Catch a Falling Star (5 page)

Instead, she used her
mind, planning. Any worry she felt was not directed toward the
crashing sounds of the three-hundred pound man trying his best
for a stealthy approach. When Fat Farley wasn't drunk, he was
like putty in her hands, practically falling all over himself to
please her. The man behind her, however, was not putty. Meekly
she nodded her head, apparently agreeing with what he demanded
of her.

Letting his grip
relax just enough so that she could breathe again, he lowered
his hand just to her shoulder, keeping her pressed to him. His
back was against a tree and he was looking over the top of the
woman's head. It sounded like a bull crashing through the
growth. Miguel's arm drew across Lyrianne's waist and dropped
away. His fingers found the pistol grip at his back.

Lyrianne was thinking
fast as she realized how close Farley was. She could hear him
moving past them and toward the mule. It was too late for what
she'd first planned to do. He would know she was here once he
saw the bike and he'd come looking. Farley would find both of
them instead of her being able to deal with him alone since she
was sure she couldn't depend on this spaceman to stay hidden.

She turned to face
the Fed pilot and placed a finger over his mouth to keep him
silent. She arched an eyebrow then winked at him.  “Oh, you
shouldn't do that.” She spoke much louder than she needed for
the man she was looking at, but just right for someone searching
for her location.

“Lyri-a-anne!” Sure
enough, Farley had heard her and had changed direction, now
plodding straight for them. “Lyri-a-anne? Come out, come out,
wherever you are.” His deep voice had an absurdly childish
sing-song quality to it.

Farley's call was her
cue to move past staring into the dark brown eyes that were so
hard to look away from. “Follow my lead and don't talk.” She
murmured the words against the pilot's mouth after going up on
tip-toes to press her lips over his. She'd intended it to be a
harmless kiss, like one given to a least favorite relative, and
was supposed to be for Farley's benefit. Somehow it didn't turn
out that way, however. It was doing some strange things to her
insides.

It was doing some
pretty strange things to his insides, as well. He'd been so
shocked by her forward move that he'd done little to stop her,
but at her words, he got what she was about. A devilish bravado
overcame him, not unlike the streak that had allowed the daring
maneuver he'd performed to get on this green planet. The young
pilot took advantage of what he was given.

With an arm now
around the back of her shoulders, he curled his fingers into the
warm blanket of her hair and lifted his palm to the back of her
head where he could control the kiss. Drawing the woman's
pleasing bottom lip between his, he stroked his tongue across it
and teased the corner of her mouth. Miguel turned them and put
his captive's back against the tree, moving to press his hips
against her to hold her there.

Lyrianne was lost in
the pleasure of her first real kiss from a man.

A town boy just a
year older than her, had been her first and only crush. Their
experimenting in the loft of the barn several years before had
been nothing like this. She could feel the heat building in her
middle and she didn't want it to stop. When Miguel had pressed
his hips against her, she'd moaned; a real moan that she had no
control over. Her own hips answered for themselves by pressing
back. She didn't want that to stop, either.

“Lyrianne?” Farley's
deep voice pulled the girl back to herself and her eyes flew
open in shock. She'd completely forgotten him. She tried to pull
her head back but it seemed the pilot wasn't going to let her.
What she did manage to do was to bite down warningly on his
tongue to get his attention.

Miguel had been quick
enough to follow the game and not bark in stung pride, but
nearly choked on his abused tongue when the shadow ballooned
into a mammoth weeble-wobble. And by golly, it had a voice.

When he broke the
kiss in self-defense, she turned in his arms. Her voice was
breathless and shaky. “Farley? What are you doing here?” She
wrapped her hands around the muscled arm of the pilot, letting
him support her inability to stand on her own. Her cheeks were
flushed and her lips tingled as she smiled at her neighbor. “Uh,
Farley, this is Miguel...” Her voice trailed off into a mumble
after the first two syllables as she thought what an
inconvenience such a long name was. Maybe he had a nickname.
She'd have to ask... Until then, whether he liked it or not, she
was going to call him Miguel.

“Miguel is...” Who
was she to say he was? She couldn't very well say who he really
was. She said the first thing that popped into her head. “... My
future husband. We just came back to finish our salvage of the
wreck.”

She stepped away from
the strong arms that had been holding her and stopped in front
of her neighbor. Farley watched her approach as prey might watch
the hypnotizing advance of a swamp viper, his mouth hanging open
and his triple chins spasming when he tried to swallow. He
gasped when she touched his jumpsuit just below the quivering
chins, her finger sliding halfway down the man's massive front
to thump his protruding belly. “You weren't thinking to horn in
on my salvage, were you, Farley?”

“Uhhhhh.” The big man
started to shake his head in denial but was pulled out of her
spell when Miguel moved slightly. He pushed her hand away,
glared past her at the stranger then shook his head. “Ain't
yours if'n I got here first, Lyrie. And whatcha ya mean,
'husband'? Since when? Where'd he come from? He ain't from
around here.”

“Pleased to meet
you,” Miguel greeted the dirt whale most insincerely, his
sensuous mouth curving into a delinquent grin. He left his
weapon secured and brought both arms up to encircle Lyrianne
quite possessively, and as a little payback, he nipped playfully
at the woman's bared shoulder. “I am not from here, no, but I
see you have the acquaintance of my little
bonita
. She
is quite the blossom, eh, Farley?”

Upon saying the fat
man's name, the pilot's dark eyes hardened and his smile became
less welcoming. “If you do not care to take my lovely...
bride-to-be at her word, you have only to look at the second
crash site. You will see we have already begun the salvage.”

Lyrianne pressed her
lips together.
He’s not very good at being diplomatic,
she
thought with irritation. She elbowed the space jockey in the
ribs, just hard enough to make it clear she wasn't happy with
the tone of his voice, then smiled up at Fat Farley.

“Farley, he's right
but I apologize, he could have said it nicer.” She placed her
hand on the fat man's arm without thinking in an effort to
placate him. He looked down at her with a toothy smile as he
briefly studied her face before his gaze dropped down to her
half-open coverall front. His breathing became raspy and he
licked his lips, causing Lyrianne to shudder as if he'd
physically touched her where he'd been staring. Slowly his
hungry little eyes returned to her face, the heat in them
unmistakable.

“No hard feelings,
Lyrie. Throw in two bottles of yer pa's homemade brew and we can
make a deal. I'm having a devil of a time with the damned-all
Fed security field, anyway. I can't even get inside to see
what's what.” He clamped his hand over hers to keep her from
moving it from his arm. “You help me turn that field off and
I'll split halfsies on what's inside.” He was deliberately
ignoring Miguel, who was still right behind Lyrianne, as his
gaze slid back to her cleavage.

Seeing as how the
woman wasn't really anything to him, least of all some long lost
bride, Miguel had very little reason to feel as provoked as he
did. Surely if asked he'd chalk it up to the responsibility he
felt to his employers. The credit amount on his fighter was
astronomical, as all pilots were reminded of at least
three-hundred times a day and more if your name was Miguel
Arturo. That wasn't even taking into account the importance of
the tech on board. It was nothing the enemy should be able to
purchase access to under any means. Besides, the fat guy was
just asking for it.

“I have a better
idea.” Miguel flashed his best smile. “How about you, Mister
Farley, take your sausage hand off of my wife before I chop it
off and fry it up with butter. I will even share with you, eh?
If you make it real fast.” His wink was friendly but his eyes
were not. Farley responded by increasing the pressure on her
hand and puffing up his enormous chest, breathing through his
nose.

Again! He did it
again! Lyrianne was seething as she pulled her hand out from
under Fat Farley's sweaty palm. Antagonizing her big stupid
neighbor was not the way to get anywhere with him. She turned
and pushed on Miguel's chest then flipped around and shoved even
harder on the blubber mountain that was Farley's.

“You two boys want to
pull out your cocks and compare sizes, go ahead. I'm going to
see about the salvage.”

She stomped away,
almost relishing the stabs of pain that shot up her leg with
each hard step. When she turned to glare at the two men, she was
furious. “And there's no deal, Farley. You ever look at me like
that again and I'll gouge your eyes out. You want to apologize
to me, then you're welcome to share what I choose to share with
you. Of the wreckage, I mean. Otherwise, go home.” She turned
her ire on Miguel. “As for you. You talk too much and I'm not
your wife.” She almost forgot what she'd told Farley. “Yet,
anyway. Come with me or wait here, I don't care.”

Miguel hid his faint
surprise well, but not his amusement. Doffing an imaginary hat
at the blustering buffoon, he just couldn’t help the cheesy grin
and the whole na-na-na-boo-boo attitude his sister loathed so
much. He liked to say he was just a kid at heart; she liked to
say he was just childish.

Following in his
not-really soon-to-be wife’s wake, the pilot was in good cheer,
as if he’d forgotten he was stranded behind enemy lines. And
there she was! Smoking and popping and reeking of burnt engine
grease and fried circuitry.

“There you are, you
old broad!” he crowed as he picked up the pace, soon overtaking
the farm girl. “Just like I left ya,” he grinned, still talking
to the groaning wreckage. Something shifted inside the craft and
it tilted just a hair his way.

“Now, now, don’t you
go lookin’ all accusing like at me,
querida
. You could
not handle my moves.” Clearly still talking to his dying craft,
the pilot started around the narrow nose of the fighter, its
snout buried almost a foot into the ground it had plowed up. A
dirt clod lodged in a crevasse where the conical point had
cracked upon impact. It was a wonder it hadn’t been snapped
completely off.

Ducking under a
smoking wing, Miguel had his gloves out from the back pocket
he’d stuffed them in, and was pulling them on with his teeth.
The whole top part of the plane was gone, along with most of its
important guts, safely tucked away in the woman’s barn. But
there was one thing that hadn’t been ejected along with the
pilot and the escape capsule.

Taking a small hop,
he caught hold of the smooth edge where once a viewport had
been, and then swung himself up to sit on the lip of the
carved-out vessel. The acrid smoke now of a height with him,
forced him to cough into his glove and turn his head to the
side. He’d have to work fast if he wanted to get out of there
with his pink lungs still pink.

“Stay back!” he
called down to the girl, his voice muffled and distorted. He
coughed again and pressed his nose shut, trying to take shallow
breaths in through his mouth. He hoped the woman had the sense
to listen because they wouldn’t have much time once he’d engaged
the self-destruct.

Lyrianne had been
looking around, noticing that her neighbor's hovertruck
spotlights were now off. They'd seen them come on from a
distance but Farley must have shut them down before he'd gone to
investigate the noise of their arrival. She thought about
turning them back on but negated the idea. If anyone else was on
their way, the absence of the bright light would serve their
advantage more than it would any interlopers.

She'd been pulled out
of her thoughts when Miguel ordered her to stay back. She
watched his efforts to breathe without coughing, giving her a
graphic idea of how bad the smoke was. She wasn't too keen on
trying to breathe it but she also was of a mind to follow him in
just because he'd told her not to.

Her hesitance however
had given Fat Farley a chance to catch up to her as she stood a
good ten feet away from the wreckage. “You gonna let him call
you that?”

She'd already taken
another step toward the downed ship but the question from Farley
had stopped her. “What?” She turned to look at the big man who
was wheezing and puffing from his attempted rapid walk. “What
did he call me?” She was really puzzled and curious. Had Miguel
thrown some insult out about her after she'd left the two of
them behind?

Farley tilted his
head. “He called you a broad. You said you don't like being
called things like broad, or skirt, or piece of a-”

“Okay, Farley, I know
what you're talking about.” Lyrianne stopped him from continuing
with the list of terms men used to describe women, some
condescending, some insulting, some just plain weird.

She bit her lower lip
and turned to look at the spot where Miguel had disappeared into
the smoking remains of his “broad”. She'd figured out pretty
quickly that he'd been talking to his ship since she'd often
heard her father and brothers talking to the farm equipment in
that same way. But, thank the stars, Farley had thought he'd
been addressing her. For just a moment, she found herself
wishing he had been using that tone with her. That was not what
she should be thinking though, so she covered it with another
bout of annoyance with him.
Stupid Fed fly jockey
, she
thought. He could have easily given away who he was if it had
been anybody brighter than the one who had heard it.