Erin stared at the frozen man in the box. Someone, probably Nate, had covered Angus’s privates with a small cloth. The rest of his prime body had been left on display. What she didn’t understand is why the sight of him still stirred her girly parts when she saw acres of muscles on nearly naked aliens every damn day. It was like some stubborn part of her saw only Angus McNamara in that manner.

“Tell me something, Nate. Do ya have nunneries here in Universe 1?”

Nate’s head lifted from Angus’s chart. “His liver needs three more days to renew itself. It took a whole day just to detoxify it. He must have drank at least three of the large ales. One would have done any normal man in. That stuff is potent.”

He made a notation, then lifted his head. “Nunneries? I don’t remember that term in my twentieth century history class in college.”

“Back in Universe 6 in our time there are men and women who give up sex forever when they go serve their monotheistic god. The women go to a nunnery. The men go to a monastery. Once there the women, not the men mind you, marry an invisible man representing their god, and then that’s it for their sex life. That’s an oversimplification, but I’m guessing you get my meaning.”

Nate walked to stand by her side. “Yes. I think I do.”

Erin shook her head. “My mother wanted me to go into a nunnery. You’re the first person I ever told that to. I became a pagan to escape the fate she planned for me. I studied all I could find on the old Celtic gods and turned myself into a follower of Brighid, mostly because she had red hair and I’d always fancied being ginger-haired.”

Nate chuckled at her story and hoped it was a proper reaction. Since Erin smiled, he figured he’d guessed correctly. “So I take it you didn’t give up sex forever.”

Erin shook her head. “No, Goddess no, but right around the time Agent Black collected me, I had been feeling like I had ended up with the same fate my mother wished for me all on my own. Standing here just now, I realized Angus MacNamara was the fecking reason.”

Nate thought for a moment and then cleared his throat. “Is there a reason you’re confessing this to me? Or am I indulging in nothing more than wishful thinking that you might someday find me appealing as a man?”

Erin laughed. “Well, ya do seem like a real catch, but that wasn’t my exact point. I was actually reflecting on how much time I’ve given to that fecking caveman in the box there. The whole town of Lisdoonvarna knew I cared about Angus even though I kept it mostly to myself. I felt it was shameful to care for a man who never saw me as a woman for nine years. More shameful even than getting with child at twenty-seven from a man who never intended to stay with me. I certainly haven’t been too smart about men. Guess that’s why I get so much from helping other women be a bit smarter about their choices.”

Nate nodded. “What’s stopping you from starting over? If you’re worried about the matchmaker legend dying out, relationships don’t typically last more than fifty years or so here. In the typical 300 years a person lives in Universe 1, they have at least three or four long lasting relationships. No one questions a person’s need to change partners. You and Angus could say your breakup was just that phase for you both. People are going to find your Universe 6 accents harder to accept than you switching up life partners.”

Erin chuckled. “Ya make it all sound very easy, but making the decision with my brain is not my problem. It’s getting my heart to go along. He’s beaten down my ego in every way possible. Director John said he’d have to swap my Angus out for another if Angus really wanted to leave this place. Now I find myself wondering if another version of him might think differently about me. Yet at the same time, I’m nearly panicked at the thought I’ll never see the fecking moron in this box again.”

Nate crossed his arms, trapping his notation pad against his chest. “You two have me wondering who the real matchmaker is here.”

“What do ya mean?” Erin asked.

“He’s ‘staying out of ya’ to quote his words, because Angus knows you’re going to make him be better than he’d be without you. Isn’t that how all relationships work?”

“I can’t believe Angus MacNamara said those words to you,” Erin exclaimed, blushing at the thought.

Nate snickered. “Healers have to count drunken ramblings. It’s part of the oath we take.”

“You’re joking,” Erin declared.

“About the oath? Yes. But Angus really did say that about you.”

“Something he’d never admit to my face because I’d call him an eegit. Angus MacNamara is a fecking arse of a man,” Erin said softly.

Nate smiled at her cursing. “I’ll lie if you tell me it will help you get over him.”

“Go on with yer teasing,” Erin said. “He had me once and it didn’t change a thing for the better.”

“Did it make it any worse?” Nate asked.

Her sigh was loud. “No. Feck no. I’m standing here staring at him in a box and praying to Brighid that his liver gets better. I know damn well he’ll just try to pickle it again. Women can be such fools to keep hoping when it’s hopeless.”

Nate shook his head. “Since you shared a secret with me, I’ll share one with you. I have a theory about why the aliens who saved us asked for women instead of asking for gold like everyone expected. Their airships run on gold, you know. Most terrain planets have it in short supply. New Earth happens to have it in abundance. Funny thing though… they pay for any gold they get from us. However, they bribe us for our women by withholding their real help unless we give them some.”

“Go on with yer theory. I’m listening,” Erin said, her gaze locked to Nate’s serious one.

“Women on this planet, no matter the universe they hail from, do the unexpected. They believe in the impossible and love the most impossible men. Aliens revere our women for their passionate approach to everything they care about. These aliens often come from violent cultures, but they come here and pretend to be docile as lambs in our program. They will do anything to be one of those who brings a woman of New Earth back into their culture. They want passionate daughters who will renew their planets with the same boundless hope you detest in yourself. It’s a kind of will to survive being manifested in other cultures in the most unusual way anyone could ever have imagined happening.”

“Ya have a very glib tongue, Nate. Are ya sure ya are not a poet?” Erin asked.

Nate chuckled. “No. I’m a jaded healer with five failed relationships behind him. I’ve had no woman in my life for a couple of years. Only the unusual ones like you ever attract my attention. Then they get to know me, and as you would say—it doesn’t take.”

Erin hung her head as she smiled. “It’s very nice to hear you’re attracted to me, but…”

“I’m not a cursing, farting matchmaker ya can’t fecking get over?” Nate teased.

Erin laughed. “Maybe ya could put me in the cooking box and see if ya can fix my mind. I’m obviously daft.”

“I’m afraid the rejuvenation cylinder only fixes the physical body. We let the mind heal itself. There was a time in our history where we convinced ourselves we could control emotions, reactions, and nearly every function of the brain. There was only one problem with all that lovely control we learned. That thing in us that isn’t physical… that spark of life that makes us each unique… it would still surface and take over first chance it got. Since the invasion of New Earth and our near annihilation, we’ve learned to cherish each human’s uniqueness. If we hadn’t been able to see that some aliens were good, Universe 1 would have been destroyed. So being daft, as you call it, has its purpose in the big scheme of things.”

“Ya are a very smart man, Nate. I’ll give yer theory a think or two,” Erin promised. “Thanks for making me feel a little less like a fool for caring for him.”

“Maybe I’m the one who’s really daft then,” Nate teased.

Erin chuckled over him repeating her words. “When Angus MacNamara has to be put back into this fecking cooking box over and over, remember ya were the one who said it, not me. For now, I will just agree with ya and go on about my business.”

When Nate laughed at her joke, Erin decided it was a shame she couldn’t stop longing for a man who might never appreciate her the way someone like Nate could.