Chapter Five
Diesel couldn’t believe she’d kissed him. But he intended to enjoy it. He relaxed into her open arms, sliding his hands around her waist, pressing his fingertips into the muscle along either side of her spine as the sultry lip lock continued and then deepened.
After a long and invigorating kiss, Juliana broke away. Diesel released her waist. She sucked in a breath, put the tips of her fingers to her lips as if they’d been burned and stared at him in wonder. Her mouth opened and closed as if she didn’t know what to say. The kiss had been as amazing as their first one. But from this day forward, he’d have to remember this had been their first kiss from her current perspective.
“Now are you satisfied?” he asked. He grinned so she’d understand he wasn’t upset about the kiss.
“Yes. Quite.” She didn’t smile back. She looked a bit dazed. For him, the kiss had been even better than their first.
Juliana took a step back and looked toward her car. Her cheeks blazed bright with color. Without looking at him, she said, “I’m sorry to have been so forward. I don’t know what came over me.” Her expression wasn’t contrite, since she was basically grinning. She seemed happy she’d done it, but confused.
“That’s okay. It wasn’t a trial, trust me.”
She turned toward him and pulled out her steno pad. He panicked for a moment. Hadn’t she taken notes earlier? Using the Defender was difficult in some circumstances. Diesel’s mind traipsed back over the thirty minutes she’d lost—or rather, the twenty-six minutes with her he’d never get back. It was a crime of nature as far as he was concerned. But often he didn’t get to decide his own best interests.
She seemed distracted, but apparently her notebook wasn’t a concern.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Juliana’s sultry, intense gaze came up, shooting a look directly into his eyes. He was mesmerized.
“That kiss…” she said quietly, not finishing the thought. Her eyes narrowed. “It felt comfortable. No. That’s not right.” She stared at him again. “It felt familiar. Have we ever met before?”
Diesel felt his eyes widen. She couldn’t possibly remember. “That’s not what you mean, is it? You’re asking if we’ve ever kissed before.” Space potatoes! What am I saying?
She brightened all of a sudden and a beautiful smile surfaced. She shook her head again. “I know. It’s crazy. Never mind. I’m a little off my game for some reason.” She glanced back at her car for a minute and he wondered if she remembered her “nap.”
He felt the need to distract her. He put a hand on her soft shoulder briefly to gain her attention. “I’m certain that I’d recollect if we had ever kissed before.” It was amazing that first time. I regret only that it was erased from your memory.
Juliana nodded. “I agree. Hard to forget something like that.” Her expression softened and her gaze moved over his shoulder as if her memory went off into the distance trying to recapture a dream.
The Defender removed all human memories for the selected time period as if they’d never occurred. No remembering as if it were a dream. No déjà vu moments where the human thought they’d been here before or experienced something before. The Defender eliminated the memory completely within the prescribed time frame. Always. Without fail.
Luckily it only worked on humans and had no effect on the alien population on Earth. She couldn’t possibly remember anything. So why did it seem like she was remembering their first kiss?
He didn’t know exactly where Cam had placed each and every camera he monitored, just that he was somewhere watching, likely waiting to argue with Diesel over the second kiss. But Diesel didn’t regret it. Besides, he hadn’t instigated it. She had. What did Cam expect him to do? Push her away in disgust? Not a chance.
“Do you have any more questions?” he asked abruptly, thinking about the coming difficult conversation with Cam. There would be a lecture from his security-minded brother to annoy him, even as on some remote level he knew Cam was right about this.
Juliana startled, looked down at her steno pad, flipped a page up, studied it and then looked at him. She glanced back down at her page again, as if contemplating what she wanted to say. Her mouth quirked up on one side. She was obviously wrestling with something. Then he remembered the conversation they’d been having about something a human shouldn’t have known about. Had Cam heard her mention the Boogieman Affair earlier? Since his brother hadn’t castigated him for that yet, Diesel could probably look forward to it next time.
She lowered the page. “I guess that’s all I have for now, but I wonder if we could meet again.”
“Meet? Again?” he said stupidly, as part of his mind warred with how seeing her again was probably not a good idea at the same time he wanted to make a date with her more than anything. Diesel would meet with her anywhere, anytime.
Juliana tapped her notebook with the end of her pen once. “Yes. Maybe when you aren’t working.” I’m always working.
“Sure,” he said. “When did you have in mind?”
“When is your next day off?” I don’t get days off.
“I’m the boss. I can take off whenever I like.” I’m so funny.
She smiled. “Okay. How about next Friday then? I’m free that day.”
Diesel knew Friday was a bad day for her to be at the truck stop. “What if I come to you this time? Then there won’t be a chance of us getting interrupted with my job, because the truth is, whenever I’m here, I’m working.”
Her beautiful smile lit up her face. “Perfect.” She ripped a blank piece of paper out of her steno pad and started writing. “Here is my address. I have a small apartment just off campus, in Doraydo. And I’ll also put my cell phone number down.” She stopped writing and her gaze found his, giving him an intensely gratifying stare. “You know, in case you need to call me before Friday.”
“What time on Friday would you like to meet?” He glanced at the address and number she’d written down to memorize them before folding the paper to shove in his front pocket.
“I could make us some lunch. So how about around eleven o’clock?”
“Great. I’ll be there.” Diesel took a step backward, knowing that if he stayed close, smelling her scent, he might kiss her again.
She looked down and then retreated toward her car, taking a small step in that direction. “I’ll see you in a few days then.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for your time.”
“Sure.”
Juliana got into her car, started it up and backed out of the parking space. Diesel didn’t exhale until she drove out of the truck stop parking lot. He stood there for several minutes watching her car merge onto the surprisingly light Route 88 traffic headed west toward Doraydo, a nearby college town.
Wait until he mentioned to anyone in his family that he was taking Friday off to visit a human in another town. She lives in Doraydo, less than an hour away. That news would certainly generate some wild speculation and fuel the truck stop gossip mill for weeks to come.
Even the idea of being the fodder for gossip didn’t stop Diesel from looking forward to seeing Juliana again.
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Juliana drove home as if in a trance. She didn’t remember arriving at the Big Bang Truck Stop and she barely remembered the drive back to her place. What she did remember, vividly, was kissing Diesel Grey. That moment played over and over in her mind all the way back to Doraydo.
Before she knew it she was a mile away from pulling into her apartment parking lot, marveling at her lack of awareness during both the trip to Alienn and the return journey. Not to mention the surprise nap she’d taken before even going inside the truck stop’s convenience store to inquire about speaking to the manager.
The boringly named College Apartments sign and turn-off came up soon enough. She steered her car into the lot and drove slowly toward her assigned space. She’d been lucky to find this place.
The apartment she had lived in since moving to Arkansas was a bit older, but also very clean and the neighbors were friendly. The ones she saw, anyway. She’d renewed the lease after graduation because a quick search around town yielded nothing else she could afford.
Besides, it would be difficult to leave Miss Penny behind.
Her neighbor across the hall was quite a pistol, but she was also a good soul. No matter what time of the day or night Juliana returned to her apartment, Miss Penny would stick her head out and offer a greeting.
Juliana hadn’t figured out how Miss Penny sensed her comings and goings, but she always did. Perhaps she was psychic or she had a motion detector trained on Juliana’s assigned parking space.
Either way, true to form, Juliana had just stepped on her welcome mat when her neighbor cracked opened the front door directly across from her place. Miss Penny scanned Juliana from head to toes with her rheumy-eyed gaze. “Hello, Juliana. Late night at the campus job or were you coming from someplace else?”
Juliana turned politely and said, “Both. I came from somewhere else, and I was working on a special project for a writing job.”
Miss Penny studied her face for a moment longer than usual, but it was as if she wasn’t seeing Juliana at all.
“Everything okay, Miss Penny?”
The older woman dropped her intent gaze, shook a head with frizzled graying hair framing a wizened face and smiled. “I’m fine, just fine. And I think you’ll be fine, too, young lady.”
“Thanks, Miss Penny.” Juliana didn’t want to be rude, but she wanted to get inside. Miss Penny—as if sensing her hurry—had already closed her door.
Once inside her coveted first-floor apartment, she pulled the steno pad out of her purse, wondering again why she hadn’t asked Diesel the “real” question she’d gone to get answered. All she’d managed were soft-ball queries regarding the cellular signal and far-out rumors about resident aliens.
She didn’t remember writing the note to herself to check on cellular providers to discover if they had reason not to erect towers to deliver service in that area, but there it was on her notepad. Maybe there was a good reason. Or the renegade aliens had kept the towers out because it was easier to take over the world without immediate discovery. Juliana shook her head, closing her eyes in foolish defeat.
She’d been so fired up to find out about the Boogieman Affair? But had choked and never even brought the question up. What was wrong with her?
Had there truly been a malevolent creature loose in the streets of Alienn causing mayhem and chaos for the residents less than a year ago? Had it been swiftly covered up? Would she have the nerve to ask Diesel when he came over on Friday for lunch? She’d gone to ask him hard-hitting questions like an investigative reporter on the trail of a hot news story, and instead she’d kissed a gorgeous stranger like it was her job, on the flimsy premise that he seemed familiar, and promptly garnered a date for four days from now.
Juliana paused for a moment to relive that amazing kiss. She’d never kissed a veritable stranger before, but she’d been compelled to discover if Diesel tasted like she expected he would, which was totally crazy.
The kiss had been marvelous and exactly what she’d thought it would be. It had been perfect in every way, down to a resounding feeling of familiarity. And yet they’d never met before. Had they? No. She would have remembered him. No question in her mind on that score.
She pulled her purse off one shoulder and plopped it on the table by the front door. Keys still in her hand, she dropped them in the dish next to her purse. She was about to empty her pockets, but heard a strange noise outside her door. It sounded like someone had dropped something heavy on her porch, which then slid hard, bouncing against the bottom of the door.
Juliana peered through the peep hole, but saw nothing. She walked over to the left side of the door and peeked out the window. Nothing. She inhaled deeply and exhaled before opening the door a crack with the flimsy chain in place. She didn’t see it at first, but then figured it out. She stared down and frowned. An apple with a single bite taken out of it rested against the threshold of her doorframe on her welcome mat. How rude and wasteful.
She picked it up, careful not to touch the eaten part, closed and re-locked her front door and threw the gnawed fruit in her kitchen trash next to the counter.
The sound of change in her pocket reminded her to return to the bowl where she kept her car keys and loose change and empty her pockets. There was nothing other than coins in one pocket, but in the other she was surprised to find a business card-sized piece of gray paper. Where had this come from?
One side featured the Big Bang Truck Stop logo and a coupon for five percent off a gas purchase.
She flipped the card over and read, “Maxwell the Martian says, Our Fearless Leader thinks you’re very pretty, too.”
What in the world was this?