Colin hoped to rise and leave for work early in the morning before Genevieve woke. He needed a clear head for his meeting, and a confrontation with her prior to that would just throw his focus off. But, when he couldn’t find a clean dish anywhere for his coffee and breakfast, he wondered what the blast she could have done with them all.

He wasn’t a morning person as it was, and for her to come between him and his coffee by hiding all the self-brewing and heating thermal tumblers put a scowl on his face that he didn’t bother to try and hide. He marched into the bedroom and shook her by the shoulder, not caring if she slapped at his hand again.

But this time, she just started and rolled over. “Ugh, you again,” she said and rubbed at her eyes. Then, he thought he heard her mutter something like, “I thought this would be over by now.” But he didn’t bother asking her to repeat it.

“What did you do with all the dishes?” he said.

She frowned. “I cleaned them up like you asked me to. You should be grateful.”

“Cleaned them and put them where?”

She rose slowly, shooting him a look of disdain. He tried to ignore the slim ankles and dainty bare feet that were exposed as she scooted to the edge of the bed to stand. With a toss of her hair, she regally led the way to the kitchen where she opened one of the upper storage cabinets, one he hadn’t bothered to check because he never stored anything there, and pointed.

“You’re welcome,” she said, with a small satisfied smile.

He stared in disbelief at the stack of filth and reached up to remove them. “What the...” Yes, closer inspection revealed that they were indeed still dirty. “These aren’t clean,” he said. “You just hid all the dishes?”

She frowned. “I didn’t hide them. You said to clean up.”

He stared at her in silence, jaw clenched.

“I cleaned up,” she insisted.

“No, you didn’t,” he said. “You think this is a joke? That you can come here, lay around, and destroy my dead wife’s possessions? The only memories I have left of her? I have no idea which constellation you came from, but you’ve gone too far. You are unbelievably selfish!” She flinched back from the finger he pointed in her face. “And at the worst possible time. Do you even know what’s going on right now? Can’t you even picture how bad, how serious—” He cut himself off because his voice had risen to a shout, and his chest was heaving with emotion. Anger never solved anything, but oh how good it had felt to indulge it for half a second.

Genevieve’s eyes had widened, the gold centers highlighted now by the gold fabric she was clad in. She stepped back.

Shit, he’d scared her. He paced a few steps away and tried to gather himself. They were still strangers to each other and he didn’t want her to feel threatened. But how else could she feel? At the moment, she was a small dependent female, and he’d just towered over her and yelled like maniac because he hadn’t been able to get his coffee when he wanted it.

He turned to face her again and was surprised to find her directly behind him, so close that he almost bumped into her. Her cheeks were now flushed and her eyes sparkled with anger. “If I didn’t clean the way you wanted me to, it isn’t my fault! You left me here alone and gave me no choice. I did the best I could! And I ... I don’t know how to clean!” The last part came out in a wail, stunning him.

Of all the excuses she could have given, that was one he was completely unprepared for. What kind of human being didn’t know how to clean? And, from the looks of her, she wasn’t putting on a show. Her frustration was sincere. A few tears had even gathered in her eyes.

But, for the first time in a long time, Colin wasn’t alarmed by the sight female tears. In fact, he was damned admiring when flipped her hair back over her shoulders, flicked a tear from beneath her eye with a fingertip, and said in a haughty voice, “You know what? It doesn’t matter. I did what you asked. On top of that, I cleaned the rest of the place and also made it beautiful and you didn’t even thank me! You said this was my home now. And, if it is, then I’m allowed to put my own touch on it, not that you left me anything to do that with. So I had to be resourceful. And I know I did a wonderful job on your sterile, boring, square-of-an-excuse for a home!” She paced half a step forward and nearly spat the words in his face.

He was the one to take a step back this time. Where in the multiverse had she come from? And how had she gotten to this age without learning to do something as basic as clean? Had she come from a wealthy family and was now trying to escape something? That was the only scenario he could think of that would fit. Whatever the reason was, clearly it was a strong enough motivation for her to leave what must have been a very comfortable life to come to this experimental rock. And he could only have compassion for that.

“You didn’t show me how to do the things you wanted me to do,” she was saying now, continuing her tirade. “What did you expect?”

He blinked. “You’re right.”

“Everything here is new to me—” she seemed to deflate as his words registered. “I ... I am?”

“I just wished you’d told me before I left for work. I would have shown you what to do.” He pushed his sleeves back from his wrists. “Well, all the dishes are dirty now, so we’re going to have to wash them before we can have breakfast. Let’s do them together.”

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GENEVIEVE WATCHED IN fascination as Colin carefully showed her something he called the Solara machine. After explaining how the dishes should be propped up and arranged inside the compartment, together they loaded the first batch for cleaning. After he closed it and showed her which button to press, she stood watching in aw, listening to the faint whirring inside until it beeped a few seconds later.

When Colin opened it again, she lifted a dish and examined it. “It’s clean. How does it do that?”

“With power and some programming.”

“You wield power?”

“Er, not really. Channel energy is more like it. You can’t really wield it.,” he said. “We harness the cleansing rays of the suns with a panel outside and channel it here to the Solara to sterilize them. You’ve never seen a Solara before either?”

“Um, no. We don’t have them where I come from,” she said, and hoped he wouldn’t ask how her people did get dishes clean.

He grunted and looked skeptical. “I guess I’m going to have to show you how to use all the machines if you don’t know how the ones in the kitchen work.”

“That would be best,” she said with complete seriousness.

But rather than looking disappointed with her as he had earlier, he smiled and then laughed, startling Genevieve because it wasn’t the condescending or mocking kind of laughter she was used to getting back home. His first reaction of disappointment at her cleaning and decorating efforts had stabbed deep. Failure was something she should have been accustomed to by now, but wasn’t. The pile of them was just too high not to be a sore spot. It looked like even here, in the human world, she would be just as useless as she was back home. And she’d been so proud of herself for what she’d done so far, felt so empowered by figuring out the problems all on her own, and had even felt the rare emotion of satisfaction in accomplishing something. Then his anger and rejection had made her feel horrible.

His voice was gentle and his green eyes were warm and filled with patience as he showed her how to use the coffee tumblers. She stood watching as the water inside them changed to a rich brown and began to steam as the coffee brewed. And when she smiled in delight, he smiled along with her and answered her questions about how those worked, too. The awful pit in her stomach faded because he wasn’t looking at her like a lost cause the way everyone else she knew did. Somewhere in that moment, something inside Genevieve shifted toward the man.

He answered more question for her, this time about the bathroom facilities, as he showed her again how to use the synthesizer. She could have continued asking him questions all day. Her fascination with all that humans had accomplished in their world with their madness and every explanation he gave her only sparked new questions. There were logical explanations for everything and the man before her seemed to know almost everything. He was quite intelligent, which she found she admired. But, as he finished the last sip of his coffee with an amused smile on his lips, he lifted a hand to stop her.

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“I HAVE TO GET TO WORK,” Colin said. “But I’ll be happy to answer those questions later.”

He really didn’t want to leave. He was having a good time answering Genevieve’s questions. The rapt look on her beautiful face as he answered made him think of the way a child’s mind soaked up information. In addition to that, it gave him an excuse to study her features at leisure, like the way her dark slender brows arched aristocratically over her exotic brown eyes, and the almost imperceptible upward slope of her slender nose. He’d been so engrossed in conversation with her that he’d almost lost track of the time.

“Again? But you went yesterday,” she said, protesting as though he were taking away a game she wasn’t done with.

He couldn’t help but smile at her innocence. He could see now that that’s what it was. She just wasn’t ... from around here. Yes, she was a tad entitled and condescending. But if he listened to his gut, which was right a high percentage of the time, she just didn’t know any better.

“Yes. I go every day,” he said.

“Really?” Her eyes widened, dark eyelashes framing them charmingly. “Don’t you make time for fun at all?”

She looked concerned, as though this answer was the most important of all. “Of course,” he said simply. Though it had been a while since he’d done anything that was commonly known as fun. Fact was, he enjoyed his work and could spend hours lost in it long after the typical workday ended and everyone else had gone home. “It’s just that, right now, the mission is under a tight deadline. But, yes, normally there’s time for relaxation and fun.”

“Oh. Good,” she sighed out a long breath and leaned back in her chair. “But then, what am I supposed to do while you’re gone? I did everything I could find to do last night.”

She looked panicked, as though his leaving her there would be the worst thing he could do to her. And, on second thought, it probably was. Her words reminded him of all the mischief she could get up to within just a few hours. If he left her alone today, what else would she do to his home? Suddenly, he was concerned, too.

He didn’t have time to take her in to town, so he offered her the only other alternative he had left: to bring her to his lab where he could keep an eye on her. Would she go for it? “Uh, well, you can come with me. There’s work you can do at the lab,” he said. “It’s not glamorous or anything. I’m waiting on repair parts for one of the droids, so you’d basically be taking over its tasks.”

She sat up and her expression brightened. “Really?”

Relief shot through him and he was charmed all over again by the rapt look on her face. “Sure. But I need to leave in the next minute. You should wear the clothes you had on yesterday so your dress doesn’t get dirty.”

She hopped out of the chair, gave a small, “Squee!” of excitement and ran to the bedroom. “I’ll be right back!” she called as she disappeared.

Colin couldn’t help grinning and thinking that, right when he thought he’d gotten life figured out, he’d been handed a woman who was full of surprises. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked so forward to seeing what the day would bring.