Kendra instinctively corrected her aim.
Smoke sizzled out of Cowboy’s chest. His hands laced over the wound. His look was as incredulous as hers was. He stared at Kendra, then, in slow motion he turned his head toward Dan. His mouth opened, but whatever he had to say was never spoken.
Kendra watched in stunned disbelief as Cowboy sank slowly to his knees, all the while staring up at her in wonder. He shook his head. I don’t believe it, he malked. Then, slowly, his eyes closed and he fell over.
Kendra’s knees gave way and she dropped to the cold concrete. She stared at the man on the floor between her and Dan. At the same time a crackling sound vibrated through the room until the air-conditioning system swallowed it up.
“Kendra.” Dan’s voice was quiet, but it caught her attention. “Dear God, Kendra.”
Still stunned, she gazed over at him, at first unable to understand the magnitude of what she had just done and unwilling to accept either the blame or the credit. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face. “Sweet heaven, what have I done?”
Dan’s voice was so low she could hardly hear him. “You did what you had to do, honey. If you wanted us to live, you had to kill him. I tried, but I couldn’t.”
“But to kill...” Her thought drifted off. Since she had met this human, she’d gone through so many changes she couldn’t count them anymore. As shocked as she was by what she’d done, that wasn’t what appalled her the most.
She had been lied to by her Elders. There were lots of Herfronites on this planet. She had been here only two weeks and she’d met four of them. Two of them had come forward just now and helped save her life. They lived and worked here! It wasn’t an accident that she’d found them; they had sought her out to help her run away from Cowboy. That told her there were probably more. Lots more. Perhaps that was what had happened to some of the ones who had traveled with her. They had decided to pull away and didn’t want her to know so she couldn’t turn them in to someone like the Guardian, Cowboy.
“Kendra, talk to me,” Dan said softly. “Damn, honey. Don’t leave me in limbo about what you’re thinking.”
She gave him all her attention. She was alive and well. Her baby was still safe inside her. And Dan was alive. That was most important.
Her hands shook as she reached out to help him stand. Breath hissed between his teeth at the pain in his thigh, but they both knew he would make it. He would mend. So would she.
She grinned outright. Her thoughts were churning again—telling her she had the means to make him whole—the same “weapon” that had killed Cowboy. “Wait a minute,” she said, reaching for the control. She studied it carefully, trying to remember the vague instructions given her several years ago. She pushed a series of buttons, and suddenly the code she wanted popped into the small viewing screen. “Hold on,” she told him, carefully placing the scanner on the floor and easing Dan’s pant leg away from his wound.
“Damn,” he said between his teeth. “Careful, honey. That’s the only right leg I have.”
“Now don’t move,” she ordered, picking up the scanner again and aiming it at his leg.
His hand clamped on her shoulder. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“More than you do,” she retorted, suddenly businesslike. “You’re bleeding pretty badly and it has to heal fast if we’re going to get out of here before some security or maintenance man finds us with a dead body at our feet.”
He still looked doubtful. “You’re sure you’re not going to finish the job your friend started?”
Her laugh came just before the jolt to his leg, and he braced himself for the pain. As much as it electrified his system, it didn’t hurt. Instead, it tingled.
After a few seconds, she took her finger off the button and leaned back on her heels. “Feel okay?”
Surprised at the reaction, he nodded. “Fine.”
“Move your leg.”
“You sure are bossy when you hold the controls,” he muttered, but he did as he was told. His brows rose. “It feels fine.”
She grinned, then stood. “Good. Can you walk?”
He tried it. It was stiff, but didn’t hurt.
With a smile still on her lips, she slipped the scanner in her sweatshirt pocket and turned once more to look down at the body draped over the pipe. It was a horrible reminder of how close they had come to death....
Feeling exactly the same way, Dan groaned, shutting his eyes to the horror as he wrapped her in his arms and felt the soft strength of her. “You’re still smiling. We must be alive.”
Kendra laughed in relief. “We’re alive.”
Dan continued to hold her tightly. Finally, the big chase was over. “Looks like we won, kemosabe.”
“I won, you chauvinist!” She gave him a light punch in the stomach. “Now you owe me a white hat.”
His lopsided grin made her heart do flip-flops. How human could she get?
“In that case, my darling alien, I’ll buy you a dozen,” he promised. Together, they stared down at the definitely dead Herfronite. In death the man had lost his long lean shape and become puffy and bloated. Slowly his body was flaking, turning to dust. In an hour’s time there would be nothing but gray flakes to show where he’d been.
“Dan, I—”
“Funny,” Dan mused, not taking his eyes off the man who had hunted them down so relentlessly. “When he was alive, he could eat Clint Eastwood for breakfast. But now—now he looks like a giant Pillsbury Doughboy with hair.”
“He’s a Kau,” she reminded him solemnly. “A Herfronite. So am I.”
His hand possessively tightened around hers. “I know. I remember. I love you, my darling. Him, I’m not too fond of. Thank God we’re the ones that are alive,” he muttered, visually checking to make sure she was all right. With fingers that shook, he stroked her face, neck and shoulders. She was safe. He was safe. He’d never doubt miracles again. Maybe God would even grant him one or two more....
* * *
THEY WALKED THROUGH the tunnel and through The Park shopping-center door. Once there, Kendra aimed the scanner at a woman who was walking toward them, her sad face painted with a plastic smile. Within a few seconds, the woman continued on with her shoulders straightened and the smile no longer painted, but real.
“Why did you do that?” Dan whispered.
“Since I don’t have the correct combination code to keep it working, it will lose its power in a day or so. That woman had cancer. The darn thing might as well help someone while it works. She’s cured.”
“Her doctor will tell her it’s a miracle cure.”
“And to her, it will be,” Kendra confessed. “Why not?”
Dan hailed a cab, purposely leaving his own Jeep and the stolen van at the curb. The cops would bring his back and he would pretend he knew nothing about the thefts. Kendra read his mind and for once didn’t chastise him for doing the wrong thing.
When they reached his apartment, Kendra walked in and looked around. “This reminds me of my own habitat. Plain and functional.”
“Thanks,” Dan stated dryly, trying not to let on just how nervous he was having her here. “It needs decorating, but I’m not good at that kind of stuff.”
She turned and put her arms around his neck, curling her body into his. “Well, then, we ought to do what you do best.”
His body stirred immediately as the adrenaline that had poured through his system so readily over the past three days continued to pump.
“Lady, you know just what to say to make me feel better.”
He made love to her as if it were the last time. Indeed, he didn’t know what was going on in her mind and was almost afraid to ask, for fear she’d tell him she was leaving. Just the thought acted like a hand clamping off his breath, bringing pain to his heart and tears to his eyes.
The rest of his life without Kendra? This Kendra. Oh, he knew the difference now. Looks were the only thing that tied this woman to his dead wife, and even those had slowly changed. Their
personalities were so opposite, they were like two different women. The woman in his arms was the woman he loved as a grown man—a grown man who would deeply love only one woman in his lifetime. If there was life after this Kendra left him, he didn’t want to imagine what it would be.
His loving was gentle and tender, then changed to passion that said without words just how much he loved her. And her own movements suited, then fit his. Whatever the tempo, she matched him. Neither read the other’s mind; neither had to. With every thrust, he branded her as part of him for all time. She answered each of his time-honored commands with a demand of her own. They were evenly matched and equally in love. He’d swear by it.
Later, as Kendra nestled in the safe harbor of his arms, his heart cried silent tears. He wanted to hold her forever. But reality intruded and questions banged at his mind, demanding he get the answers. Not knowing what was going on in her mind was worse than knowing the impending direction of her thoughts.
He finally asked the question uppermost in both their minds: “What now, Kendra? Are you going home or staying with me?” he asked softly, finally placing the problem between them. “What happens to us?”
Her legs stirred, but she kept her head resting on his chest. She hesitated for only a second before answering, “I can’t leave you now, Dan.”
His breath came out in a whoosh.
Kendra continued. “For some reason you’ve turned into my whole life, and I can’t—won’t—give you up ever again. Besides, our daughter deserves to know her birth father.”
His sigh was warm against her cheek. “Thank God,” he murmured. His fingers stroked her skin as if she were pure gold. “I love you so damn much, honey, that if anything had happened to you, I might as well be dead, too.”
His mouth covered hers in a kiss that melted through to the very core of her. Her arms encircled his neck and she clung to him for support. The feelings only Dan could ignite in her were too wondrous to give up. When she finally pulled away from the kiss, she looked at him with eyes languorous with desire. “Now that I know what this strange emotion is called, I can honestly say that I love you, too,” she said. “It’s been there all along, you know. Ever since I first met you.”
He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. Strange, it was much fuller than the original Kendra’s. “Darlin’, those words just won you a marriage license. Or it will, as soon as we forge a birth certificate for you.”
“Why?”
“So we can prove you were born here on Earth.”
Kendra’s eyes widened in understanding. “That’s not a problem. I was given one when I was brought here. It’s all ready to fill in the necessary blanks—depending on the information of the person I was to become.”
“Just one more problem solved in the long list of dilemmas of living with an alien,” he teased, and his hands still cupped her face as if he was unwilling to part from her.
But Kendra wanted him to understand the terms fully. “There are others of us here. I spoke to two of them in the tunnel system. If I stay on Earth, I will maintain contact with others of my kind, Dan. Other Herfronites. Perhaps someday we can all come to terms with our Elders.”
He grinned. “I should have known. Your organizational skills at work. Before long, you’ll be organizing bridge nights with them, talking about the joys and problems of raising human kids.”
Her laughter was free for the first time since they’d left her spaceship. “What else do you expect from a bossy, independent housewife?”
“Nothing less,” he answered softly. “Absolutely nothing less.”
Kendra reached for his hand and kissed his palm. It was time to begin their life. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Dan?”
“I’m sure.” His voice held conviction. The dark light in his eyes emphasized his tone.
A sigh of relief escaped her lips. “Well, then.” An impish twinkle lit her big brown eyes. “If I’m going to learn to be a housewife, I should begin by doing all those things your women do during the day, like redecorating your apartment. I saw this magazine and it had the sweetest nursery....”
She laughed at his groan. She knew he was glad to be alive. Glad to be with her.
They both were glad. Strangely enough, she’d gotten out of the habit of using the “we” that linked her to her fellow Herfronites. Now she was “we” with Dan; “we” with just one other instead of a whole race.
And she loved it—probably because she loved him and knew she was loved in return.
“We’ll make a home with our love,” she whispered, placing a light kiss on his jaw. “Our home.”
They both knew that whatever they did, whatever mistakes they made or ordeals they had to overcome, they would do it together. Forever.
His smile was her reward.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8608-5
Forms of Love
Copyright © 1994 by Rita Clay Estrada
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