He’s got to be out of his mind. Or head over heels. Maybe both.
If Silk Jones’s superiors think she’s going to hide quietly in protective relocation, they have another thing coming. She was bred to be the perfect law-enforcement machine. Quiet isn’t her style.
Nothing will stop her from finding her partner’s killer. Not the assassin who took him down. Not her own government. Not the fact that she’s in a completely different dimension. And certainly not her by-the-book new partner, who thinks she’s insane and operates on some antiquated idea that he’s protecting her.
Davis Rule doesn’t believe in little green men. Yet, thanks to an interdepartmental shake-up, he’s stuck on Sightings duty. No borderline-insane Ufologist is going to hamper his plans to wiggle out of this assignment as soon as possible—until he discovers a little green man can be almost six feet of knockout blonde who’s quite capable of knocking him out.
Silk would like nothing better than to shake off the doggedly chivalrous Davis, return home and bring the murderer to justice. Except she’s got the craziest urge to keep him by her side. Especially when it becomes clear that allies and enemies aren’t so easy to define.
Warning: Contains one combustible couple thrown together without a hope of dodging the flames.
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Perfect Strangers
Copyright © 2010 by Barbara J. Hancock
ISBN: 978-1-60928-150-2
Edited by Heidi Moore
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: August 2010
www.samhainpublishing.com
Perfect Strangers
Barbara J. Hancock
Dedication
For Todd—who never seems to notice when I’m far from perfect.
Chapter One
The blow slammed into the side of his head and knocked him against a shelf. He didn’t know what hurt worse—the porcelain knick knacks raining down all over his face and shoulders, or the fact that his unseen adversary had taken him by surprise. He didn’t have time to decide before his instincts kicked in. In the shadowy apartment, he could see movement, if little else, and the practiced crouch of the form before him told him another blow would follow the first.
His strike connected—with a shoulder? A hip? And then he was pummeled with a series of kicks he couldn’t identify as any martial art he was familiar with. Not that he had the time to analyze them. Instead, he was forced to drop and roll away and come up again in a defensive stance he’d rarely had to resort to in the ten plus years since he’d left Quantico.
His opponent was on him before he had a chance to breathe. He was matched strike for strike, blow for blow, feint for feint around the room in a blur of movement that had him shaken with the vicious speed of the match.
A fist—or foot—connected with his cheek and he tasted blood. How many times had he managed to deal out a hit that would have taken most men to their knees? He was beginning to wonder if the last few months of desk duty had taken their toll on his abilities when a body slam sent him up against a wall. His elbow glanced painfully against the tab of a light switch. Then and there, in a split second of shock, he almost lost the fight.
Almost.
She was breathing hard. He couldn’t fail to notice her chest rising and falling in a pant beneath a pink sweater that seemed out of place on a kick boxer from hell. Long silvery blond hair was rumpled from the fight, but it was easily reminiscent of wild locks tangled after a passionate night in bed. Her lips were full. Her cheeks flushed. Damn, she was a fantasy come to life. A cheerleader, a prom queen, a centerfold…but, and this thought came quickly as she shifted and prepared to pounce, she was also an Amazon quite capable of kicking his distracted ass.
He didn’t know how he did it. It was nice for his ego to think maybe she was distracted too. In a move he would have used against a three-hundred-pound gorilla on its grouchiest day, he lunged. The force as he hit her sent them both across the room.
He cringed when they crashed into the opposite wall and she oofed into his shoulder. His six-two, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound frame must have felt like a three-quarter-ton truck smashing into a sleek high performance sports car.
“I’m not a burglar,” he gasped into her ear.
It was the first explanation he could think of for her attack. After all, it wasn’t every day a woman came home to find a strange man rifling through her things. Then again, it wasn’t every day said woman fought like a marine on steroids.
She seemed startled as he spoke and her blue-violet eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Jones. But I do have a warrant.”
In truth, he had something better than a warrant. He had top clearance to search almost any residence barring the president’s or the Pope’s.
She still didn’t speak, but she did breathe. Long, slow, calming drafts like those practiced in Yoga. He was just professional enough to feel slimy when her deep breaths caused a reaction far different from what he should feel for a suspect—even an attractive one.
“I can justify your attack, even excuse it, but if you continue to fight, I’ll have to assume you’re guilty of something,” he said.
Surely not what he’d been sent to investigate. No one had ever checked out positive and he sure as hell didn’t think Silk Jones would be the first. He never expected to find a first, a second or a third for that matter.
He had photographed crop circles, interviewed men and women who claimed to be victims of alien abduction and documented hundreds of other cases involving strange phenomenon. None of it ever panned out. As far as he was concerned, the government was wasting billions every year on meaningless investigations.
They have to have some sort of busy work to dump on the troublemakers.
Three months ago he had called his superior a bastard, though in truth his real mistake had been trying to prove it. Instead of the department-wide clean up he’d expected, he’d been put on what was derisively called little-green-men duty.
And here I am.
Not an unpleasant place to be, if you could discount the aches and pains beginning to spring up all over his battered body. A sweet floral scent—honeysuckle?—came into his nostrils as his breathing slowed. If he stayed pressed to her, they would be inhaling and exhaling in a synchronized rhythm. It probably wasn’t a good thing that he found that prospect appealing.
With one last sigh, Davis Rule slowly pulled himself off her soft, but firm, body. He would take the chance of loosening his hold so he could hold onto his self control. Maybe she would kick his ass again. If she did, he would deserve it. No way should he get away with liking the way a suspected alien terrorist felt in his arms.
She was glad when he moved. She hadn’t touched another being for three months. Before that, she’d been in semi-isolation for a year. It was no surprise that even an embrace meant to restrain could be almost…pleasant.
He wasn’t an assassin. He was obviously law enforcement. And he had a scent like those great green trees i
n the park next door. Pines. They were called pines and had a scent like this big human, tangy, fresh…almost sweet. It caught in her nose as her breathing slowed, and she liked it there. So exotic and yet so calming.
He was calming. He spoke to her as one would speak to a frightened wild animal. Siilcc Aman-shi smiled inside. She had frightened him perhaps with her attack. After all, she was a Justice Representative. Her inner smile faded. Or at least she had been.
“And you are here, why?”
She knew the phrasing was wrong before her lips closed over the last word. The English language was hard, but she was better at it than this. The whole situation proved that skill level in a virtual-reality training pod was not indicative of what it might be in the field.
If only I could report that to someone.
“Why are you here?” she repeated. This time she was careful to use more appropriate phrasing.
He would think she was nervous and that would be fine, the correct reaction for the woman she was supposed to be. She would have to focus and stop letting physical observations distract her.
It was difficult. She couldn’t help noticing his height. She was taller than most females in this dimension, but he topped her by several inches. And his eyes were an unusual gray, so light that she had mistaken them for the silvery orbs IL-Bah assassins possessed. His didn’t glow, but they did snap with vitality—and curiosity.
“I guess you could say we have a nosy government. That incident last week with the boy? The day you saved the four-year-old with some kind of Heimlich maneuver that ended with a French fry embedded in a wall eight feet away…”
“It was an accident.”
“One the boy’s mom labels a miracle, but she still didn’t ever want to see you again. Seems even the grateful get nervous when they witness something they can’t easily explain.”
“Stranger things have happened.” From her brain she pulled the phrase. One of many gleaned from vids meant to prepare her for her new life. For once, she thought she had chosen a phrase well.
“True.”
The man eased back in a casual way and ran his hands through hair she had mussed with her attack. She silently observed his well-practiced movement and noted that the untrimmed dark curls would probably flop over his forehead even if he hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes in hand-to-hand combat.
He spoke again.
“Overactive imaginations in the heat of the moment can easily turn a simple occurrence into something strange or even phenomenal.”
“I couldn’t let the boy die.”
Silk eased off the wall. Its support was unnecessary. This was what they called a tricky situation in this world. She had no idea what the man was doing in her living quarters. She had no idea if her cover was blown. It was unlikely he could be here looking into the truth. Most Earth natives didn’t believe in other dimensions. They thought their reality was the only reality in the universe. It was a primitive outlook and subject for much humor, but it was also why Earth was the perfect place to disappear. It was why she had been exiled here for her own protection.
The man’s eyes narrowed and he looked at her with a probing gaze she recognized. It was a look she would have given to a hallucinogen trafficker if he had claimed to be a perfume salesman.
For the first time, Silk knew she faced a threat other than the IL-Bah assassins she expected.
“No, you couldn’t let him die. But most people there that day say you barely even touched him. Witnesses say you swept your hand over his back like you were swatting a fly. The boy didn’t move, but the French fry popped out of his mouth and flew across the room like a spit ball launched from a cannon. Stranger things may have happened, but I’d say this ranks right up there, wouldn’t you?”
Silk watched as the man strolled around the room. He was dressed in a dark suit that almost shined in its perfection. Not blemished by crease or lint in spite of their fight. He also looked as if he might come out of the suit at any moment if he were to flex his arms or roll his shoulders. It fit his obviously muscular frame well. Too well. She swallowed as he picked up several little ornaments that had been knocked about by their skirmish. After a brief examination, he placed them back on the crooked shelf.
“Of course, eyewitness accounts in a dramatic situation aren’t always reliable.”
Her skin tingled. He was speaking casually, but devouring the entire room with his senses. It was full of items assumed to be vital to an Earth person’s existence, but items she herself cared little about. From her first day, the hundreds of artificial bears and cats and equine quadrupeds had been overwhelming. Thousands of tiny fake eyes watched her every move.
“Your apartment looks like my great grandmother’s vision of heaven. I bet you and Nana could blanket half of Nebraska if you sewed your doilies end to end.”
He looked at her with those calm, yet suspicious eyes again. Suddenly, Silk knew the garments she wore did not match with this grandmother style he referred to. She also doubted that this grandmother knew Tri-jenium Kung-Fu.
“Exactly.”
He spoke as if she had spoken, and perhaps the look on her face had. How many times in her career had a person’s body language proven their guilt more surely than any evidence? She had to take control and stop letting him run the proceedings.
“Since when do a person’s decorating choices and their performance of a civic duty result in this kind of interrogation?” She had him there. He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. She held her breath, fearing for his seams as muscles bulged. In an instant, he went from investigator to harmless uninvited guest. But he was still waiting for her to say something he wanted to hear, and she knew from moments before that his muscles were not merely decorative. His attempt at casual did not fool her.
“I am a waitress.”
He raised one eyebrow, over which a curl quivered and threatened to flop. The contrast between his unruly hair and his controlled appearance intrigued her. She found herself wanting to smooth his hair or rumple his clothes, and neither impulse was appropriate to the situation.
“Silk Jones. That’s an odd name to pin on a kid. Did you have it changed or something?”
Once again, she cursed the department responsible for setting her up on Earth. They had so many vids, so much information, but so little real knowledge about the dimension and its inhabitants. She had been here for less than a week before she realized her name was mistaken for a vanity, or worse, a pseudonym for one whose profession was sex.
On her world, her looks were average. She hadn’t gotten used to the reaction her appearance and name received here.
“I am nothing out of the ordinary.”
In response, the man quietly ran the palm of one hand over his angular jaw. It was beginning to show signs of swelling. His eyes moved to track a glance from the tip of her head to her feet. His expression wasn’t hard to read—incredulity mixed with interest—too much interest for her to have peace in her mind.
“You are not welcome here. Leave.”
That was the appropriate reaction to his presence. He finally seemed prepared to go.
“I’m sorry to disrupt your normal routine, Ms.Jones. If you find yourself wanting to talk, engage in verbal sparring, debate the merits of Feng shui…” the man gestured at the clutter all around him, “…just give me a call. The name’s Rule. Davis Rule.”
He moved to the door. It wasn’t difficult to hide her smile when he limped because she didn’t even try. She had not forgotten her training as easily as her superiors had forgotten her.
“Speaking of sparring, you could probably make good money at the local gym as a sparring partner if you ever get tired of waiting tables.”
His comment reassured her. He did not know everything. She had interrupted his search before he found the upstairs closet with the false floor. Justice Representatives were paid well in credits not to mention the funds automatically given to a relocated witness. Converted to U.S. currency, it amounted to almos
t a million American dollars.
“I’ll keep that in thought.”
His feet were out the door, and yet she was not experiencing relief. If anything, she was more nervous than before. He was contained, but like a Delphius reactor—full of power and likely to release energy in unexpected bursts. She had no time for the unexpected. No time for this new complication.
“One more thing, you were born in Arkansas and moved to Virginia when you were fifteen. Is that correct?” His voice was smooth and mellow. His eyes sparkled with unexplained humor more in keeping with his hair than his suit.
“Yes,” she replied.
As Davis walked away, Silk Jones stood in the doorway of her small apartment looking and sounding nothing like a life-long Southern Belle.
Chapter Two
So, she had graduated with honors from Pine Valley High School in Virginia. If that was true, he’d eat the notebook computer showing him a display of her records. Silk Jones had wound up in his inbox a few days ago. A video showing the aftermath of the French fry incident had gone viral in twenty four hours, and since it involved the weird and unexplained, it also involved him. The poor quality cell-phone footage of the boy’s mother pointing at the fried potato imbedded in the restaurant’s grease-stained wall had been downloaded more times than the precocious kid singing Lady Gaga. And no wonder…
Who could turn a French fry into a missile?
Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten since last night. Davis shut down the notebook and rose. His stretch pulled in several places, reminding him that he hadn’t been to the gym in several days and that if Silk Jones graduated in Arkansas it was from the Tae-Kwon-Do-Goddess-from-Hell Institute not some wimpy public high school.
His stomach was more than ready for breakfast after his shower and shave. He was also more than ready to see Silk again. He just wasn’t prepared to fulfill both needs at the same time. Buzz’s Diner served breakfast, but he preferred the greasy fast food he knew to the greasy fast food he didn’t.
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