Suddenly a Bride (7 page)

She inserted the key into the ignition and glanced at him.  “Why am I not attacking you right now?”

He straightened in his seat, looking alarmed.  “Why would you attack me?”

She blinked in surprise.  Was he afraid of her?  He was much stronger.  There was no way she could harm him.  Well, that settled it.  The man wasn’t normal.  At least, he wasn’t normal for a regular human male.  She quickly admonished herself.  He was not an alien from another planet!  There was no
way that was possible.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked, shifting back in his seat.

Yep, he was afraid of her alright.  Maybe she could use that to her advantage.  Testing the waters, she said, “I get mad when someone doesn’t tell me the truth.”

He relaxed.  “Oh.  G
ood.”

That was odd.  She decided to press further.  “Things like men
claiming to be from another planet when they’re really not makes me mad.” Then she gave him her best evil eye.

He
actually nodded with a pleased smile on his face
.

Now she was really confused.  Was he afraid of her or not?
  Or maybe…just maybe…he
was telling her the truth?  She rested her forehead against the steering wheel and groaned.  Just what was she supposed to do with him?  What if he really was from outer space?  He had nowhere to go.

But he could be lying.

Then how could she explain her boss magically calling her Mrs. West and handing her the paycheck with that name on it?  She’d worked for Jack for six years, and never once did he do anythin
g wacked out like this.  No.  Jack
wouldn’t be making this up.

She would check her bank account, her credit cards, her bills, and other financial statements online.  If this was legit, if she was somehow married to the man sitting
next to her
, then she should find this on other sources as well.

Determined, she sat back and buckled her seatbelt.  “Alright.  We’re going home and I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

“Bottom of what?” he asked.

“
I need to figure out if you’re telling me the truth.”

“You don’t believe me?”

She ignored the hurt tone in his voice and started the engine.  “I don’t know you or anything about you.”

“I’m Chris
West.  I came from-”

“No.  I know what your story is, but I don’t know anything about who you are.  For all I know, you could be a psycho who goes around telling women you’re from another planet.”

“But I’m not,” he softly replied.  “I came here for a life mate.  There are no women on my world, and it got lonely.  I heard other planets had women who were compatible with my kind so I came here.”

She studied him
, noting the sincerity in his voice.  Okay.  Maybe there was something wrong with her because she was starting to believe him.  Even so, she needed to get home and see what her accounts said.  Putting her
mini
van into drive, she asked, “
Why me?”

He shrugged.  “The agency picked you.  They asked me what type of woman I wanted, but I had no idea what to pick.”

“Did they say why they picked me
?  There are billions of women o
n the world.  Why me?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe they figured you were the best fit.”

“I don’t see how I’m a better fit than
some other woma
n.”

“I’m glad they picked you.  I’ve seen some of the other women already, and you’re one of the prettier and nicer ones
that I saw in the
restaurant.”

“
You haven’t been at too many places on Earth yet, have you?” She turned her lights on, drove out of the parking lot, and turned down the street.

“No, I haven’t.  The agency sent me directly to you.”

It still seemed like a dream.  A part of her kept thinking that thi
s couldn’t be happening.
  She’d go home and find out what was going on.  The answers would be there.  She was sure of it.  In the meantime, Chris didn’t seem like a threat, so she figured he was safe enough to take home.  Never mind the fact that she actually seemed to be linked to him, as if they did belong together.

Pushing the strange notion aside, she took a deep breath to clear her mind.  Home.  First, she’d go home.  Then she’d worry about the rest of this mess.

Chapter Six

A
s soon as Caitlyn led Chris up to the front door of her apartment, she noticed the large yellow envelope with her name on it.  She picked it up and, once again, wondered if this was some elaborate joke
.  The return address said
Star
Systems Unlimited
without any other identifier.  There wasn’t even postage on it.  Anyone, including the man sta
nding next to her
, could
have done this.

She slid the key into the lock of her door and wondered if she should bring him inside with her.  Glancing at him, she felt an odd assurance that everything would be alright and unlocked the door.  She’d already had sex with
him and left him alone in her van
.  He had plenty of chances to hurt her.  But in all honesty, she didn’t think she was in any danger with him.  Pushing open the door, she waved him in and shut the door once they were inside.

“This isn’t exactly like my place,” Chris said as he inspected the room, “though there are some similarities.”

“Oh?” She went over to her computer and turned it on.  Then, maybe for amusement or morbid curiosity, sat down in front of her computer desk and opened the envelope.

“I had furniture
and a window, but not this or that.” He motioned to the TV and computer.  “We use
d to have things similar to those, but that was five
hundred years ago.”

She rolled her eyes.  What alien race was
not
advanced?

He went over to her bookcase and read the titles on it.
 
Romance books.  And most of them were steamy.  He’d hardly be in
terested.  Amused as he took a book
out and studied it, she turned her attention to
the packet of crisp white papers
in the envelope and pulled it out. 
At the very top was a separate sheet of paper that was supposed to be a marriage license.  Well,
that could be drawn up with a simple Word program.

She set the piece of paper aside and looked at the packet. 
The title
on it
shouldn’t have come as a surprise.  It was incredibly cheesy.  It read:
Congratulations on your marriage to Rilo An, Earth name Chris West.

Congratulations.
  What was
she supposed to
be
doing?  O
pening a bottle of wine
?  She flipped the title page over and noticed the table of contents which outlined topics such as why she was picked, what his bac
kground was, the purpose of
Star
Systems Unlimited
, and what she was to do now.

At the bottom of the page was the disclaimer that this was permanent and she couldn’t return him.  She chuckled at that.  For some reason, it made her feel as if she’d just picked up a stray animal from the pound.

As she flipped to the next page, she noticed that Chris shook his head and put the book back on the shelf befo
re he scanned the other titles. 
She turned her attention back to the paper in front of her.

Congratulations, Caitlyn Davis.  You have been selected as the ideal wife/life mate for Rilo An.  He requested a woman who wanted
a permanent life bond with a man and
children.  No other specifications were given, so it was up to us to complete the requirements.  We ran his personality evaluation through our system and compared it to the records of every woman on Earth.  You were the closest match who desired what he wished for.

Just how did they know anything about every single woman on Earth?  She found that highly suspect but pushed aside the
question
.  She continued through the packet and read through his profile and the questions and answers for his personality test.  Apparently, he’d been in charge of constructing spacecraft.  She didn’t know what he’d do here.  It
wasn’t like she lived near the Kennedy Space Center.  Shouldn’t the agency have
taken that into consideration when selecting a
woman for him?

Glancing up at Chris, she realized that he’d given up on finding anything good to read from her bookshelf and was studying the pictures on her walls.

She flipped to the last page of the packet, which was the section on what she should do now.  It described some tips on how she might help him find a job and a
djust to his new life.  It said
that
he ate food similar to hers and had no allergies that she needed to be aware of.  When she finished the rest of the contents, she rolled her eyes.  What did they think he was?  A pet?  A
child?  If he read through the packet
, he might be insulted.  She knew she’d be if it was her they were describing.

“Who is this?” Chris asked.

She placed the packet back into the envelope and shoved it in her desk drawer.  Looking at the picture he pointed to, she said, “That was my first husband, Randy.”

“You
’re already married?” he asked in surprise.

“No.  He’s not alive anymore.”

“So why do you still have his picture up?”

She shrugged.  “Just because someone dies, it doesn’t mean you don’t cherish their memory.” That might be awkward for him, considering that he was supposedly her new husband, but it was the truth.

He nodded and proceeded
to the next picture.

She swirled in her chair so she could bring up the Internet.  Now to look at her financial documents.  She brought up her bank account first.  To her dismay after she typed in her usernam
e and password, it greeted her as
Caitlyn West
.  She went through her credit card statements
and her utility bills. 
Caitlyn West.
  Over and over again, her last name was West.  She had just paid her electric bill that morning and distinctly
remember
ed
seeing
Caitlyn Davis
.

She picked up her purse and pulled out her wallet.  She blinked.  How was this possible?  Everything, her driver’s license, her social security card, her credit car
ds, even her library card read
Cai
tlyn West
.  Her jaw dropped and she looked over at Chris who was now looking through her DVD collection.  There was no way he or anyone else could pull
off
something this elaborate.  And that left only one conclusion: he was telling the truth.

And that meant she was m
arried to him.  She groaned, threw her arms on the desk and put her head down.  How could this be possible?  A place for people to buy wishes existed in outer space?  There was a planet without any women on it so the men sought out places like Earth to inhabit?  Other planets with other intelligent life forms on it?  It was too much to take in at once.

“Caitlyn, are you alright?”

She took a deep breath and lifted her head, glancing at the man—her husban
d—who stared at her in
concern.  With a loud sigh, she returned her gaze to the computer screen where her
electric bill welcomed her as
Caitlyn
West
.  She rubbed her eyes.  “It’s going to take me time to get used to this,” she admitted.  There was no sense in denying any of it was true.  It was.  She could only hope Chris wasn’t psychotic.

To her surprise, he went over to her, knelt by her, and rubbed her back.  His touch was gentle but firm.  “I don’t know why, but I thought the agency would have warned you I was coming.”

“You didn’t escape from your planet because you did something horrible, did you?”