Chapter Eight
“What?” Diesel looked shell-shocked. Juliana didn’t want to talk about her lonely, pathetic existence on this planet anymore, so she pivoted.
“That’s the other question I forgot to ask you last time we were together. The truth is, I didn’t really forget. I just wanted to ask it when we were alone.”
Diesel didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped closer and kissed her again very thoroughly, very firmly, very aggressively. It was amazing. Juliana enjoyed it for a few minutes and then pulled her mouth from his. “You can’t keep kissing me every time I ask a question you don’t want to answer.”
“Why not? I like kissing you.” He slid his palms along her face gently, dropped them to her shoulders and then to her back, pulled her close, stared into her eyes and kissed her again. Passionately, like it had been done since the dawn of humanity when a man wanted to coax a woman into a deeper…connection.
She was lost to it. Lost to him. Wanted him. Needed him.
Juliana danced him backward toward her bedroom. He was the first man she’d ever wanted to take there…needed to take there.
She couldn’t wait another second to discover what it felt like to be pressed to him, naked. She’d thought about this rather scandalous prospect all week, hoping he didn’t change his mind or cancel their date.
Crap.
This was their first date. She shouldn’t sleep with him on their first date. What would it say about her if she lured him to her bedroom in the first hour they were together? She slowed her pace, clinching him tighter, kissing him harder.
Then she thought of something. He’d told her he didn’t shapeshift on the first date. But when? Juliana remembered it like a dream. Like the dream she’d had before waking up in her car and meeting him in the convenience store. Wait. How could that be? That had been a dream hadn’t it?
Juliana remembered another very important something. She stopped moving toward her bedroom. She should straighten this one important thing out first.
He stopped, opened his eyes and noticed they’d drifted halfway down the hallway to her bedroom. His gaze moved to her open bedroom door. The corner of her bed was visible from where they stood.
“I need to show you something,” she said quietly, knowing if she didn’t stop them now, they’d be on that bed, if she had her way.
“Okay,” he said, and cleared his throat.
She released him and returned to her living room. He cleared his throat again, straightened to his full height and moved to follow her. She bent and pulled the small gray card from a box on the coffee table.
“It’s not another apple is it?” he asked, the sound of his concern growing again.
“No.” Juliana handed Diesel the card. “What do you make of this?” She studied him closely for his reaction.
He held the card up and frowned. He looked at it, flipped it over and then his eyes grew as big as plates. The wide-eyed gaze shifted in her direction.
“Where did you get this?”
“I found that in my pocket when I got home from meeting you at the truck stop. But the funny thing is that I dreamed about it before ever meeting you.”
“You had a dream about this?” he asked in a stern tone. “What dream?”
She nodded at the card. “The one where you pushed my hand against the Maxwell the Martian fortune-teller box and this was the fortune that came out. It seemed so real I wanted to ask if you remembered it.”
<^> <^> <^>
Diesel forced a smile and a puzzled squint. “How could I remember your dream?” How could you be dreaming about something the Defender erased from your mind?
“Maybe I didn’t dream it. Maybe you used your mind control on me and I forgot,” she said with a laugh. Her gaze was steady, inquiring, emboldened as if she wanted to ensure he hadn’t truly used his non-existent powers of mind control.
He couldn’t muster even a glimmer of a smile. He didn’t respond to her shocking knowledge. “Care if I keep this?” he asked.
She snatched it from his fingers. “I’d rather keep it, if you don’t mind.”
Diesel’s head was swimming with questions and worries and not all of them coming from her. He still had to address the threatening apple issue, vowing to discuss it with Cam. But right now he should go back to Alienn and talk to his security-minded brother about the Big D and its apparent failure.
It was a task he suddenly wanted to avoid, because he worried what Cam might do to Juliana if the Defender didn’t work to erase her memories. He’d probably want to use the old method of human memory erasure, the one that involved big syringes. Diesel decided he didn’t want to share this information with anyone. He’d have to research her possible dream memories on his own.
“I should go,” Diesel said absently. I need to either figure this out quickly or, worst-case scenario, talk to Cam. Pronto.
“You’re leaving?” Her question came out sounding so forlorn he reconsidered his options.
Diesel checked his watch. It was not very late. He’d only been here an hour. He should go. But he really wanted to stay.
If he hadn’t been mistaken, right before this disturbing dream revelation, she’d been leading him toward her bedroom. While he wanted to go in there and explore Juliana more than anything in this world, he also needed to consider all the interesting facts zipping through his head. Like the disturbing memories she shouldn’t have. Like the fortune card he should have collected.
His earlier conversation with Cam slid into his mind. What if he’d taken the portable Defender Cam had offered? Would Diesel really have been able to snatch the card from her fingers, whip out the weapon and zap her for only five minutes to keep her from remembering it? Ugh. He sounded like Cam. Did he want to zap her again? No, never again.
Besides, if she was having dreams about that supposedly erased time, he had larger issues. It would be so much easier to tell her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He’d do it if he wasn’t convinced Cam would throttle him and drop a still-experimental Defender bomb on Juliana’s head once he was incapacitated.
Diesel studied her beautiful eyes and calmed down. She put a hand on his arm and he relaxed even more. “Don’t go yet,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
“I’m not angry.” Not at you. He pointed to the card in her hand. “I don’t get it. I don’t know where it came from. Is it possible you picked it up in the truck stop somewhere and simply forgot about it?”
She pondered what he’d said, looking down at the card. She appeared uncertain. “I guess it’s possible.” She frowned, but put the card back in the box on her coffee table.
“What else would you like to talk about?” Diesel asked.
She bit her lip.
“It’s okay, Juliana. Ask me whatever you want to know.”
“Will you answer the question I asked about the Boogieman Affair?”
Diesel took a deep breath. “Sure. That was just blown out of proportion. It was a story about a stray, injured dog that had the element of a childish telephone game added to it.”
“What does that mean?” Her beautiful brow furrowed.
Diesel moved closer, wanting to fold her into his embrace. “It started out as a report of an injured dog on the outskirts of town. When our animal control people went to look, they couldn’t find him right away. By the time that evening ended, there were outlandish reports of an entity skulking around town inflicting evil on everyone it saw, which was not accurate.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“That’s the company line?”
He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “That’s the story as I know it.”
“So it’s not like the monster from the Legend of Boggy Creek in Fouke, Arkansas or anything like that?”
He shook his head. “That story was way before my time, but no, nothing like that in this case.”
“I see.” She thought over what he’d said for a few seconds and a winsome smile appeared on her face. “Are you going to forever kiss me whenever you don’t want to talk about something?”
“Probably,” he said, taking a step closer, wanting to resume their earlier steamy kiss. “It’s obviously more fun than erasing your thoughts, puny earthling.”
Juliana seemed to relax. Diesel drew her into his arms again. The kiss they shared was as gentle as he could make it. He could stay in this moment for a lifetime and be content. Kissing Juliana was exquisite. She was exquisite. The dance began again as they kissed and embraced and kissed. Juliana wrapped her arms around his middle, pulling him backward toward her hallway and presumably her bedroom once again.
He shouldn’t go. He shouldn’t allow her to lead him there. Diesel wanted to go to her room more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. What might happen there? Diesel couldn’t wait to find out.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
The doorbell startled them out of their sensual journey. The first ding broke them apart. The rest weren’t needed, as the sound had the effect of pouring icy cold water on any further kissing or dancing down the hall toward her bedroom.
Juliana pushed out a frustrated-sounding sigh. She dropped her arms from him and moved toward the door, grumbling under her breath words he couldn’t hear, but that made him smile nonetheless.
The thought of the apple in the trash made him move quickly to step in front of the door and keep her from opening it. He should take that apple back to the labs downstairs at the truck stop just to see if anyone had been foolish enough to leave behind DNA.
“Wait,” he said, peeking out the peephole to discover the ding-donger’s identity. He saw graying hair. He mentally reached out through the door, hoping to ascertain the thoughts of the person outside and any possible threat they might pose, but got nothing.
He stood beside Juliana as she opened the door.
“Miss Penny?” Juliana sounded shocked. Diesel eyed the wizened old woman on her doorstep suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”
Miss Penny gave Diesel a long, hard look from head to boots. “I wanted to see what the young man who’d caught your eye looked like, that’s all,” she said with a wan, tired smile. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Sure.” Juliana stood aside. The older woman crossed the threshold slowly, taking small steps and seeming to look even more tired than when she stood outside.
Once Juliana had closed her front door, Diesel extended his hand to Miss Penny. “Hi. I’m Diesel Grey.”
She had a surprisingly firm grip. “Hi yourself. You can call me Miss Penny.” She nodded once at Juliana. “She and I look after each other.”
“Good for you.” Diesel tried to read the older woman’s thoughts again. He got the sense she didn’t mean any harm or have any disconcerting agenda toward either of them. Miss Penny was even more difficult to read than the woman he was falling in love with. Maybe Diesel was losing what little mind-reading skill he had as he aged. A depressing thought he tucked away for a much later time.
He cleared his throat as the falling in love with notion soaked back into his brain. He promptly looked in Juliana’s direction as if he’d see that sentiment written in a cartoon bubble over their heads, giving away his latest secret.
“He’s handsome, I’ll give you that,” Miss Penny murmured to Juliana, as he contemplated what future—if any—they could have together. Was a life together possible on Earth? Maybe. If Diesel could have his way, he wanted the rest of his life to be entwined with Juliana’s. She was special and he was smart enough to know it.
“Thank you,” Diesel said. “Where are you from, Miss Penny?”
“Oh, here and there. Been lots of places in my long life, that’s for sure,” she said with a wink. “I understand you’re the manager of a truck stop. Is that true?” Her tone had shifted to one sounding more like a father asking a suitor about his intentions rather than a neighbor casually asking after his career goals.
“Yes. I run the Big Bang Truck Stop in Alienn, Arkansas. Have you heard of it?”
She nodded. “Lots of rumors associated with Alienn. Little green men and the like running around causing all kinds of trouble and chaos. But I guess you already know all about that.”
Diesel chuckled good-naturedly. “I do. It’s hard not to get attention when we put up so many billboards with cartoon aliens along Route 88 to bring folks into the truck stop.”
“Oh, now, I like those billboards. Very clever. Very funny.”
“Thank you,” Diesel said for a second time.
“Is that how you and Juliana met? Is she investigating you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, that’s exactly how we met.”
“Is she going to get you to reveal any secrets with her feminine wiles?” Her gaze traveled from the two of them to the hallway they’d just been moseying down toward Juliana’s bedroom. The implication was clear.
“Miss Penny!” Juliana said. “Feminine wiles, really? What is up with you?” She blushed profusely and Diesel fell a little bit more in love with her. Hard not to.
“I guess that struck a nerve,” Miss Penny said. “I suppose my work here is done then.” She turned to leave. “Are you still going to be able to take me grocery shopping this afternoon?”
“Was that today?” Juliana asked. An expression of guilt crossed her features. “I’m sorry. I must have forgotten.”
“That’s okay, dear. I know you’ve had a lot on your mind lately.” She gave Diesel a onceover from head to boots again. “I’ll just get a taxi or something.”
“No!” Juliana exclaimed. “I’ll take you. When do you want to go?”
“Half an hour? Will that be enough…I mean, will that be okay?” Diesel read between the lines of her short question. What she really meant to say was, “Is that time enough for the two of you to say goodbye but not enough time to mosey down to the bedroom?”
“Sure.”
“Thank you, dear. I’ll come back and knock on your door after I fetch my list.” Miss Penny hurried to the entrance, popped it open and was crossing the threshold at a clip faster than Diesel could have imagined her moving that shriveled, frail-looking little body of hers. The door closed with a hearty thump, belying the woman’s fragile strength.
Juliana looked disappointed. She glanced very briefly at her hallway and back into his face. “I’m sorry. I forgot I’d promised to take her to the grocery store. I should have picked a different day.”
“No problem. I should get back anyway.” Diesel forced himself not to look longingly in the direction of her bedroom. It didn’t really matter. It was too soon. He knew it was. He would have stopped any sexual entanglement, wouldn’t he? Probably. Maybe.
Unless she’d insisted. How can I resist her?
Juliana put a hand on his shoulder, distracting his wayward thoughts. “When will I see you again?”
Diesel grabbed her hand, putting it between his palms. “I don’t know,” he replied with a grin, “but I can’t wait.”
He glanced at her trash can and asked if he could take the menacing apple with him. She picked it up. Careful not to touch the eaten part, she dropped it into a plastic sandwich bag and handed it to him.
“Thanks. I have a friend in local law enforcement.” He’s my brother who works in the basement. “I’ll find out if he can analyze it for me. Probably nothing will come of it, but you never know.”
She nodded and a smile shaped her lovely mouth. “Maybe I could come back to Alienn next time. I still need to get some details for my article.” Was that a good idea? Diesel wasn’t certain, but he also wanted to see her again as soon as possible.
“Are you busy tomorrow night?” he asked, thinking about the typical way he spent Saturday evenings, which was either at work catching up on boring bookkeeping, or at home utterly alone.
“Saturday night? I figured that would be a busy night for you.”
“Any night can be busy, depending on the various trucking schedules. Doesn’t mean I need to be there every single moment, right?” Unless you talk to certain members of my family. Some folks think I should live there right in my office.
“Okay. Where should I meet you?”
“How about my office at the truck stop? And then if you’d like, I’ll give you a mini tour of the town. You can get actual facts for your article instead of innuendos and speculation about scary monsters running wild in town. What do you think?”
“Excellent. I would love that.”
“Good. I’ll look forward to it. I’ll even make you dinner.”
“You cook?”
He shrugged, uncomfortable in the role of bachelor chef. “I’ve been known to grill a burger or two. Besides, you cooked for me. Seems only fair to return the favor.”
“Thank you. And I appreciate your willingness to help me with my article. It means a lot to me. Maybe you could tell me a few stories or interesting historical things about the town of Alienn to write about instead of aliens hiding in plain sight.”
“My pleasure.” Diesel could tell her lots of alien-related stories, and how he personally lived his alien life in plain sight, but he took the out she offered, figuring he’d stick to a couple of old facts and tidbits few outsiders would know about Alienn.
“I also want you to know that my intent isn’t to cause any trouble for you or your town. I’m just trying to write an interesting article for a travel book.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“The rumors about Alienn aren’t new, obviously, but what I heard about the Boogieman Affair is certainly tantalizing. If it was only a wounded dog loose in town and the incident was overly dramatized, I’ll certainly make that my ultimate conclusion for the piece. But I’d love to have information or a story no one else has or that few people know about.”
“I’ll scout around and see if I can come up with something interesting for your article.”
“Thank you, Diesel. Also, I’d be willing to give you an advance copy to read.”
“I’d appreciate that.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get out of here so you can take Miss Penny shopping.”
Juliana already had her hand on his forearm. She squeezed briefly, getting his attention. “Sorry we were interrupted.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Diesel did kiss her again though. It was a lingering kiss, filled with as much restrained passion as he could muster. He broke their embrace before he wanted to, but was grateful he’d see her tomorrow. He’d have time to consider all the issues he faced contemplating a life with an engaging earthling and whether he’d have to give up his job at the truck stop and move to another galaxy with her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she said with a sweet smile.
“Can’t wait.” He moved toward her front door, not wanting to leave her, knowing he needed to go and think about things, not the least of which was preparing his family for her visit.
They would want full disclosure as to his intentions regarding Juliana as someone important in his life—especially Cam—and then he’d take her to his place in Alienn. He wanted her to see his home. Also, he wanted her.
Before he could stop himself, Diesel pulled her close, kissed her hard, passionately and quickly, and left before they had the opportunity to start dancing back toward her bedroom.
If he stayed a moment longer, kissing her in that way any longer, that’s exactly where they’d end up.