Her sister still lived in Ventura, as far as he knew, and he frowned. “She lives over an hour’s drive from here, and it’s so late.”
“All the more reason for me to hit the road.” She stood up, looking around for her purse.
“Uh, look. Why don’t you stay here tonight? I’ll, uh, take the couch.”
“I . . . don’t want to impose on you,” she said, hesitating.
“No trouble, really. I’d rather sleep out here than toss and turn worrying about whether you got home all right.”
She looked at him, then a soft, genuine sensuality stole along the curve of her mouth. “You don’t have to do that, Mike. Sleep out here, I mean.”
A confusion of feelings welled up in him, and temptation was one of them as he stood looking at her, admiring the gentle push of her breasts under her blouse, her lean, tanned legs beneath the short skirt. He remembered vividly how good it had been, the times those legs had been tangled with his, the feel of those breasts against his bare chest when they’d made love. Their problems had never been in the bedroom until the very end. . . .
“Hey,” he said, coming over to slip an arm around her shoulders. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you, to get to know you all over again. But let’s not rush anything, okay?” “Okay,” she said, and he escorted her to the door of his bedroom.
“There’s a spare toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, on
the—”
“I know, the bottom shelf on the far right.” She grinned. “Some things never change. Do you still keep your T-shirts in the second drawer down on the right?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Good. I’ll borrow one for tonight.” She paused and the smile played briefly around her mouth again. “And I won’t lock the door.”
Standing on tiptoe, she gave him a brief, tender kiss on the line of his jaw. Her lips rasped against the stubble, feeling infinitely smooth and warm.
He watched her close the door, leaving it ajar, then he moved like an automaton to rummage sheets, pillowcases, and a blanket out of the hall linen closet. Making up a bed for himself on the couch, he stripped to his shorts, then padded to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
He passed the bedroom door on his way back to the couch, and hesitated. He knew she was lying awake, and late, late at night had always been some of their very best times—
An image of Julie suddenly flashed into his mind—her smile, the way she had looked when he’d left her that evening almost a week ago—the last time they had seen one another. With a little shake of his head, he went back to the living room and lay down on the couch. He lay awake for a long time, listening to the night sounds outside.
“He sure makes a lot of noise.” Maggie Blodgett stared down at the barking, wriggling Shih Tzu and made a mock-fierce face. “Shhh, Druid!”
“Yeah, but you know he calms down once he’s outside,” Chris Faber said, handing her the leash.
She smiled up at him. Only small, fading pink blotches remained on his face now, and his eyes were clear and direct as he grinned back. Dr. Akers had been very pleased with his progress, and said after the exam yesterday that he felt Chris would be spotting fleas on sparrows flying overhead again within a week. “Just keep staying out of bright light,” he’d advised.
“It’s just my luck to always be around when it’s doggy-walking time.” Laughing, she scooped Druid up in her arms and pushed open the door. “Come on, you fur ball.”
The afternoon air was warm and still in Chris’s sprawling suburban neighborhood, and the streets were quiet except for the occasional rumble of a passing car. Maggie pushed her sunglasses up on the bridge of her nose, admiring the hazy outlines of the hills in the distance, while Druid made a more prosaic inspection of the palm tree on the comer of Chris’s lot.
In the days since Chris’s injury, Maggie had found herself looking forward with more and more anticipation to her daily visits to the large man with the tiny dog. Lean, compact men were traditionally more her style, but even so, she was finding Chris increasingly attractive.
An interesting, complex mind lurked under the shaggy, dirty-blond hair, and she had been repeatedly surprised at his depth of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects. His eclectic library had only given a hint of his insatiable curiosity. If he was a consummate professional when it came to understanding weapons of all sort, he was also interested in Maggie’s explanations of why certain wing shapes were more aerody-namically efficient than others.
When she had mentioned that she had a certified flight instructor’s license for small-engine planes and could teach him to fly when he was better, his blue eyes had lighted up like a kid’s at Christmas. Maggie was beginning to think that seeing him on a regular basis would be just fine.
Druid barked suddenly, and the sound was more a high-pitched shriek of fear than his usual playful yippings. Startled out of her reverie by the jerk of the leash in her hand, Maggie looked down to see what was wrong with the little animal. Facing the street, his whole body rigid, the little dog crouched, growling deep in his throat as though facing a mortal enemy.
A moment later, Maggie herself heard the low-pitched, alien whine of a Visitor land-patrol vehicle just before it rounded the comer barely fifty feet up the street. Grabbing Druid, she made a diving leap behind one of the low palm bushes before a cream-colored Spanish-style house, and froze, her heart racing in her chest.
From this vantage point, she could see most of the street but was reasonably well concealed (Why did I have to wear this damned bright red T-shirt? she wondered savagely). The patrol vehicle sighed to a halt almost directly in front of her, and four shock troopers wearing body armor sauntered out. Their casual formation and alert, purposeful glances up and down the street told Maggie that they were looking for something—and they weren’t in any hurry.
Druid whimpered, and Maggie grabbed his muzzle. “Shhh, Druid!” A Visitor glanced in their direction, then away again.
Maggie knew that both she and Chris Faber were easily recognizable and wanted members of the Los Angeles resistance. While an uneasy truce existed between the Visitors and most of the human residents of Los Angeles, Nathan Bates had made it clear that he didn’t sanction the resistance. Its members were fair game for human and Visitor authorities alike, and that end justified a whole lot of means, while Bates conveniently looked the other way.
She had to get back to warn Chris. Pulling off the betraying scarlet T-shirt, thanking God that her bra and running shorts were tan-colored, Maggie grasped the trembling Shih Tzu under one arm, then a foot or so at a time began slithering backward in the sandy grass. She stayed as close to the nearby high wooden fence as she could get, trying to keep the screen of brush between her and the vehicle. Druid started to protest, and she clamped her fingers around his muzzle with a hissed, “Shut up!” His puppy face blinked at her accusingly, but he obeyed.
By the time she got to Chris’s back door, she was bruised, scratched, and filthy from clambering over neighbors’ fences and rose bushes. She’d also managed to lose her T-shirt. Chris didn’t answer her knock—maybe he'd seen the Visitors, too. Druid began to whimper, and Maggie had to fight back tears of frustration as she glanced nervously around to see if she’d been followed. She was wondering how she could get inside without being taken for an invading alien when inspiration hit her. Cautiously, she began tapping out her name in Morse Code.
He was there by the second G, looking apologetic. “I saw ’em twenty minutes after you’d left. I thought they must’ve gotten you for sure.”
She leaned over to release Druid, who promptly ran around in circles, barking hysterically, then paused to relieve himself on the hall carpeting. “You were supposed to do that outside, you creep,” she said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Chris glanced at her, suddenly took in her dishabille, then wordlessly pulled off his ancient western snap-button shirt and handed it to her. Maggie fastened the front and rolled up the sleeves on her way over to the sink and the Form
ula 409, shivering as her adrenaline rush faded, then grinning a little as she pictured what a sight she’d made shinnying over the fence. And there went her “UFOs Are Real—They Wiped Out the Air Force” T-shirt.
When she was done with the cleanup and had set down fresh food and water for Druid, she went back into the living room to find Chris standing sideways beside the bay window, peering out from behind the drawn curtains. The Visitor squad vehicle remained motionless two houses up.
“Here,” he said, handing her a .357 Magnum in a shoulder holster. He had already put his own on, then donned his perpetual camouflage jacket.
Maggie had originally planned to stop for a brief visit with Chris this afternoon and then meet up with Julie for dinner. Now, she thought, adjusting the fit on the shoulder holster, it looked like she would definitely be here for a while.
“I’d better call Julie,” she said, but Chris placed a hand on her arm.
“I wouldn’t,” he said. “They might have tapped the phone lines, and if worse came to worst, they’d get her, too.”
Maggie nodded mechanically and tried to remember a time in her life when she hadn’t been constantly on the run, hadn’t had to be so paranoid all the time—when the biggest problem in her life had been the young flight instructor she and her husband had hired who thought he was a real hot dog, both on and off the ground.
Chris nudged her and smiled. “Hey. Tell me another Visitor
joke.”
She didn’t see anything at all that was humorous about the aliens at the moment, but she appreciated his attempt to lighten the tension. “Uh, let’s see . . . what do Visitors call two boys and a girl?”
“A sandwich.” Chris rolled his eyes. “Hon, where do you get these truly ancient jokes?”
“Mike Donovan just brought that one back from New York,” she protested defensively.
“Well, God knows, things in California are bound to be old and tired by the time the East discovers ’em.” He grinned. “So since you’re so smart, you tell me one I haven’t—” She froze just as he gestured for silence. A group of Visitors—six or seven, at least—had suddenly jumped out of the back of the vehicle and were fanning out purposefully.
“Oh, shit,” she murmured as she joined him at the window. “Do you suppose it’s a house-to-house search?”
“Hard tellin’.”
Tensing, they waited. Their conversation was sporadic and terse while the minutes dragged by, becoming an hour, then ninety minutes. Maggie, who had quit smoking almost five years ago, found herself desperately wanting a cigarette.
Glancing up at Chris beside her, she noticed him squinting behind his sunglasses and realized he’d been rubbing his eyes more and more frequently as he scanned the sun-bright street for signs of Visitor activity. “Hey,” she said. “Didn’t Doc Akers tell you not to look at bright light?”
“A Visitor invasion in the neighborhood wasn’t part of his prescription either,” he muttered.
“Go sit down and rest your eyes,” she said. When he began to protest, she snapped, “Now, Chris.” Shrugging, he retreated.
More impossibly long minutes passed, and Chris tried to entertain her as she watched with his impersonations from old movies. Amused despite her fear, she applauded his impressions of James Cagney, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant. He was beginning Henry Fonda as Mr. Roberts when the doorbell rang.
The sound seemed incredibly loud, echoing off the walls and shattering the quiet.
“Stay in here,” he said, drawing his weapon and thumbing its safety.
“Bullshit!” she said. “I’ll cover you.”
Bracing himself before the front door, he drew a deep breath and said, “Who is it?”
“Peggy,” a child’s thin, piping voice cheerfully responded. “Your papergirl. I’m collecting.”
“Could be a trick,” Maggie muttered as Chris lowered his weapon.
He looked at her and shrugged. “Then it’s been real nice knowing you, honey.”
He eased open the door, and a girl around ten years old, with blond hair, freckles, and braces grinned expectantly. “Hi, Mr. Faber. It’s four-fifty.”
Maggie let breath out in a small sigh as Chris pulled out five dollars from his wallet and handed it to her.
“Thanks!” She headed back to her bicycle, which was lying on the sidewalk in front of his house, just as the Visitor vehicle began to whine again. As Maggie and Chris watched, the vehicle glided down the street. Peggy stuck her tongue out at the retreating Visitors, then offered a more adult form of disapproval with a grubby finger.
“Oh, God ...” Maggie’s legs turned suddenly wobbly, and she sagged against the hall closet door.
“I’ll hold you up if you hold me up,” said Chris, and then his big-bear arms slid around her, steadying her. “Hey, kid, it’s okay.”
"Kid.” She sniffed, then grinned in spite of herself. “You have your nerve. I’m almost four years older than you are.” “And ten times better lookin’.”
She put her arms around him, leaning against him, feeling his embrace tighten, change into something more purposeful— —and then they both yelped in pain and jerked back as the butts of their holstered guns ground into shoulder or stomach.
“A fine pair of dangerous characters, aren’t we?” Maggie grinned up at him.
“We better get rid of these damn things,” Chris muttered, “before somebody’s toes get blown off.” They both fumbled at straps and buckles as they pulled off the weapons, snickering a little. Then Chris, with exaggerated care, ceremoniously hung up the gunbelts, and they both collapsed with hysteria-edged laughter.
Sides heaving, they clutched one another while the tears rolled down their cheeks. Wiping her eyes, Maggie hiccupped, chuckled, and looked up at him again. “So, you were saying?” A gentle expression came into his eyes, and he bent to kiss her, softly, hesitantly. Maggie wound her arms around his neck and returned the kiss, feeling the scraggly brush of his beard and mustache. His mouth was soft, questing, but as her lips parted beneath his and her fingers traced the line of his ear, he responded to her demand. She felt the sudden jump of his pulse beneath her fingertips, and his hand moved to cup her breast beneath the raggedy oversized shirt.
They were both breathing hard by the time they parted. Maggie could feel the heat in her face, and she saw Chris’s fair skin was flushed and his eyes were bright.
“Hey,” he murmured. There was a touching sort of wonder in his expression as he looked at her. “The lizards could be back, you know. Probably not safe for you to leave yet.” “I know,” Maggie said. She also knew that she wouldn’t be going home that night, Visitors or not.
“I bet the scalies would like to get hold of this, eh, Tyler?” Early the following morning, Mike Donovan gestured happily at the papers spread out on one of the desks in the resistance’s secret headquarters.
“How do you know they haven’t, Gooder?”
“Well—hell, Margie couriered them straight from the Denver group a week ago, she said.”
Ham nodded and leaned back in the creaking metal chair, hands clasped behind his head. “The info’s legit. I verified it through a . . . couple of independent sources, shall we say? Now, they hadn’t heard of Maijorie Donovan, but then again, you said she was using an assumed name, and they run their operations more spread out up there, especially in the courier operations.”
“I guess they can afford to.” Draining the last of his chicory-laced coffee, Donovan grimaced and threw the cup into the wastebasket. “Their snowfall’s great, and the red dust bacteria is flourishing. Which means they don’t have to put up with as many shortages, or coffee that tastes like it’s been cut with mud.”
“ Yup, Denver is a good place to be these days, since it’s run by humans.” Ham’s perpetually stony expression remained, but something shifted in his eyes that might have betokened humor. “Shit, Gooder, don’t tell me we actually agree on something. ”
“An historical first,” Mike said, then tapped
the papers with a pencil. “Let’s go for two. You agree we should try for the power pack shipment that’s coming from the Visitor legation sometime soon?”
“Oh, absolutely. There’s just a small concern or two I have—that we don’t know the route the shipment’s gonna take, where it’s going, or when—but don’t let me rain on your parade.”
“Margie thinks she can find out the details before—” “Hey, Mike.” Elias stuck his head around the door to the secret headquarters. “Pick up on one-eight. There’s a call for you.”
“Hello, Mike?” It was Margie’s voice, and he found himself grinning into the receiver.
“Hi, Margie. How are you?”
“Listen, I can’t talk long. I’m at a pay phone. I just found out that the power packs are scheduled to be delivered to Science Frontiers at two tomorrow afternoon.”
“What’s the route they’re going to take?” he asked, reaching for a pencil and paper.
“I don’t know, but I think I can find out before tomorrow. Get a car and somebody you trust, and meet me at one o’clock in that alley about eight blocks from the legation, near Vallejo Street, all right?”
“Margie, wait—”
“Gotta go, Mike. See you tomorrow. ’Bye.”
The phone clicked in his ear.
“She said bring someone I can trust,” Mike said, after he had filled Ham in on the brief conversation. “I guess I’ll settle for you instead.”
“Trust.’’ Ham gazed up at him levelly. “Now, that’s an interesting word, Gooder, and it’s one you sure seem eager to apply to this woman who just waltzed back into your life after letting you think she was dead for more than a year.”
“We need those power packs, Tyler. ” Donovan felt a sudden anger rising in him, and he worked to keep his voice even.
“She’s been working hard for the resistance. She’s on the level, I can tell.”
“She’s your ex-wife. The mother of your son. How objective can you be about her?”
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