Your Planet or Mine? (5 page)

Heels clicking on the linoleum, she left the man far behind. Probably she should pick up some milk while she was here. At home, she was all out. She snagged a bunch of ripe bananas on her way past a display and headed for dairy. Her arms were filling up with impulse purchases. She always did this. Soon she’d need a cart.

She turned up aisle nine. At the end stood the man in interstellar body armor. About-face. She spun on her heel and chose the next aisle over. It had been a horrible day. The last thing she needed was to be stalked by a store model, even one this arrestingly handsome. Or was it arrestingly familiar? Arrestingly something. Whatever it was, it was exactly what she didn’t need right now.

But halfway to the milk, the muscled Halo2 hunk caught up to her. She didn’t care how arresting he was; if he kept this up he was going to get himself arrested. “Listen, I’m in a hurry. I—”

“Jana.”

The way he said her name reverberated to her toes. Her coral-painted toes. The ones the sturgeon liked. The ones that put her into heat over strange armored men in supermarkets.
Note to self: never wear coral nail polish again—not out in public, anyway
.

“We met as children,” he said.

“We did?” She searched her memory and came up with nothing.

His body armor creaked as he took another step closer. “I never forgot you. It was why I had to come back for you.”

He sounded so genuine, too. Too bad it was all an act. But when she looked into his eyes, really looked deep and hard, her heart gave a little hitch.
Magic.

No!
No magic! Anything but that. She gave her head a hard shake. “Sorry, I have to—”

“Jana, you must listen. Earth is under threat from space. There is time to prepare, but no time to waste. You must take me to your leader.”

“Very convincing, but I have to get going. I have to work tomorrow. Early. An appearance with my
leader’s
wife leads the day, as a matter of fact.” And Jana would bet Mary Ann Schwarzkopf was at home relaxing, not being chased through a grocery store by a guy dressed in interstellar body armor.

“Please, your world is scheduled for acquisition. I came here to inform you of this news at great risk. A risk I have gladly taken for you, Jana.” Emotion seethed in his eyes. “Come, we must talk—but not here.”

The more he said, the crazier he sounded—and looked—and she was getting a little scared. Forget the milk. She’d drink her coffee black for breakfast.

She made a beeline for the front of the store and the safety of the checkout line.

“What’s the Halo2 promotion for?” she asked the cashier as she swiped her ATM card through the reader.

The woman shrugged as she bagged the items. “They don’t tell me anything.”

Jana was about to say that the man was a bit of a stalker, and a little too into the role-playing for his own good, but she’d hate to see him get in trouble if this was something he needed to do for the money.

Jana worked hard, maybe to the sacrifice of what was commonly known as a life, but she worked out of a passion to serve, not for the money. Fortune had been kind to the Jaspers, and because of that, she felt she owed something back to society. Her circumstances were fortunate, yes, yet she never forgot that others didn’t have it as easy as she did.

Maybe she was making too big of a deal out of this. Stress had probably magnified the situation. He was a guy in costume, someone she’d met and didn’t remember, and he wanted to flirt. That’s all. On any other night, she’d have probably flirted back.

Jana grabbed the groceries and walked out into the night air. Fog had covered more of the sky. The visibility would go down soon. She wanted to get home before it did. Fog in the winter was part of living in Sacramento, but she wasn’t any good driving in it. She picked up her pace. Out in the open space bordering the parking lot, an owl hooted. Where suburbia met the wild. People paid good money to live here and hear owls and coyotes along with lawn mowers and leaf blowers. She paid good money to live in the city, too, but all she heard were police sirens and car alarms.

Heavy footfalls crunched behind her. Body armor rustled. The action figure had followed her outside.

Darn it. No—
damn it.

She threw a nervous glance around the parking lot.
Be calm. Be aware of your surroundings.
One checker helped a couple load groceries in their trunk, but they were several rows away across the lot. If she screamed, they’d hear her. Probably.

She rummaged through her purse for her mini canister of pepper spray disguised as a key chain as she calculated how hard it would be to swing the bag of groceries and knock him out. Pretty hard, seeing that her bag was filled with bananas and a melting container of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food that she was dying to eat and couldn’t because of this crazed hunk in the Halo2 body armor who wouldn’t leave her alone.

“Jana…wait.”

She wanted to scream. To scream at the top of her lungs until all the frustration had emptied out of her and she was left a quivering but satisfyingly empty blob on the ground.

However, lacking the freedom to scream herself into a coma, all the emotion of the day threatened to explode as she turned on him. Only with a monumental effort did she keep her temper under control. “Look, I’ve had a very, very bad day. You have no idea how bad. Please don’t follow me anymore. I’m not interested in flying saucers and spacemen and alien invasions…”

She let her voice trail off as a couple walked past and gave them both a strange look. Jana wanted to sink into the pavement and disappear. Wasn’t she supposed to be keeping a low profile? It was really hard when a guy who was almost seven feet tall in his platform combat boots kept following you around ranting about alien invasions.

She backed up. “I’m going now, and you’re going to stay here.” She opened her cell phone. “Or I’ll call 911.” Her thumb hovered threateningly over the 9.

He lifted his arms to the sides, entreating her, palms up. “Please. Squee…it’s me.”

Jana’s breath caught in her throat, and her eyes widened. What did he say?

Squee
. She hadn’t heard that word since…since she was nine years old. Only one person had said that word, ever. Only one.

“Now you remember, Jana. Finally.” His voice sounded huskier, almost tender. “I can see it in your eyes.”

He stood there, watching her reaction, an armor-clad hulk with a short military haircut, a square chin and vulnerable eyes—vulnerable
green
eyes.

Peter. Her wild, exotic, magical boy.
I wished for you to come back. I wished
.

No magic. “No!” She blinked out of the trance. “You’re not him.”

There were a few heartbeats of silence. Then he said, “Yes, I am.”

J
ANA’S HEAD SPUN
as if she’d been drinking. She might as well have been, with this grown man standing in front of her in the parking lot of Safeway insisting that he was her childhood imaginary friend, reincarnated. Or re-in-
something.
She narrowed her eyes and, using a mental version of the age progression used in the photos on the backs of milk cartons, tried to imagine Peter—and came up with a man who looked frighteningly close to this one.

“You’re imaginary.” She backed up, shaking her head. “You’re not real.”

His voice deepened another notch. “Is it not a good thing that I am in fact real?”

Jana stuttered at the sexy glint in his eyes. For a brief, sharp instant of panic, she was brought back to the days when she couldn’t get out the words. “Are you really Peter?”

“Peter?”

No, of course he wouldn’t know that name. She’d given it to him. But she’d ask some questions only Peter would know. “Where were you when I first saw you?”

He stepped forward. She stepped back. “Is this a test?” he asked.

“Of course it’s a test. Answer the question, or we’re done. Where did I first see you?”

“I was hanging from a branch in a tree outside your dwelling. You freed me.”

Another wave of dizziness came over her. She looked in his eyes, hoping one last time to see a stranger. She didn’t. She saw Peter. Adulthood had gifted him with a great mouth, just the way she liked them: wide with a friendly tilt at each end, with lips thin enough to be masculine, and luscious enough for long, deep, curl-your-toes kisses. That was, if he knew how to use that mouth.
Don’t go there, Jana, not now
.

He stepped forward, and again she stepped back. “If you’re an alien, where did you put your spaceship?”

“At the site of my original landing at your habitat.”

“You mean at the ranch? You left your spaceship
at the ranch?
” It was the very last thing her family needed now. In her mind, the headlines roared: Jaspers Summon Aliens For Secret Meetings. Public Trust Erodes Further.

“Yes. I hid it using invisibility technology. Just as my science vessel was hidden many circuits ago—many
years
ago, rather—when I first visited your world with my father. But I landed under attack. My pursuer found my ship and nearly vaporized it. But I got him back. I don’t think he’ll be flying his ship any time soon, either.”

“You’re stranded here?”
Don’t yell, Jana. Use your quiet voice
.

“Until I can figure out another way home, yes.”

Suddenly, the world exploded into blinding white light.

The man-who-would-be-Peter grabbed her, pushing her out of the way as something whizzed by her jaw with a breathy shriek.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the asphalt with Peter’s heavy body crushing her. “Assassin,” he hissed in her ear.

His hot breath made her shiver. “Get off—”

He pressed his glove over her mouth. “He’ll hear you. And then he’ll kill you.”

Kill? Assassin? The odor of hot metal and burning rubber seeped into her rattled mind. Her vision cleared. Silvery dots littered the ground like mercury. But it wasn’t mercury; the drops were cooling off too fast, solidifying. It was molten metal.

She followed the trail of silver to the door of the car next to her—a late-model SUV. The front looked normal, the rear looked normal, but a jagged, smoking line ran from top to bottom down the center. Something popped. Then, with a horrible creaking, cracking sound, the two halves of the car collapsed outward and smashed to the pavement.

Real terror, sharp and cold, shot through her. The car had been sliced clean through. What kind of weapon cut through a car like a hot knife through butter?

Another burst of light ripped apart the pavement, only inches from where they hid. Chunks of gooey asphalt flew into the air. The bitter smell burned her nose and eyes. Halo2, aka Peter, twisted around and returned fire. People screamed from somewhere farther away in the parking lot.

Jana shook from fear—of getting hurt or killed, definitely; but running a close second was the fear of seeing the headlines in the newspaper in the morning: Jasper Taken Hostage—Was It Staged To Deflect Public Scrutiny From The Ongoing Investigation? She moaned. There were times when the best publicity was no publicity, and this was one of them.

Halo2 hauled her off her feet. “Keep your head down!”

He dragged her with him down the row of cars. Somehow she held on to her shopping bag and purse. His gloved hand pushed on the back of her head every time she tried to take a look around. Another flash of light, and the air snapped with static. He threw open a car door and shoved her behind the wheel. “Get in!” he ordered.

“This isn’t my car—”

“In!”

“I don’t have keys!” she screamed back at him.

He thrust out his left arm. Around his wrist was a very expensive-looking piece of tech, fitted to his arm like a gauntlet. Riddled with tiny lights, it was labeled with letters in a language she didn’t recognize. He aimed the thing at the ignition and the car started.

Holy crap,
she thought.
How did he do that?

He fell into the passenger seat and pulled the gold visor over his face. “Drive.”

“This is stealing.”

“Drive!”

Another burst of light arced terrifyingly close. She jammed her foot on the accelerator and they were off. With a squeal of tires, they roared out of the Safeway parking lot.

“Who’s shooting at us?” she demanded.

“A REEF. He’s a bioengineered, computer-enhanced soldier developed to be an assassin from birth. Part man, part robot.”

Like the Terminator. Jana’s mind whirled in disbelief. She was behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle, fleeing a robotic killer with an alien. This was
not
the way to keep a low profile.

She kept one hand on the steering wheel and moved her other to the door handle as she calculated the speed and weighed it against how much it would hurt if she jumped out now. She’d run back to her car, head home. A few bandages and a good night’s sleep later and she’d be ready for her breakfast with the first lady and the Brownie troop.

“Both hands on the wheel! We’re in line of sight and he’s got a plasma rifle. One mistake and we’re powdered DNA!”

Jana grimaced. “You don’t have to yell!”

He softened his tone a little. “My name is Cavin, by the way. Cavin of Far Star. I never told you that.”

“Apparently there are a lot of things you never told me.” He looked too human to be believable as an alien, but here they were in the midst of a firefight with a robot-assassin who could slice cars in half, and not only was Peter’s—uh, Cavin’s—clothing nothing she’d ever seen outside one of her nephew’s video games, with a flick of his wrist, he was able to start and steal whatever vehicle he wanted.

“Ah!” Jana flinched at the screech of brakes and a blaring horn. She’d run a red light. She, who’d gotten only one ticket her entire life—and that was for going two minutes overtime at a parking meter.

“This way.” Cavin jerked the wheel to the right and pointed her down a side street lined with neat rows of upscale homes. They were less than three blocks from Evie’s house. She could walk there. She could borrow Evie’s Honda and still make it home before midnight. She let up on the accelerator.

“Faster.” He turned the rearview mirror to better see it. “He’s got us in his sights.”

A man walking his dog stared at them as they flew by. “We’re going to hit someone!” She took her foot off the accelerator.

Cavin slid his leg over as if to cram his heavy boot on the gas. His foot hovered menacingly. “Either you do it, or I do it.”

Jana shoved his leg away. “I’ll do it.” At least she’d be able to maintain some sense of control. But the SUV sputtered and slowed. A chime dragged her attention to the dash. The low fuel light was on. Hooray! It was the best luck she’d had all day. “It’s out of gas.”

“Out,” Cavin said.

“Yes. Completely out.” She laughed maniacally. God bless busy parents who pushed filling up to the last minute.

“No,
out
.” He leaned over her lap and shoved open the door. “He’s coming. We’ve got to get out now and run.”

“Where?” She turned around. The street was dark and empty. “I don’t see him.”

Cavin thrust the wrist gauntlet at her. A tiny map showed a red X. It slid with menace toward a white square. “Tell me we’re not the square,” she said.

“I wish I could.” He pushed her, and she stumbled into the street. She grabbed for her purse and the bag of groceries. The smell of bananas was strong, telling her that they’d gotten crushed. But she didn’t dare leave the groceries behind and turn them into evidence that could link her to this fiasco. “What about fingerprints? Mine are in the database and—”

“I wiped the car clean. No trace of DNA is left.”

God bless technology. Cavin grabbed her by the hand and pulled her down the center of the street. By now, all the dogs on the block were barking. A few porch lights were on that weren’t on before. Where could she run and hide where no one would see her? A ski mask would have come in handy. In the future, she’d have to remember to keep one in her purse.

The heel of her left pump broke off. “Piece of shit.” Oh, Grandpa would have been proud of the deterioration in her language. She hopped along and threw off the other shoe. It clanged against a mailbox. In about two seconds, her panty hose were trashed. Pebbles pierced her heels. “Ow, ow.” She dropped the bananas, thought about backtracking to retrieve them and nixed the idea. She still had the shopping bag and the all-important receipt with her identity attached. Space invaders or not, she didn’t want to be linked to this mayhem in any shape, any form.

She was still within walking distance of Evie’s house. The plan to commandeer the Honda would still work. She’d be home by midnight. “I have a plan,” she gasped.

“What’s that?”

“You go on ahead. Run where you need to. Lose the assassin, and I’ll hide.” She tried to wriggle her hand from Cavin’s strong grip.

“No, Jana.” Cavin grabbed her wrists and pulled her close. Shadows fell across his face, illuminating the urgency there. His expression was masculine, take-charge. He was adorable, but there was nothing “pretty-boy” about him. With a swell of longing, she realized he was everything she’d been looking for in a man, and couldn’t find.

Miss Snow…Miss Virgin Snow
. She squeezed her eyes shut, the visual equivalent of holding her hands over her ears and singing, “Lah lah lah.”

“I didn’t know about the assassin, Jana. I’m sorry for that. I thought whoever had pursued me had died in the crash, and never did I assume it was a REEF. Mistakes, all. But if you take off alone, there’s no guarantee the REEF will follow me and not you. At least with me you have a chance. Trust me, Squee.” Again, the pet name made her heart twist. “Like the night you let me take you into the air. We flew.”

“We crashed. Together we were too heavy.”

He looked to the sky and shook his head. “Gods, all these years I remember the flying. She remembers the crashing. What about afterward when we watched the moon rise over the water? We didn’t know a word of each other’s language, but it didn’t matter. We didn’t feel the need for speech. Do you remember that?”

“Yes,” she said in a smaller voice.

Apparently satisfied by her answer, Cavin tugged her along again, but this time at a reasonable jog. She half limped, half ran to keep up with him. Gasping to catch her breath, she shoved damp strands of hair off her forehead. All of it had spilled out of the chignon she’d anchored with two cloisonné picks, and who knew where those had gone. Her suit was stained and smelled like bananas, and her panty hose hung in shreds. “What are you?” she asked. “The truth.”

“I’m a man.”

“Yes, I got that part.” Loud and clear, too. “
Who
are you, besides an alien?”

“I’m a soldier in the Coalition Space Force. I enlisted too young to become a pilot and then when I was finally old enough, I realized I liked what I was doing more. A ground fighter—a ‘grunt’ as it is known here on Earth. Staying alive, keeping my friends alive…I wasn’t looking for glory.”

His hair was cropped short now, a military cut, but still as shiny as she’d remembered. She wondered what they’d said to him at training camp when he’d showed up with his long braided locks. “What’s the Coalition? Your planet?”

“No, the Coalition controls thousands of worlds. Including Earth.”

Jana bristled. “Earth still controls Earth.”

“Not for long.” Cavin aimed his wrist gauntlet at a brand-new silver Lexus sedan parked in a driveway. “The Coalition parliament and the queen have approved your world for acquisition.”

“They what?”

Bip, bip
went the sound of a car alarm being disarmed. Lights came on inside the Lexus.

“Hey, what are you doing? Cavin, no—”

“Get in.”

She folded her arms over her ruined suit. “Make me.”

He scooped her up into his arms and dropped her into the driver’s seat, leaning over her to buckle her seat belt. His mouth and those mesmerizing lips were very close to hers. “Drive, or die at the hands of the most feared assassin in the galaxy.”

“You argue very convincingly,” she said, a little breathless.

“This isn’t an argument.” His voice was thick, telling her he felt the heat between them, too. “It’s an order.”

“Hey!” Someone shouted from an upstairs window. “Get out of my car!”

Jana’s stomach dropped. The man aimed his cell phone at her to take a picture. She ducked down before he could get a clear shot. Drive away or run? Quickly she weighed the risk of having to explain her role in all this versus the still-viable chance of getting through this at the end, alive and undiscovered. “Get in, Cavin.”

He landed in the passenger seat. The car started as the doors slammed, encasing them in leather-soft, luxury-car silence. Cavin had no leg room. His knees were crammed against the dash, halfway to the ceiling.

“He took a picture of you,” she said frantically.