Garran looked thoughtful for a second. "It’s been some time since I’ve enjoyed a meal like this. I’ve eaten good food, and drunk wine this fine, but didn’t enjoy it nearly as much. Having you here makes all the difference." He brightened. "Still, the keepers have truly outdone themselves this time."
"That’s the second time you’ve mentioned having ‘keepers’. What do you mean?"
He glanced over and smiled sheepishly. "For some time now, I haven’t been very good about eating regular meals, sleeping regular hours, or anything else. I just didn’t care anymore. After a while, I noticed that especially tempting food would be left for me to snack on in-between meals. It turned out that some of the members of my general staff had begun looking out for me. I started calling them keepers when they went so far as to tell me when to go to bed and change my clothes."
He grimaced. "Of course, it was a bit embarrassing when they started leaving notes about taking a bath."
Sarah had to suppress her laughter. This was not at all what she had expected. The meal had been splendid, the wine excellent, and the General was being very charming. She could be in serious danger here.
"General Doranth.…" she began.
Rising, he took the emptied plates and piled them into the small cleanser under the counter. "I wish you wouldn’t call me that," he grumbled.
"Why not? It’s who you are."
"It’s who I was, Sarah, not who I am now. Sure, during the war, I led my people. I led them pretty well, too. But before that I was an engineer, a builder. And more.…" His voice failed, trailed off, and Sarah saw an old sadness in his eyes. He seemed to peruse her face and the sadness fled, and a determined glint took over. "The war is over and I want to go back to who I was. I want a family.… I want you."
He grabbed her hand with the band, and rubbed his finger over the symbol. "I chose this because my home is on Crescent Lake and I want to live there again. You would like it, I think."
Uncertainty seized her. In his claiming shirt, with his dark hair tousled about his shoulders, Garran didn’t look to be the military scourge, the cold-hearted murderer she’d named him more than once. The clasp of his hand was warm, sensual, reminding her of other times he’d touched her...how wonderful his touch could be. Reluctantly she pulled away from him.
"I was told I could change my mind."
"You could. You could even do it today," he admitted. "But how would you know you’ve made the right decision? You have three standard days to refuse to be my wife." He leaned on the counter and stroked the back of her hand. Sarah had to fight the thrill his touch gave her...as it was she caught her breath.
"Sarah, I think we’re a match for each other. You came all the way from Earth to find a man. You didn’t have to choose me as your husband, but you did. If I wasn’t someone you thought you knew, I doubt we’d be having this discussion. In fact, I suspect we’d already be in there."
He tossed his glance at the closed door that Sarah suspected led to the bedroom, and she felt her cheeks burn. Given her unaccustomed desire, she didn’t doubt that that he was right.
"Why not give us a chance? Stay with me for the next three days and if you want to leave after that, I’ll accept it. Just take off the band."
Stay with him for three days? The way she kept reacting to him, it wasn’t completely out of the question that she’d succumb to his charm. She twirled the remaining wine in her glass. "I don’t know.…"
His deep-blue eyes held a challenge for her--Resist me if you can. But if she couldn’t, what did that mean? That he was right, that he was the one man she could feel attracted to, whose touch left her sick with want rather than simply sick.
For too long she’d watched her friends and their relationships, and while she’d congratulated herself on avoiding the heartache that always followed their inevitable breakups, there had always been a wince of envy as well. Just once she’d wanted to experience physical love, and seeking it had even gone out with a few men…only to feel ill whenever she’d let one of them get close to touch her.
She glanced over at the general’s big hands as he refilled their glasses, first his then hers. When he’d touched her all she’d felt was hot desire.
What did she have to lose? "If I agreed to give it a try, stay with you, what would you expect?"
His grin told her he thought he was winning. "You’d stay here, with me. We’d do things together. For example, I could take you on a tour of the ship."
She hadn’t seen much of it, but that was intriguing. "I’d like that. What else?"
"We’d talk, learn about each other. Eat together, share meals. Share a bed."
"Share a bed?"
Her outrage seemed to take him by surprise. "Of course, sleep together. Weren’t you lonely last night, alone? I haven’t even slept with you once and I was lonely without you."
He caught her face and ran a tender finger along her jaw. "I want your face to be the last one I see before retiring, the first I see when I wake."
"But.…"
Sarah pulled away from him and sudden understanding flooded his eyes, made his jaw granite. "You think I would take advantage of you? I’m Gaian, I couldn’t force myself on you if I wanted to. My people aren’t capable of rape."
He shook his head angrily. "I don’t know what happened to you to make you so afraid of men, but you must trust me, Sarah. I won’t do anything without your cooperation. If sex were all I was interested in, I could have done that yesterday."
Sarah knew he was right, she had been willing and yet it had been his idea to wait.
"That is one of the things I don’t understand. I would have accepted sex with you yesterday. You must have known that it would have been out of the question today, so why didn’t you take advantage of it? It might have been your only chance."
He didn’t answer for a moment. "I suppose if I’d been an Earther, you might have expected me to do just that. But I’m not an Earthman. I knew that if I did something like that, took advantage of you not knowing who I am, that you would hate me. It would have been a violation in your eyes, and that is something I could never do."
Garren raised his head to stare deep into her eyes. "I am Gaian, Sarah. We love and cherish the women who are our mates--we don’t hurt them, use them, or take advantage of them. Maybe I’ll lose you three days from now, but yesterday and today, and until you say otherwise, you’re my wife, and I intend to treat you that way."
He rose and hoisted his glass in the air. "What do you say, Sarah. Shall we drink to this? A three day period where we get to know who we really are?"
He’d been angry at her question, as to why he’d not taken her when he’d had the chance. She’d heard it in his voice, but he’d controlled it. There was far more to General Garran Doranth than she’d expected and Sarah was suddenly intrigued and wanted to know more.
She touched the edge of her glass to his. "All right, I’ll give you three days. I don’t expect that you will change my mind."
He grinned at her. "Sarah, I almost think I’d be disappointed if you said differently. At least now I know you’re being honest. And I’m an optimist."
"An optimist?"
"Someone who always expects the best to happen. I lost that for a while, but all Gaians are born optimists. We were told we were optimistic fools to break off from Earth, that we’d never win a war against them. But we won. And now I suggest we do something else. Do you know any games?"
Games? What was he talking about, Sarah wondered. "What kind of games. Like card games?"
Garran grinned. "Certainly, a card game would be splendid. I haven’t played a game with someone as beautiful as you for a long time."
A wicked idea came to mind. "Well," she said slowly, "at the hospital, we used to play a game called five-hand using a standard card deck. It’s a little tricky, though," she added dubiously as if it might be too much for the General to handle.
Sarah had won the all-hospital five-hand tournament five years running. She tried t
o smother a grin of her own. It could be fun to take this arrogant man down a little.
He didn’t seem daunted at all. "Oh that’s fine, just explain the rules to me and I’ll learn as I play. When I make a mistake, point it out to me so I’ll know not to do it again." He grinned at her. "It will be fun to learn something new."
They moved to the sitting area, taking the bottle of wine and their glasses. Garran found a deck of cards. "Will this do?"
She counted them and checked the suits and numbers, and after making the adjustments to the deck needed for the game, told him it was fine.
Five-hand was complex with several levels of strategies, and Sarah doubted he would be able to keep up, but she did as he asked and explained the rules and some of the basic card plays.
The game began and sure enough the General lost the first several hands, but he took his losses with a grace that surprised Sarah. She explained each time how she had won the hand, and he listened carefully. Even after he had lost for the sixth time, he kept his humor. Losing didn’t seem to bother him.
Finally he won his first hand, using a standard play strategy. After acknowledging his first win, Sarah decided that she could use some of the more advanced strategies she knew.
She promptly won the next two hands, but then lost the third. Then the fourth. She won fifth, but he took the sixth, seventh, and eighth.
On his tenth win she glared at him. "I thought you told me you’d never seen this game before!"
Amused innocence was in his face. "Sarah, believe me, I’m learning the game from you."
"Then how did you know that last play? It is an advanced strategy that I just learned a few months ago."
"Perhaps, but you also did it three hands ago."
Shocked, Sarah stared at him. He was right, she had just made that identical play, the last time she’d won. In fact, every winning strategy he’d used had been one she’d played before him. Garran was simply learning the game from her and with every hand he’d learned something from her, either by watching her or asking questions.
Five-hand was the most complex card game she knew. As far as she knew, it was the most difficult game ever created. Most people spent years learning the simplest strategies for winning. He was learning the most complex card game she had ever seen just by playing it with her.
General Garran Doranth, leader of the Gaian military forces, had learned to best her in the course of a couple hours. She’d not really considered how intelligent the Gaians must have been to win the war, but clearly they were. And he was presumably their best and brightest.
She watched as he gathered the cards. "General, just how smart are you?"
The General seemed startled by her question. Stacking the cards, he collected his glass and took a deep sip. They’d pretty much emptied the bottle between the two of them, and while Sarah didn’t think they were tipsy, she didn’t think they were particularly sober either.
He smiled winningly at her. "Intelligence is relative. I guess I’m smarter than a few people you’ve known perhaps not as smart as others. I do like to learn new games though.
That put a new light on their relationship. "Is that what this is to you, this ‘marriage’ of ours. A game to be won?"
He grinned at her instead of getting angry. "No Sarah, not a game. A challenge perhaps, and what I want to win is your heart."
He put his glass down, and moved closer to her. Before she could move away from him, he reached his hand out and stroked her cheek, the gesture she’d seen the Gaians use. At his touch her heart raced.
"You really think that you are going to do this. You think I can be won." To her ears her voice sounded blurred from the wine, but her mind still felt sharp.
His voice was blurred as well. "Ah but you don’t understand. I have a secret weapon."
"You do?" If there was a secret that he could use against her, then Sarah wanted to know about it. "And just what is this ‘secret weapon’?"
"Oh, but if I told you, then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore," he protested. He grinned at her. "All right, I’ll tell you my secret, but you have to promise me something in exchange."
Resignation filled her. The Gaians and their promises. "What it is you want me to promise."
"Promise me, that for the rest of our time together, you will only call me by my name, instead of calling me ‘General’. If you do that, then I’ll tell you the secret."
"You want me to call you Garran?" It seemed a harmless enough thing to agree to. "Very well, I will."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
She waited until she realized he was waiting for her. She would have to ask him for the secret.
"General…I mean Garran, what do you mean that you have a secret weapon?"
He finished off his wine, then looked at her, his expression serious. "I know something that you do not know."
"And what is that?
"Yesterday, you cared enough about me to agree to be my wife, even without knowing who I might be. You, yourself said that you would have been willing to be my lover."
Sarah’s cheeks burned, although she could scarcely deny what she’d said. "Yes, and today I know who you are, and will no longer be your wife. Or anything else." she returned.
"But the point is that you did care about me and I haven’t changed. I’m still me, the man you cared about. What has changed is how you see me."
"So?" Sarah pressed
"So", he returned, "all I have to do is make you see that I’m still the man that you met inside that room. I should be able to do that, because I’m still that man."
He stroked her cheek again and staggered to his feet. "It won’t be easy, but I have a chance." He moved off to the room she’d determined was the bedroom.
Sarah called after him, "You don’t have a chance, Garran." He turned and smiled and she realized it was because she’d used his name.
"They told us the same thing when we went up against Earth, that we didn’t have a chance." He looked serious for a moment. "But we won anyway. As I said, Gaians are born optimists. No one ever won a fight by giving up."
"Where are you going?"
"The sanitary, my dear Sarah." And he disappeared into the door of the bedroom.
Chapter Fourteen
She was in very big trouble, Sarah thought. Garran was big, strong, handsome, and he’d been nothing but charming since her arrival in his rooms. Resisting all that wasn’t going to be difficult...it was going to be impossible. Sarah glanced at the table and the cards, the last round of five-hand that they’d played. He’d won using an advance strategy it had taken her weeks to learn.
He’d learned it in twenty minutes.
So, in addition to being everything physically she could want, he was brilliant, probably smarter than she was. Certainly smarter than any man she’d met before.
Add that his touch sent shivers along her skin and made her think of long kisses and hot embraces...she was in way over her head. And she’d just agreed to spend three days and nights with him, eating with him, playing with him, sleeping with him.
Sleeping in the same bed.
Big trouble, indeed. Sarah shook her head and staggered to her feet, feeling the wine more now that she was upright. She also needed to find the sanitary, which was apparently through the door he’d left open.
Heartbeat picking up, Sarah followed his path to the door, pausing before entering the adjacent room. As she’d expected it was a bedroom with a sitting area, not unlike the quarters she’d had before. But if that had been nice, this was opulent, the fabrics rich in color, mostly blues and greens. The bedcovering looked particularly soft, and Sarah ran a quick hand over it to feel the velvety texture.
Along one wall were built-in cabinets meant for clothing storage, the finish in a wood-grain texture. Sarah examined them closely and was amazed to realize they really were constructed of wood. She’d never seen such luxury before. In the sitting area was a state of the art media center, smaller than the one in the lou
nge, designed for use either from the comfortable-looking armchairs, the adjacent couch, or the bed.
With the color scheme and the furnishings, it was easily the most inviting room Sarah had ever been in. She wandered about, imagining long evenings sitting in one of the armchairs watching holo-vid productions, or listening to music.
Or, even better, watching from the couch or bed, in the arms of a man. The image of cuddling next to Garran and watching a holo-vid show came, and Sarah drove it away. She was not going to get attached to this man...even if he was attached to her. She shook her head, trying to free herself of the image, sitting in the General’s arms, his head buried in her neck, his hand playing with her hair. In her mind one of his hands dipped lower, reaching for her breast.…
"Were you looking for me?" Startled Sarah turned to the open door of the adjacent sanitary and to the tall dark-haired man standing in the doorway. Garran’s voice was dark and husky, and Sarah’s face flooded with heat at what she’d been thinking.
"Uh, no. I was looking for the sanitary."
He indicated the room behind him and stepped out of the way. "This way, my wife."
She tried to brush pass him, but he caught her arm on the way. He peered at her face, eyes concerned. "Are you feeling all right? You look flushed."
The warmth in her face turned to a burn. "I’m fine. Really."
Something about his amused smile told her he didn’t believe her, but he let her go. Sarah continued on and shut the door behind her.
Oh, my, goodness. If she’d thought the sanitary in her old quarters was gorgeous, this place was fit for a queen. Solid stone surfaces abounded, including the counter with inset sinks and shiny metal fixtures. In addition to a sonic shower with optional water jets, there was a sunken tub easily able to fit two people filling one corner, surrounded by living broad-leafed green plants. Thick towels in green and blue were piled on a heated grate near the shower and tub.
A small alcove hid the necessary from obvious view--Garran’s sanitary was obviously designed to service two people at once. Sarah gaped at the decorous seat in the alcove. It almost looked too pretty to use.
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