Lord of Lightning (2 page)

And then it came to her. Of course, she thought, smiling to herself as she remembered the stories her Scandinavian mother used to entertain her with on rainy afternoons. Legends about flaxen-haired beauties, about seafaring Vikings and Norse gods. Odin, Heimdall, and Thor—men like golden lions.

As a child she’d spent endless hours imagining herself being carried off by some enthralling Viking warlord, sailing through stormy seas on his long ship. That was where she knew this man from, she realized, her childhood fantasies, the pages of ancient mythology. Slightly disconcerted, she brushed stray hairs back from her face, and felt the flush of warmth in her cheeks.

“Are you new here in Shady Tree?” she asked, aware that the store’s customers were making a wide and curious path around them. Of course he was, she thought. There were exactly two thousand and three residents in Shady Tree according to the latest census. Soon to be two thousand five with Peggy Latimer expecting twins. Lise knew every one of the city’s proud sons and daughters, and this fellow, with his Viking bones and hair the color of winter sunshine, wasn’t one of them.

He scooped up the transformer and handed it to her. “I’m on vacation. A geologist. Some people call us rock hounds.”

“I’m Lise Anderson,” she said. “The grade-school teacher.”

“The
grade-school teacher?”

“Well, Harlan Meek usually teaches math and science, but he’s on sabbatical this summer, so I’m the only show in town.”

Lise felt another mild shock as she took the transformer from him. Only this time it was rather a pleasant sensation. A tingly warmth spread up her arm, and her fingertips went slightly numb. “Did you feel that too?” she asked.

He smiled unexpectedly and it did such intriguing things to his face, Lise found herself smiling back. Quite a silly smile, she imagined. If she’d ever stared at a man the way she was staring at him, she couldn’t remember when.

“We seem to have our wires crossed,” he said.

It was an offhand reference, a throwaway line. Lise realized, but the undertones were sexy. Even his voice was a little grainy, and the sound of it gave her an unexpected thrill. Nerves sparkled, and a depth charge headed for the reaches of her stomach. When a man’s tone went husky like that, it put a woman in mind of one thing and one thing only. Sex.

“One of us had better be grounded the next time we touch,” she said. “Or the results could be fatal.”

His eyes lit with laughter. “Not a bad way to go. Must be the dry weather.”

“I don’t think weather has anything to do with it,” Lise responded softly.

He stared at her oddly, and Lise wondered if she was being too straightforward again. She knew the folks around Shady Tree said that Lise Anderson, gentle-mannered, understated beauty though she was, was a little too plainspoken for her own good. She’d scared off all the eligible men with her honesty, they said. Lise had heard the rumors.

He rolled his cart back and took the only item from it, a small white carton, as though he meant to leave. “You didn’t ask, but my name is Stephen Gage,” he said, tucking the box under his arm. “I’m staying in the Cooper cabin outside of town.”

“The Cooper place? You’re really isolated out there.”

He shrugged. “I’m used to being alone. Besides, your local mountains are supposed to have some rare mineral deposits. I wanted to check them out.”

“Will you be around long?” Lise could hardly believe she was grilling him this way. She rarely—make that
never
—came onto men. She hadn’t even dated in years. At twenty-seven, people were already beginning to call her a spinster, and oddly enough, she didn’t mind. She’d never felt the need of a man underfoot. But this man was so oddly compelling with his winter smile and his electric touch, the thought of not seeing him again gave her a pang.

“No, not long.” He inclined his head slightly as though he’d read her mind. “But I have the feeling you and I are going to run into each other again.”

“Yes ... so do I.”

Lise heard a soft beeping sound, and thought for one crazy moment that it was her own heartbeat. She looked around the store for a smoke alarm or a security device, and then she noticed the small black case attached to his belt. “I think your beeper’s going off,” she said.

“Beeper? What’s that?”

She thought he must be kidding, but he looked so totally blank, so devoid of any comprehension of the word, she quickly pointed to the case.

He unhooked the device, smiled at her, and slipped it into his back pocket. “Thanks,” was all he said.

They were both silent a moment, regarding each other, the situation suddenly full of promise and possibility. Lise kept thinking she ought to say something, but she had no idea what it would be. Backlit by neon, his hair was afire with silver light, like sun breaking through the rain. Lise was struck by it. She almost mentioned it, and then he saved her from the certain embarrassment. He acknowledged her with his eyes, and a barely discernible nod, and then he swung around and disappeared down the aisle.

Lise was left to stare after him, softened and bemused. Now what was that all about, she thought. As she turned to the errant shopping cart she glanced at her watch. It took her a moment to realize that the second hand wasn’t moving. Her watch had stopped! Without knowing how she knew, she realized it had happened at exactly the moment he’d touched her.

“He’s got a
primo
ray gun! I saw it. And he can make dead birds fly!”

“Yeah! My big brother says he’s an extraterrestrial.”

“An extra what?”

The children’s excited voices flew through the open classroom window of Abraham Lincoln Grade School, distracting Lise as she laid out the various items for the model railroad turnpike they would be starting that morning. She listened to the chatter a moment and smiled. Last week it was
Nintendo.
This week it was ray guns and spacemen. The kids were always revved up about something. There must have been a science fiction movie on TV over the weekend.

“An extraterrestrial, barf breath!” one of the boys snorted indignantly. “Like E.T., only bigger.”

“Yeah, butt face,” another boy chimed in, “a man from Mars!”

Lise clicked her tongue. Later she planned to have a word with those two young men about their language. It was going to be a challenging day, she could tell. The first day of model construction. The state science fair was imminent, and her students had chosen a project beyond their abilities, she feared. Certainly beyond hers. She’d agreed because building the model metrorail would be a wonderful learning experience, and she also hoped it would make a favorable impression on the county school board.

Lately the board had been making noises about converting the grade school into a community center and bussing the kids to Redlands, where, they contended, the students would get a better education in a more modern facility. Lise wanted to show them that Lincoln’s students were top-notch and weren’t being deprived. And what better way, she’d decided, than by winning a statewide science fair?

“Miss Anderson, did you hear about the UFO?” The class suddenly turned its attention to her.

“We’re being invaded, Miss Anderson, by a whole fleet of puke-green flying saucers! They landed in the rock quarry!”

Lise nodded patiently. “What have you kids been up to? Reading those dreadful science fiction comics again?”

A chorus rang out. “It wasn’t a comic book! It really happened!”

Each of their versions of that weekend’s excitement was more fantastic than the next. From what Lise could determine, someone had noticed strange lights in the foothills, and although no one had actually seen the UFO, Danny Baxter claimed to have been an eyewitness to some startling occurrences. He’d seen an alien life-form, he said, a huge silver creature who packed a ray gun.

With a little more probing, Lise determined that Danny was the only actual witness. And because she knew a little about his background, she couldn’t help but wonder if he might be making the whole thing up. The ten-year-old was from a broken home, and he’d reacted to the upheaval in his life by becoming boisterous and demanding the attention his beleaguered mother wasn’t always able to give him.

“Danny,” Lise said gently, “I know it’s fun to kid around with your friends, but you could frighten people with a story like that.”

“I’m not lying,” Danny said, desperation in his voice. “I really saw him, I swear.”

“I saw him, too, Miss Anderson. I saw the spaceman.”

The quiet declaration came from Emily Baxter, Danny’s younger sister. Lise turned to see the five-year-old standing in the doorway. One look at Emily’s clasped hands and her pensive gray eyes and Lise lost her heart all over again. It had gotten so she couldn’t lay eyes on the somber little girl without wanting to smooth her hair and comfort her. Emily’s reaction to their family’s breakup had been much different than Danny’s. She had withdrawn into watchful silences, observing the world through wide, sad eyes as though passing sentence on its casual cruelties. She was a five-year-old going on thirty-something.

Lise remembered vividly how Em had wandered off the year before and gotten lost in a spring rainstorm. The whole town had mobilized for the search, but Lise had been the one to find Em trudging doggedly through the foothills. The child had told Lise she was following the rainbow to its treasure. “When I find it, my mom won’t have to work so hard,” she’d said. Lise had been touched by the child’s concern, and then she’d looked up at the sky, smiling through a sparkle of tears as she remembered how magical rainbows had been for her as a child. Perhaps that was the beginning of the special bond between her and Em.

Now, Lise approached the child and knelt beside her, taking her hand. “What did you see, Emily?”

“I saw a man pick up a dead bird, and then it flew away.”

“What did the man look like?”

“Just like Danny said. He was big and silver all over.”

“Hey, Teach!” Julie Watson’s helmeted head popped into the doorway behind Emily. “You talking about our visitor from Mongo? I heard he was ten feet tall with X-ray eyes and a particle weapon gun.”

“
Wow
,” Danny breathed. “Is that what it was?”

“A particle weapon gun!” another voice squeaked.

The children began to chatter again. Lise squeezed Emily’s hand reassuringly and released it.

“Julie,” Lise said, “please, don’t encourage them.”

Lanky and quick, Julie pulled off her motorcycle helmet, shook her long auburn hair free, and swung into the room. She was Lise’s teaching assistant on her summer break from college, and at nineteen she hadn’t yet outgrown her tomboy ways. She was wonderful with the children though, and Lise found her help invaluable.

“It’s all over town,” Julie continued, tossing her helmet onto a nearby desk. “He’s holed up in the old Cooper place. Some of the guys from Frank’s Gas Station are getting a welcoming party together. They’re going to check him out.”

Lise stood. “The Cooper place?”

Julie nodded, and Lise laughed in surprise. “I know that man,” she said. “I ran into him in the hardware store yesterday. He’s not an alien. He’s a geologist. On vacation.”

“What’s a geologist?” someone whispered.

“I think it’s like a Romulan on
Star Trek
,” a voice whispered back.

Julie looked skeptical. “The hardware store? Maybe he was getting batteries for his particle ray gun.”

Julie was a science fiction movie buff, and Lise knew her assistant would just love to wring every drop of drama out of the “visitation” scenario. As much as she hated to ruin the fun, Lise was concerned about Julie’s reference to a welcoming party.

“I certainly hope those rowdies at Frank’s don’t go out to the Cooper place and stir up trouble,” she said. “Why, Stephen Gage is a perfectly nice man. He’ll think we’re a bunch of yokels.”

Lise walked to the classroom window and glanced down the street in the direction of the gas station. All looked calm, but she was still uneasy about the town’s reaction to their visitor. “Maybe I should run out there myself and officially welcome Mr. Gage to Shady Tree. That would put a stop to the rumors. Really,” she murmured, still staring out the window, “he’s perfectly harmless.”

Well, maybe not harmless, she thought, correcting herself. The man packed enough voltage to stop a charging bull. Remembering the shopping cart collision, the odd physical sensations, and her own completely uncharacteristic reactions, she brought a hand to the lapel of her shirtwaist dress. Her fingers worked absently as she stared out the window. A moment later she stopped short and glanced down, realizing she’d unbuttoned her own dress. She did it back up again, and when she turned around, Julie and most of her students were gazing at her intently.

“What is it?” Lise asked.

Julie posed the question rather archly. “What does this Stephen Gage guy look like?”

Lise shrugged. “He’s ... average.” Right, she thought, just your average Viking warrior-chieftain. She glanced around the room at twenty pairs of bright, curious eyes and realized she was smiling.

“Average meaning brown hair, brown suit, and brown shoes?”

“No, Julie,” Lise said, just a hint of sarcasm in her tone. “Average meaning six feet two, plus or minus an inch, drop-dead blond hair and blue eyes.”

Julie grinned. “When’s the wedding?”

Lise knew she was foolish to let the conversation go on even a minute longer. Forty little ears were listening, and the town was already interested enough in her unpromising love life.

“There is a lesson in this for all of us, I think,” she said, addressing the children. “We must never judge people by their appearance. And certainly not by rumors and innuendo. Mr. Gage is a visitor to our town, and therefore, every courtesy should be extended to him.”

“So let me get this straight,” Julie persisted. “You’re actually thinking about going out to the Cooper place tonight and welcoming this person to Shady Tree? After everything you’ve heard here today? One skinny woman against a six-foot alien with a death ray?”

Lise gave Julie a sharp warning glance. “Someone has to put a stop to these silly rumors. Besides, I think I may have picked up something of his by mistake at the hardware store.” That was true enough, she thought, extending her authority to the children with a silencing tilt of her head. There’d been an unexplained package of copper wiring among her things when she checked out at the register.