by Rachel Clark
“Of course I love her,” Sek said irritably. “I love her enough to want to see her achieve everything she can achieve. I love her enough to know that holding her back from her destiny is selfish.”
“Your brothers will agree with you,” To’huto said in a voice that sounded suspiciously like a warning. “Would you deny her the chance to be happy with the four of you? You seem to be forgetting that she created my program with the single purpose of meeting you sooner.”
Just the idea of losing her was enough to make him ache with grief.
“Except that,” Sek said, rubbing his chest where it hurt so damn much, “her decision was made from grief. She decided to give up everything to get her husbands back. Can you really tell me the woman you know—the person she is now—would give up everything she achieved just for a chance to have babies with me and my brothers?”
“Yes,” a soft voice said from behind him.
He turned quickly, startled to realize she’d come into the room when he’d been arguing with a damn computer. His brothers didn’t look very happy, but Riak raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain.
“For want of a better description, To’huto lied to us. Amanda does achieve her career goals. Nobody steals her work. She becomes a very important part of the human space travel program.” He held his arms open and could barely breathe when she stepped into his embrace. “Sweetheart, we can’t ask you to give that all up.”
He almost buckled at the knees when he felt the first shudder go through her. Even when she’d learned that her work had supposedly been stolen she hadn’t cried, but now he held her tight as grief rolled through her.
“I can’t lose you,” she said haltingly, her words watery with her tears.
“Don’t worry, baby,” Kar said, stepping up behind her and pressing a kiss to her shoulder, “we have no intention of letting you go anywhere…” Sek was shocked by his brother’s horrific selfishness—how could he even think of holding her back from her true destiny?—until Riak added the words, “without us.”
Chapter Thirteen
We have no intention of letting you go anywhere…without us.
It took a while for the words to sink in, but the relief that flowed through her was undeniable.
“Baby,” Riak said as all four men surrounded her, “we’ll find a way to make it work. Humans make contact with Kobarians in the year 2024. We’ll meet you soon after and we can pick up where we’ve left off. It’s only six years. Then we can be together and support you through the rest of the amazing achievements you’re going to make.”
“But I can’t ask you to give up your careers, your futures, for me.”
“Why not?” Kar asked in a very reasonable-sounding voice. “You were willing to do it for us.”
“But that was…” Her words trailed away. She was going to say it was different, but in many ways it really wasn’t. She had as much right to a career as they all did.
“Sweetheart,” Riak said, leaning over to press a soft kiss to her lips, “we have time travel. We have four of us. Surely we can find a way to continue our careers while we support you with yours.”
“But what about children? I thought you wanted to start a family.” Her hand hovered protectively over her belly. For the past three weeks she’d been imagining what it would be like to be pregnant with their child. It seemed almost cruel to take that from her now.
“We will make it work. It’s only six years,” Kar said. The way he said it made it sound like a sacred vow. The other three men nodded their agreement.
“I love you,” she whispered to all of them.
“We know.”
* * * *
“To’h, would it be possible to make me a bra like the one Sektannen recycled several months ago?” Amanda asked quietly. She was still trying to sort through everything that had happened in the past few hours. Plans had been made and discarded and refined and rehashed and argued and just about everything in between. Thankfully, between the five of them they’d come to what seemed like a workable enough strategy.
Amanda would return to her own time at the same place and moment that she left. That way her career wouldn’t suffer any interruption. Her men would join her as soon as Kobarians made official contact with the leaders on Earth.
“Why would you want such a torturous device?” To’huto asked in his typical smart-ass voice.
“Because I left my time wearing one. I sure as hell don’t want to return without a bra on.”
“Ah,” the computer said as if it somehow understood her concerns, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, To’h,” she said quietly.
“Are you okay, Amanda?” To’huto asked. She shook her head even as she tried to remind herself that To’huto was only a computer program. Granted, she was the author, so there was a good chance it would recognize her moods, but that still didn’t make it a sentient life-form.
“Perhaps,” To’huto said in a philosophical-sounding tone of voice, “your father said it best. Everything happens for a reason, kiddo.”
“I never really understood that,” she said, staring at the computer console as if it could somehow explain what her father had meant. “If everything happens for a reason, then how do I get any choices? Doesn’t that just mean I’m bouncing aimlessly through life, a victim of circumstances, that I have no control?”
“Perhaps,” To’huto said with what she would swear was a mischievous laugh, “your father hadn’t quite factored in your determination.”
“What?” Yes, she knew the computer was just a product of her design, but shouldn’t she at least understand why it was quoting her father? “To’huto, what the hell do you mean by that?”
“It means your torturous undergarment is ready, Amanda.”
She threw her hands in the air. Was she really getting annoyed at a computer? It was likely trying to choose soothing random sayings in response to her irritation. It had become clear over the past several months that she’d programmed To’huto with empathy files, so it was likely just linking her mood to the wrong verbal platitudes.
If she ever got around to building To’huto in the future she was leaving that part out!
“Ready?” Kar asked as he, Riak, Sek, and Tannen came into the room.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said. “Six years? No more—promise?”
“Absolutely,” Riak said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. “We’ll get this survey mission wrapped up and meet at the official 2024 ceremony where humans and Kobarians pledge the friendship between their species.”
Sek reassured her with a soft kiss as he pulled her out of his brother’s arms and into his own.
“Six years is a long time. What if you change your minds?”
“Never,” Tannen said as he stepped closer to touch her face with the back of his knuckles and then pressed a kiss to her lips.
“We already consider you our wife, Amanda Hasbro. We will be there.”
Amanda nodded, quickly dragged on the clothes that she’d been wearing the day she arrived, and then headed for her tiny spacecraft. Even as she dragged herself into the cockpit she felt the heaviness of regret. It felt wrong to leave them.
“I could stay another month,” she said hopefully, despite the fact that they’d discussed over and over the necessity to get her back to her own time. All four men crossed their arms and shook their heads. It was kind of weird that, despite being unable to see their tattoos, she could easily tell each one apart. Considering that they were physically and genetically identical, except for the tattoos on their inner wrists, it really shouldn’t have been possible.
But they were right. She’d already stayed here several months. Another month might become a year. A year might become two. Two might become many. Eventually it wouldn’t be possible for her to return to her own time without having to explain a whole lot of physical aging. Not to mention the fact that they didn’t actually have any form of contraception on board. If she stay
ed any longer she might become pregnant and that might lead to a whole lot of medical testing and questions she really didn’t want to answer. Technically she was going back to Area 51. She didn’t even want to consider if the conspiracy theorists’ rumors had some truth to them.
“We love you,” Kar said with a happy smile. “We’ll see you soon.”
She nodded, desperately holding on to that thought.
Chapter Fourteen
She was ready for the blinding flash of light this time. She popped back into her own time exactly where and when she’d left it—struggling to land her shuddering craft. Fortunately, this time the runway was exactly where she expected it to be.
Amanda wrestled her little ship to the ground, landing hard, the sudden, almost sideways impact throwing her around and slamming her helmet hard against the side of the cockpit before she managed to roll to a stop. Stunned, she tried to focus her eyes and remember what she’d intended to do at this point.
Oh yes. Tear Hensworth a new one. Slimy, cheating, underhanded rat bastard.
“Where is he?” she asked into her two-way communication with the flight tower as she disengaged the locks and went to exit her tiny craft. Damn, her head hurt, but it was the way she was having difficulty moving her mouth that pissed her off. Shit, what a time to sound like a drunken prom date. First thing tomorrow she was designing a better helmet. She tried again to climb out of the cockpit but froze at the operator’s startled question.
“He who?” the man asked, probably stalling for time. They would have all heard the exchange between her and her copilot. At the very least she was going to take the tape to The President and get that asshole Hensworth fired.
“Don’t. Fuck. With me,” she growled into the lip mic, trying to remember how upset she would have been if she hadn’t just spent several glorious months in the arms of men she loved. “I want Hensworth arrested for attempted murder.”
“You can’t be serious,” a new voice said over the radio. “How did we get from failed test flight to attempted murder? Amanda, don’t you remember what happened? You were silent, ignoring every check-in. We thought you were out cold until you ejected Clyde. What was wrong? Why did you eject him? And why didn’t you eject yourself?”
“No, that’s not what happened. He ejected,” Amanda said, grinding her teeth together as she finally started to remember some of the bullshit she’d been dealing with working in a male-dominated field. Crap, if she didn’t already have a headache…“I’m the woman who saved millions of dollars’ worth of experimental spacecraft from crashing into the Nevada desert.”
“Hasbro,” yet another male voice said, “stay where you are. We’re concerned that you may have hit your head during takeoff. We’ve got a medical team coming to you.”
“What? No, I don’t need medical attention. I need answers.” That would have been a lot more convincing without the slur in her voice, but dammit, she definitely remembered what happened. Assholes.
“It’s okay, sweet cheeks,” her copilot said through her headphones. “We’ll figure out what went wrong while you get yourself checked out.”
“Nothing went wrong. You ejected, you asshole. You told me you were following orders.”
“I what?” Clyde seemed genuinely surprised by her accusation. “Honey, just let the doc check you over. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Amanda swallowed hard as she tried to make sense of the last three minutes. In her mind the test flight had happened several months ago, but the details were very clear in her memory. She knew without a doubt that Clyde had claimed at the time he’d ejected that he was following orders from Hensworth. It was exactly the type of dirty tactics Hensworth would employ to try and discredit her. The man had been against a woman joining the research program from day one.
Amanda dragged her helmet off and rubbed a hand through her sweaty hair. The whole side of her head felt tender, but at least she didn’t have an egg-sized lump. Right now six years without Kar, Riak, Sek, and Tannen seemed like it was going to take forever.
She saw the ground crew hurrying toward her and almost rolled her eyes at the overly dramatic way they dragged a medical stretcher between them. Shit. She didn’t need medical care—but she decided she didn’t need to roll her eyes just at the moment, either. Good god, that was one hell of a headache. What she needed was justice. At the very least she needed to put her boot up someone’s ass. By his orders, Hensworth had not only damn near killed her, but he’d risked the entire project.
She spent the short trip to the hospital explaining over and over what had happened on the test flight. She repeated word for word what Clyde had said, rehashed every snide remark, every sexist comment, every difficulty Hensworth had thrown her way over the years, and instead of fury and reaction all she got was sad smiles and shaking heads.
After several hours of interrupted sleep, the questions started over once more. Her answers were exactly the same. Their reactions unchanged, too.
What the hell was wrong with these people? Why weren’t they listening?
She rubbed her head, tired of the endless questions that just seemed to be going around and around in circles. It didn’t help that she’d nearly slipped up and mentioned her little trip into the past and her alien encounter.
“Can we maybe do this tomorrow?” she asked the four doctors, two official Air Force representatives, and her traitorous copilot. She started picking at the tape on the back of her hand so that they could remove the cannula setup currently dripping fluids into her vein.
“I think it would be best if you stay here at least another night.” She gave the doctor an incredulous look. “Just for observation,” he added quickly.
“I’m fine. I don’t have any lumps or bumps or bruises. The concussion was only mild. You said that yourself. I’m sufficiently hydrated. There’s no reason to keep me here any longer.”
The doctor seemed ready to reassure her, but he was interrupted by one of the alpha-assholes she’d been working with for the past few years. “Ms. Hasbro, consider that an order.”
“I don’t take orders,” she said with the fakest smile she could muster. “I’m a civilian consultant. Remember?”
Judging by the look on his face, he not only remembered but was about to mess with her civil liberties. She glanced back at the doctor in time to see him inject something into her intravenous line. She scrambled to rip the cannula from her hand, but her alpha-asshole buddy, Clyde, was there to stop her.
“You bastard,” she mumbled as she waited for everything to go black.
* * * *
“How is she?” Kar asked in a low, growly voice over the thing humans called a cell phone.
“She’s fine. I stayed the night by her bedside. Nobody else heard her mumbling in her dreams,” Riak said, managing to inject a smug-sounding tone into his voice. “We’ll be home soon.” He switched off the phone and dropped it into his pocket.
Twelve months ago they’d been discussing when to travel to the meeting time with Amanda when To’huto had finally volunteered the rest of the information he’d been hiding. Ironically, it had been labeled “Third Time’s the Charm.”
Apparently, the first time they’d gone to meet her in her own time Amanda hadn’t been there. To’huto provided them with enough information to prove that the asshole who’d sabotaged her test flight had also managed to have her hospitalized for a head injury she’d received while landing. She’d been suffering a mild concussion but had mumbled a few things in her sleep about aliens that split into four and time travelers who were waiting for her. Hensworth had used that as an argument to have her removed from the space travel program—after he stole all of her work.
Both futures that To’huto had told them had actually come to pass—both the one where Amanda Hasbro was widely acknowledged as the mother of modern space travel and the one where Hensworth stole her ideas, cocked up most of her research, but managed well enough to inspire other, more-intelligent researchers to follow Ama
nda’s theories.
Unfortunately, in that second scenario they’d also been unable to find Amanda for several years more. By the time she’d been released from psychiatric evaluation she’d barely been the bright, intelligent, determined woman they’d known. She’d also convinced herself that there was no such thing as Kobarians and love despite the evidence of four large Kobarians declaring their love for her. Angry that they’d all given up so much for Amanda to have a chance at her career only to have it stolen from her, Kar, Riak, Sek, and Tannen had apparently tweaked To’huto’s program and tried again.
Hopefully, this time they’d be more successful.
Armed with the knowledge of what would happen this day, Riak had managed to infiltrate the medical staff at this base and had quietly spent the past six months working undercover and waiting. It had just about killed him to be so close yet be unable to approach the woman he loved until after the failed test flight, but finally the waiting was over.
“I see our patient wants to go home,” Riak said as he stepped into the medical room just as they tried to sedate Amanda. Thank heavens he’d managed to switch the actual sedative with a saline solution.
He saw Amanda’s eyes widen in surprise, but thankfully she didn’t say anything.
“Yes, doctor,” one of his underlings replied, sounding a little nervous. Riak hadn’t exactly spent the past six months making friends, but it looked like he’d been right on his guess of which doctors had been involved in Amanda’s false detention. Riak wasn’t exactly in charge, but he at least outranked these assholes. “We were just recommending that she stay overnight for observation.”
He made a show of flipping through her medical records—he was already very familiar with her file, but the occupants of this room didn’t need to know that.
“All of the tests came up normal. There are no longer any signs of concussion. No physical injuries of any kind. I don’t see any reason for us to keep Ms. Hasbro here.”
