by JoAnn Ross
“About the aliens?”
“Ain’t that what the hell we’ve been talking about? What do you think they’re doing here?”
Sebastian shrugged. “I hadn’t realized that it had been proven that such aliens even existed.”
“Oh, they exist, all right,” the man beside him said. “I went to one of them UFO conferences in Bangor last month and saw the proof firsthand.”
“Proof?”
“Photographs. Tons of them. Why, there was this one saucer landed at this farm in New York, and after it left, the milk yield of each of the farmer’s cows went from two and a half cans to only one. That was the bad news.
“But the farmer’s wife had always had arthritis so bad she couldn’t even hardly get out of bed. After that spaceship landed, the woman’s arthritis disappeared, and she took up clogging.”
“Clogging?”
“It’s like square dancing.”
“I see,” Sebastian said politely, even though he was no more informed. “That’s very interesting.”
The man’s bearded jaw shot up. “It’s the truth.”
“Well,” Sebastian said, “if there are aliens here on Rum Runner Island, I’m sure they’ve come in peace.”
“That’s probably what the Poles said about the Germans just before World War One,” one of the men muttered.
Sebastian was saved from any further discussion by Kirby’s arrival. One look at her tightly set face and flashing blue eyes made him decide that perhaps saved was not the correct term after all.
* * *
“If you say so much as one single word to me before we get to the house, I’ll toss you back out into the snow,” Kirby warned him as they left the bar and headed for the Jeep.
From the barely reined fury in her tone, Sebastian decided it was not an idle threat. Not wanting to upset her further, he held his tongue and watched the dazzling scenery flash by outside the window while trying to determine what had her so obviously angry.
He understood the need for law-enforcement officials although the average Logosian was too passionless to even think about breaking the law. It would be illogical.
There were, of course, those who, like the men in the tavern, might over-imbibe in ale or other mind-altering substances. Which was when the guards would stop in. Occasionally biomental systems went awry, causing people to act in ways considered a threat to the group. But they were quickly taken away from society, and if the psychological mind-altering drugs did not solve the problem, they were deported to the moon Gaoliana, where they, and others like them, were doomed to spend the rest of their lives in exile.
Sebastian remembered when Rosalyn visited Gaoliana to study the lifestyle of its inhabitants. After returning, she’d shocked Sebastian by professing to admire the way each of the former Logosians had, on his own initiative, taken on a task suited to his individual abilities and talents.
They were, she’d claimed, surprisingly happy after having been banished from civilization. She even considered what she’d referred to as freedom as a positive and, in many ways, more conducive to society than their own, more logically regulated one. At the time, Sebastian had not given a great deal of thought to Rosalyn’s remarks. Now he was forced to wonder if perhaps his outwardly reserved sister had, at times, felt the same constraints of Logosian society as he often did.
That idea, like so many of the thoughts he’d been having lately, was a revelation.
He was given no more time to dwell on the possibility that he’d misjudged Rosalyn when they reached Kirby’s cozy house.
Still surrounded by an icy aura, she left the Jeep, slamming the driver’s door behind her. Sebastian followed.
They entered the house by the kitchen door. The wood stove was no longer burning, but the electric furnace kept the temperature at a comfortable seventy-four degrees. Sebastian watched as Kirby hung her jacket on the peg by the door, then crossed the room into the kitchen and filled the teakettle.
“No coffee?” he asked with a casualness designed to mask his disappointment. He’d grown quite fond of the dark, vaguely bitter brew.
“The way I’m feeling, if I have any caffeine, I’d probably start throwing those knives at your head.”
He followed her gesture to the black-handled knives thrust into a piece of wood beside the stove. “By all means, have the herbal tea.”
She tossed him a glare, looking as if she wished it were one of those knives. “Don’t you dare patronize me.”
“I wasn’t patronizing you.”
“Weren’t you?”
The cat rose from the rug, stretched, then began noisily demanding dinner in a tone designed to shatter glass. Muttering an oath, Kirby opened a can of salmon and obliged.
“No,” Sebastian said as the furry beast growled and gobbled. “I was in no way patronizing you.”
She looked at him for a long time, finally deciding to take his words at face value. “Good. Because I hate being patronized.”
“May I ask why you are so angry?”
“You honestly don’t know?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask,” he said with mild logic. When she didn’t immediately answer, he asked, “Are you in your cycle?”
“Why is it,” she muttered fiercely, “that when a woman gets angry with a man—for very good reason, mind you—he tends to blame her behavior on PMS? No, I am not in my cycle. Not that it’s any of your damn business,” she tacked on.
“Under normal conditions, that would be true,” he agreed. “But it is obvious that you are angry at me. So it is only logical that I would attempt to understand your uncharacteristically foul mood by eliminating all the possible reasons.”
“There you go with that damn logic again,” she flared furiously. “Was it logical for you to interfere with my work?”
Sebastian was momentarily distracted by the temper blazing in her eyes. She was, he decided, the most passionate individual he’d ever met. “You were in danger.”
“I was not in danger. I had things under control, damn it!”
She stomped over to him, standing with her toes meeting his, and jabbed her finger into his chest. “I’ve already told you, Sebastian, before I came back home to the island, I’d arrested drug dealers, murderers, and rapists who were a lot meaner and a great deal deadlier than those four drunken jerks.
“I had everything and everyone under control,” she repeated hotly. “So why the hell did you feel the damn need to interfere?”
Sebastian felt himself losing his own temper, a temper he’d never known he possessed. “Would you stop calling me rescuing you, at your request, may I point out, interfering?”
“I didn’t ask you for anything.”
“You did, in your mind. And we both know it. You needed me, Kirby Pendleton. And I came to you.”
“I don’t need anyone,” she flared.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You may be a police officer, but you can’t change biology.”
“Now we’re back to me being a woman.”
“Yes. Which is not an insult. But despite all your impressive training and experience, you can’t deny that you’re physically the weaker gender. That being the case, it is the responsibility of the stronger sex—males—to protect you. And given that you are without a father or husband and your brother was detained at the laboratory, such duty fell to me.”
“I am not anyone’s effing duty!” His blatant male arrogance was infuriating to the point that Kirby’s head was on the verge of exploding. “You had no right to do what you did.”
“On the contrary. I had every right.”
“That’s what you think.”
“That is what I know,” he shot back heatedly. “Because against all reason, I believe I am falling in love with you, Kirby Pendleton.”
18
“That’s impossible.” The teakettle began to whistle, its strident demand shattering the sudden quiet. Kirby dragged it off the burner.
“Would you like some tea?” she as
ked in a voice that was not nearly as steady as her usual one.
“I think you know what I’d like, Kirby,” Sebastian said softly.
Her back was to him, but he could see her taking a deep breath and garnering strength. “I thought you said it was a bad idea.”
“It is,” he said. “And entirely unlike me. I am known for taking things slowly, for working out every possible consequence before I act.”
“A typical scientist.”
“Yes. But you are a far-from-typical woman, Kirby. Which, I believe, is why I have been responding so uncharacteristically to you these past days. Not to mention the nights. Dreams of you have invaded my mind, causing my body to ache and making sleep impossible.”
“You could have fooled me.” She poured the water into a mug, then dipped a tea bag into it, seeming to find vast interest in watching the liquid turn a light amber brown. “You’ve been ignoring me ever since I brought up the idea of having a holiday fling.”
The translator had been cutting out on him more and more, but he got the gist. And knew she was wrong. Whatever was happening between them, whatever might happen, it would be nothing as simple and careless as a mere fling.
“I was trying to do the right thing. In my own way, I was attempting to keep from hurting you.”
“I thought you’d changed your mind. That you didn’t find me attractive anymore.”
How ironic was it that by maintaining such steely restraint, as hard as it had been to stay away from her, he’d ended up making her feel unattractive? Which was the furthest thing from the truth. “It’s because I found you so appealing that I forced myself to back away from a potentially harmful situation.”
“Oh.” Kirby appeared to consider that. “I haven’t exactly been myself, either,” she admitted. “I’ve never been one to throw myself at a man I don’t even know.”
“I’d hoped that was the case.”
“Ah, the male ego,” she murmured. “How men can continue to insist that they’re the stronger sex when they possess such fragile egos is beyond me.”
The reluctant smile had warmed her eyes in a way that made Sebastian decide that fighting was the last thing he wanted to do with Kirby.
As if she’d read his mind, she gave up on the tea and came to stand in front of him again. This time, instead of jabbing her finger against the front of his shirt, she pressed her palm against his chest.
“I want you,” she admitted in a husky voice that curled around him like smoke. “And although it doesn’t make a lick of sense, I think I wanted you before I even met you.”
He could feel the warmth of her hand against his skin beneath his shirt. Which had him wanting to feel it everywhere. “When you were fantasizing about us together on Venice Beach.”
“Yes. But I’ve spent a lot of time these past days thinking about it, Sebastian, and I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that you’re right.”
“About what?” There were so many threads of this conversation going on he was finding it hard to keep focused on them all while both his body and his brain were being bombarded with pheromones.
“That you probably will hurt me.” She lifted her hand to his cheek. “I believe that you won’t mean to,” she said quickly, as if expecting him to argue. Which, in all honesty, he couldn’t. “But you will.”
Even if Nate hadn’t explained about her generous heart, Sebastian would have realized that this was not the type of woman capable of having a brief, meaningless affair. Kirby Pendleton was a warm and caring woman. She deserved a family, with a husband who loved her as deeply as she loved him, and children they could both love.
And if he did give in to the impulses that seemed to be ruling his behavior whenever she was near and took her to bed, as she had already admitted that she, too, wanted, what future could he offer her?
None, Sebastian considered bleakly. None at all.
Even as he felt himself wavering in his commitment to return, even as he considered the logistics of remaining on Earth with Kirby Pendleton, Sebastian reminded himself of how much he had to teach his scientific community back on Logosia. What would have happened if Copernicus and all the others who followed him had kept their discoveries to themselves?
“You’re right.” He backed slowly away. “It is obvious that you are a forever-after kind of woman.”
Regret struck him like a fist. All his life he had been brought up to be totally honest. Never had the truth hurt so much.
“As much as I would like to offer you a future, I cannot give you what you need, Kirby. What you deserve.”
“Well.” She bit her lip and turned away again. “A woman certainly can’t accuse you of not being totally honest, Sebastian.”
“It is the only way I know how to be.”
As she glanced up at the bird clock, it crossed Sebastian’s mind that it could be a metaphor for many of the terrans he’d met during his brief stay: strange, funny, totally illogical, and oddly appealing.
“What time do you have to be back at the brain factory?”
“Within the hour.” Sebastian damned his new enemy—time. Although he knew he should be spending every waking hour in the laboratory, he wanted to savor whatever little bit of time he had left on Earth with this woman.
“So soon.” She did not even try to conceal her disappointment.
“There is a great deal of work to be done, Kirby,” Sebastian said quietly. “And much of it must be done before the end of the solar flares.”
“Solar flares? Are you and Nate studying their effects on emotions?”
“That’s one of the things we are examining.”
“It would be comforting to discover they’re what’s making everyone, including me, behave like a road company cast of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Since his mother had the play on holodisc, Sebastian was familiar with the Shakespearean sexual comedy of errors. He decided that her description was fairly accurate except for one important difference. His feelings for Kirby had not been stimulated by any magical juice from a flower. They were, unnervingly, all too real.
“The flares may prove to be responsible for many things that have happened,” he agreed. “But not my feelings for you.”
“Then why… Wait.” She held up a hand. “Are you married?”
“Married?”
Sebastian was shocked that she’d even consider such a thing. If he were the type of self-indulgent man who could commit adultery, he definitely would have already experienced the pleasure of Kirby in bed.
“No. Of course I’m not married.”
“Are you certain? After all, you still have amnesia, and it’s possible—”
“I’m not married,” he repeated firmly.
“Engaged?”
He’d already discovered his ability to hedge, or even to prevaricate, when necessary. But the plea in her soft blue eyes made Sebastian tell the truth when a lie would have sufficed.
“I had an agreement with a woman.”
“Oh.” Kirby’s shoulders sagged. “Well, far be it from me to poach on another woman’s territory.”
“But she broke it off.”
“Oh.” It could have been his imagination, but Sebastian thought he saw a faint smile teasing at the corners of her lips.
He could have left it at that. Perhaps he even should have left it at that. But in all fairness, he couldn’t. “I had hoped to change her mind.”
The slight smile faded as a shadow moved across her lovely eyes. “Well. I’m sure you will. I can’t imagine you not succeeding in anything you choose to do,” she said flatly.
He wanted to tell Kirby that meeting her had made him question everything about his life, including Zorana. He was aching to take her in his arms and experience what he suspected would be a mindblinding experience. He wished he could stay here, with her, forever.
“My grandmother Pendleton had a saying,” Kirby said quietly. “‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’”
How could she kn
ow he’d made a wish? Had his control slipped again, making him speak out loud? Or had she read his mind?
“It is as if we were bonded in some essential way,” he said slowly. “You called for me—”
“I did not.”
He waved away her protest with his hand. “You called for me,” he repeated stubbornly. “And I came. And now, although everyone knows that it’s impossible, you are in my mind, reading my thoughts.”
“I wasn’t reading your mind.”
“Then how do you explain knowing what I was thinking? What I was wishing?”
“I was reading your face,” Kirby said. “You have a very expressive face, Sebastian.”
“I do?”
That came as a surprise. It was something he would have to work on when he returned to Logosia. Experiencing emotions was bad enough. Letting others know he was feeling them would further diminish his credibility in the scientific community.
Kirby laughed as she watched the surprise in Sebastian’s eyes be replaced by first alarm, then resolve. He was so honest, this man she feared she was falling in love with. And so very different from Steven. For her former husband, lying and cheating had been much the same as breathing. He did it regularly and without any conscious thought.
“Now it is you who has the expressive face,” Sebastian murmured. He traced her frowning lips with his thumb. “I hope I am not the one who caused that scowl.”
His light touch was leaving sparks on her skin. Why was it that, although they both knew there was no future in this relationship, although they both continued to swear not to continue it, they couldn’t seem to stop touching each other?
“No. I was thinking of someone else.”
“The man who hurt you.”
“I don’t want to talk about Steven,” she insisted. “I don’t want to even think about him.”
She’d let her heart rule her head once in her life. After she’d survived that debacle, she had sworn never to give her heart to another man. And here she was about to make the same mistake.
Sebastian nodded. “I can understand how such a subject could be painful to you.”
“Not painful,” Kirby flared. “It just makes me angrier than hell.”