Alpha Star: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides #1 (Intergalactic Dating Agency): Intergalactic Dating Agency (7 page)

He prowled the outer edge of the room, angling at her from behind so he could trap her against the counter. She chatted briefly with the tall, brown-hued female behind the counter and received a beverage in return, but she didn’t seem to be with anyone. The occupants of the seats to either side of her were turned away to their own groups, leaving her almost isolated in the crowd.

Perfect. He sneaked up behind her, closing the last few steps in a rush, and leaned his head over her shoulder. “We had a deal,” he said softly beside her ear.

She flinched and lashed backward with one arm. But he was already too close and she didn’t have enough room to gain any momentum. Still, the point of her elbow jabbed him in the side, somehow finding the rib he’d broken at Anglorn. He caught her arm, pinning her to his chest.

Her head swiveled, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Who else have you promised to hold rocks for?” He glared at her. “Before fleeing.”

“I didn’t run away,” she snapped. “I closed early and walked away rather than deal with your crap. Because we didn’t have a deal. You were trying to bully me.”

The translator helpfully supplied the definition of bully, and he bristled. “I’m not a bully. I’m…” A mercenary starship captain. Lesser prince of a central galaxy. He restrained a wince. Apparently he was very much his imperious Gre-Gre’s descendant. “I had a legitimate business transaction in mind.”

“Is that why you grabbed me?”

He’d grabbed her because he needed the shield tile. He hadn’t let her go because…

That didn’t matter. She was a match to him, but she wasn’t right.

But she smelled so good. This close, he filled his airways with the sweet scent of her skin, as fresh as the open planetary air. He closed his eyes and held his breath. He would remember this moment when he returned to the
Prayer
’s recycled life support. Except he wouldn’t be leaving without the tile or a bride.

His eyes popped open again. “The meteorite wasn’t at the shop. Where is it?”

She strained away from him. “How do you know it wasn’t there?”

“Because I looked for it.”

Her glossy, dark eyes sparked like a sun about to go nova. “You broke in? I’m going to call—” She tried to swivel back toward the counter, but he held her fast.

“No need to call anyone,” he said. “The rock was for sale, wasn’t it?” He pulled out the credits Honey had given him. “This should be compensation enough.”

“What the—Jeez, put that away.” She shoved his hand under the counter until it rested on her thigh. “If you’re not buying a round for the whole bar, don’t flash that kind of cash.”

He lifted his chin and looked down at her. “Do you think anyone here would challenge me for it?”

Her lips pursed, just for a moment, long enough to draw his gaze downward… “No.” She drew out the word slowly. “But why take the risk?”

Because risk had been his only life for so long. But not anymore. “The meteorite,” he pressed. “Where is it?”

“Why is it so important to you?” She stared up at him. “Are you an alien hunter like Mr. Evens?”

For a nanosecond, exultation shot through him. She
did
know about aliens! The data-cube hadn’t been wrong. She was his match.

Then he focused on the lopsided quirk of her lips. Disappointment and dismissal. She might say the word, but she didn’t know the truth.

He settled back on his heels. “The cash is yours,” he said tightly. “The reason is not.”

She nibbled at her lower lip. “Is it worth so much?”

“Only to me.”

Her gaze shuttled between his eyes, as if she couldn’t quite settle on which one held the answer she was looking for. “Well, Mr. Evens asks only twenty bucks for a chunk that size. To be honest, I’m not sure all of them are actually meteorites.”

“This one isn’t,” he admitted. “But I want it anyway. The sign said I could have my own piece of big sky.” He hesitated. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

He’d never told anyone that, not even Ivan and Honey. Not because he didn’t want to share with them—although he didn’t—but because he suspected they already knew. Because they felt it too. And maybe Zoe did as well. As if they’d fallen down a wormhole Ivan had neglected to chart, spacetime seemed suspended around them, whirling their molecules in a helix of unspoken understanding.

But instead of acknowledging his need, she shook her head hard, the chin-length brown waves of her hair fluttering. “I guess you can afford to be eccentric, just like Mr. Evens.” Brushing his fingers—a fleeting touch against his injured, gloved,
false
hand that nevertheless sent a jolt through his body—she peeled off one of the credits. “There. Twenty bucks, and the meteorite is yours.” She peeled off several more bills. “And these, since apparently I’m going to have some cleanup and repairs to do at the shop.”

Now that the shielding tile was his—or would be—he found himself unwilling to end their interaction. “Why did you resist giving me the fragment?”

Zoe glanced to either side, as if looking for an out. “I told you, I don’t like being bullied.”

“It was not my intent to make you feel bullied.”

She snorted. “You just do it naturally.”

He pocketed the rest of the credits and rubbed the back of his neck, which still prickled from the aftereffect of her touch. “It has come to my attention that I can be at times…commanding.”

“Bossy,” she shot back.

“Ah. That’s better than a bully.” He smiled at her.

After a moment, she grinned wryly. “Not by much.”

“Significantly,” he countered.

She shook her head. “Nope. I should know since I grew up with a bossy brother.” Her expression tightened.

Since he hadn’t done anything new to annoy her, Sin figured it was her own thoughts leaching the amusement from her expressive face. “I should like to meet this brother of yours, but I think…he’s not with you anymore, yes?”

She stiffened. “How did you…?”

He touched the spot between his eyes and redirected his fingertip to lightly graze the same crease on her. He dropped his hand before she could move away. “I too have lost.”

She stared at him, her dark brown eyes hazy. “Military?”

He consulted the translator for a reasonable equivalent. “Air force.”

She straightened on her seat. “So was Will.”

“Special operations,” Sin added hastily. “Nothing I can talk about.”

“Oh.” She deflated a bit, her spine curving. “Will had just made senior airman, but he was interested in special operations.”

“He was your brother.” Sin nodded. “That is more special.”

She glanced down at her clenched hands and then back up at him. “You must have a brother too.”

“I do. Four, actually, all older.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Rough.”

“The closest one to me is…worse than a bully. He’s a tyrant.”

And deluded if Herrilclarion Fourth-Moon Jax had ever thought he was going to get Sin to return to the clan on his command.

Zoe studied him. “You look like you’re thinking of cracking him over the head with a chunk of meteorite.”

Sin let out a scoffing breath. “As if that would make him more open-minded. But if he was standing here, and I had the chunk in hand…”

“I didn’t bring it to the bar,” she said. “I took all the pieces home when I left this afternoon.”

He nodded. “Well then, since you have my twenty bucks, I suppose you’ll have to take me home with you.”

She’d had bad ideas before, like that time she tried to do a viral video about gray water reclamation. But this bad idea was worse than most.

Zoe was achingly aware of the big man prowling at her side. He’d seemed big at the park, and even bigger when he trapped her against the counter at the bar. She’d been so close to hollering for Tisha’s assistance even though she’d been busy at the other end of the bar; Tish had a knack for easily deescalating—or, if all else failed, verbally decapitating—troublemakers at the Sunset Saloon. But the impulse had shamed Zoe. She’d never been the sort to call for help. Now in the dark silence of the street as they walked toward her house, she realized just how intimidating he was.

What had she been thinking? One rum and coke and some longing country music couldn’t justify this bad decision. No, the truth was, she was bringing him home because it felt like a little adventure, just a little of who she used to be, not someone whose vision had narrowed to the point she could no longer see the person she’d been, who no longer reached for anything past the tips of her groping, hesitant fingers.

And jeez, he wasn’t much farther away than that. As if he expected her to run away—again, admittedly—he stayed right at her side. Under his black leather jacket, he’d lost part of his shirt somewhere, which should have made him look like a bad boy refugee from the really bad ‘80s rock albums Tish had been thumbing through. But the heat off his partly exposed body in the chilly mountain air softened something inside her, made her blood run faster. Shivers arced across her nerve endings like shooting stars, a whole sky full, practically apocalyptic.

She glanced sidelong at him. “Sinclarion Jax,” she mused. “I’ve traveled some, but I don’t recognize it. What sort of name is that?”

“Old regional family name,” he said. “Sin is good.”

Yeah, she kind of thought it would be, with him.

She paused at the narrow walkway to the cottage. “This is it. The meteorite is inside, but my roommate is already asleep, so…we’ll have to be quiet.”

He frowned. “Meteorites are not known to be loud.”

She’d started up the walk but faltered. “Uh. I meant…if you come in.” She held her breath. As far away as he might be from, certainly
come in
meant the same in every language, didn’t it?

His blue eyes seemed to catch and reflect the lone porch light, glowing with a ferocity that almost made her back down.

Almost.

“If you wanted to come in for a drink,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she added nervously, “Since you didn’t get one at the bar.”

“Would it be more of that coffee?” Suspicion deepened his tone.

“Oh, you mean cat piss?”

He tucked his chin. “I offended you with that comment.”

“You did sound a little high and mighty,” she admitted.

“That was not my intent. I’ve never been high and mighty before.”

“Well, it fits you well.” She continued toward the house. She did owe him the rock for his twenty bucks, whether he wanted anything else or not.

“I’m not sure what to think of that,” he said as he followed her. “The Jax family name has a long history of high and mighty behavior, not always to its credit. The Clarion line… Well, we’re decidedly less high.” He frowned.

“Maybe that’s why you feel the need to be more mighty,” she offered. “Hence military service.”

“I should confess,” he said, “less military and more mercenary.”

With her key in the lock and her hand on the doorknob, she paused again. “A mercenary?” She’d encountered plenty of those in her travels and had no use for them.

He watched her as if he knew what she was thinking. “Not so honorable as your brother?” he surmised. His lips twisted. “My family felt the same. Particularly my grand-matriarch.”

“She was the one who offered you the property inheritance?”

He nodded. “As the lesser son of a large clan, I had not many options to make my way in the worlds—world. I fought for everything as a child, and I suppose I just kept fighting. But now she’s given me another way, if I choose to take it.”

Zoe thought of the young men she’d dug alongside, taking charge of their villages and their lives. At least when circumstances allowed. Which sometimes didn’t happen. “That’s quite a change.”

“The property I’m inheriting is undeveloped,” he said. “I imagine—I hope—it’ll be like this place.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are we so undeveloped here?”

He scraped one hand down his face with a groan. “I’ve offended you again.”

“I’m getting used to it.”

“I’ll be lucky if it’s as fine as this. Although I suspect I’ll be working hard to make it so.” He sighed. “It’s harder to build than blow up.”

A not-so-polite snort escaped her. “Well, that’s the spirit. If it’s any consolation, I think you’ll be good at it.”

He eyed her. “What makes you say so?”

“Well, I can tell already you’re the kind of person who likes to make things happen, to make your mark.”

He laughed. “So much easier to leave a mark with a strafing run from orbit.”

She pursed her lips. “From orbit?”

“A figure of speech.” His gaze settled on her. “If you’re still offering that drink…”

With Tish at work and Del already asleep, the cottage was quiet and still, as if it was holding its breath. While stripping out of the alpaca sweater, she waved Sin into the living room. “The meteorites are on the coffee table,” she said. “Pick out the one you wanted.” She turned to glance back at him and was surprised to find him right behind her. Her pulse stuttered, pounding a little harder. “The rocks are in there,” she said again, a little weakly.

“So you said. They’ll wait.” His blue eyes glinted. “About that drink…”

He was standing so close and his eyes were so blue, she felt like she was falling upward into the sky. She swallowed hard. “My roommate works at the saloon, and she stocks a full bar here at home too. So whatever you like, we probably have it.”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

Conscious of his attention on her, she was aware of every little motion as she mixed up two rum and cokes. “It’s top shelf,” she said. “Well, not the coke.”

“Now who’s high and mighty?” he murmured.

Maybe she was high, that would explain why she was liquoring up a strange man in her living room. “I don’t usually do this,” she felt compelled to confess.

“What? Steal meteorites from customers?”

She chuckled nervously. “That either. I meant…” She handed him the tumbler of the slightly fizzy drink.

“I think maybe it is unusual for both of us.”

He took a drink and his eyes widened. “This is quite good. It’s the same color as the coffee, so I thought…”

She lifted one eyebrow. “That it would be larf piss?”