy that might have been a tease but which Kara knew was really a promise. It would have been so easy to take him by the hand, lead him down the hall to her bedroom. Time enough for that later, though. She knew she could never forgive herself if she didn’t set things straight with Grayson first.

  Whether he’d be open to her explanations was an entirely different matter….

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lance left sometime early that morning. When, Kara wasn’t exactly sure, but his Jeep was gone when she staggered out of bed at around seven-thirty, feeling seriously hung over even though all she’d had the night before was approximately a glass and a half of wine. Well, sometimes hangovers could be mental rather than physical.

  She tried to put away the feel of his lips, the warmth of his flesh, as she took a shower and prepped herself for the meeting at Persephone and Paul’s house. The timing meant she’d be hanging another sign on the door at the UFO Depot, but she wasn’t about to skip out on something so important just because the store was open. Luckily, Thursdays tended to be slow as well — not quite as quiet as Wednesdays, true, but it wasn’t as if she was shutting down on another weekend day.

  So she printed out yet another “Closed for family business” sign on her laser printer and laid it on the front seat of her Prius before heading out. She found herself glad to be leaving the house — even with Gort there, the place still felt empty with both Grayson and Lance gone. But as intense as that exchange with Lance had been the night before, she wasn’t quite sure where they were headed. Into bed, she had no doubt, but after that? Could Lance give up his freewheeling bachelor status to settle down with her?

  She found she didn’t want to think about that right now, not with the memory of his kiss still tingling on her lips. Neither did she want to think about the upcoming interview with Grayson. How on earth could she make him understand that she had turned to Lance because she’d been in love with him for years, and not because she was rejecting who Grayson was and where he had come from?

  Could she have come to overlook that, if Lance hadn’t been part of the equation? She wanted to say she could, but she had no way of knowing for sure. Sure, he was sweet and fun and considerate…and half-alien. And not even the good kind of alien, like Persephone’s spirit guide Otto, who had turned out not to be a spirit at all, but some sort of highly evolved humanoid being. No, the aliens currently reinfesting the base in Secret Canyon were much more the abduction/medical experiments/mind-fuck kind of aliens. Whatever their reason for creating human/alien hybrids, it definitely wasn’t for the betterment of mankind.

  Mouth grim, she pulled into the parking lot of the UFO Depot at five ’til ten — her usual opening time — and strode up to the door. She’d just ripped off a piece of tape from the roll she’d tossed in her purse when a half-familiar voice said,

  “Been having a lot of family emergencies lately, haven’t you?”

  She turned and forced a noncommittal expression on her face as she saw one of the MIBs from the other day — the tall, friendly one, fortunately — standing a few feet off. Behind him was parked a black Ford that practically screamed “unmarked law enforcement vehicle.”

  “If you knew my mother, you wouldn’t be surprised,” she remarked, and began taping the sign to the front door of the shop.

  “I know of her,” he said. “So no, I’m not that surprised. What does surprise me is that her last known location was Taos. You planning a road trip, Ms. Swenson?”

  Taos? she thought in some disbelief. The last time she’d talked to her mother, she’d been in Phoenix. No big surprise, though. Marybeth Swenson always did have itchy feet…especially if a man was involved.

  Kara shrugged and said, “Oh, right. I’m not supposed to leave town. Well, unless I’m under arrest, I’m going.”

  “Why do you think I’d want to arrest you?”

  He seemed genuinely interested. Despite the bright morning sunlight, he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, and his eyes — a clear gray-blue — looked guileless enough.

  “Where’s your partner?” she ask
ed.

  An incongruous grin. “He had an attack of some chile relleno that didn’t agree with him.”

  “Oh. Too bad.”

  The grin broadened a little, as if he knew all too well that she wasn’t a bit sad about his partner’s current condition. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I guess usually if you don’t want someone to skip town, you have a pretty good reason for it. And if you want someone to stay put, then generally you types can come up with a reason to arrest them. Or are the movies and TV shows getting it all wrong?”

  “I’d say they’re exaggerating.”

  “So I’m free to go?”

  “Since it’s up to me…” He made a show of shrugging, then reached in his pocket and pulled out a card and handed it to her.

  Kara took it, since she didn’t know what else to do. “Martin Jones, Special Agent, FBI,” she read. That was all, except for a phone number with what she thought was a Phoenix prefix.

  “You find you need any help, Ms. Swenson, you give me a call.”

  When pigs fly, she thought, and then chided herself. He seemed friendly enough. Maybe she was flattering herself by even entertaining for a second or two the notion that his interest in her might not be entirely professional. She hoped not. She already had enough men to deal with. “You think I’m going to need help in the near future?”

  Another shrug. “You never know.” He fished his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and planted them on his nose. “Time to go see if Agent DeSalvo has pulled his head out of a toilet yet. You have a good day, Ms. Swenson.”

  “You, too.”

  And she watched in bemusement as he got into his unmarked car and drove off, heading west on 89A, which meant the two of them were probably staying in one of the cheaper motels out toward the edge of town. At least he hadn’t hung around to watch which direction she would go when she left the parking lot. Paul and Persephone’s house was on the southern border of Sedona proper, down toward the Village of Oak Creek, and the opposite direction from the one Kara would have had to take if she really were heading up to I-40 so she could go rescue her mother in Taos.

  Well, she couldn’t hang around here all day and wonder what exactly the MIBs were up to, if anything beyond some pretty basic surveillance. Although the “council of war” was scheduled for eleven, Kara had already checked with Persephone to see if it was okay for her to come over a little early. Not that she was all that eager to have a confrontation with Grayson, but Kara figured it would be better if she spoke to him first, before everyone got there.

  The Olivers’ house was in a newer subdivision, halfway up a hill off Chapel Road. Kara had wondered how they’d managed to swing the purchase of the house, considering the neighborhood where it was located and its relative size, but Persephone had just laughed when the question came up and said, “Paul and I both had some money saved up. Besides, our mortgage here is less than what I was paying for a two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood. Property values in L.A. are insane.”

  Maybe that was true. Kara never had the slightest desire to find out how much it cost to live in Los Angeles — she was a northern Arizona girl and always would be.

  She pulled into the driveway and got out. Once again, clouds were beginning to move up from the southeast, bringing with them fluttering shade and shadow. The day still promised to be mind-achingly hot, though; even at this hour she could hear the faint whir of an air conditioning unit off somewhere along the side of the house.

  Maybe it was Persephone being psychic — or maybe she heard Kara’s footsteps along the stamped-concrete walkway that led to the front door. Whatever the case, the door opened before Kara even had a chance to knock. Persephone stepped out of the way with a smile. One would never know to look at her that she’d had a half-alien houseguest the night before.

  She led Kara into the living room, where Paul and Grayson were waiting, both looking distinctly uncomfortable. Unfortunate, since it was the sort of room that invited you to be comfortable. The tone of the furnishings and flooring was more Tuscan villa than desert Southwest, but everywhere were warm tones, plumply upholstered furniture, and mismatched antiques that still coordinated beautifully.

  You couldn’t say the same for the two men sitting on the couch and in one of the arm chairs. Paul shot a grateful look in Kara’s direction, obviously only too glad to have her take over babysitting duties. And Grayson…well, Grayson looked as if he hadn’t slept all night, which might just be the simple truth. His green eyes were bloodshot and shadowed, and stared up at her with a sort of desperate hope.

  She swallowed. Grayson was obviously expecting some sort of lifeline, and she’d come bearing an anchor instead.

  “Hi, Grayson,” she said, relieved that at least she sounded mostly normal. “I thought maybe we could talk before everyone gets here.”

  He only nodded, eyes still fixed on her as if trying to read his fate in her face.

  “We can go into the family room — ” Persephone began, but Kara shook her head.

  “I thought Grayson and I could talk out in the yard. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Persephone replied. Paul just looked grateful that whatever they were going to hash out, at least it wouldn’t be in the house where he’d have to pretend not to overhear.

  The yard was as lovely as the house. It had been pretty much laid out and landscaped when the Olivers bought the place, although they’d added a water feature to the area next to the house where a pergola covered in grapevines provided some much-needed shade. A redwood bench, aged silver by the elements, waited there, and that was where Kara led Grayson, who still hadn’t spoken.

  She sat down, and after a second or two he took a seat next to her, body tense, jaw set. Whatever he’d seen in her expression, apparently he could tell it didn’t bode well for their future.

  “Grayson, I — ” she began, and he shook his head.

  “Just tell me the truth. I may not be a man, but I deserve that much.”

  Had he spent all night harrowing himself with that thought, that he was not human, but something devised by the aliens for some unknown purpose? More gently than she had intended, she reached out and took his hand. It felt very real and very human, from the warmth of his flesh to the calluses on his fingertips. There was even still a spot of grease under one of his fingernails, left over from working on the Indian.

  Throat a little tight, Kara said, “You’re Grayson. That’s all that matters. I’ll admit that last night I was shocked by what Persephone said, and maybe I didn’t handle things as well as I should. I’m sorry for that. But I wanted to tell you that what’s happening with me doesn’t have anything to do with who you are or where you came from.”

  “‘What’s happening’?” he repeated, looking confused.

  Oh, this was awful. It wasn’t fair that he was watching her with that half-worried, half-hopeful expression, like a puppy unsure whether it was going to get a treat or smacked with a rolled-up newspaper. How on earth could she explain to him what had happened between Lance and her…not when she wasn’t sure if she could even explain it to herself?

  She let go of his fingers and rubbed her damp palms over the knees of her jeans. Damn, it was hot out here, even in the shade. The jeans suddenly felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds.

  “I just want you to know that we’re going to watch out for you, keep you safe, no matter what happens. We won’t let them get you.”

  One eyebrow went up, as if he guessed there was some subtext to her words beyond the offer of protection. “Well…thanks, I guess. Don’t be offended when I say I’m not sure what you can really do to defend me from them if they get wind of where I am.”

  He had a point there. Kara wasn’t sure, either, but since Persephone, Lance, and Michael had somehow come out victorious in the last go-round, there had to be some hope that they’d prevail again. “That’s more Persephone’s deal, I guess…and Lance’s, and Michael’s.”
/>
  Another guarded look, as if Grayson had heard some alteration in her tone when she said Lance’s name. “Ms. Oliver mentioned them. They’re part of your UFO group?”

  “I guess that’s as good a way of describing it as any. Look, Grayson, I’ve always been the one to wait it out on the sidelines. I’m not a psychic or a shaman or a soldier. So I don’t know what they have planned. But I suppose we’ll discuss that when everybody gets here.”

  “Probably the smartest thing you could do is just hand me over, you know. They might take it as a gesture of good faith.”

  Kara stared at him, not sure whether she should be more horrified by the suggestion itself or by the way in which Grayson had said it — voice flat, detached, as if he were discussing someone else entirely. “We would never do that.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Restless, she got to her feet and stared off past the cottonwoods that ringed the yard. The red-hued top of Courthouse Butte was just faintly visible through the lacy green foliage. Absently, she thought that view had probably added at least another twenty or thirty grand to the price of the house. “For one thing, even if we were that cold-hearted — which we’re not — we know it’s pointless to try negotiating with them. They don’t see us as much more than insects, right? So how could we trust them to ever keep their word about anything?”

  An unwilling smile touched his mouth. “You know more about it than you let on.”

  “I listen to what people have to say.”

  He nodded but didn’t speak at first, instead gazing past her into the garden with its carefully groomed gravel walks and the assortment of drought-tolerant plants and grasses that grew in the spaces between the walkways. At length he said, tone too casual, “This Lance person. Your voice changes when you mention him. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  There’s a whole lot of something I’m not telling you… Somehow she forced herself to nod. “I’ve known him for almost six years.”