He couldn’t help grinning at that, although he looked troubled as the clerk told me the total and I passed my debit card over the scanner.
“This is costing you a lot — ”
I was a little surprised that he understood the concept of money at all. The Reptilians hadn’t seemed like the type to need it. Maybe his mother had told him about it, or maybe he’d learned something of the way our economy worked from watching our films or television shows. “It’s fine. Mostly I let my work money pile up because I live at home and don’t have much to spend it on.”
My reply didn’t seem to comfort him very much, although he didn’t offer any further protest. I handed the bags to him and said, “Some shoes, and then we can head back.”
“Shoes?” He stared down at the canvas high-tops he was wearing. “Aren’t these sufficient?”
“For hanging out uptown, sure. But what if something comes up where we need to head out into the wilderness, maybe go back to the base? You need something you can hike in.”
Actually, I didn’t know how necessary any of that would be, either. But better to be prepared. In a pinch he might have been able to borrow something from my father, I supposed. We were here now, though, and I didn’t see the point in delaying.
Gideon dutifully followed me into the shoe store, and once again we lucked out by finding something that would work — and which fit — in the clearance area.
“They do seem sturdier,” he said, taking a few experimental steps in the size-11 hiking boots I’d found for him.
“They are. That’s the whole point. So we’ll get these wrapped up and head out of here.”
The transaction was handled quickly, and less than five minutes later we were out the door and headed north on 179. There was some traffic, but not as much as I’d feared. Even so, I couldn’t help sending a few wary glances westward, where the sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon.
“It will be fine,” Gideon said, apparently noticing the worried looks I’d sent out the driver-side window. “It will not be full dark for another forty minutes.”
I sent him a startled glance. “How can you know that?”
“I just do.”
Well, I wasn’t going to worry about how he’d apparently analyzed the almanac for this part of the world. It was enough that we’d have sufficient time to get home before dark fell.
Home. Was the cottage my home now? It didn’t feel that way, but until we figured out how to send the Reptilians packing, the little house that had once been Michael Lightfoot’s was my only sure refuge.
We pulled into the garage just as the sun sank behind the hills to the west. Gideon gathered up his shopping bags and followed me inside. As we went in, I realized we probably should have risked a trip to the grocery store. Yes, my mother had sent food over, but it was all easy-to-fix prepackaged stuff intended for one person. She hadn’t really planned on me having a house guest.
Well, neither had I. We’d just have to make the best of it, which probably meant ordering takeout. Luckily, there were a number of places that would deliver to this area. Moon Dog Pizza, of course, but also Thai Gardens and that new Mediterranean restaurant, the one whose name I could never remember. Anyway, we wouldn’t starve.
The hard part was realizing that I would be alone with Gideon here. My mother hadn’t exactly given me her blessing, but neither had she told me to stay away from him. Not that I necessarily would have done so, even if she’d been that explicit about her wishes. I still lived at home, but I was an adult and my mother and father treated me like one. I paid a modest amount for rent, was expected to contribute to the monthly food budget, even though my parents definitely didn’t need the money.
That was the big difference between Callista and me, I supposed. Her parents more or less gave her anything she wanted, while I was expected to work for what I had. That was the way both my parents had been raised, and they’d raised me and Michael that way as well. I couldn’t even blame Kirsten for coddling Callista the way she had. I supposed I would have been overprotective, too, if my mother had walked out on me when I was only three years old. And Martin hadn’t even been born on this planet. He’d probably followed Kirsten’s lead when it came to parenting, since he didn’t have much of a frame of reference.
Gideon stopped in the center of the living room, shopping bags in hand, and gave me a questioning look. Diffidence fairly pulsed from him.
And I got it. He didn’t know the cottage, didn’t know where he was supposed to put his things. And as much as that kiss had ignited something between us, I wasn’t quite ready to blithely show him into the master bedroom where I was staying.
“Over here,” I said, going down the short hall where both bedrooms were located. I took the first door on the left, to the guest room. It was small, with only a full-sized bed and a single highboy. Not much else would have fit in there. “And the bathroom is just next door.”
If he was surprised to see that I’d shown him to a different bedroom than the one I was occupying, his manner didn’t indicate that. Actually, I thought I could sense some relief, as if he’d been worried I would try to move things along more quickly.
I wasn’t that forward. Whatever was going to happen between us, I wanted it to happen on its own time, and not because I’d decided to rush things.
“Well, I’ll let you settle in,” I said then. “Come find me in the kitchen when you’re done.”
Gideon only nodded, and I hurried out. Standing next to him in that small bedroom had begun to feel too overwhelming, or maybe it was just that I worried he’d catch me glancing at the bed and get the wrong impression. Anyway, I breathed a little easier when I got to the kitchen. I fetched a couple of glasses from the cupboard and poured some water into each of them. Gideon hadn’t mentioned that he was thirsty, but I knew I was after all that shopping.
A few minutes later, he came into the kitchen. Since we were alone here and weren’t expecting any company, he’d deactivated his disguise. By then it really was dark; I’d flicked on the overhead lights, as well as several in the living room. He watched me carefully, eyes gleaming with dark ruby glints in the bright fluorescent light.
“Water?” I asked.
He went and retrieved the second glass from the counter. “Thank you.”
“All I have here is some frozen stuff, so I thought we’d order in,” I went on hurriedly, rifling through the stack of menus that Kara always kept in one of the kitchen drawers. “What would you like? Pizza, or there’s a Mediterranean place that’s pretty good, or — ”
“Taryn.”
His voice was quiet, but something in it made me look up and meet his gaze. “What?”
“I know very little of your food, except the things my mother programmed into our food synthesizers, so choose whatever you would like best. And — ” He hesitated, clearly debating something with himself. After a long pause, he went on, “I know it is…awkward…being here like this. We will have to make the best of it.”
“‘Make the best of it’?” I repeated. “Is that what you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think. You seem different now from when we were together earlier today. Did your mother say something to you?”
Every line of his body was tense, poised for rejection. I knew then that he thought I had changed my mind about him, that I viewed our kiss earlier that afternoon as a mistake.
Well, I couldn’t have him thinking that was true.
I set down my own glass and went to him, lacing my fingers through his so I could pull him close and kiss him again. After a brief, startled hesitation, his mouth opened to me, and we were tasting one another, my heart beginning to race at the exquisite sensation of his lips pressed against mine. His fingers tightened on mine, strengthening the connection between us.
After a few moments, we pulled apart, although we still held one another’s hands. I wondered if he could hear how hard my heart was beating. Did his beat the same? I didn’t even know if it was more h
uman or Reptilian.
“Yes, my mother said something,” I told him, my voice somewhat breathless. “She said she could tell you’d had a change of heart. I think she trusts you.”
His fingers tightened on mine. “That is something, to have her tell you such a thing after what she has experienced in her past.” For a few seconds, he was quiet, watching my face. I tried not to blink or look away, although it was difficult. Being subjected to such scrutiny was not something I was used to. “And you, Taryn? Do you trust me?”
“I wouldn’t have let you kiss me if I didn’t.”
And then his arms were around me, and he was pulling me close. Our mouths met once more, and I let myself be lost in him, in the strength of his body and the taste of his lips. This was dangerous, I knew. If he kept kissing me like this, I was going to forget all about being careful.
I’d never been able to really understand letting passion overwhelm you to the point where you abandoned rational thought and allowed your emotions to take over completely. Because I was that crazy Oliver girl with the supposed psychic powers, I wasn’t exactly someone who’d ever had a long string of boyfriends. There had been one or two, guys I thought I’d connected with but then realized were not compatible at all. Maybe I should have realized the first time I kissed those guys that it wouldn’t work. There had never been fireworks.
Not like now. Just the way Gideon let go of one of my hands and trailed his fingers up my arm was enough to send a new set of thrills arcing and sparking through my body. The world was spinning around me, and I liked it. I liked being out of control. I’d spent so much of my life keeping everything locked down in order to preserve my sanity, and now I wanted to open myself to him and let fate decide what would happen next.
And yet…with everything that was going on, could I justify being that self-indulgent?
This time, he was the one to pull away from me, as if he’d detected a sudden shift in my expression or my body language. His fingers untangled themselves from mine. “Taryn?”
I didn’t want him to think I was rejecting him. This had nothing to do with what I felt about him — or at least, what I thought I felt about him, since I hadn’t had time yet to really sit down and sort through my emotions. This was everything to do with knowing that women were suffering, and my government was apparently complicit in their suffering, and I didn’t know what the hell any of us could do about it.
“It’s — ” I’d been about to say that it was all right, but it wasn’t. Instead, I reached out and took one of his hands and held it, staring down at the faint greenish hue of his skin in contrast to my own ivory-pale fingers. His flesh was cool against mine, but not unpleasantly so. “It’s just that I feel so helpless right now.”
He pulled me against him, not to kiss me, but to hold me close, to wrap his arms around me. Was that something instinctive, or had his mother hugged him, showed him something of what human closeness was supposed to mean?
“You’re not helpless,” he said, his voice a low, comforting murmur against my hair. “I saw the fire in your eyes when you faced me down back at the ship. A helpless woman would not have been able to muster that kind of defiance.”
Had it been defiance? To me, it had felt more like desperation. After all, he’d literally had me backed up against a wall. And that was where the Reptilians probably thought they had all of us now — backs to a wall, no real choice but to go along and pray that their horrible harvest wouldn’t touch any of us personally.
“What do you think I should do?”
“What you’re doing already,” he said. He did release me from the hug then, but gently, and he still remained standing very close. “What all of you are doing. Trying to find a solution. You’re not willing to stand by and let this happen. That’s the important thing, isn’t it?”
I reached up to push some of his heavy, wavy hair back from his forehead, then ran my hand down his face to cup his cheek. His eyes closed briefly, as if in pleasure, but then they opened again, focused on me, on the expression I wore.
“No,” I said sadly. “The important thing is actually finding a solution, not trying to find one.”
He went silent then. I think he knew he couldn’t really argue with that statement.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Although we were both subdued after that, we also realized that we needed to eat something. Gideon again told me I should choose, since he wasn’t familiar enough with our food to guess one way or another.
So I ordered from the Mediterranean place, since shawarma and rice pilaf and roasted vegetables sounded good. While we waited for the food to arrive, Gideon helped me set the table, interested in the ritual of it, his fine, sensitive hands running over the edges of the plates as he set them down on the tabletop. They were beautiful, local handmade stoneware glazed in dark red and a warm teal color, and I’d always sort of secretly coveted them, hoping that one day I could have something similar in my own house.
There was wine in the little countertop rack in the kitchen, but I didn’t bring it out. I wasn’t the sort of person who thought a meal was incomplete without a glass of wine to go along with it. Also, Gideon and I were already having a difficult enough time maintaining even a semblance of self-control. I knew where all this was eventually going to end up…but I also knew that I wanted to be with him when the time was right, and not because we’d both had too much to drink with dinner and had lost our last vestiges of self-control.
I did put out the wine goblets, though, just because they were lovely Mexican blown glass, their edges a deep ruby shade not too far off from the color of Gideon’s eyes. There was a pitcher that matched, and I filled it with ice water. That way the table looked more festive, and maybe he wouldn’t notice that we weren’t drinking anything stronger than water.
But then, why would he notice? He hadn’t been raised here on Earth, and most likely didn’t know that much more about its customs than what his mother had taught him before she died. Somehow I doubted she’d told him anything about the way many people liked to have wine with dinner. Why would she? When she passed away, he’d been far too young to know or care about such things.
I’d just set down the water pitcher when the doorbell rang. At once Gideon touched his wristband, activating his disguise. I flashed a grateful smile at him as I went to open the door, and he came up behind me so he could take the bags of takeout from the delivery man, leaving my hands free to wave my debit card over the reader he carried.
Once the transaction was handled, the delivery guy wished us a good evening and headed out. Even as I shut the door, I turned to catch Gideon sniffing appreciatively at the bags.
“What is this? It smells delicious.”
“It is,” I said. “It’s beef shawarma and rice and vegetables. Oh, and some pita bread. I think you’ll like it.” I hesitated, a sudden thought hitting me. “Can you digest grains? I mean, you’ve never had any — ”
“My digestive system is human,” he replied. “It will be fine.”
I couldn’t help smiling in relief. “Well, let’s get this dished up, and then you’ll be able to find out for certain.”
Serving bowls were already waiting for the food, so all I had to do was transfer everything from its plastic containers, then shove them back into the bag and hurry them off to the kitchen. That was something my mother had always done. We might have eaten takeout a good deal of the time — although not nearly as often as Callista’s family — but it was always served up in nice dinnerware.
Gideon and I sat down. I hadn’t been quite bold enough to light the candles in the centerpiece on the table, so the dining room was illuminated by the small wrought-iron chandelier overhead. Everything looked and smelled wonderful, but you couldn’t exactly call it romantic.
Which was fine. There was enough unresolved sexual tension between Gideon and me that I didn’t see the need to make it any worse. Besides, I really didn’t know if he would have responded to those sorts of cues the way a regular man
might. He wouldn’t have the cultural context, and I honestly didn’t know how much research he’d done into twenty-first-century American customs. Some, because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get along as well as he had, but many of the nuances had to be lost on him.
Since he looked unsure as to how to begin, I went ahead and dished rice and vegetables onto his plate, followed by a good-sized helping of shawarma. While I was busy with that, he poured water for the two of us. I gave myself a more modest portion of food, although I had a feeling I’d probably go for seconds. It wasn’t until the savory aroma reached my nose that I realized how hungry I really was. Things had been so chaotic that I hadn’t even eaten lunch.
We both dug in. I saw Gideon’s eyes widen as he took his first few bites, and relaxed slightly. It looked like I’d make the right choice, because he was eating with such appetite that I began to wonder if I’d ordered enough food.
After a moment or two, however, he began to slow down a little. “Sorry,” he said, flashing me an apologetic smile. “It’s been many hours since I last ate.”
“It’s fine,” I told him. “I skipped a meal, too. It’s been kind of a crazy day.”
He stopped then, fork lowering to his plate, although he didn’t scoop up any more food. “Has it? I’m afraid I don’t have much context for what would have been a normal day for you. Would you rather it had gone differently?”
“Oh, no,” I said at once. I’d been startled to see him come walking into the shop — especially with his appearance altered — but once I’d gotten past the shock, I was happy to see him. More than merely happy. Relieved. I’d asked him to return me to my home, true. However, I’d begun to realize very early on that, while I was glad to be safely back on Earth, I wasn’t nearly as glad to be away from him as I’d thought I would be. My talk with Callista had opened my eyes to that particular truth. But because Gideon was still watching me with concern written on his face, I hurried to add, “I wouldn’t change a single thing about it.”
sedona files 06 - enemy mine Page 16