The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance

Nobody’s Present Marcel a Burnard

“Ms Selkirk?” A young man poked his head through the doorway. Though he looked in my general direction, he wouldn’t meet my gaze.

I put the science brief I’d been pretending to read back in my case and rose.

The damned guy’s eyes went straight to my legs. My one-time sorority sister, Jill, had insisted I wear a skirt for the interview. I’d let her talk me into it when every instinct had screamed “slacks”. It isn’t that they aren’t nice legs. They are. I work for them to be nice legs. But it was late December, barely a week before Christmas, and I wasn’t interviewing for pole-dancer.

This was a shot at a private space program. I’d done my research, and I wanted in. I was ready for a long-term project with potential worldwide impact. But I didn’t want it said I’d gotten in on the value of my stems.

“Ma’am, the comman—” he broke off and flushed. “Mr Carrollus will see you now.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving no outward sign that I’d noticed his slip. But I cataloged it and felt the first tingle of warning drip down my spine.

‘Commander,’ he’d tried not to say. Interesting. Not in a good way.

He swung the door open, keeping it between us as if I might start shooting at any moment. I hesitated at the threshold, trying to sense what I might be walking into.

Office. Immaculate. Big. Bright. Typical, distressing, unidentifiable color of commercial carpet.

The smell of fresh coffee lingered in the room, but I caught no hint of any other odor beneath it. Not even of furniture polish or carpet glue.

In one corner, a fake Christmas tree glittered with tiny, multicolored lights and ornaments. Fancy baskets filled with poinsettias and other plants dotted the room. They were lush, green, well-cared for.

Built-in white display cases were arranged with gleaming books and art pieces.

Below the cases, a brown leather love seat and a matching armchair were fronted by a glass coffee table set with a polished silver coffee service. Steam curled from the spout of the pot.

Almost as an afterthought, a rich cherrywood desk sat tucked behind an exuberant ficus near the window.

To my relief, the holiday elevator music that had been piped into the reception area didn’t intrude into the office.

At the wet bar stood a man pouring an iced seltzer with a twist of lime that sent a burst of spicy citrus across my olfactory receptors. Commander Carrollus, I presumed. Tall, dark, and out of uniform, unless Armani was building his own, well-dressed, pinstriped army.

My mouth watered. The lime? Or the man?

“Sir,” the young man hid behind the door, “Ms Selkirk.”

Carrollus turned.

I had to combat the effect of gravity on my jaw. Tall. I’d said that. But, really. I’m five foot ten in my cute little “rocket scientist to my toes” socks. In my sensible but passably sexy pumps, I pushed six feet. I still had to tilt my chin up to look him in the eye. Broad shoulders, strong arms, narrow waist, all of the classic descriptors of male beauty present and accounted for. But that face. Cheekbones and nose carved by a master sculptor, check. Lips that instantly reminded me I hadn’t entertained an unclothed man in over a year, check.

But none of those good looks mattered to me. Much.

It was the grave weight of responsibility in those midnight blue eyes, the sense of power. He had command presence. And that scared the crap out of me.

So I smiled, strode into the office, and extended a hand. I couldn’t escape the thought that no matter how much I hated the holidays, I’d be happy to find him under my tree. I could so get into unwrapping him.

His gaze swept me, lingered on the damned legs, but rose again nearly quickly enough that I might not have noticed had I not been studying him. I thought I detected a flicker of appreciation in his gaze and in the quirk of his faint smile. He shook my hand and squeezed gently.

Warmth zinged across each nerve fiber in my body, putting every single biological system on high alert.

As if I hadn’t already processed the fact that he was far too attractive for my peace of mind.

His eyes widened, and he glanced at our clasped hands.

I took marginal comfort in knowing I wasn’t the only one affected.

“Unexpected,” he murmured.

“No kidding,” I said.

His gaze flicked to my face and he frowned. “Explain.”

I awarded him the same bland look I turned on my high-school students when they gave me the “what assignment?” line. “I teach physics. Not chemistry.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement before he wiped all expression from his face.

“Ms Selkirk,” he said in a smooth, rich voice with just a hint of dialect.

The sound shot another burst of “Hey, stupid, he’s sexy” hormones into my already overly-aware body.

“Won’t you have a seat?” He nodded at the sofa. “May I offer you something to drink?”

Needing both the distraction and the fortification, I asked, “Is there real cream to go with that coffee?”

He stepped in beside me, and tucked my hand – the one he’d never released – into the crook of his elbow to escort me across the room. “I believe so,” he said with the air of someone who knew precisely that no one would dare bring coffee into his office without real cream in the frosty creamer.

He released me.

Mr Carrollus sat in the armchair and poured coffee for both of us.

I sank to the edge of the sofa, and settled my briefcase against the coffee table. A surreptitious glance around the room assured me that the receptionist had vanished. I was alone in a room with a man who made me feel small and dainty as he filled my china cup with steaming coffee.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet, Ms Selkirk,” he said. “The holiday season is meant to be shared with family.”

I met his eye, my chest tightening, and my hand frozen near the creamer.

“Ms Selkirk?”

Damn it. I pulled in a breath, but couldn’t force my hand to move. At least I couldn’t feel it shaking.

“No family,” I managed to say in an even tone. “Just me.”

He studied me with a gaze that felt as if it might be burning through my skull to get a look inside.

I couldn’t break free.

“Yes,” he murmured. “My HR department is thorough. I believe I saw mention of an accident.”

I found myself nodding. Since my folks had died in a car crash two years ago, I’d felt as if most of me had shriveled and died, too. Holidays were a sharp reminder of the fact that I’d buried my heart with my family’s remains.

“I’m sorry,” he said. The flicker of pain in his eyes told me he meant it.

I blinked. My eyes stung. It was beyond time to change the subject.

“Mr Carrollus—” I said as I poured the cream.

“Trygg,” he countered.

I paused, mid-stir, to glance at him.

“If you don’t mind, I prefer a more informal approach to interviews,” he said. “Your résumé is intriguing, but it doesn’t tell me who you are. I’d like you to call me Trygg.”

So that was it. Put the interviewee at ease and find out whether or not she could play well with others.

Psychological battery. Been there, done that. I should have recognized the set-up.

I nodded, but couldn’t talk myself into standing down the alarms still jangling my nerves. “Trygg,” I repeated, straightening my cup and saucer. I studied him a moment.

He held still, his expression bland as if he were allowing me to look my fill.

“Scandinavian,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

“It means ‘true’,” he said, nodding. “My mother’s choice, though I never understood why. The family isn’t Scandinavian. Your name. Finlay. Celtic?”

“Yes.” I took a sip of coffee. My toes curled in delight. “Oh, that’s excellent. Bonus points on the coffee.”

He lifted one jet eyebrow. “Do I need bonus points?”

“Depends on the answer to my original question.”

“What question is that?”

“The one I didn’t get to ask because we got sidetracked by names,” I replied.

His gaze followed my every move as if he were a cat and I the mouse he was thinking of pouncing upon.

The thought curdled the cream in my mouth. I swallowed hard and set the cup and saucer down with a clatter. So much for my poker face.

“Why did your assistant trip over himself to not call you Commander Carrollus?”

“I am active reserve,” he admitted. “This is a separate venture, however, reporting to no one but me. I will not have this venture flown into the ground by political wrangling and financial mismanagement. It’s too vital to me and to my . . . to the people with a stake in this endeavor.”

I found myself nodding. That felt true. It was the first unvarnished statement I’d gotten from him, even if he had stumbled over not saying “my investors”.

“Okay,” I said. “Where does that leave us? If I had to guess, I’d say you had this office staged today.”

Interest gleamed in his gaze again, and he leaned closer. “What makes you say that?”

The question felt like a caress. I jumped and had to fumble for my train of thought. “It’s too clean.

There’s not a speck of dust on anything. It doesn’t smell right. Without looking, what’s on the shelf just over my head?”

He grinned. The corners of his eyes crinkled.

My heart skipped a beat.

“You do think on your feet, don’t you?” he murmured, smile dying as he took my hand again. He lifted it and pressed his lips against my fingers. “Well done. I have no idea what’s on any of these shelves.”

Heat rushed into my face. “Trygg.” It came out a croak. I cleared my throat and tried again. “My hand, Trygg. I need that.”

“Do I frighten you, Finlay?”

Of course he did, but I’d eat that dusty, dry science brief I’d been reading in his fake reception area before I’d admit it.

A wave of dizziness slammed me. I held my breath and frowned, willing it to pass. A buzz filled my ears and I noticed two things at once.

One, Carrollus watched me far too intently, an odd, avid gleam in his eyes. Two, he hadn’t touched a drop of his coffee.

Fear burned a path straight down my throat to my stomach. I tried to jump to my feet and ended up wavering to them instead.

“You unbelievable bastard,” I gasped. I grabbed the spoon. I’d had two sips. Maybe I could stick the handle of the spoon far enough down my throat to trigger a gag reflex. My numb fingers refused to cooperate.

The spoon hit the carpet with a thunk.

I bolted for the door, except, of course, I moved as if I waded through hip-high mud.

Carrollus snaked an arm around my waist.

“Oh, no,” he murmured at my ear.

He swept me into his arms as if I weighed nothing at all.

I couldn’t protest.

Heat joined the dizziness. I felt the fine sheen of sweat on my face. My breath wheezed when I drew it.

“Lieutenant!” he snapped at the receptionist.

“Sir?”

“Alert the medical team,” Carrollus ordered. “She’s having an adverse reaction.”

He’d poisoned me, yet he had the gall to sound concerned.

“Aye, sir.”

“Hang on,” he muttered to me. “I’m not willing to lose you, Finlay Selkirk.”

Something dinged. Doors opened. He stepped in.

I groaned. “God, not an elevator.” An insipid muzak version of “Jingle Bells” on sax.

“Close your eyes,” he urged. “It’ll help.”

It sounded like a good idea.

He pressed cool lips to my brow.

Surprise and a tendril of pleasure pushed back the dizziness for a split second.

“My everlasting regret is that I can’t have you myself,” he said in a voice that led me to believe I wasn’t supposed to hear him.

Then the buzzing in my ears rose to a deafening shriek and it occurred to me it sounded curiously like my own voice.

I woke in a bed not my own. I couldn’t call it too soft because it was exquisitely comfortable, but it cradled my body in a way my bed never had. It was nice. If only because I felt like an entire tank squadron had driven through my head. From the rumble in my brain, I gathered they might be circling for another pass.

I hadn’t had a hangover since the single ill-fated experiment with alcohol I’d undertaken at my first and last party at nineteen. What on earth had possessed me this time?

Ah. That’s right. Poisoned coffee and Commander Carrollus had. Not literally. At least, I didn’t think so.

Just as well. If there were going to be bad things done with those lips of his, I wanted to be awake for it. Could I ask for something like that for Christmas?

Unfortunate that those lips were attached to someone I fully intended to prosecute. Commander Carrollus in prison for slipping me a mickey. The thought shouldn’t have made me smile, but it did.

Someone shifted.

“Finlay?”

Carrollus.

My eyes snapped open and I gasped at the searing array of fabrics and colors surrounding me. “Dear God. You drug me, kidnap me, and bring me to hell?”

I was tucked into an enormous Gothic horror of a canopy bed hung with sheer, gauzy fabrics that vibrated with combinations of saffron, teal, crimson and violet. The nightmare curtains had been drawn back on one side to show me the rest of the room, decorated with the same Marquis de Sade flair. Padded leather handcuffs dangled from a chain attached to the ceiling. A bitter tendril of fear slithered into my chest.

I had no idea where I was or how long I’d been out. Why kept rolling around the inside of my skull, accompanied by an unsettling feeling of helplessness. Stop it, Finlay. First rule of running a psychological battery: put the subject off guard by any means possible.

Commander Carrollus had succeeded.

I suppressed a shudder.

He appeared to be sitting vigil at my bedside. Sweet, in that “the jerk who poisoned me gives a shit whether I live or die” kind of way. He’d deserted Armani’s army. Even though I didn’t recognize the black uniform he wore, that’s exactly what it was, and it fit far too well for my comfort.

“Finlay?” Carrollus, again. “Are you all right?”

“No, I am not all right. Could you turn down the melodrama in the room? My eyes are about to bleed.”

His lips twitched like someone who wanted to smile, but knew he wasn’t supposed to. “You’re feeling better.”

He’d won this round. I’d be damned if I’d let him win another.

“I’m better enough that you can start explaining,” I grumbled as I struggled to free myself from the bed.

“There are explanations to be had. It is not my place to give them to you. If you’re able to dress, I’ll escort you to my CO.”

I knew it. Goddamned military op. I was pretty clear that my government wouldn’t have spent the cash on a military op that dealt in negligees like the one I discovered I was wearing when I rolled out of the bed and stood. My hair swung down my back, free of the French twist I’d so carefully put it into.

A low, inarticulate sound came from Carrollus. “Finlay, you are beautiful.” He sounded grudging, as if he thought he ought to explain his growl of appreciation, but didn’t like the fact that he’d reacted at all.

Heat suffused my skin. I glanced down at the lace and pink silk barely covering me, then met his gaze.

Irritation put lines in his forehead. What annoyed him? The fact that I was still standing there half-naked?

Or was it the desire clouding his blue eyes that troubled him? For that matter, shouldn’t it bother me rather than make me tingly all over?

I lifted an eyebrow.

He had the grace to flush. His gaze slid away. “Mary insisted you’d be more comfortable like that.

You’d better dress.”

“Fine,” I said. “Where are my clothes?”

“You’ll find clothing . . .”

“My clothes,” I growled. I sounded like I meant business. I wished all over again I’d worn slacks, but the stupid skirt, blouse and jacket were the closest thing to a power suit I had at the moment. And something told me I’d need a bit of power to get out of . . . whatever it was I’d gotten myself into. Trying to face a military kidnapping while dressed in a pink nightie didn’t bear thinking about.

“Your clothes are around the corner,” he said.

I marched past him and into the alcove he’d indicated. A curtain of the same colorful fabric covered the wall in front of me. I spotted my clothes neatly folded on a vanity, my shoes on the floor as if waiting for me to step into them.

I felt his gaze follow my every move, the weight of his regard like a caress against my bare limbs. My body heated and I gritted my teeth against the sensation. Biology apparently didn’t care that I was heartless and cold. The fact remained, I reminded myself, that no matter how solicitous and gorgeous my captor, I was a prisoner.

Where did that leave me? To my horror, hot prickles ran up the backs of my eyes.

That pissed me off.

Hoping for a clue as to my location, I glanced surreptitiously at my surroundings. To my right, an arched doorway opened onto a bathroom tiled in deep blue and green and gold. It reminded me of a stained-glass window I’d once seen in one of Europe’s oldest cathedrals. To my left, another archway led into a closet.

I could be anywhere. I slid my skirt on over the insubstantial silk negligee. No help for it. I’d have to strip before I could put on my bra, shirt and jacket. At least I had my back to Carrollus.

I yanked the nightie off over my head and hurriedly fastened on my bra, then put on and buttoned my white silk blouse.

“You’re taking your situation very well, Finlay,” Carrollus commented.

Meaning what? That he’d expected me to weep and gnash my teeth? The thought made me shudder. I should have found something heavy and knocked him flat.

“If by ‘my situation’,” I sneered, tugging on my jacket, “you mean ‘being kidnapped’, I assure you I am not taking it well at all.”

He risked a glance at me.

“You are bigger than I am and I don’t have a gun,” I clarified.

Amusement sparked in his eyes a moment. “You need a gun to take me out?”

My smile in response felt tight. “No, Commander, but a gun would make a satisfying mess, and I’d get to hear you scream when I shot you in the kneecaps.”

He grinned.

My breath caught.

What was he playing at? Weren’t kidnappers supposed to be mean, vicious thugs with missing teeth and psychopathic tendencies? How was I supposed to respond to a sexy commander exuding power and authority? Especially when he smiled at me as if I’d surprised him into enjoying himself?

“You’re a disciplined woman, aren’t you?” he said.

I blinked. “Disciplined? No. I am not.”

“You have so many questions,” he observed, closing the distance to stand directly in front of me. His frame blocked out the rest of the room and I had to look up to meet his eye. “I see them running circles in your eyes. Yet you don’t ask.”

“You said the explanations weren’t yours to give,” I breathed. “But if the whole kidnapping thing isn’t enough of a power trip without me begging for information, then I can oblige. Where am I? Why me?

Because I have no family? Is that it? You imagine I don’t have a life?”

My voice wavered.

He scowled.

I should have listened to the instinct whispering at me to keep my yap shut and my eyes and ears open.

The fact that I hadn’t been hurt didn’t mean I couldn’t – or wouldn’t – be.

And it certainly appeared that I’d ceased to amuse him.

“Our world was at war with the Orseggans,” he said. “We were hit by a biological weapon. The bio-

agent enhances sex drive.”

I frowned. Weaponized Viagra? Why not take advantage of that with one another? Why kidnap me?

The blood rushed from my head and I stumbled into the curtained wall. Rage drowned out rational thought. Shoving off the surface at my back, hand clenched, I punched Carrollus in the stomach.

His breath went out in an audible rush. He didn’t quite double over, but I wasn’t looking up into his face anymore and that felt good.

Temper stoked, I cocked back for another blow.

Gasping for air, Carrollus rushed me. His shoulder took me in the ribs, driving me back.

I hit the curtain-shrouded wall. One foot twisted beneath me. Fabric tore and I slid to the floor.

Carrollus followed me down.

When my butt hit the floor, I found I had enough leverage to shove him off of me. It felt like trying to shove a freight train.

“You son of a bitch,” I wheezed. “You’re infected with a sexually transmitted disease and you kidnap people from Earth to assuage the symptoms?”

He crouched in front of me, posture wary, guarded; but curiously, I saw no anger in his face or body.

“Your species cannot be infected,” he said. “Our medical staff made very certain before we began recruiting from your world. We could not ethically sacrifice another species to save our own.”

“Medically necessary sex?” I sneered. The burn behind my eyes spilled over. “That has to be the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”

“Finlay.” As if he couldn’t help himself, Carrollus rose to his knees and reached for me. One warm hand on my hip set my nerves alight, the other cupped my damp cheek. “When both sexual partners are infected with the bio-agent, it activates, killing both partners. If an infected person doesn’t have sex often enough, the agent activates.”

I sucked in a horrified breath. “But . . . condoms?”

He shook his head. “Whenever two infected people are intimate, regardless of barriers to sexual fluids, the bio-agent activates. It’s as if their immune systems cancel one another out. It was a genocide weapon.

One that worked. Our population was devastated until we worked out the disease mechanism.”

The waterworks evaporated. I believed him. Awareness of him rippled through me, tempting me to melt into the feel of his skin on mine.

“When you worked out how the disease spread, it ripped families and loved ones apart?” Visions of lovers torn from one another ran through my head. Mothers wouldn’t have been able to nurture their own children. Sympathy made my breath catch.

He blinked at me.

I thought I detected the first inkling of respect in the softening of the lines around his mouth.

“Yes.”

“You don’t look sick.”

He shook his head. “We’re not. Sex with uninfected partners keeps the bio-agent in remission. Our medical people believe there’s something in the human immune system that bolsters ours.”

“So what does that mean? If you don’t have sex what? Every week? Every day? You’ll die?”

“Each of us has to work out our interval,” he replied. “Most find that two or three times a week is sufficient.”

I bit my tongue to keep from asking him his.

“Does this mean that because of the bio-agent, your people can’t reproduce?”

He nodded. “Hybridization is our only option.”

My mind reeled trying to work out how many alien babies might already be walking around on Earth.

“You don’t hit like a girl,” he noted.

“Sorry.” I sounded sullen.

“I earned it,” he said, smoothing tear tracks from my skin. “If it’s of any comfort, Finlay, we mean you no harm.”

I twisted out of his too-soothing grasp and barked a laugh. It sounded vaguely unhinged.

Scrubbing tears from my face, I climbed to my feet.

“You mean me no harm?” I parroted. At least my voice sounded even again. Mostly. “Too damned late for that, isn’t it?”

“Finlay.”

The weight of that single word turned me back to face him.

I noticed the porthole in the wall. It had been revealed when we’d ripped the curtain while we fought.

I don’t remember how I got there, but suddenly, I found my fingers gripping the chilly frame of the porthole hard enough that my knuckles went white.

I stared out into the starry expanse of dark night sky, empty, except for the big, blue, gleaming jewel of a planet hanging in the lower third of the porthole arc.

My breath froze in my chest.

Earth.

I was looking at my planet from such a distance that I could barely make out any of the land mass beneath the cloud cover.

Dizziness swept me. Carrollus gritted out something that sounded like a curse. It wasn’t one I knew. Or in any language I recognized.

He surged upright, took hold of my upper arms, and turned me gently away from the view.

It didn’t matter. The vista had been seared into my memory. I’d heard astronauts say that happened.

That in the instant you look down from space on the world that gave you life, you changed. You were marked in a way that meant you’d never be the same. The only way you’d forget what you’d seen, what you’d experienced, would be to close your eyes in death.

I finally managed to order my eyes shut, but still saw my home hanging miles and miles below my feet.

Disorientation rushed from my feet to my head. Or maybe it had gone the other way, but suddenly, my feet knew they no longer had ground beneath them.

Only the warmth of Carrollus’s body heat merging with my own kept me anchored.

I’d started the day interviewing for a space program and ended it on an actual spaceship. Kidnapped by aliens disguised as humans?

I cracked one eye open. My head and my feet seemed to have agreed that the floor made a fine substitute for ground. Dizziness faded and I risked opening the other eye, too.

I turned back for another look.

“No,” he said, preventing me.

“Let go,” I turned away from him. “Every kid dreams of seeing Earth from space. Now that the shock has worn off, I want a better look. You must get a terrific view of the Northern Lights.”

He chuckled and escorted me to the porthole as if I might still fall over. “One of the many charms of your little blue world. When we first arrived, we thought your civilization was more advanced than it was because of the electrical interference at the poles during a solar event.”

I felt as if the floor had lurched out from under me. I stared at him. When we first arrived? Blowing out a steadying breath, I forced myself to focus on his statement about electrical interference at the poles.

That I could wrap my mind around. “Ship’s sensors can’t punch through the aurora?”

He met my gaze, his own searching. “You’ve seen too many Star Trek episodes.”

“Undoubtedly,” I replied.

The smolder of desire in Carrollus’s hooded gaze rushed heat through my body.

A self-satisfied smile touched his gorgeous lips. He traced his right hand down my arm to claim my hand in his. Bringing it to his lips, he pressed a heated kiss to my palm.

Pleasure zinged through my blood, settling between my legs. I stifled a gasp. Palm unsettlingly connected to genitalia. Who knew?

“You are remarkably resilient. The questions are back in your eyes,” he noted.

Unable to trust my voice, I nodded. Questions in my eyes and a promise of some kind in his. Did I imagine that? Did I dare hope that I could convince him to return me to my home?

“Come with me,” he said, releasing me. “You’ll be able to ask your questions of my commanding officer.”

His commanding officer. Interesting distinction. One of the only things I felt I could process in this morass of quicksand – or airless vacuum – beneath my feet.

I eased out of his grasp and turned back for my shoes. Mary had been so careful when she’d undressed me that I could account for every single hairpin I’d used earlier in the day. She’d even left a comb, which I applied to my tangled hair.

“Which military?” I asked, stepping into my sensible brown pumps. My attempt at a casual tone didn’t even fool me.

“One you won’t be familiar with,” he replied.

A military I wouldn’t know, and that hint of dialect flavoring his words – clues that ought to add up to something useful. Who had the kind of technology that could put me on a spaceship hundreds of miles above the planet without a spacesuit? For that matter, why weren’t we floating in zero-g? Since we weren’t floating, did I know for a fact that no one on Earth had the special effects budget to mock up something like this?

I didn’t. But I couldn’t imagine anyone going to the effort and expense. It wouldn’t make sense. Again, my thoughts circled back to why.

Impatient with the disorderly whirl of conjecture in my brain, I slapped down the comb and coiled my hair into another French twist.

Light and heat thrummed through my blood. Carrollus tangled his fingers with mine before I could reach for the pins to secure the coil.

“Leave it,” he commanded, pulling my hands away as if I wasn’t resisting.

Hair spilled down my back.

He had strength in spades, and he had me trapped between him and the dressing table.

A split second of fright trailed ice down my spine.

“Your hair is beautiful,” he said, folding my arms around my middle so that I stood, confined within his embrace.

Every piece of my biology arced to life at his contact. The reaction shook me. I’d never known that I could feel so much, so strongly.

“Mousy,” I corrected. My voice sounded small. Scared.

“I’ve yet to see a mouse with strawberry-blonde hair,” he countered, humor deepening his accent. “It’s beautiful and unruly. Like you.”

I shook my head.

“Leave it down,” he urged.

I shivered at the caress of his warm breath against my ear. While I had little inclination to indulge his whim, I couldn’t control my body’s runaway response to his persuasion. Goosebumps erupted over my skin.

“Fine. Yes,” I choked. Anything to get my body back under my control.

He chuckled, released me, and walked away.

The note of triumph in his laugh made me clench my teeth. Stiffening my spine, I tugged my jacket straight, turned on my heel, and marched to the door.

Assuming I wasn’t locked in, I’d walk out the door, and wander around until I found someone else and demand to be taken to their leader.

I left the bedroom and walked into a tiny, Spartan compartment, little more than a glorified closet, really. It had a kitchenette on one side and a scarred desk on the other. Odd. So much space devoted to a bedroom and so little to the rest of off-duty life.

The door opened at my approach. I had expected a whoosh sound effect, but it opened and closed silently.

I wasn’t locked in. Fine. It didn’t change the fact that until I learned interplanetary flight and navigation, I was more effectively a prisoner than any Earthly lockup could have made me.

“This way,” Carrollus said from behind me.

He led me through a maze of corridors, any of which could have been found inside military facilities the world over. Except that this one was over the world. By miles.

I was on a spaceship! Or was I? Could I be on a base? Or a station? Did it matter? I’d left my planet, something I’d never dreamed would be possible, much less likely. I had to fight to keep a giddy grin from my face.

We paused at a junction where several corridors met at what looked like a central elevator shaft. I felt his gaze on me.

“If I were going to hide a spaceship, which I assume you’re doing, since I haven’t heard about UFOs outside of the regular conspiracy theory circles, I’d put myself in orbit inside the asteroid belt. Just another space rock,” I noted, slanting him what I hoped was an innocent look.

A shadow passed over his perfect face. It looked like uneasiness.

Score one for me. If his expression was any indicator, I’d nailed that.

“To stay hidden, you’d have to dodge the craft that get lobbed out past lunar orbit,” I went on.

The uneasiness drained out of him. He waved a hand. The elevator door opened and Carrollus gestured me inside.

Either he’d gained control of his poker face or I’d gotten that last bit wrong. I entered the compartment and propped one hip against the wall.

He said something. It wasn’t English. Again. Native language? A non-Earth language?

The elevator started up.

If they weren’t avoiding spacecraft, they’d have to find another way to conceal their presence, which suggested tampering with the signals in some way.

“You’re tapping the data streams of everything that could see you, and scrubbing your ship’s image?” I marveled, forming the hypothesis as I spoke it. Of course. It made sense. With the technology I’d seen so far – like the fact that I wasn’t floating through the corridors – it might be a trivial matter to splice in

. . .

Carrollus crossed the tiny space in a single stride, slapped his hands against the wall on either side of my head. An odd combination of anger and regret sparked in his eyes. “Stop. No more synthesizing observations. Your hope of returning home diminishes the more that you know.”

My fleeting sense of satisfaction at having hit so close to home evaporated. I clenched my fists. “I’m a scientist. I can’t stop.”

He spun away from me.

The rigid set of his shoulders warned me to watch my mouth. I took the caution to heart. Studying him, it hit me.

He looked human. I’d naturally assumed he was human. At first. How far had they come? From which star system? Why? Was it a quirk of genetics that allowed them to pass as human? Or had they modified . . . The elevator stopped and the door opened.

He led me through another short maze of corridors to a set of double doors. He muttered another incomprehensible command.

The doors opened. Bright lights blinded me. I squinted against the glare.

Either the place was huge, or it had been soundproofed. Our footfalls disappeared into the quiet. I smelled . . . Did expectation have a scent? I drew in a breath and knew that other people filled the room.

As my eyes adjusted, I caught several things at once. Uniformed, young men stood at attention in front of instrument panels. The oval room was terraced, personnel and equipment arranged in descending concentric horseshoes down to a central floor. An enormous table of what looked like black glass dominated the lowest point.

Definitely not an office. A command center? Or a coliseum?

Carrollus and I paused on the top tier where the horseshoes opened into a broad aisle up the steps.

A thin, brittle-looking man with white hair, a hawk nose and rheumy, pale-blue eyes watched us. A blue uniform hung on his frame. No visible rank insignia. On any of them. Including Commander Trygg Carrollus.

“Ms Finlay Selkirk,” Carrollus said, “may I present Orlan Grisham? Sir, Ms Selkirk.”

“Captain,” he didn’t say. But it was obvious.

We sized one another up.

In the deep frown lines around his mouth and eyes, I believed I saw a despot.

“Ms Selkirk.” His tone dripped with misgiving.

“Captain Grisham.”

Frozen silence.

Crap. First words out of my mouth, I’d messed up. As if Carrollus hadn’t warned me to guard my tongue. I attempted an innocent smile. I don’t think any of us bought it.

“Did I guess the rank system incorrectly?” I inquired. “Commodore? Admiral? Or is it that I pegged the military thing?”

“Finlay . . .” Carrollus growled.

I quelled and slid my gaze away from the older man.

“Perhaps we should refrain from interviewing academics,” the old man said to Carrollus, his tone flat.

“You’ll want to broaden that to anyone with an IQ over fifty,” I muttered. How should a captive address her kidnappers? Bravado? Caution? Diffidence? Did I know how to pretend that last one?

“My apologies if I’ve offended protocol in some fashion,” I offered. “Am I to understand that I might be permitted to ask a few questions of you pursuant to my presence here?”

He narrowed his eyes at me, then glared over my shoulder at Carrollus. “Definitely no more academics.”

The asperity in his voice made me bite back a grin.

“We require your assistance, Ms Selkirk.” Grisham said. He’d thrown his shoulders back and straightened as if trying to assume a more commanding presence.

He had the act down pat. I pasted a neutral expression on my face and nodded.

“We have need of men and women with good hearts and quick minds,” he said.

Irritation flashed through me. Quick minds, my foot. “You’re capable of interstellar travel. Yet you’ve come to a world that hasn’t managed to land manned craft on its nearest planetary neighbor, and you’ve shanghaied a high-school physics teacher. You’re blowing sunshine up my ass, not telling me the truth.”

The at-attention onlookers gasped.

I swallowed a curse. Mistake number two, Finlay.

The old man blinked. His upraised palms fell.

“Interstellar?” he repeated.

I shrugged. “It’s plain you aren’t from around here.”

Grisham tipped his head and eyed me as if sizing me up for a vivisection table. “What makes you say that?”

Throwing my arms wide, I snapped, “The fact that I’m standing a couple thousand miles above the surface of my planet was a real tip-off.”

The old man spun on Carrollus and jabbed a finger at him. “You let her—”

“There was no ‘let’ to it!” I yelled.

“Ms Selkirk discovered our orbital position on her own,” Carrollus said. He looked troubled when I tossed him a glance. “Sir, I think we’d be best served—”

“I know what you think,” the captain snapped. “You’ve been overruled. As you were, Commander.”

Fury leaked past Carrollus’s glacial mask. It made my blood run cold.

Grisham turned his rheumy gaze upon me and attempted a paternal smile. “May we first beg a single boon of you?”

Alarms rang in my head at the captain’s antiquated phrasing, painfully polite though it was.

Wary, I said, “You want to trade for information? What coin?”

“No coin, Ms Selkirk. We aren’t mercenaries. Choose a man,” he directed, waving a hand in a wide sweep to indicate the soldiers lining the tiers, “or as many as you want to sample, from amongst those assembled.”

“Not mercenaries”? “Sample”? My mind twisted in on itself. I winced. “You did not just tell me you kidnapped me for sex.”

“That is precisely what we did.”

“Wow. We are all going to be so disappointed.”

The old man blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Put me back,” I said.

“You’re inhibited?”

“What? No! Yes! Who the hell cares?” I squawked.

“We care. Let these men help you,” Grisham said, his entire demeanor overtaken by sudden concern and compassion. The old faker.

“Why?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why?” I repeated. “What do you stand to gain from this?”

“What makes you think we harbor ulterior—”

“Kidnapping stirs up an awful lot of trouble,” I noted.

Grisham frowned at me. From the corner of my eye, I caught Carrollus studying me.

“It’s no trouble,” Grisham countered, shaking his head.

“So you burned down my apartment?” I prompted.

“Of course not.”

“Destroyed my computer files and my backups?”

“We’ve done nothing of the kind,” Grisham said.

Carrollus shifted, drawing my gaze to his. He scowled.

“Do you believe the police will secure a search warrant for your home”, he said, “where they will find your computer with your résumé files and the address of the building where we met?”

I held his gaze for several moments. “They’ll find my briefcase with my belongings still where I set it against the coffee table, yes.”

“Release your cares,” Grisham urged. “Cast aside your culture’s notions of morality. We value physical pleasure. These men want to fulfill your every desire.”

My every desire? Did I have any? Other than going home and maybe kicking Jill repeatedly in the ribs? I shook away the vision.

“Are there no women in your crew? Is that why you’re kidnapping sex slaves?” I asked.

The captain jerked upright, glaring. “That, madam, is a grave insult. We have never and will never force anyone—”

I frowned. “You put back the people who refuse?”

“No one has ever refused.”

“No one—” I echoed before clamping my mouth shut.

“Pick a man,” he coaxed. “Give us thirty days, then we’ll talk again.”

I stifled the urge to put my spike heel through his foot. Even I knew that would negatively impact on my captivity.

“‘We’ll talk’? Oh, no. You want me to play this game? Give me something to fight for. Swear you’ll put me back when the time is up, and then I’ll pick someone. Otherwise, we’re at an impasse. You’ve been kind enough to say no one will force me. I’d like to return the courtesy. I do not want to have to force your hand.”

Every man in the room stared at me. That’s right, boys. Long legs, short skirt, cute pumps. Harmless.

“You have no means to carry out that threat,” the captain scoffed.

“Look up Gandhi,” I said, pressing my voice flat. “Then look up ‘hunger strike’.”

“You would destroy yourself?”

“You’ve destroyed my freedom,” I said, “my career, and now you’re threatening to destroy my life. I’m clear that getting your soldiers laid is vital to you. It’s also clear that you won’t tell me why. I may have little interest in dying, but I’m less interested in being kept as a sex slave. So many willing, young, fertile women in the world. Why me?”

His breath hissed in between his clenched teeth.

“This isn’t slavery,” he snapped. “Thirty days. If at the end of that time you still wish to return, I swear we’ll find a way.”

“Deal.” I noticed that he hadn’t answered my question, but I had a possible road home. If the old man could be trusted to keep his word. “Tell me the rules.”

“Choose one or as many men as you please from those assembled within the limits of the oval, then enjoy yourself.”

Enjoy? Could I?

“My everlasting regret is that I can’t have you myself .” Carrollus had said that when he’d thought I couldn’t hear.

He’d kidnapped me.

If I had anyone to blame for this mess, it was he. I could use him. I straightened and smiled.

“You’ve chosen?”

“Sure,” I said. I spun and jabbed a finger at Trygg. “Him.”

The room held its collective breath while Carrollus rocked back on his heels, shock in the widening of his midnight-blue eyes.

I grinned, a careless, I-dare-you – and maybe slightly vengeful – grin at him.

Protest erupted from the testosterone line-up. Carrollus thundered for quiet, got it, then turned a baleful glare upon me.

“I am disqualified. You may not select me.”

“I just did.”

He shook his head. “No—”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Your captain laid out the rules. I followed them, and now you refuse to abide by them? You’re already taken, is that it?”

“Yes.”

The way he pounced on the out I’d offered him made it obvious. He was lying.

I nodded. “I believe this invalidates our thirty-day agreement. I’m ready to go home, now.”

His expression shifted and my heart skidded into uneasy thudding.

He looked intrigued.

“He was not a part—” Grisham growled.

“‘Choose one or as many men as I please from those assembled within the limits of the oval’,” I quoted back to him. “Your rules. He’s in the oval.”

The old man scowled. “Then keep him. The agreement stands, with the caveat that you leave me no choice but—”

The lights dimmed.

Carrollus swore in his language. I thought I heard an audible alarm somewhere in the distance.

Men scrambled for stations. Several young women, also in uniform, burst through the door and raced for empty chairs.

The alarm died.

“Sir!” one of the women called.

“Enemy ships entering the solar system!” “Enemy ships?” I echoed. “I thought you were hiding from Earth.”

“We are,” Carrollus said, cold rage coloring his voice. “We were. Until now.”

I froze, awful awareness tripping my pulse into high gear. “You’re refugees, aren’t you? You thought you’d escaped. But you drew your enemy after you.”

Carrollus gripped my arms and pulled me around to face him. I shivered at the chemistry that bubbled through my system at the contact. “They want us,” he said. “Your world is in no danger.”

But I was, by simple virtue of being on board their ship. “How did I get here? A shuttle? Teleportation of some kind?”

Carrollus nodded at the last one.

“Is it working?”

“No time,” Grisham barked. “There are too many of you. Commander!”

Carrollus accessed a panel, studying the data that answered his summons.

Too many of us? What did Grisham mean? Too many people to evacuate to the safety of Earth, presumably.

“The sensor embedded in the New Horizons probe indicates a pair of Orseggan scouts inbound to our position. Weapon status?” Grisham thundered.

“Offline, sir,” a young officer replied.

My heart bumped against my ribs.

“Shields?”

“Offline, sir,” yet another officer answered.

“Interstellar drive?”

“Offline!”

I pressed shaking fingers against my temples.

The ship was defenseless.

“This is the second time today you’ve tried to get me killed,” I snapped at Carrollus.

“This was unanticipated!” Grisham protested.

My humorless smile felt icy. “Like an adverse reaction to a drug?”

Carrollus glanced up from his panel to pin me with a grim stare. “You have a right to be angry. I can’t change what’s happened. But we have time. They do not yet know we’re here.”

I frowned. “You have the time to bring weapons and shields online?”

“No. We were badly damaged at the end of the war. The Orseggans saw this ship escape,” he said, “but they clearly didn’t know where we’d gone.”

“They’ve been hunting for you since,” I finished for him. Any question of who was the good guy and who was the bad guy vanished from my head. My allegiance was dictated by the fact that I stood on the defenseless ship.

“Yes,” he said, looking back at the illegible data. “Now we need options, not distractions.”

Anger and shame burned me, but he was right. What did a high-school physics teacher have to offer aliens who’d mastered physics to the point that their space travel broke all the rules as I knew them?

Unless.

Data I’d picked up from the morning’s internet space-weather blog to present to my students flashed into my head. They would know this stuff already, right? Or was it too much to hope that space aliens would keep up on internet blogs?

“Do your enemy’s sensors work the way yours do?” I demanded, meeting Carrollus’s hard look. “You told me you thought Earth was more technologically advanced than it is because of the electrical interference at the poles.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Would the energized thermosphere obscure your enemy’s sensors, too?”

A light went on in his face. “The Orseggans? Yes.”

Grisham was already shaking his head. “It does us no good—”

“Solar-flare activity spiked a day and a half ago,” I said, as if the old man hadn’t spoken. “The aurora should be lighting up the northern half of the planet as we speak. Take the ship down under the Northern Lights. Blind the Orseggans with neon.”

“Do you think we haven’t already considered and discarded the option as unworkable? Exposing us to the people of your planet will not get you sent home,” Grisham snarled at me.

“You’re smarter than I am. You have interstellar space travel. But this isn’t about any one earthly phenomenon protecting your ship. This is my planet. Maybe you’ve studied it, but it’s clear you don’t understand it or the people who live on it,” I retorted.

I turned to Carrollus. “Can you land this thing?”

“We can,” he rumbled, striding down the stairs to the center of the oval. He gestured at me to join him and brought up a three-dimensional hologram of Earth. “It isn’t a trivial task, and if I read you right, you mean to complicate it further. Give me details.”

As I descended to the pit floor, nerves fluttered in my stomach. I wobbled down the steps in my heels.

“You’ll be seen. The US military doesn’t like being blindsided. The phased array systems are going to spot us. I know of a few in Alaska, but if this solar storm packs the punch the data suggests it does, their communications systems will be useless. The danger will come from spotting stations south of the storm.”

“Beale?” Carrollus guessed, naming an Air Force base in California. “They’ll scramble fighters.”

“F-15s out of Elmendorf if they can get a call through,” I agreed. “If they can’t, they’ll move south until someone hears them. The fighters will get coordinates for first point of contact and a vector for our trajectory. Then they’ll fly into the Alaskan wilderness in the dead of night, in the middle of one of the hottest solar storms to hit in two decades.”

Carrollus flashed a grin at me that nearly stopped my heart.

“Meaning they’ll be deaf and blind.”

“Their navigation systems will go Tango Uniform,” I agreed.

Amusement and anticipation lit Trygg’s blue eyes. Okay. So he not only knew the names and locations of military bases, he understood my reference to TU. Clearly, he’d spent time inside the US military. What did that mean?

“Their communications will be dead, too,” I said. “Without radar or GCI to talk them in, they’ll have no hope of vectoring on the ship.”

“We’ll have to leave the planet surface before the atmospheric disturbance dissipates,” he said.

“The minute we’re on the ground,” I added, “you’ll have to power down the ship’s systems.”

“Are you mad?” Grisham barked, stomping down the stairs. “We’ll have no oxygen generators!”

“We have hours of air without them,” Carrollus answered before he glanced at me. “You propose we run silent?”

“To hide the ship from ground observation, we have to look like part of the landscape. That means no heat signature and no engine vibration,” I said. “Come into atmosphere mimicking a meteor. Leave behind some space rocks for the government types to find after the fact. You’ll get written up in a document so classified not even the president will see it. The official news story will say ‘meteorite’. To avoid casual observation, we’ll look for a wind storm. Preferably, a really strong one. We want blowing snow that will cool and coat the surface of the ship.”

“Physical camouflage?” Trygg said, his tone dubious.

“We call it hiding in plain sight.”

“It’s a recipe for genocide,” Grisham huffed.

Carrollus spun on his captain and snapped, “We have no shields, no weapons, and no other, viable ideas, sir. Ms Selkirk is trying to offer us the opportunity to finally stop running.”

Is that what I was doing?

“As Ms Selkirk has so charmingly reminded us,” Grisham retorted, “we drugged and kidnapped her.

What makes you think she’s remotely interested in helping us?”

I stared at him. “One: do you really think I blame every man, woman and child on this ship? Two: I can’t help but notice that if I sit on my ass doing nothing to help, it gets vaporized, too!”

“Finlay, what else?” Carrollus prompted.

I turned my attention to him. “Do you have a topographical map?”

A lieutenant with spiky brown hair and green eyes manned the table’s controls. “Lieutenant Vran, ma’am. And yes. We do.”

The map appeared.

“Can you make this section bigger?” I asked.

Carrollus reached past me and expanded the map where I’d indicated.

I hoped no one detected the tremor in my hand as I gestured at the image suspended above the black table. “This is an aerial topography map of the region where I propose you put down.”

Captain and commander came closer, peering at the lines and colors hovering in the air before them.

“Alaska,” Carrollus said.

Pointing out a broad swathe of the interior of the state, I said, “We’d aim for this region. Low population density, violent winter storms, intractable wilderness. There’s one added element in our favor.

Lieutenant? Do you have access to magnetic anomaly data? I’ll also need current weather conditions for this region.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The map lit up with color.

“Alaska aligns low population density with high-intensity magnetic fields at the mountainous regions best able to hide the ship. It makes landing trickier, because the magnetic disturbance will wreak havoc with shipboard instruments.”

“Our technology doesn’t rely on magnetic fields,” Carrollus replied.

“Good,” I said. “Earth-based technology does. Our navigational instruments are impacted by both magnetic anomalies and by the electrical noise produced by a strong aurora event.”

He nodded.

I pointed to a mountain range on the map. “Right here, we have both things going on at once. That’ll make life tough for anyone trying to navigate there, except us. Weather reports indicate winds in the region blowing snow and ice in excess of twenty-five miles per hour. That’s not as strong as I would like, but given the snow-pack reports, we should find the blowing snow adequate to our needs.”

The captain peered over her shoulder at the map.

“If anyone sees us coming in, they’ll think we’re a meteor coming down in the wilderness. No one will wander into the worst of the magnetic anomalies at night. Most humans won’t willingly venture into a strong magnetic vortex at any time. Something about intense magnetic fields induces dizziness, nausea and skewed perception. I may be affected, even aboard this ship. Once the ship is on the ground, chances we’ll be seen are low.”

“Vortices?” Grisham echoed, disdain in his tone.

“You’ve seen some of the New-Age claims regarding them, I take it,” I said. “Whether magnetic phenomena are at the root of the New-Age vortex mythos, I cannot say, but I can say that magnetic phenomena were of significant interest to the US military at one time.”

The captain studied me, calculation in the narrowing of his eyes. “How do you know?”

“My father was a physicist with the Air Force. He specialized in magnetic fields. He used non-

classified data to spark my interest in science.”

“The military wanted magnetic weapons?”

“Shielding,” I countered. “Magnetic fields can make something close look far away, distort an object’s true size, thus throwing off targeting. I’m suggesting using naturally occurring magnetic fields to our advantage.”

Grisham looked skeptical, but he nodded.

“When you take off all hell will break loose,” I went on. “The military will see the ship, and they will scramble jets again. You’ll want out of atmosphere as quickly as possible, and you may need to take up position behind something of size to avoid having all of Earth’s telescopes pointed at you. Assuming you choose to remain in this solar system.”

“If this works,” Carrollus said, “this solar system will be the safest place for us.”

“Not for much longer,” I replied. “With the current speed of scientific advancement on Earth, you won’t be able to hide indefinitely. When our measurements become accurate enough to detect your mass influencing the orbit of nearby bodies, you’ll have real problems.”

“We have to survive the Orseggans, first,” Carrollus said.

“Agreed,” Grisham weighed in. “Analysis.”

“Without shields or weapons,” Carrollus said, “our options are run or hide. If we leave the solar system, the Orseggans have a shot at picking up an exhaust trail. We’d abandon hundreds of our people planetside, not to mention destroying years of intelligence work spent infiltrating native governments.”

Interesting. They’d put agents on Earth? Surely I could use that as a bargaining chip. Somehow.

“Chances we could bring weapons online before the Orseggans reach sensor range?” Grisham demanded.

Carrollus shook his head. “The real question is whether we can destroy the scouts before they detect us. This crew hasn’t faced battle. The lack of experience both with weapon systems and combat tactics gives us very low chances of ambushing and destroying them before the Orseggans fire off a distress call.”

Grisham grunted. “Thereby confirming our existence and our location.”

“Hiding is our best option.”

“What if the Orseggans decide to investigate the aurora, see if they can punch through?” I prompted, wanting all the contingencies on the table.

Lieutenant Vran answered. “If we go dark, as you’re suggesting, and if the hull has cooled in the wind and snow, we will look like part of the landscape at best. At worst, we’ll resemble one of the military installations dotting the region, assuming the Orseggans would risk detection and destruction by pressing into the atmosphere for a closer look.”

“Destruction?” I echoed.

“An F-15’s payload would penetrate the scouts’ hulls,” Carrollus explained. “Scouts are built for speed, not combat.”

“If they come poke you with a stick, they’ll have the US Air Force swarming them in short order,” I mused. Uneasiness gnawed at the inside of my breastbone. Making my species aware of aliens in the solar system could be a disaster. Chaos and panic would result. We’d made and distributed too many science-

fiction movies in the past several decades to hope humankind would welcome men and women from Mars with open arms.

“Sir?” Carrollus turned on the captain.

Grisham sighed. “If we fail, it will mean the end of our kind. And the deaths of people we’ve taken into our protection.”

Reaction rippled around the command center. Even I felt it.

I began to understand. They’d already lost. Big time. “Genocide”, Grisham had said. Did that mean they were the last surviving members of their kind?

I imagined I could see the cost of everything they’d given up in order to survive defined by the lines of sorrow carved into their faces. Sadness surged within me as if in answer. I’d buried my folks. These people had likely lost wives, husbands and children. If I looked around the room, how many other faces would mirror my wounds?

“Commander,” Grisham said as he tore his gaze from mine. “Take us in.”

“Yes, sir!”

Carrollus issued orders in the language I didn’t recognize. The lieutenant at the table bent over the console, packing and sending all pertinent data to the rest of the command crew.

Grisham mounted the steps to his post, where he sat and keyed in commands on his panel. “Ms Selkirk, join me. We don’t have the time to secure you in quarters before we hit atmosphere.”

He nodded at a seat beside his. I strode up the steps and sat down.

He pressed a colorless button on the arm of my chair. Webbing that seemed to have a life of its own snaked up over my lap and around my torso. Trepidation shot through me, but when the animate seat belt stopped moving, I wasn’t pinned as I’d feared. I could still move and I could still breathe. I noted he wore one just like it. That was vaguely comforting.

From the vibration rattling up my spine, I gathered the engines were already firing, already breaking orbit.

From the center of the floor, Carrollus called, “Permission to institute tactical alert?”

“Granted.”

The bright lights illuminating the command center died.

I gasped and dug my fingers into the arms of my chair. The floor had vanished. I was sitting in space.

From what I could deduce, the entire command center projected from the main body of the ship. The hull, so opaque in bright light, disappeared entirely in the dark. It looked as if every single station hovered in the vacuum.

My heart thundered in my chest. I’d never imagined a front-row, first-person view of my return to Earth. We’d barely begun moving and I was giddy with anticipation.

I’d been right. The ship edged away from a particularly large asteroid, crossed Mars’s orbit, and then swung toward the far side of Earth’s moon.

Disappointment stung me. I’d hoped to get a first-hand glimpse of the red planet.

Carrollus paced the central floor, flinging commands and acknowledgments to the staff manning the stations lining the now-invisible tiers. Tension stood out in the rigid set of his shoulders and in the fire I caught burning behind his eyes when his gaze sought mine for a split second.

The ship arced, altering trajectory, turning us toward Earth. Stars blurred and turned to streaks of light.

I slid sideways in my seat before the webbing caught and held me.

Carrollus steadied himself with a hand on the table.

The tug to the right eased, but I pressed back into my seat. I assumed that meant engines were hurling us at Earth.

I couldn’t see the planet. For several irrational moments, I couldn’t ease the panic clenching my gut over having misplaced home. We were aimed right at the sun. The planet had to be there, somewhere.

“We’re coming in above the ecliptic plane,” Grisham said.

Had my scanning the sky been that obvious?

“And we’re coming in fast,” he went on. “When we slow for descent, the planet will be below us and to your right.”

As if on cue, our trajectory shifted. I lifted out of my seat. The web caught me, and I was glad Grisham had made me strap in.

I slammed into the chair when the ship slowed. Earth appeared right where Grisham had said it would.

We were directly above the North Pole. As the planet loomed swiftly larger and grew to dominate the field of view, a flowing, multicolored sea of light danced in the upper atmosphere. In places, the light curled out into space as if beckoning us.

I caught in an enchanted breath and leaned as far as my restraints allowed so I could watch the play of light and color. Sure, I knew the display was the result of photons emitted by ionized nitrogen, or by nitrogen and oxygen atoms in an excited state returning to ground. It didn’t change my sense of awe and wonder in the slightest.

Some native people called the aurora the “Dance of the Spirits”. I thought I understood why. The light moved like a living, breathing thing. The ship would drop down through the seething sea of color and the aurora would protect us. Watching the light show from space, I could almost believe in magic.

The thought made me smile.

As we plummeted nearer, the ship shuddered. First contact with the exosphere. Or was it entry into the thermosphere?

I glanced at Carrollus to find him watching me. Rippling green, white, blue and red light illuminated the faint smile on his face. My cheeks flushed.

“We haven’t seen a show this intense and vivid in a very long time.”

“If ever,” Grisham agreed with his commander.

The ship bucked.

I glanced back at Trygg, wanting to ask whether or not I’d been set up.

His feet left the floor. Or maybe the floor left his feet. I couldn’t be sure which. My stomach turned over. Fear spread a bitter chill through me.

He caught hold of a rail. It saved him from being thrown over the tier one stations.

“Commander!” Grisham thundered. “Station and secure!”

Carrollus, hand going from one rail to the next up the tiers, climbed to our position and took the chair on the other side of me.

Once he’d activated his restraints, his thigh rested against my leg. Little curls of heat reached from his body to mine as if our individual electromagnetic fields exchanged secrets while we sat strapped to our chairs.

Electricity jolted me. My awareness narrowed to Trygg Carrollus, despite the turbulence rattling the ship.

I forced myself to wonder how the ship would handle the heat of re-entry. As far as I knew, spacecraft didn’t enter atmosphere at anything approaching the speed of meteors. On purpose.

In the blink of an eye, we were in the midst of the aurora, and even though I knew the supercharged particles couldn’t penetrate the hull of the ship, pressure built inside my sternum. Was the red glow cresting in front of us the Northern Lights or the atmosphere heating the hull?

Voices rose as crew members called out information in their own language over the creaking and groaning of the craft. Anxiety and tension edged high in the clipped phrases.

It surprised me to find how much I could deduce of message content from the tone of the speaker’s voice. While I didn’t actually know what was going on, I had to give Grisham points for affording me a front-row seat for the Northern Lights and the subsequent landing.

Our descent slowed and the pile-up of red in front of us dissipated even as the jolts rocking the ship intensified. What layer was this? Mesosphere? Stratosphere? I clutched the arms of my chair tighter, as if my grip alone could hold the ship together as we hurtled through the sky of my home world.

We’d hit weather in the troposphere, the final, thickest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Did they know?

Surely Carrollus did. Could their instruments tell them when wind would present an additional challenge to navigation?

“Entering stratosphere. Eight miles above the Arctic Ocean!” Vran shouted above the clatter of the ship.

“Watch for commercial aircraft!” I hollered.

“Negative contact on sensors, ma’am!” a young woman replied.

“Leveling off,” another young officer yelled, “for glide to designated landing zone!”

“Ground station communications outages confirmed,” someone else called. “Comm silence on all channels used by native technology.”

My interest piqued. They had communications tech that would cut through the geomagnetic storm?

Good. It might be the only way to know what the Orseggans were doing.

“Tropopause and the North Slope!”

“Engines to minimum. Stand by braking thrusters,” Carrollus called.

I didn’t know how he did that, speaking so that everyone heard him, yet without sounding as if he’d bothered to raise his voice.

“Engines at minimum. Braking thrusters, standing by.”

To my surprise, the ride smoothed out as we descended. I shot a glance at Carrollus, who concentrated on a holographic panel readout projected in front of his seat.

“Fire braking thrusters,” he ordered.

“Firing braking thrusters.”

I fell forward into the webbing holding me.

The ship slid sideways in the sky, leaving my stomach far behind. Wind shear. Looked like my twenty-

five-mile-an-hour winds had increased over the mountains.

“Get us on the ground!” Grisham bellowed.

“Yes, sir!” several voices answered in unison.

We slowed. Vran counted down the distance to touchdown. At zero, we hit with a jarring crunch. The nose of the ship tipped down and we slid and spun ninety degrees.

Heart in my throat, I gasped. A few people screamed. The ship slid to a halt.

I think we’d all stopped breathing, as if afraid the slightest twitch on our part would send the ship plunging into a crevasse.

“Hull temperature?” Lieutenant Vran said.

Even though the answer was ostensibly in English, the number and temperature measurement were meaningless to me, and I had no idea whether or not we’d cool fast enough to hide.

“Permission to power down?” Carrollus requested.

“Granted, save for planet-side monitoring,” Grisham said. “Get me a feed from the ISS chip.”

Naturally, they had a sensor on the International Space Station.

“On your screen, sir!”

A piece at a time, with every system that powered down, the ship drifted into slumber. Stillness settled over the vessel.

For no good reason, adrenaline flooded my system. I hated waiting.

“Sir?” a young woman said into the silence. “The scouts are on approach.”

I glanced outside. The command center remained transparent in the power down. We’d set down on a slope. It appeared that we’d triggered at least a partial avalanche. In the brilliant glow of the aurora overhead, I could see where snow had cascaded past the nose of the ship. I hoped we were too big to be buried.

“The scouts are coming in fast, not masking their arrival,” Grisham said, his voice hushed. “Crossing Saturn’s orbit.”

“They’ll be seen by ground stations,” Carrollus replied. “They may afford us some distraction.”

Even the enchantment of the Northern Lights faded as I waited for the scout crafts’ arrival. If they weren’t fooled by our ruse, we were sitting ducks.

Grisham marked the scouts’ approach by each planetary orbit they passed. Jupiter. The asteroid belt.

As the Orseggans approached the orbit of Mars, my breath stumbled in my chest. The aurora had suddenly dimmed. Without the particle activity in the atmosphere, our last defense was gone. The scouts would see us.

Then it hit me. The aurora wasn’t dying out. It was the snow. The hull had cooled, and blowing snow had begun accumulating on the hull as hoped. I relaxed.

“They’re approaching Earth from behind the moon,” Grisham said. “Damned sloppy. I’m surprised they haven’t been detected by ground-based personnel.”

“Monitor the Twitter feeds of the conspiracy theorists,” I offered. “They break all the UFO reports first.”

“Here we go,” Grisham said, ignoring me, but leading me to believe he had a line on Earth-based communications, even from within the aurora field. “First query away.”

“I hope they don’t set up camp,” I muttered. “We’ll be effectively under siege.”

“They won’t,” the captain replied. “Your world isn’t desirable.”

“We like it,” I protested. “And you certainly seem to have found a use for it.”

“We like the world, Ms Selkirk, but your species is crazy.”

I bit back a laugh.

“Second query from civilian telescopes. The Orseggan sighting is being escalated to military channels.” The old man leaned back in his chair.

“Ms Selkirk,” he said, “I can scarcely believe it, but it appears your scheme has worked. The scout is reversing course to the asteroid field. I expect they intend to use it as cover to round the sun and have a sensor scan of each planet on their way out of the solar system. They clearly didn’t expect us to be in system. They aren’t looking that hard.”

I grinned at the muted cheer that went up. Something sharp lodged in my heart, making the backs of my eyes burn. Was that happiness?

“Merry Christmas,” I said. I met Trygg’s gaze and played my trump card. “Now, open a door and let me walk away?”

Carrollus scowled and tensed beside me. “No.”

I bridled.

“The cold and the terrain would kill you within minutes, Ms Selkirk. Commander,” Grisham said.

Desperation shot through me. “Teleport me home!”

“Ms Selkirk!” Grisham snapped. “Our orbital position is no impediment to returning you!”

“No time like the present,” I shot.

I didn’t realize I’d dug my fingers into the arm of the chair until Carrollus covered them with his warm hand. “Returning you is power-intensive. If we send you home now, we can’t lift off for hours.”

Recognizing that the danger to the ship now came from my own planet, I slumped. The unhappiness in Trygg’s voice convinced me he was telling the truth.

“Was this a set-up?” I blurted out.

He frowned. “A set-up?”

“To make me feel – I don’t know – like I’d contributed?”

“Humans are still arrogant,” Grisham muttered. “At least some things never change.”

I flushed.

“I wish it had been a set-up, Finlay,” Carrollus said. “Then we wouldn’t have had to risk exposing ourselves to your world. A risk we’re still taking.”

I believed him.

“Lift,” I said. Defeat by my own moral code – that insisted my concerns take a back seat to their survival – tasted sour.

“You heard the lady. The ISS sensor has lost the Orseggan scout behind the sun. Put out some rocks to simulate a meteor landing and wake us up in preparation for departure,” the captain commanded.

“Yes, sir.”

Systems woke slower than they’d gone to sleep. Grisham estimated the Orseggans had passed Neptune’s orbit by the time Carrollus issued the command to fire the engines and take us out of atmosphere.

Acceleration hit, pressing me into my chair. I gathered that some property of the ship buffered us from the worst of the g-forces. I could still breathe.

We were pointed right at the rippling river of neon light twisting like a living thing above us. The ship shook, squeaking and protesting at the mistreatment.

“We’ve been spotted,” Vran said, “doesn’t look like the fighters will overtake, though.”

Despite the assurance, I waited, nerves tingling in anticipation of a missile strike. The magic of the Northern Lights would shield us again, if we could get to the other side before the F-15s closed.

It seemed like hours before Vran yelled, “Exiting atmosphere!”

“Get us under cover!” Grisham ordered. “Keep us out of sight!”

“Yes, sir!” several voices answered.

We leveled off and the ride smoothed out.

Grisham released his restraints and rose.

Carrollus unfastened his, and then leaned across me to press a series of buttons on the arm of my chair.

The web holding me to my seat released me.

“Ms Selkirk,” Grisham said, “you’ve saved our lives. I doubt you’ll ever know what that means to us.”

Registering the regret in his voice, I levered myself to my feet. The icy pulse of fear in my gut made me waver.

Trygg closed a hand around my upper arm to support me.

The resulting shower of internal fireworks annoyed me.

“Don’t you dare tell me I’ve seen too much and that you can no longer afford to send me home.”

“That is the problem,” Grisham said.

“It isn’t,” I countered. “Do an internet search on UFO abductions. Have a look at how the people who report them are treated. No. Wait. I’ll demonstrate.”

On autopilot, I stuck my hand in my jacket pocket. My cellphone was still there. Why?

Commander Carrollus didn’t strike me as careless. He’d have searched me. Why leave me my phone?

Had he assumed it was useless on the far side of the moon?

We weren’t out that far, yet.

I yanked the phone out of my pocket and lit the screen. One bar. Must be a satellite still in range. Lucky me. I hit “quick dial” for Jill, and then punched the “speaker” button. The line clicked twice, and then began ringing.

I caught the concern in the old man’s face and, shaking off Carrollus’s hold, I put distance between us.

Jill picked up mid-ring.

“Fin!” she said, her voice carrying through the room. “How’d the interview go?”

“You’re on speaker,” I said.

“So I hear. The interview. Spill.”

“About that,” I said. “Turns out the interview was a front for a bunch of aliens who’ve kidnapped me for sex. I’m not going to make your Christmas party.”

Alarm spiked in Grisham’s face. It warmed my heart.

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Jill grumbled.

I turned the phone and an I-told-you-so glare on the old man.

Carrollus, trying not to smile, seemed abruptly to find the toes of his boots fascinating.

“I really won’t make the party,” I said.

“It went that well?” she prodded, her tone riding high on excitement.

“That remains to be seen. I can’t say much.”

Jill gasped. “You’re under NDA already?”

“I suppose a non-disclosure agreement is one way to look at it,” I said. “Look. Jill, you aren’t going to see me for a while.”

“This isn’t you trying to get out of the holidays, is it?” she grumbled. “You aced the interview and now you’re holed up in some secret lab? That had better be some damned fun research.”

Carrollus stared at me.

“I can’t answer that,” I said. “And this will be the only call I’m allowed. I’ll have to give up the phone in a minute.”

“How long will you be gone?” she demanded.

I pinned a meaningful look on Grisham. “Unknown.”

“You have to be back in time for Christmas,” she protested.

“I’m nobody’s present, Jill.”

“Because you’re afraid to care for anyone, again. That’s your Christmas gift from me to you, my professional, psychiatric evaluation. No charge. Finlay. What do I tell the school?”

“Nothing.”

“Your students will think—”

The phone went dead.

I rubbed my forehead and tried not to see the sudden concern crinkling Carrollus’s brow. I handed him the phone.

“You misled your friend about us,” he noted as he took the cell, pulled the battery, and pocketed both, one on either hip.

“A demonstration. You can put me back without fear because no one will believe me if I say I was abducted by aliens.”

“The demonstration is not lost on me,” the captain said, his tone grave. “You ceded us thirty days.

Allow us to use that time to thank you properly for your assistance. Commander? Escort Ms Selkirk to her quarters.”

All the words were right. He insinuated that he’d send me home, but something in Grisham’s tone told me he didn’t intend ever to let me go. I swallowed a huge, jagged lump of fear.

“Finlay—” Carrollus said. He took my hand and placed it in the crook of his arm.

My heart nearly tripped over itself. Damn biology.

He ushered me through the doors of the command center, back to the elevators, waved one open, and escorted me inside.

When I attempted to draw away from him, he tightened his grip on my hand. He gave a verbal command I assumed equated to a floor number.

“You’ve put me in a difficult position,” he noted as the elevator began moving.

Guilt lurched through my chest, but I mentally strangled the emotion. I turned to face him.

“Funny,” I said when I could be sure my tone would remain neutral. “I could say the same of you.”

He met my eye with a direct gaze that unnerved me. “Yes.”

“Especially since your captain doesn’t intend ever to let me go home.” I refused to back down, even as my body heated.

His gaze shifted to my lips.

“I’ve been ordered to ensure that when your thirty days are up, you will not want to leave us.”

Liquid fire dumped straight to my lower belly. I clenched my teeth to keep from telling him that his job wouldn’t be so hard.

“I get the impression you’d put me back, if it were up to you,” I persisted, my breath suddenly in short supply, “even though you brought me here in the first place.”

As if unaware of what he did, he smoothed a strand of my hair where it fell over the collar of my jacket. He wound the curl around his finger.

I held my breath. The subtle electricity of his touch smashed into my senses.

Desire darkened his eyes, even as he frowned. “Yes.”

He didn’t like being attracted to me.

Despite his reluctant response, or maybe because of it, arousal slid hot and wet into my lower body. I gasped. Did I really want someone who didn’t want to want me?

“So put me back,” I forced myself to rasp. “You could pick any number of women who’d be less trouble than I am.”

He smiled, but lines that looked like pain creased his forehead. With a gentle tug, he freed himself from my hair. “Not possible. Not now.”

“Why not?”

The elevator stopped. The doors opened. He led me out.

“What you said to your friend on the phone,” he said, glancing at me, “‘I’m nobody’s present.’ What does that mean?”

“You heard her assessment,” I said, pressing my voice flat.

“You’re afraid to care? You have no one?”

I detected no sympathy or pity in his tone, just straightforward curiosity. “No.”

I felt the look he ran over me as a caress, and had to suppress a shiver despite the hurt gripping me.

“Look. I buried my heart a long time ago. That makes me no use to you.”

“Heartless? Is that what you think you are?” Carrollus murmured.

Hot blood flooded my face.

“You aren’t. I’ll prove it,” he said, disengaging his hand from mine. “I’ll be right back.”

He ducked into a door that closed behind him.

Beneath my feet, the vibration of the engines eased to the point that they became undetectable. Orbit achieved, I gathered.

When Carrollus emerged, he carried a rumpled package in one hand. He held out his hand to me.

“Fewer than thirty humans have seen the far side of the moon. If you can keep it a secret, I’ll make you one of them.”

I gasped at the unexpected thrill. I think I bounced as I tucked my hand into his. “Yes!”

Chuckling, he led me through a maze of corridors to a point low on the ship. He unlocked a door. It opened on what looked like a glass bubble.

The pockmarked lunar surface spread out before me, a slender crescent illuminated by the sun, the rest cast in shadow. It looked close enough to touch. For a split second, I hesitated, overwhelmed by the sheer wonder of seeing something only a handful of humans in the history of my world had seen.

Then, like a kid at the zoo, I plastered myself to whatever substance made up the see-thru hull and stared. My breath didn’t even fog the surface of the window.

The door closed. I heard Carrollus lock it, and he pressed in close behind me, trapping me between his heat and the cool hull.

I sucked in a sharp breath at the want twisting my gut. I’d met him not twenty-four hours ago. How could I want him so urgently?

“What I told you about the bio-agent?” His voice vibrated through his chest into mine. The sound and the warmth of his presence curled around the cold, dead space where my heart should have been.

“There’s more.” He threaded one arm around me, as if he needed something to hold. “My parents were among the first to die.”

“Which one of them was your captain’s child?” I asked.

Carrollus stopped breathing for a moment, then his diaphragm kicked in a laugh I couldn’t hear. “How did you guess?”

“When you’re angry, you and Captain Grisham look remarkably alike.”

“My mother was his only child.”

“I’m sorry.” I felt awkward and inadequate saying the words, but they were all I had to offer.

He tugged my shirt tails out of my waistband, and threaded his hands under the fabric to caress my stomach.

The muscles jumped. I gasped at the firestorm his touch ignited in my body. Leaning into him, I breathed, “What are you doing?”

“Something I shouldn’t be doing,” he murmured at my ear. “I need the touch of your skin on mine. Do you mind?”

Sensation shot heat and moisture through me. I dropped my head back against his shoulder. It dawned on me – I could no more avoid him than the moon could escape Earth’s gravity.

“I don’t mind.” I had no idea how I got the words out.

His hand splayed against my ribs just below one breast. The other hand followed the contour of my hip bone.

I felt the hitch in his breathing as my own. With his touch as catalyst, want gathered like a storm in my blood. I’d never felt anything so overwhelming.

It sat right on the edge of scaring the life out of me. My heart couldn’t decide whether to tremble with longing or with terror.

“I—,” he began, and then cleared his throat. “I had a wife.”

“A wife?” I echoed, dread and horror freezing my blood.

“She was pregnant with our first child.”

I closed my eyes as if I could shut out the rest. My heart slid to my toes.

“Ikkari’s only wish was to save the baby. We tried. Nothing worked. I lost them both.”

He fell silent for a minute.

I opened damnably watery eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I choked again. “Why did you tell me this?”

“You deserve to know,” he said against my ear. “Most of this crew has been taught that everyone on board is their family. They were young enough to internalize the change.”

“You weren’t?”

“No. I haven’t taken a partner since Ikkari died.”

“How long?”

“I’ve lost count of the years.”

“She was a lucky woman,” I murmured.

“Finlay. You care,” he prodded. “You care. You care about the people on this ship, and you care about a dead woman and baby you never even met.”

Yes. I did. And I didn’t comprehend how that could have happened. My crumbling defenses scrambled to close the gaps against Trygg Carrollus. I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m not so selfish that I imagine I’m the only one who’s lost someone,” I finally spoke.

“Perhaps you haven’t lost as much as you think,” he said. He offered me the package he’d brought with him into the room.

I stared at the clumsy wrapping job and knew he’d done it himself. That warmed me.

When I glanced at him, he looked . . . lost.

A tendril of fear touched me. Hand trembling, I took the gift.

“Thank you,” I said. I tore paper.

It was a picture frame.

I’d opened it so the picture wasn’t facing me. I turned it over. I felt as if I’d been kicked in the gut. The breath left me. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t force air past the painful constriction in my throat. Tears burned my eyes. A sore place in the center of my chest tore open.

A picture from my parents’ wedding. I hadn’t seen the photo since before the flood that had destroyed the house we’d rented in rural Louisiana when I’d been ten years old.

“I’d forgotten.” I whispered because I couldn’t force my voice past the lump of unshed tears choking me.

Warm fingers touched my cheek. “They look so happy.” The wistful note in his voice raked my raw emotions. “Your mother is beautiful. You look very much like her. And your father looks so proud.”

I breathed a ghost of a laugh. “When he saw her walking down the aisle toward him, he was so overwhelmed, he nearly passed out.”

“He has my complete sympathy.”

“My God, Trygg.” I choked. “Thank you for the picture. Where did you—?”

“Newspaper archives from the town where they were married,” he said. “I’d had you under surveillance for several months before we brought you in. I contacted the paper and explained you’d lost both the pictures and your parents. They were happy to pull the negatives.”

I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, aware I didn’t care where, when or how. I only cared that a lost part of my family had been restored. My tears spilled over. Embarrassed, I realized he hadn’t returned the embrace. I ducked my head and tried to back away.

He caught me, eased the picture from my hands, and pulled me tight against his chest. He tucked my head beneath his chin and held me until the emotional storm passed. He didn’t try to quiet me with false assurances that everything would be all right. He simply held me and accepted my sadness. That felt oddly like another gift – one I’d never before been offered.

I’d gone from slugging my kidnapper in the stomach to taking comfort in his arms, all within a twenty-

four-hour time frame.

When I finally straightened, he wiped moisture from my cheeks with shaking fingers. I registered the pressure of his erection, hot against me. Intrigued by the notion of stripping Trygg Carrollus out of his austere uniform, I flexed my fingers on his hard thighs, seeking to slide a hand between us to stroke him through the fabric.

“No,” he rasped. He caught my wrist. A sharp sliver of hurt lodged in my chest.

“Don’t,” he ordered, when he looked at me. “If I have you, I won’t be able to do what I know is right.”

“And what is that?”

“To take you home,” he said. “Isn’t that what you want?”

Pain expanded inside my chest. I could barely breathe around it.

Confusion rocked me. “I – yes. No.”

The skin between his brows puckered. “I don’t understand.”

“You’d be disobeying another direct order,” I said.

“Yes.”

“What happens to you then?”

He shook his head. “I don’t care.”

“I do. Come with me.” I said. Where the hell had that come from? “You were right. I care what happens to you. All of you. But you, specifically. When you look at me, I feel so much it’s—”

He drew closer with each breathless confession until I couldn’t eke any more words past my lips.

“I want you,” he said, “but I won’t rob you of your freedom.”

“I don’t want to lose – whatever this is—” The words stumbled out. I hated that I sounded like a love-

struck teenager, and I loathed the waver in my voice.

He nodded.

I recognized the twist of pain in his eyes. Part of my heart tore.

“Why does this have to be an either or proposition?” I demanded.

“You come to Earth. I know you do. You know too much about the US military to not be involved regularly. Why couldn’t I stay here and still go to work every morning? You could stay with me when you’re on assignment infiltrating governments.”

He chuckled. “You don’t forget anything, do you?”

“Not if I can use it to get what I want.”

Hope lit in his eyes until it hurt to meet his gaze. “You’d do that? Live here and work on Earth?”

“You do.”

He picked up my parents’ wedding picture to run his fingers over the glass. “I do. Before she died, Ikkari urged me to be happy.”

“You haven’t been?”

“I hadn’t given it much thought,” he confessed. “It didn’t seem possible. Much less relevant.”

His observation touched off a sense of recognition within me. I’d felt something similar after my family had been killed.

“You’ve driven me mad with wanting from the moment I met you,” he said. “I think that was my grandfather’s plan all along when he sent me your file and ordered me to take up surveillance. He hasn’t given up hope that he’ll hold another Grisham descendant before he dies.”

Longing arced hot and sharp through my body. He’d planted the image of a dark-haired, blue-eyed infant in my brain and in my heart.

“I want what your parents had, and I want you, Finlay Selkirk. If I have to call in all my favors at the Pentagon to keep questions from being asked, I will,” he swore.

“Then help me get my things,” I ordered, grinning. “You can come with me to Jill’s party three days from now. Then we can take turns playing Santa.”

Interest sparked in his eyes as he looked me up and down. “I can hardly wait to unwrap my present.

Are you going to make me wait for Christmas morning?”

“Of course,” I replied, thoroughly enjoying the buzz of arousal bolstering the easy teasing.

“Not if I have my way,” he promised, taking my hand and pressing a kiss to my palm. He chuckled when I gasped and squirmed.

I so hoped he did get his way. Soon.

“Ms Finlay Selkirk,” he said, mischief in his tone. “You’ve aced the interview. I’d like to offer you the job. Effective immediately.”

“Reporting to you?”

“Only to me.”

“When do we talk compensation?” I teased.

His dead sexy smile turned my insides to water. “When we’ve completed transport to your apartment.

We’ll discuss it. In detail.”