by JoAnn Ross
“Get him somewhere dry and warm and cover him up to keep him from losin’ any more body heat.”
“I’ve already done that. I’ve got him in the Jeep right now, wrapped in a blanket, and the heater’s going full blast.”
“See? Ya don’t need me at all.”
“Dammit, Mac, this is a serious situation.”
Just because Joe MacGregor had been her father’s best friend and had known her all her life, he still seemed to think that gave him the right to tease her, despite her badge, the same way he had when she was seven.
“Sorry,” he said. “But I have faith in you. The thing ta do is keep him warm. Since ya can’t stay in the Jeep all night, you’d best take him to jail. Or back to your place.”
Her place was closer. And jail wasn’t an option unless she wanted to stay there all night with him. “Then what?”
“Didn’t they teach ya about hypothermia in California?”
“They brushed over it in the police academy, but there’s not much need for it on the beach,” she countered. Which wasn’t precisely true. Occasionally a winter sailor or surfer would get into trouble in the colder season’s water. She’d just never been on duty when it had happened. “Want to compare notes on heatstroke, sunburn, or near drowning in riptides?”
“You’re in a rotten mood today, ain’t ya, Kirby Pendleton?”
“You wouldn’t be at your best, either, if you’d had the day I’ve had.”
“Ayuh. I heard about your little green men.”
“There weren’t any little green men. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get home before my patient and I get carbon monoxide poisoning from sitting in a car with the motor running.”
“Take his temperature. At ninety-four degrees, ya got confusion. At ninety, an irregular heartbeat, at eighty-six, muscle strength gives out and the patient gets drowsy, maybe falls unconscious.”
“That’s where we are now, I think,” Kirby said, glancing down at the man sprawled on the seat. He’d given standing up a pretty good shot but hadn’t been able to pull it off.
“Ayuh. That’s what ya said. If he wakes up and can swallow, give him some warm, nonalcoholic drinks.”
“No brandy?” She could certainly use some right about now.
“That’s in the movies,” he advised drily. “We don’t do that in real life.”
“Somebody ought to tell all those Saint Bernards, running through the Alps with kegs around their necks,” she muttered. “Okay, so I give the guy some tea. Then what?”
“Like I said, keep him covered. Don’t take a chance on burnin’ his skin with heatin’ pads or hot-water bottles, don’t leave him alone, and keep checkin’ his vitals. That’s about all ya can do for now.”
“Okay. I think I can handle that.”
“Who ya got there, by the way?”
“He said he’s Sebastian Blackthorne.”
“Name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“It didn’t for me, either. Although he looks vaguely familiar, I can’t place him, and since we don’t have any Blackthornes living on the island, he’s obviously from the mainland.”
“Well, let me know how he’s doing. If this dang storm ever blows over, and you still need an evac, I’ll fly to the island myself.”
“Thanks, Mac.”
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“They did teach ya CPR at that hotshot California police academy, didn’t they?”
“Yes, and I’ve already used it.”
“Good. Keep a real close eye on those vitals, Kirby. ’Cause if your patient’s temperature drops to seventy-seven degrees, ya can expect cardiac arrest. Then death.”
In her line of work, working in an urban environment, she’d seen plenty of bodies, but never one that she’d been personally responsible for. She did not want this stranger to be the first.
“Don’t worry, Mac,” she vowed. “I didn’t go to the trouble of saving him to have him die on me.”
“Ayuh. You’re a good girl, Kirby. Your pa would be right proud of ya.” It was the same thing he’d told her the first time she’d baited her own fishing hook. “Good luck.”
“Thanks. I think I’m going to need all I can get. Rum Runner over and out.”
She released the button on the radio and looked down at him. “Okay, buster. Let’s get you home. And if you even dare try to have a heart attack, I swear I’ll toss you in a cell and throw away the key.”
When she pushed him off her lap, Sebastian stirred. It took an effort, but he managed to open his eyes. “A cell?”
“Oh, good, you’re awake.” Her relief was so palpable that Sebastian felt as if he could reach out and touch it. “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I’m taking you home with me. You’re going to be fine.”
She patted his arm reassuringly. Then, shifting the machine into gear, she resumed driving.
“How far is it to your home?” Sebastian asked, checking for the accelerator he’d slipped into his pocket at the last minute. Stored warmth radiated from its core.
“It’s only about five more miles. We should be there in about fifteen, twenty minutes. I’d go faster, but I don’t dare with all the ice on the road.”
Twenty minutes to go a mere five miles! Sebastian shook his head in mute disbelief, then wished he hadn’t when boulders crashed around inside it. Reminding himself that he had come to Earth to learn, not to judge, Sebastian conceded that there was one thing about this planet that was far superior to anything on Logosia.
And that was the marvelously sweet scent emanating from the woman. If all Earthlings smelled like this, Sebastian decided, it would certainly make up for a great many of the planet’s other failings.
With that intriguing thought in mind, he passed out again.
4
He managed to rouse long enough to remain upright as she led him into her house. They’d no sooner walked in the door, when a huge orange ball of fur suddenly blocked their path, its howling demand sharp and strident.
“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “It’s only Darcy.”
“Darcy?”
“My cat. He’s a Maine Coon. I named him after Mr. Darcy. From Pride and Prejudice?” Her voice went up, turning her explanation into a question. “I guess you never read it.”
“No.”
“Nor seen all the movies?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“I guess you’re one of those guys who don’t like chick flicks,” she said with a shrug. But her friendly face did seem to fall a bit.
“Anyway, he’s just reminding me that dinner’s late.” When she reached down and patted the cat’s head, it began to purr. The sound reminded Sebastian of a small motor.
“Try to be patient,” she advised the cat. “I’m told it’s a virtue.”
“You own this animal?” Sebastian asked incredulously. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen any animal inside a home and came up blank.
“Obviously you don’t know much about cats,” Kirby said. “You don’t own them. They own you.”
Eyeing the animal with distrust and trying his best not to cringe, Sebastian realized that this creature must be the woman’s pet. On Logosia, pets—considered an unnecessary nuisance—had become extinct several hundred solar revolutions ago.
Because he couldn’t seem to stand without swaying, she put her arm around him again and led him out of the small entryway, across another room, and down a hallway to what he took to be a bedroom. But rather than a thin pallet on the floor, the bed was large with a covering of red flowers stitched on a white background.
“You’re going to be just fine,” she said as she pushed him down gently onto the bed, then stripped off the short pants that, despite the heat that had been blasting from the dashboard of her machine, were still damp. “You’re safe now.”
Sebastian knew he was anything but safe, but his head was too muddled and his body too weak to think about his situation now. The mattress felt as soft
and fluffy as summer clouds created beneath his city’s dome by the department of meteorology and climate control, and as he luxuriated in its warm embrace, he slipped comfortably back into the void.
* * *
When Emily had turned the old whaling captain’s house they’d all grown up in into a B and B, she’d passed down a few pieces of the furniture that held too many personal memories to have strangers using it to Kirby.
After stripping the shorts off the sleeping man lying in the antique sleigh bed, the cop in her took a quick survey. He was six feet, approximately one-hundred-and-eighty-five pounds, dark hair, eyes the color of the deepest espresso beans at the Coffee Corner next door to her office. The colorful tattooed sleeve on his arm, extending across his left shoulder, was the only identifying mark she could see without rolling him onto his stomach.
Because she was female, and human, and, hello, he just happened to be really, really cut, the woman in her took a longer look at the lean, hard muscle, his broad chest, the ridges of a six-pack that went into that deliciously sculpted V where his lower abs met his hip flexors. Then—because, well, how could she not?—Kirby let her gaze slide south to an impressive package that certainly wasn’t showing any signs of snow-induced shrinkage.
If one of those nerds over at her brother’s brain factory had programmed every physically perfect male into a computer, then printed it out on one of their fancy 3-D printers, the result would be her naked stranger.
Not that he was really hers. She was, after all, the police chief, and he was merely another civilian she’d promised to protect and serve. But the thought of serving this particular civilian sent a sexy shiver through her that had nothing to do with the blizzard blowing snow against the bedroom windows.
Get a grip! You’re a law enforcement officer, not someone who gets weak-kneed at the romance novel naked-chest covers on the racks at Mayhew’s Market. Romances which, okay, she bought on a weekly basis. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t tell fantasy from reality. Not only was she very clear on the difference, she’d also decided that fictional romance beat the real thing hands down.
Taking a deep breath, Kirby dragged her gaze away from the naked guy sprawled on his back in the center of her bed and returned to the problem at hand, which was keeping him warm. After lighting a fire in the corner fireplace, she piled every quilt she could find in the house over the top of his supine body, then retrieved the thermometer from the bathroom medicine cabinet.
Although it required her to touch his deliciously roughened jaw again, which was—she couldn’t lie—no hardship, she managed to slip it between his lips and under his slack tongue. It beeped at just below ninety-two degrees, which was encouraging.
“Not great,” she said as she checked his pulse and found it stronger than when she’d first discovered him lying in the roadway. “But better.”
After assuring herself that he wouldn’t die in the next two minutes, she finally took off her coat and returned to the kitchen, where she served up a can of cat food. Growling happily, Darcy signaled absolute bliss with the chopped chicken livers.
That little domestic chore taken care of, Kirby made a mug of tea, then went into the living room and opened the cupboard where her brother had stashed a bottle of cognac. On the table next to the cupboard, the red light was flashing on her answering machine. Although it might be old-school technology, due to cell service being so iffy here on the island, everyone she knew had hung on to their landlines.
Hitting play, she took off her Glock, locked it away in its metal box, then retrieved the liquor.
“Hey, sis,” Nate’s deep voice rang out, “I know you’re gonna kill me, but I think I had a breakthrough on my quantum jump theory, and I need to stay here and run some programs.”
“Surprise, surprise,” she muttered.
“How about breakfast tomorrow morning instead? I’ll pick up some cranberry and orange muffins and bagels you like and see you about nine. I really am sorry. But I think I’m finally on the right track, and I promise to dedicate my Nobel Prize to you. Sleep tight, kiddo. And don’t let any little green men bite.”
“Cute, Nate,” Kirby muttered. “Real cute.” She’d heard all she wanted to about aliens landing on her island. Opting to refrigerate her planned dinner once it finished cooking in her crockpot, she opened the fridge and retrieved half of a saved leftover lobster roll from yesterday’s lunch.
“Maybe you don’t need any alcohol,” she said to the mystery man sprawled in her bed when she returned to her bedroom with the sandwich, tea, and cognac. “But I do.”
She managed to rouse him long enough to pour the tea down his throat. Then, as his head sank back into the feather pillow, she changed from her uniform into a navy blue University of Maine sweatshirt and a pair of blue-and-green-checked flannel pajama pants.
Finally, pulling the rocker her grandfather Pendleton had made for the birth of her sister Emily up to the bed, Kirby put on her earphones and turned on the TV atop the dresser. When she moved to California, in order to maintain her holiday spirit in the land of sunshine and beach days, she’d started watching a Christmas movie every night of December. So, she settled in to watch Love Actually for the umpteenth time while sipping the cognac, eating the lobster roll, and keeping an eye on her patient.
Having finished his dinner, Darcy joined Kirby in the bedroom, leaping onto the bed with feline hope, where he settled down for the night, nestled against the stranger. Whom, she remembered, had shown all the signs of being one of those guy cat haters, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Her vigilance was rewarded when, sometime in the middle of the long, weary night, after she’d managed to get another two mugs of tea down him, his temperature approached normal and his breathing became deep and steady. She pressed her fingers against his dark neck and felt the strong, steady beat of his blood.
“I think you’re going to make it,” she decided, touching his forehead as she had been doing for hours. “No, I take that back. You’re definitely going to make it.”
She’d just given into temptation to brush her fingertips against his scruff-roughened cheek again when she heard a sound in the other room. Going absolutely still, she drew in a breath and concentrated.
Nothing.
Then, the soft, recognizable tone of her brother’s computer being shut down.
“Nate?” Her purposely low voice sounded like a shout in the stilled hush of the room. Her patient, muttering inarticulately in his sleep, rolled over.
“Nate,” she repeated, “is that you?” It wasn’t unusual for her brother to come and go at all hours, but that didn’t stop a strange uneasiness from shimmying up her spine. Not helping matters was Darcy suddenly arching his back and bristling his tail.
The cat hissed. Kirby’s breath quickened as she crossed the room and made her way silently, carefully, down the hallway.
The rest of the house was as dark and silent as a tomb.
“Damn it, Nate,” she said as she flicked the switch for the overhead light in the living room. Nothing happened. “This isn’t funny.”
Making her way carefully across the room, she found the drawer where she kept the flashlight. The batteries were low, the light a faint, stuttering yellow beam, but as she swept it around the room, she couldn’t see anyone.
With Darcy weaving through her legs, the cat’s bushy tail twitching nervously, Kirby walked over to the old, scarred pine desk that had been her grandfather’s and put her hand atop the computer. It was shut down. But warm.
Which was, of course, absurd. She was all alone in the house. Except for her patient. And he hadn’t moved.
“You’re going as crazy as the rest of the town,” she muttered. Next she’d be seeing little green men raiding her refrigerator.
Still, experience had taught her never to disregard her intuition. Taking the Glock out of its box, Kirby started checking the rest of the house.
5
Images flickered on the far reaches
of Sebastian’s consciousness. Something treacherous was lurking in the darkness, something as deadly as a Janurian pit viper.
She’s in danger, some distant voice warned him. You must save her.
Who? From what? He tossed and turned, struggling to rise above the fog. He tried to lift his eyelids and found, to his frustration, that they’d turned to stone.
“Must rescue her,” he mumbled. “Danger.”
His hands curled into fists at his sides, and with a mighty groan, he attempted to rise from whatever bonds were holding him in check. But the effort proved too much, and even as he cursed his damnable weakness, he sank once more back into the dark mists.
* * *
The front door was bolted, just as she’d left it. The back door, and all the windows, were also locked. The house was totally secured. If an intruder had gotten in, he would have had to come down the chimney, which, considering the fact that the fire had died down, he possibly could have done. But there was absolutely no way he could have escaped the same way. Unless he was Spiderman. Or Saint Nick arriving early.
The electricity being out wasn’t a serious concern given that loss of power was commonplace on the island during storms. Which was why Nate had installed a battery backup on his computer.
So, the obvious, only rational answer was that her imagination had simply gotten the best of her. Reminding herself to ask her brother about solar flares when he showed up with the muffins in the morning, she returned to the bedroom. Darcy followed, leaping onto the bed and, after pawing at the quilts, settled back down with one last warning hiss.
Something had changed.
Her house, always pleasantly cozy, was now strangely alien. As Kirby rocked in the chair, the Glock in her lap, her unease grew. She remained on edge for a very long time, filled with an impending sense of awareness mingled with uncharacteristic restlessness and a dark feeling of foreboding.
It was only her imagination, she assured herself over and over again as she continued to observe the man claiming her bed. She was only responding to a long, nerve-racking day. Eventually the events of that day began to catch up with her, and her eyelids became heavier and heavier. Unfortunately, the maple rocking chair, while comfortable for short periods, had not been designed for sleep.