by Allie Marell
She’d answer his questions. Tell him anything he wanted to hear to get it back.
But how did she trust a man like this? She bit her lip, anxiously searching his face for anger at the way she broke her word and walked out on him. Santar stepped out from the shelter of the open porch and raised both hands in a gesture of peace, while her traitorous dog sent him loving looks from the living room window.
Andra stared at the broken man in despair. Too much on her plate at the moment with Emma and Oliver and replacing the precious toy before Christmas, to say nothing of a looming deadline on her new book.
She groaned inwardly, knowing she couldn’t leave him in the cold.
“Do not be alarmed.” Santar stood his ground, letting her come to him. With a resigned huff, she pushed open the gate. He noticed the shopping bag weighing her down. He seemed to notice everything.
“May I relieve you of your burden?”
A totally different tune to yesterday. Now he stood almost contrite, teeth gritted resolutely against the cutting wind. It must be past four in the afternoon. How long had he been standing there, waiting for her to return?
And how in the blazes did he find out where she lived?
The same way as last night’s mysterious caller. Remembering that phone call made her heart clench. She nodded mutely, feeling pathetically grateful for a strong man to stand between her and that threatening disembodied voice serving veiled threats.
Not like her at all. The unknown menace had rattled her more than she realised. Santar walked towards her taking slow, measured steps, as if aware he might startle her into running. Frowning, she studied the tyre marks making deep, muddy ruts in the snow piling up against the front wall.
Someone else had been here in her absence. And the vehicle was huge, the size of a Range Rover, maybe. She dismissed it. The neighbours must have called in on their way to the hospital to see if she needed anything.
They were nice like that.
Santar took the bag from her, his gaze following hers to the ruts.
“You had visitors,” he said without preamble. “Men in dark, formal-looking clothing. I found them breaking into the rear door and sent them running.”
“Breaking in?” Santar had already turned away to retrace his steps to the front door. “Wait a moment.” She speeded up, almost slipping on the iced path. “Did you say breaking in?”
Santar nodded, acting as if it were the most normal thing in the world to find people robbing the place and just ask them to go away. “Do not be concerned, they failed to break in and enter.”
Andra let out an audible breath, visualising the devastation they’d have left behind searching for the toy. Did they want it that much?
“I see this does concern you.” Santar threw her a shrewd look as she fumbled for the door key. “What did they want?”
“Dead right, it does. They want the same thing as you.” She saw no reason to lie to him. A blazing anger was fast replacing the fear as she took a quick appraisal of the small hall, peeking into the sitting room to find everything as she left it. Laptop on the desk, television still on its stand.
“They wanted answers?” Santar entered without being asked. Jess walked straight past her to sit at his feet, tail thumping.
“Not answers, they want the action toy. General Jo,” she ground out and stomped into the kitchen. Nothing touched here. She walked through to the boot room, finding the back door intact and not hanging off its hinges in a splintered mess. She didn’t need the expense of a repair this close to Christmas.
“Where do you require I place the supplies?”
She’d let a total stranger into her house, but somehow it didn’t matter. He was in and she could only assume he meant her no harm, as he kept on insisting.
“On the table.” Shrugging out of her coat, she fumbled in the pocket for the mobile phone battery she picked up in case the others failed to arrive. Though Santar most likely still had her original. He moved to the stripped-pine table and dropped the bag. Turned to look at her with his uncompromising gaze.
“They were here to steal the child’s toy?”
“I got a phone call last night asking me to sell. They made me a very nice offer. I told them I didn’t have it.” She met his gaze, challenging him to make something of that.
“It’s hidden,” he said simply. “Better they deal with me than you.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
Andra shook out her damp hair and crossed to the kettle, sorely in need of a strong coffee and a couple of painkillers to fend off the threatening headache. Santar looked as if he could do with them too. Silently, she rifled in a wall cupboard and found a pack of ibuprofen. She popped two for him and handed them over.
“Take these. They’ll help.”
“What are they?” He studied the pills suspiciously.
“Oh, sleeping pills,” she said, spooning coffee into mugs. Walking a dangerous line, but hell suddenly she didn’t care. “They’ll knock you out so I can call on someone to cart you away to get you the help you obviously think you don’t need.”
He made a sound, low in his throat. It may have been a laugh. “What are they really?”
So he had a sense of humour? That always helped.
“Painkillers. I don’t know about you, but I have a crushing headache threatening. Look.” She popped two more for herself. Opened her mouth and dropped them onto her tongue. “It’s not poison.”
Leaning heavily on the kitchen table, Santar pushed the pills between his own lips. Jess stood vigil at his feet, throwing him anxious glances as he braced with obvious effort to stay upright.
“Sit down before you fall down,” Andra said, feeling the power play shifting. “When did you last eat?”
“The cake. And before that, a small bite in the market. Then I would need to calculate the previous interval. Bearing in mind the restrictive factor of eons influencing the tabular...”
“Okay. You really do speak like this. I get it. I just didn’t want to have to pick you up off the floor.”
“A woman of your stature would be unable to lift me.” He leaned his head on his hands, watching her pour hot water on the coffee granules.
“You’d be surprised,” she said and handed it to him black. He stared into the steam while she emptied the shopping bag, thinking of the three bags she’d left in the boot of her car.
“Do you think they’ll come back?”
Santar nodded. “I believe they might.”
“Okay, I need to fetch my car. It’s at the bottom of the lane.”
“I will accompany you.”
“Thanks. Finish your coffee and we’ll go down.” Whatever she thought of his past behaviour, he was a solid presence, all muscle and hard determination. And right now, totally at her command, she realised.
“Where did you hide General Jo?”
“Better that you do not know.” Santar sipped, and then emptied the mug, scalding heat and all without a murmur of protest. When she finished hers, she grabbed her coat and beckoned him to follow. What if the callers found her car and disabled it? Her mind ran amok with conspiracy theories. That was her lifeline. She wanted it here, parked in the barn with the doors padlocked closed.
“I can sense your agitation. Have no fear. I will protect you.”
She couldn’t help glancing at Jess, wheezing between them. An arthritic dog and a guy who thought he came from another planet. A guy who needed her because he wanted something in return.
Great. All she had between her and the men in black.
They walked the lane in silence. He lost in his own thoughts, she wondering if she had one of her ex’s coats in the house since Santar seemed to own only the clothes he stood up in. He started her car with ease, coaxing it through the iced up snow until it was safely in her barn. Tam the cat jumped onto the bonnet, curling into the heat.
“Thanks.” Now what did she do with him? Andra tilted her chin at the door. “Okay, you’d better come on in. It’
s pasta tonight, I hope you like spag bol.”
Santar jerked, as if hit by a bolt of lightning. He turned to her, eyes clouded with confusion, one hand touching the side of his head, as if listening for something.
“Say that again.”
“I hope you like spag bol?”
“Spag bol. Pasta with a meat based sauce. Short for spaghetti Bolognese. Yes, I think I might.”
“You think?” Odd thing to say, but go with the flow. He obviously needed to talk.
She stowed the shopping in cupboards and drawers, packed away the bags and busied herself finding pasta and a lump of frozen Bolognese sauce from the freezer. Too little to feed a man of his size, but an extra can of tomatoes should stretch it to the two of them.
She thought of her ex, John, cheerfully donning an apron and taking over her kitchen. He liked to be in charge and at first, she loved sitting back and letting him treat her like a goddess.
Then came the subtle hints about the way she dressed, the company she kept. Even the subject she taught at the university. Nineteenth century romantic poets were no match for astrophysics in his mind.
She didn’t know how stifled she’d become until she broke free. Searching a messy drawer for the can opener, she relished the sudden pang of affection for her new life, here on the quiet moors. And then she looked up.
Santar hadn’t magically disappeared
“Would you like to clean up for dinner?” Blood on Santar’s ripped uniform tunic, drying on this cheek and tangled in his hair. Mud on his pants, “You look as if you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.”
Santar looked down at himself ruefully. “I am not usually such a disgrace to my uniform. Do you dress formally for dinner here?” He paused, as if saying the words hurt him. “I lost my belongings in the transfer. This is all I have.”
“Heavens, no,” she said attacking the can with the opener. A sudden inspiration struck. “We can hit the charity stores in the village tomorrow. Kit you out with a new wardrobe, if you don’t mind wearing used.”
“I have little choice, it seems. Tell me what you know of the toy. Who or what is General Jo?”
“Go clean up first. Take a bath if you want, there’s plenty of hot water at the moment. You’ll find clean towels in the cupboard in the bathroom. Take your time and I’ll break open a bottle of wine before dinner.”
“And then we will talk?” Santar rose with a muted groan. She looked on in sympathy trying not to think about him naked upstairs in her tub. Hoping fervently that her instincts were on point and he really was just a lonely, lost soldier with perhaps a memory problem who’d somehow ended up at her door.
“And then we’ll talk. Go.” She shooed him away, needing time to herself to think. Jess got to his feet, about to follow Santar from the kitchen. And then she spotted one of the torn uniform epaulettes lying under the kitchen table.
“Jess, stay.” She called him back, listening to Santar’s footsteps on the stairs. While he filled the bath, she opened a bottle of wine and poured out two glasses. Five minutes later, she tiptoed to the foot of the stairs, listening for water sloshing in the tub.
“Come on, Jess.” She held out the epaulette, letting the dog take a good sniff. “We’re going hunting.”
He gave a low whine and glanced mournfully up the stairs.
“I have to do this for Oliver,” she said and walked quietly back to the kitchen. Her heart was hammering fit to burst. Two betrayals in less than a day? Santar wouldn’t like it, but hell if she was going to play the victim. They did this on equal terms or not at all.
The bathroom window looked out over the back, making her skin prickle as she followed Jess out of the kitchen door. Was Santar there, watching her wavering figure through the obscured glass? She quickened her pace, giving the dog another sniff of the torn cloth. Jess lowered his head, following the jumble of deep ruts in the fallen snow.
How many men did Santar say called? It looked like a whole army had trampled over her yard. Jess sniffed out every footprint, meticulously ticking them off in his head. And then he lifted his face to the barn.
“Did he go in there?” she whispered and pushed the epaulette into his nose. Was it enough to give him Santar’s scent? The dog whined in answer, lifting his front paws to scrape at the door. Andra unlocked the padlock and pushed it open, staring into the gloomy interior. She flicked on the dim light and waited.
Jess loped with more alacrity than she’d seen in years to a spot by the wall, sniffing the ground with excitement. He scrabbled around then turned to the old chest of drawers she used as extra storage. Andra pulled the door closed behind her and crossed the barn.
Santar had made a poor job of hiding the toy. He was a strong, intelligent man, but not at his best right now. Anyone could see that. And possibly in a hurry when the intruders came.
Reaching into the gap between the chest and the boxes, she felt for the parcel, snagged it with a finger and pulled it out.
For a moment, she stood, flooded with relief at having it back in her possession. But what to do with it now? If Santar wanted it, he’d take it from her, no problem. With Jess so enamoured of him, he’d simply use the same trick as her to track it to a new hiding place.
She crushed the parcel to her chest. Brazen it out. All she could do.
Walking across the snowy yard, she saw the steamed up bathroom window and thought of Santar lying gratefully in the hot bath.
Perhaps she was the crazy one for letting him in the house. But having accepted the responsibility, she’d see this through. Blame her soft spot for waifs and strays. And it was Christmas...
The excuses rolled through her mind and then she turned to General Jo. “Troublemaker,” she murmured to the stern-faced figure peeking from the parcel.
Honesty was her only defence. Santar could hardly blame her for wanting it back.
She laid the parcel on the kitchen table in plain sight. Put the frozen lump of sauce in the microwave to defrost and snagged her wine. If Santar lingered in the bath, she’d maybe have time to get a chapter or two written before dinner. Though cosy, grey-haired detectives solving village crimes were no match for real life right now.
Two men had actually come to her door to do what? Force her to sell the action figure? What else would they want from her? She set her mouth as she fired up the laptop.
Not selling. Or giving it away to lost soldiers barking out questions she had no answers to. Come Christmas morning, General Jo was landing on Oliver’s hospital bed if she had to get down on her knees and beg Santar to give it up.
Tam the cat sat curled on the sofa now, unfazed by the addition of what to their family? A Starman? How on earth did someone become so delusional they believed they came from another planet?
She pushed back the chair, listening for the sound of the bathroom door opening to reveal the dripping wet, rather hot guy who’d stumbled into her life and just refused to leave.
Hell, he was hot and she definitely had no right thinking about the abs and biceps straining against that uniform tunic. The soft, dark hair curling into his nape. Oh, it was no good. No concentrating on cosy village crime tonight. She sat for a long time scrolling mindlessly through the collector’s forums vainly seeking any clues to the mystery collector aiming to steal General Jo if she wouldn’t sell.
“Perhaps I should sell,” she said to the cat. Tam’s ears twitched and the cat lifted her head, eyes half closed with sleep. “It might buy me that new roof if they want it desperately enough.”
Tam stared long enough to discover she had no food to offer and curled her head back into her body. This was Andra’s problem and hers alone.
“You will not sell.”
The voice behind her was both plea and command. Andra spun the computer chair around to see Santar holding the parcel in the doorway. He closed the space between then, standing in front of her chair, the tips of his wet hair dripping onto a tan coloured uniform shirt. Grimacing, he looked down at himself.
“I had no time to change when the opportunity for escape presented itself. Took only what I had with me when I boarded the rogue freighter.” He pushed wet hair from his eyes with an agitated flick of his wrist. “I know you don’t believe a word of my story, and I understand that with your limited...”
“Hey. Why don’t you sit down? We’ll talk, I promise. And I’ll answer your questions.”
They stood facing each other for a long, tense moment. With his focussed, piercing gaze, Santar had a way of looking inside a person, stripping them bare and making them question their very existence.
Who the hell was he? Really?
“Just sit down, please.”
Whatever plagued his thoughts, he believed it without question. And he was going to make her believe it. What other option did she have?
Andra motioned him to sit in the armchair by the fireplace. One of the modern pieces from the Manchester apartment, it looked out of place against the room’s bumpy, whitewashed walls and soot-stained inglenook fireplace.
“I’ll get you a glass of wine. Do you like wine?”
Santar shrugged, his eyes glazing over in that way he had of briefly going inside his head to the exclusion of everything else.
“Wine.” He spoke almost robotically. “An alcoholic beverage fermented mainly from the fruit called grapes.”
“The very same,” she said. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Chapter 7
Santar tips back his head, resting into the welcoming padded seat. The dog flops at his side with a contented sigh. A moment of pure indulgence with no need for vigilance or furtive glances over his shoulder for Centrum Command operatives or bounty hunters sent to take him out.
He remembers other operatives, dedicated soldiers who awoke one day insisting they were someone else. Ranting that they’d come from some planet far away and lived another life before this.
He pitied them. Executed terminations when commanded to do so.
And then it happened to him.
First the dreams of a youngling safe in the bosom of his family. A doting mother, a stern father the boy idolised with every fibre of his being. And then memories of blinding white lights, disorientating nightmares.