by Susan Grant
As he held her hand, something inside him seemed to open too… a sense of her, the woman, her soul. It whispered inside him, very faint, the connection tenuous.
Her fingers twitched in his grip, and she tipped her head. Did she see him as well?
The bus jerked to a stop, and he almost fell into her lap. They extracted their hands.
Falcon and the rest of the Solos sat as still as statues, watching them, their expressions wary.
Kelly leaned sideways, whispering. “Look at them. Their faces. It’s like when mom and dad argue in front of the kids.”
A quick, quiet laugh escaped him, and he replied in an equally private tone. “I am their leader as much as I am a mentor. And, yes, sometimes a parent.”
Outside the bus, Falcon told Hawk, “I and the others would like a word with her.”
Hawk nodded. Kelly might have thought whispering kept their conversation confidential, but with their boosted aural implants, the Solos hadn’t missed a word.
The Solos caught up to Kelly.
“Captain Ritz, if I may speak with you,” Falcon said. He was the tallest sky warrior on the team. As he pulled himself to his full height, he towered over Kelly, his braids gleaming in the hot Texas sun. “If our actions gave the wrong impression today, we are sorry. I speak for all the candidates—we’re grateful for everything the Terrans have done for us.”
“And will do for us,” Prince Narekk said. “We want this to work out.”
“Earth is our last hope,” Rowan put in.
“Our only hope,” Rigel added.
Somber, Ellfen nodded, saying nothing, which for her was something.
Kelly’s expression gentled, her eyes gleaming. How could she not be disarmed when his Solos were at their charming best? “It’ll be a day no one in Webber will soon forget.” She aimed a quick, wry smile at Hawk, the kind of look shared between friends. It heightened his sense of relief. “My goal is to help Project Sky Mates run smoothly. The fewer surprises there are, the easier my job will be. But no matter what, I’m here for you. I have your backs. It’s an Earth expression, if it translates.”
“It does,” Hawk assured her.
“All right then. Let’s get you processed through immigration, and then it’ll be time to welcome you to Texas properly.” Kelly led the way into the building.
Hawk hooked his travel bag over his shoulder and nodded to his Solos. They walked in single file behind him through the door.
He’d made a promise to Kelly, and he’d stick to it. Staying in the Terrans’ good graces meant playing by their rules.
Except, when it came to playing by the rules with the enchanting Kelly Ritz, he feared he was in trouble for more reasons than one.
Even before he stepped inside O’Malley’s, Hawk concluded nothing like it existed on his homeworld. Terran vehicles of every description filled the parking lot. Creatures called crickets sang in the nearby fields, competing with rumbling engines and the muffled music coming from a ramshackle building. Or was its ragged appearance intentional? The structure seemed solid once they got closer.
Kelly had so far been a gracious host and tour guide. He appreciated her efforts to explain a culture completely foreign to him and his team.
“When our monthly newcomers’ reception coincides with the Thursday-night DJ, O’Malley’s has a buffet,” she said. “Their barbecue is famous. People come from miles around for it.”
Inside the first set of doors, he used his olfactory data to parse a variety of smells defying description. He recognized a few of them, guessed on the rest… Fermented beverages and human sweat, cleaning products, wood smoke, and the aroma of grilled meat. He salivated and his stomach clenched with hunger.
Two-dimensional images, many of them black and white, and what appeared to be Terran artifacts clung to walls made of wood. From the other side of a large interior door with a U-shaped iron handle, he could hear more exotic music and many voices, laughter too. But inside the antechamber—he wasn’t sure if the word was the correct one for the front room between the two sets of doors—it was dim, the walls close, the air heavy. The Terrans had a word for the feeling it evoked: cozy.
He couldn’t help making a mental comparison to the last time he’d socialized, a small gathering of Sky Mates and dignitaries in his parents’ airy, elegant home. The son who couldn’t be a Sky Mate was headed out to secure mates for others. It was a moment of pride and also some consolation for his mother and father after seeing hopes for their children’s pairings dashed, especially Hawk’s. Their home took up the entire top floor of one of the tallest residential towers in Cloud City. The 360-degree aerial views that evening had been stunning: city lights stretching to the horizon where towering cumulonimbus clouds stood like sentinels against the backdrop of the sunset. Even more breathtaking was the sight of a beautiful Dragon-class warship approaching its berth at the nearby VIP Dragonport.
The two places couldn’t be more opposite from each other.
And yet O’Malley’s conjured in him a feeling he couldn’t describe but that somehow felt right.
Being in Kelly’s company felt right.
And, dear Goddess, he would sooner pull his gaze from that Dragon ship than her.
He doubled down on his effort to focus on her briefing, but the change in her appearance fascinated him. A black “T-shirt” over “jeans,” terms he’d learned while coordinating with the tailors on Sky’s End, hugged her curves. She wore a belt with an engraved silver buckle and silver bracelets, and a berry hue moistened her lips. Her dark hair, so different from his, looked soft, touchable, begging him to sink his fingers into the waves—
“We’re in here,” she said, grasping the door’s U-shaped handle.
He hefted the heavy door open the rest of the way, allowing her to go first. Despite aching from an impulse to kiss her, he revealed none of the chaos within him as he followed her into O’Malley’s.
“And this is our little corner of the bar,” Kelly said, feeling as if she were welcoming guests into her own home. She steered the group to where the 588th Fighter Training Squadron Welcomes you to Galactic Top Gun School banner hung from a wall decorated with so many squadron patches from all over the world that the wood paneling was no longer visible.
Some of her Crazy Eights squadron mates were already there, having started on a keg of beer. WUGs also mingled. As usual, the former Coalition and Drakken student pilots congregated in their respective groups. Despite being members of the new Triad Alliance, the aliens tended to separate along old fault lines. Before Earth had entered the picture, the galaxy had been at war for hundreds of years. There was a lot of bad blood.
A few Drakken glowered at the sky warriors. But to her relief, none chirped and they kept their distance.
After sort of being the mother hen of the delegation, making introductions, facilitating connections, and surviving the meet and greet with M&M, Kelly stole away with Hawk, leaving the candidates to mix.
They carried plates of food to a long table and slid into a couple of seats on the corner. It was a tight squeeze, elbow to elbow, a boisterous group. Her squadron had no sense of personal space.
Hawk was a good sport about it and didn’t seem to mind her being mashed up against him, her knees pressed to his thighs, her arm brushing his, their plates touching.
She definitely didn’t mind.
At the next table over, Rigel, Rowan, and Falcon held court with some fighter pilots. The sky warriors had achieved folk-hero status after their now infamous flyby. Everywhere they went, they were peppered with questions about their Raptors and the pilot-to-plane interface. The arrival had been a thing of awe.
Even if it had nearly gotten her canned.
Meanwhile, Karma and others chatted up Prince Narekk and Ellfen at the bar. No one but Kelly and a few need-to-know individuals were aware Narekk was a member of the royal family—Crown Princess Keira’s younger brother. Next to him, Ellfen watched the spectacle with hooded eyes. She looked like an
elegant Olympian in a sleeveless ivory tunic blouse, her gleaming pale hair spilling over one shoulder, her expression even more stern than Hawk’s. Kelly suspected she had the good sense to not fall for any of Karma’s lines.
“And that’s the best brisket on Earth,” Kelly said, giving Hawk a guided tour of the items he’d heaped on his plate—barbecued chicken, spicy sausage, pulled pork, and brisket. Rolls, beans, corn on the cob, and salad rounded out the spread. He’d wanted to sample everything. His appetite was as big as he was. “It’s sourced locally and smoked right here by the same family who’s owned this place for forty years.”
He hitched up the sleeves of his civilian shirt a little. He had nice hands and wrists, and she admired the play of sinew in his forearms as he wielded a fork and knife. “Brisket… it’s beef, yes? A cow.”
“Yes, but it’s a male cow—a steer.”
“To ‘have a cow’ is a colloquial expression. To ‘have a steer’ is not. Correct?”
She laughed, tearing her roll in half. “Correct. You’ll be speaking Earth slang like a pro by the time you leave.”
“It will be the first slang of any kind I’ve learned. At home, we speak the Queen’s Tongue in its original form—no alteration.” It explained his extreme formality when communicating.
“Hang with Earth long enough and we’re bound to corrupt you.” She grinned. “It starts with your language. Then your culture. The next thing you know, you’ll have a Starbucks on every corner and Netflix on every TV.”
His brows drew together, and he seemed to work on puzzling out her words, as if every last one were critically important and needed to be thoroughly examined and taken literally.
He was so irresistibly serious, so straitlaced.
In bed too? Or did he let loose and get wild?
Kelly! Stop. She drilled her gaze into her plate until mental images of Hawk—naked—had safely passed.
Explaining Starbucks and Netflix as best she could, she said, “Just don’t let your guard down around us Terrans. We may be small, but we’re sneaky. We tend to leave fingerprints on everything we touch.”
His mouth twitched. “Being corrupted by you may not be an entirely unpleasant experience.” He winced. “I mean by Earth. Sky’s End by the Terrans.”
“It’s okay. I knew what you meant.” He’d made it clear from their first messages he wasn’t interested in her in that way. A relief, really, or working with him would have been much more complicated. Still, every time his gaze lowered to her mouth and hovered there, a zing of heat went through her.
It’s not attraction he’s feeling. He’s only trying to lip-read over the noise.
Across the room, the dance floor was packed. “Copperhead Road” was playing, and a crowd stomped through a line dance, boots landing rhythmically against the old wood floors. She tapped her boots to the beat.
As Hawk dug in to his meal, he took it all in—the bar, the people, the laughter, even a rowdy game of beer pong and someone riding the old mechanical bull. If only she could see O’Malley’s through his eyes. What did it look like to him?
The cantina from Star Wars maybe. Crazy aliens doing crazy things.
His chiseled features could appear hard and cold, an impression heightened by the slight silvery cast to his skin and his default expression of looking stern. But in that moment, his face was warm with curiosity, even wonder.
“What do you do for recreation at home?” she asked.
“Recreation. This is a Terran concept—and an unfamiliar one.”
She tipped her head in surprise. “Life can’t be all work and no play, surely.”
“Sky warriors do not play. We train, we fight.”
“Breaking news: the war is over.”
“Then we train to be ready if it ever were to come again.”
“I give you that,” she said. “We train to stay prepared too. Work hard, play hard, as we say on Earth. In the interest of cross-cultural, intragalactic awareness, and as your co-liaison and host, it’s my duty to make sure you have a good time on my planet. You and your team. I recall you thanking me for my due diligence on the matter of seeing to your comfort. Translated, that means fun.”
“Fun…” He put his weight on his folded arms and leaned forward, raising one flared brow. “I agreed to this, you say.”
“You did, yes. I have it in writing.” She also leaned forward… to stealthily inhale his mouthwatering scent. It was subtle—he wore no fragrance—but it was there and it was delicious, and she couldn’t explain why. It took everything she had to not bury her nose in the crook of his neck and breathe deep. “You’re committed now, Hawk. You’ll just have to trust me when it comes to your recreation.”
His gaze turned so vibrant his eyes practically glowed. She found herself wondering if the pale cropped hair on the sides of his head was as downy as it looked. Kelly… stop. “Do people go out dancing on Sky’s End?”
“I imagine there are places one can go in Cloud City, but I’ve never frequented them.”
His bottle of root beer sat next to her real beer. Sky warriors didn’t drink, he’d told her one day, explaining why the Coalition military had dubbed them the Monks of the Rim. “Abstaining has less to do with discipline than it does with the fact it can interfere with my neural implants.”
It was easy to forget he was part cyborg, that inside his brain and in his body there were alterations, cybernetic “enhancements.”
Foreign objects. She wouldn’t want him to switch to tequila shots and short-circuit something important. “How do you like the root beer? It’s homemade—brewed at O’Malley’s.”
“It’s delicious and not like anything I’ve tasted before.”
She inhaled through her nose. “That sweet smell always takes me back to my childhood.”
“Yes, your file states that Webber, Texas, is your place of birth.
“Yes, sir, I’m a hometown girl. My dad, my real dad, was a ranch hand—he worked with cattle—cows and steers.” A memory of driving to O’Malley’s with her parents in an old pickup flitted through her mind—her happily sandwiched between them, the windows rolled down, country music playing on the old AM/FM radio. “He died when I was six. I don’t remember a lot about him that’s not from photos, just a sense of him being a jokester… his laughter.” A lopsided grin. A sliver in time before everything changed.
“My mom remarried. A pilot from the base,” she said, cutting into a slice of tender brisket with the side of her fork. “We moved all over the world with my stepfather. And then I grew up and moved all over too. But I never stopped missing Webber. It’s part of me, of who I am. It’s home.”
She dragged a forkful of brisket through some barbecue sauce, then glanced up to find Hawk focused on her—not drinking, not eating, just listening. His eyes, a lighter brown than hers with a faint lavender tint, rimmed in dark lashes, shone with an intensity she felt on the inside.
If this was how sky warriors gazed at women they weren’t interested in, she couldn’t imagine the fireworks between a pair of Sky Mates.
“You want to stay here,” he said. It sounded halfway between a statement and a question.
“I’m going to try my damnedest. If I can get promoted to the number three position in my squadron, it’ll allow me to stay a few more years. But I have to be selected for the job first.” She held up her crossed fingers.
He seemed to ponder that for a moment; then he drained the last drops of his root beer. “I must procure a refill. Another drink, Kelly?”
“No, thanks. I’m a one-beer girl tonight. I have to drive.”
Or was Hawk the real reason she wanted to stay sober? She’d need to keep her wits about her in the company of a man who was one hundred percent, authorized-personnel-only, off-limits.
Chapter Five
Kelly sipped her beer and admired Hawk as he made his way to the bar. His jeans and cowboy boots did wonders for his ass. She couldn’t believe what a good job the tailors on his homeworld had done, creat
ing Earth clothing for the delegation.
Then again, he’d be a mighty fine specimen of manhood no matter what he wore—or didn’t wear—all six foot five inches of him.
Not that she’d ever let him know. Kelly Anna Ritz showed interest in a man the way she played poker. The less you revealed, the less you risked.
Even with a man who called himself a monk.
And acted like one too. She’d not once caught his gaze following a cute girl’s ass all evening. He didn’t use foul language or flirt, not even with her.
Especially not with her. The one time he’d joked about her corrupting him, he’d bashfully backtracked. Maybe she should take a lesson from his model behavior.
“Well, look at you, gorgeous lady.” Dee sauntered up to the table. She wore jeans and boots like Kelly and a frilly floral cotton blouse. Her red hair, usually in a prim bun at work, was long and loose. She plopped her hands on her hips, looking Kelly up and down. “Yow, yow.”
“Aw, Rainbow. Stop.” Kelly grinned.
“I love the loose waves framing your face. And your makeup, the way you did your eyes, all sultry like.” Dee winked. “Hot date later?”
Kelly rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I spent all week stinky, sweaty, and wearing men’s clothing. I felt like getting prettied up, that’s all. For me. Not for anyone else.” Not for a guy.
Not for Hawk.
At least that’s what she kept telling herself.
She smoothed the hem of her clingy black V-neck T-shirt. Her hair felt soft against her jaw and neck, and it smelled good too. A far cry from that afternoon, when she’d met Hawk looking like a runaway scarecrow. “My focus is on the delegation. Making them feel welcome. Where were you? Pull up a chair.”
“I was at a meeting. And I can’t stay.”
“Then sit for a minute. Hawk went to get a drink.”
