Chapter One

The headlights on Air Force Major Andie Del Sarto's Cor­vette pierced the darkness smothering the road. On the last leg of a three-and-a-half-day-long car trip from Florida to her parents' dozen acres of ranch land near Roswell, New Mexico, a cell phone pressed to her ear, she listened to an answering machine play her tarot-card-reading, UFO-chasing mother's eternally perky voice: "Greetings! You've hailed Extraterrestrials-R-Us, the planet's most complete UFO museum. If you've reached this recording during normal business hours, I'm either investigating the latest sighting or helping another Earthling…"

Andie squeezed the steering wheel with her left hand and quashed an accustomed flicker of impatience. Why she'd come home when she most needed her mental focus, she had no idea. She could have been in the Bahamas by now, enjoying the first week of a desperately needed month of leave before NASA announced her selection as one of six astronauts on the first manned—well, techni­cally, one-third "womanned"—mission to Mars. Or, better yet, she could have stayed home in her cozy beachside condo, sleeping in and eating out. But rather than doing what she ought to do—acting sensibly, logically, ration­ally: in other words, not like her Mom—she'd followed a strange urge to come home, drawn inexorably to her birth­place like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn.

Spawn, she thought wryly. I don't think so. Lately she'd barely had time to brush her hair, let alone have sex.

"If you'd like to leave a message, you may do so after the beep. Thanks for calling Extraterrestrials-R-Us—where anything is possible!"

Andie forced a smile, as if it would somehow transmit along with her voice. "Hey, Mom, Dad. It's me. I made pretty good time." She was half a day early, in fact. As­sessing the landmarks along the highway, she finished, "I'll see you in ten minutes."

Nine minutes and forty-five seconds later she swung her convertible into the driveway, parking in one of the slots fronting the building that was her mother's pride and joy: Extraterrestrials-R-Us: Leave your skepticism at the door, proclaimed a sign above the entry. When Andie was five, she'd helped her mother paint sparkly stars and flying saucers onto the museum's corrugated metal walls. The art had been retouched several times in the twenty-­nine years since, but Andie's childlike hand was still evi­dent. The sweet warmth of those memories filled her. She loved her mother.

She just didn't want to be like her.

Andie turned off the engine and the headlights, and the cool darkness of the countryside swallowed her. The glow of Roswell was visible to the east, a city that at first glance looked like any other New Mexico town. But for the past sixty years, the subject of aliens in these parts was as likely to come up in conversation as the weather. In July of 1947, a remnant of a balloon flight launched as part of a top-secret program called PROJECT: MOGUL crash-landed on a farmer's property. Many, like Andie's mother, still insisted that the balloon was in fact a spaceship, and the Air Force's story a cover-up. Andie was used to hearing the allegations; she'd grown up here. But like most of her high school graduating class who'd gone on to college, she'd never returned, aside from visiting her parents for a few weeks at Christmastime.

It was May, the week before Mother's Day. Christmas was seven months off so what on earth was Andie doing here?

She indulged in a long and weary exhalation; then she got out of the car and grabbed her belongings from its trunk. With a suitcase and a mesh bag of Florida grape­fruit in her hands, she walked past the museum, toward the house. Halfway there, she felt eyes upon her.

She peered into the front yard. A veritable army of three-foot-high, green plastic creatures stared back at her.

Alien lawn ornaments. Of course. Ordinary flamingos would have been too much to hope for.

She could almost hear the bone-crunching sound of her life dismantling, the nicely compartmentalized existence that kept the weird and wacky way she'd grown up sep­arate from her life as Major Del Sarto, highly decorated fighter pilot and astronaut. In twenty-seven days, NASA would reveal the names of those chosen for the Mars mis­sion. The secrecy up until then was a publicity stunt, meant to revive flagging public interest in the space pro­gram, and the agency had spent months building the excitement. Not even the astronauts' families knew who would be on the mission and who would be alternates.

Andie's beaded sandals felt as though they were made of lead. As soon as NASA announced its news, press from all over the country and the world would be eager to find out more about her and her comrades. America's newest heroes, they'd be.

MARS-MISSION PILOT'S MOTHER RUNS A UFO MUSEUM!

Andie grimaced, imagining the story printed about her. It read like a headline in the National Enquirer. Heck, it probably would be a headline in the National Enquirer.

As much as she disliked the thought of reliving the em­barrassment of her school years—that horrible shame and fear she'd felt peak when she was a self-conscious teen­ager—she felt a sudden and unexpected surge of protec­tiveness for her mother. The media would not be kind to her.

"Andromeda!"

Andie fought an instinctive cringe at the use of her given name that no one but her parents used—or even knew. The garage light flicked on, illuminating the gold 1972 Cadillac parked inside. Dressed in an oversize T-shirt above baby blue leggings, Cassiopeia Del Sarto hurried out of the house, her arms open wide. Unlike Andie, Cas­sie was buxom. But as she'd aged, her legs had grown thinner, making her appear even more top-heavy.

Andie set her suitcase and the sack of grapefruit on the ground, then submitted to her mother's lung-crushing em­brace and all the clutching, sighs, and squeezes that fol­lowed.

Her mother grabbed hold of her hands and drew back to look at her. "I was loading the car when you called," she explained, squeezing Andie's fingers. "It's Tuesday, meeting night. Everyone would love to see you. Why don't you come?"

And spend the evening fielding questions from a bunch of eccentric, sixty-plus locals who scour the countryside searching for alien invaders? No, thanks. "I'm tired, Mom," Andie said truthfully. "Maybe next week."

"It's a date. Are you hungry? I made lasagna."

"Sure. Has Dad eaten?"

Cassie tucked a few curly, hennaed strands behind her ears and sighed. "He's working."

A pediatrician by day, Andie's father spent his evenings donating his expertise to migrant farmworkers and any­one else who couldn't afford medical care. She wouldn't hesitate to admit that he was a bit of a workaholic, but otherwise he was blessedly normal.

Her mother went on: "He needs to cut back on his hours. I'm working on him, and he's promised to try." Concern in her eyes, she smoothed her hand over Andie's sleek black bob. Her gaze was tender but probing. So eas­ily, her mother saw past the face Andie showed the world. "You and Frank. So alike you are. You love your life's work, but too often you let it suck you dry." In a whisper she added, "But at least he has me."

Andie glanced up sharply. In all the years with her par­ents, she'd never heard her mother suggest that her father needed her—Andie had always assumed that it was the other way around. Nor had Andie ever thought about it much. Now that she did, it was clear that her father had survived all these years, able to keep up his demanding schedule, because of the emotional sustenance Cassie gave him, no matter how mismatched they appeared to outside observers.

Her mother touched fingers to Andie's chin. "My sweet, hardworking girl," she said with a rueful sigh. "Who do you have, baby?"

"I'm fine, Mom," Andie assured her automatically. And then she lowered her eyes so her mother wouldn't glimpse the truth.

Cassie Del Sarto gave a skeptical yet compassionate grunt. How the woman managed to turn unintelligible noises into such complex, emotion-filled statements, An­die had no idea. Pretending she hadn't heard a thing, she hoisted her bag of grapefruit off the cement. "I'll put these in the kitchen."

"We'll have them with breakfast." Cassie grabbed her daughter in a tight embrace. "For you, there's ice cream in the freezer. Fudge brownie." She kissed Andie hard on the cheek and walked to her car.

Casting a long and solitary shadow from the light in the garage, Andie remained in place until her mother's Cad­illac's taillights disappeared down the long driveway leading off of their property. At least he has me, her mother's words reverberated in her mind. Who do you have, baby? Her jaw tight, Andie grabbed her suitcase and climbed the porch stairs.

Inside the quiet house, the foyer smelled faintly like fried garlic, tomato sauce, and freshly mopped floors. She set her suitcase and the grapefruit by a twisted ribbon of charred metal. The piece of wreckage dated back to the fifties, and she was sure it had fallen off an old tractor, but her mother insisted it was part of an alien spaceship.

The screen door slammed behind her, and Spock, the family parakeet, began chirping. Andie peeked under the cloth covering the bird's cage and wriggled her finger be­tween the bars. "Hey, handsome boy." Spock's green head bobbed up and down as he sidestepped from one end of his perch to the other.

A Post-it stuck to the refrigerator announced where her father might find his dinner for reheating but Andie's thoughts turned toward the fudge brownie ice cream. She took the pint-sized container from the overstocked freezer, found a spoon, and pushed past a pair of narrow, decades-old French doors that opened onto the patio in the backyard. The porch light was out. Quietly she ate the ice cream, alone and in the dark. Creamy chocolate slid down her throat. She licked the spoon clean and scooped up more.

The sky was gorgeous, glowing with the light of thousands of stars. To Andie, the longing to explore those stars was so powerful, so fundamental, that it was as vital to her survival as the blood in her veins. She'd wanted to be an astronaut for as long as she could remember. As a small child, she'd lain on her back for hours in the rear seat of her mother's old convertible, dreaming of discov­ering new worlds, while Cassie searched the night sky for "flying disks." In her head, Andie had constructed an en­tire future, complete with an explorer husband and a band of spacefaring kids. Their ship would be the Mayflower of the stars.

Andie chuckled at the memory. Everything seemed pos­sible then.

When did you stop thinking that way?

Her smile faded. Her selection as a pilot-astronaut on the Mars mission was the crowning achievement of her life, everything she'd set her sights on for as long as she could remember. But for some reason it wasn't enough. Why wasn't she satisfied?

Who do you have, baby?

She pressed her lips together. Her loneliness was some­thing she didn't like to acknowledge—not to herself, and certainly not to anyone else. She was strong, independent. Women like her weren't supposed to feel like…like…

This.

Andie tipped her head back and stared at the stars. She'd always studied them scientifically. Others, like her mother, wished on them. But what did one wish for when one had everything?

Someone to share it with.

Her insides clenched with a stab of yearning. If only wishes came true…

Cringing, she glanced sheepishly behind her. She'd been home for all of twenty minutes, and already her mother's screwball behavior had rubbed off. On the other hand, there was something indefinably optimistic and light­hearted about the simple act of wishing. What would be the harm in it?

To keep from analyzing the deed any further, she took a steadying breath and looked for a suitable star. It took three tries to find one she didn't recognize. Then she formed the appropriate words: "Star light…star bright…first star I see tonight…"

She stopped herself. Pretty pitiful, she thought, wishing for a man. Sure, her demanding work schedule made dat­ing difficult, but she wasn't about to trade her career for a social life. On the other hand, even when she had been able to date with the frequency necessary to develop a relationship, of all the men she'd been with—even the few who hadn't been intimidated by her accomplishments—­she'd been able to take or leave every one. And so she had always left them. Eventually.

She was no social novice; she understood that a lot quarters had to go into the slot machine before you hit the jackpot. But the closer she got to her mid-thirties, the more she began to doubt she'd ever find that elusive, much-­hyped, and probably over-rated "Mr. Right."

Who do you have, baby?

Steadying herself, she concentrated on her wish until every pore in her body chorused her secret longing: a love to fill her soul. Her spine tingled and goose bumps tiptoed up her bare arms as she imagined a lover who was her best friend, a man who didn't fear her intelligence or her strength, who'd stay by her side until they were old and gray and then some. A guy who could make her toes curl with a single look.

It was a lot to ask, yes, but as long she was wishing, she might as well go all-out.

"Star light…star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight."

With all her heart, she focused on the anonymous fleck of light she'd chosen, focusing so hard that it made her temples throb.

Find me.

A wave of dizziness unsteadied her, and the star shim­mered like a hot coal in a gust of air. Then it twitched, sailing across the sky as if it had broken free of a cosmic hook in the heavens.

Andie gave a gasp of surprise and disappointment that would have rivaled any of her mother's grunts or sighs. Over three thousand man-made satellites orbited the Earth; it looked as if she'd just wasted her wish on one.

Which meant, she supposed, that the answer to her wish was no.

Consoling herself with another heaping spoonful of chocolate ice cream, she trudged back to the house. At the back door, she stopped to take one last disgusted look at the stars. The pinprick of light gliding across the sky was accelerating.

Of the thousands of satellites in orbit, a good third were no longer in use, destined to burn up in the atmosphere. This must be one of them. Or possibly a meteorite. But instead of disintegrating like a typical falling star, the ob­ject brightened, gaining speed at an incredible rate.

Her heart sped up. My God. The part of her that had watched too many science-fiction movies screamed, "Killer asteroid!"

Instantly she quashed such silliness. Anything so large would have been tracked by the military. They'd have is­sued a warning hours ago, if not days or even weeks. The object was simply a larger-than-normal meteorite or hunk of space debris.

Eyes narrowed, she watched the growing ball of fire light up the neighboring ranches until its blaze disap­peared behind the brush that sprawled for miles behind her parents' property. Darkness flooded back, and the crickets and frogs went silent.

Andie braced herself for the earsplitting roar that fol­lowed something hitting the ground with such immense force. She'd witnessed an airplane accident once; she knew what crashes sounded like. Instead, all she heard was the frogs and crickets as they resumed their singing. Whatever had entered the atmosphere in the sky over Roswell must have vaporized before it hit. There was no other expla­nation.

A thick, cold droplet of ice cream dribbled onto the big toe of her left foot. She'd forgotten about the utensil she held in her hand. Blinking, she licked the spoon clean and headed for the living room.

The purple-and-gold plaid couch in the living room was new, and it looked inviting. Sinking deep into the cush­ions, she kicked off her sandals and called the fire de­partment to pass along what she'd seen. It was early in the season, but grass fires were always a danger.

The woman who answered sounded as if she'd already fielded a hundred such calls. "Thanks, we know about it."

There. She'd done her citizen's duty. Andie exchanged the phone for the television remote. She turned on the TV and tried not to think too hard about the coincidence of the star she'd wished on turning out to be a meteorite. Feet tucked underneath her, she stared at the unrecogniz­able series on the TV screen and smiled. Yes, this was exactly the kind of mindless activity she'd come home to find.

*****

Long after she'd scraped the last of the ice cream off the bottom of the container, the sound of gravel popping in the driveway jarred her out of a sitcom-induced stupor. It was the Cadillac, not her father's Volvo station wagon.

"Andromeda!" Her mother appeared outside the screen door. The woman's face was glowing with excitement, and her bun was coming undone. "Andromeda! Come see what I found."

"Mom, it was a meteorite. Not a UFO."

Cassie ignored her. "Frank? Is he home yet?"

Andie shook her head.

"Well, you're a strong girl," she reasoned breathlessly. "Oh, Andie, darling, wait till you see."

With as much enthusiasm as a prisoner being led to the guillotine by a nearsighted executioner, Andie trailed her mother to the car. Cassie unlocked the trunk, and it flew open.

An old quilt covered her mother's latest booty. Andie leaned forward and sniffed. The lumpy blanket gave off an acrid odor, as if what was hidden beneath had been in contact with overheated electrical equipment. There was something else, too, another scent, warm and exotic.

"Here," Cassie said. "Help me lift him."

"Him?" That was when Andie noticed her mother's scraped knuckles and dirty fingernails. "Mom, what's in there? What did you do?"

"Come on, baby. I need your help. He's out cold."

"Who is?" She swallowed against a dry throat. "What is?"

"The alien in my trunk."

Chapter Two

Andie stared at her. "Did you say…alien?"

Cassie grabbed a corner of the quilt and pulled. "Ta­da!"

Andie's eyes shifted from her mother's face to the trunk. The first thing she saw was a hand—with five very human fingers, she thought with relief. Strong, masculine fingers, with clean, trimmed nails…

Andie gave her head a shake. She was supposed to be checking his pulse, not staring at his hands, nice as they were. Pressing two fingers under his jaw, she noted the seconds on her wristwatch, studying the man as she counted out heartbeats. The old Cadillac didn't have a trunk light, and the darkness made it difficult to see. She knew he was clean-shaven, though—only the barest hint of a beard pricked the pads of her fingers—and his skin was warm and smooth.

Ten beats per fifteen seconds, she counted. Forty beats per minute. "His heartbeat's slow…really slow. But strong." His respiration was equally unhurried. If any­thing, the man was drunk and not injured.

Cassie wrung her hands. "I helped him walk from his ship to the car, but he hasn't moved or talked since he lay down in the trunk. No matter how hard he wanted to stay awake, he couldn't. Oh, Andie. I hope he's okay. Nothing seems to be broken or bleeding. Maybe it's our atmo­sphere. I don't know. I'm no expert in exophysiology."

Exophysiology: the theoretical study of extraterrestrial physiology. Right. Andie worked hard to keep the con­versation based in reality. "Was he in a car accident?"

"No, I was driving the back road, and—"

"You ran him over?"

Cassie looked outraged. "I did no such thing."

"Then how did he get hurt?"

"Why, in the crash. You saw it, didn't you?"

"I saw what I suspect was a meteorite." Though her mother had a point; the flaming object might have been an aircraft. A plane crash would explain her mother's use of the word ship, and how this unconscious clean-cut man had ended up in the wilderness by himself late at night. But if that was the case, where were the burns and bruises she'd expect to see on a survivor of such a fiery accident? "Did you actually see the plane crash, Mom?"

"It was a spaceship, honey."

Andie ground her teeth. "Where's the wreckage?"

"Oh, there wasn't any. The ship had a few dents and dings, that's all. Hard to believe, considering how hard it came down. It's advanced technology, Andromeda." Her mother's voice was hushed. "Very advanced. Not only is the ship almost indestructible, but you'd walk right past it if you didn't already know it was there. It has some sort of—I don't know what to call it—a disguise?"

Andie forced a shrug. Playing the game would only en­courage her mother.

Cassie looked down at her scraped knuckles and torn fingernails. "I covered the furrows as best I could. The rest is up to us." She squared her shoulders. "Let's get him inside. Heave-ho!"

"Mom, we're not bringing him into the house. We don't know who he is. He could be a drifter…or a serial killer." Her thoughts turned to the rifle locked in the gun rack. She was an expert marksman and not too shabby with a knife, either. Of course, what good were those skills if the weapons were locked in the gun cabinet in the living room? "There's a bed in the museum, right?"

"In the spare room, yes."

"Okay, let's carry him there. Then I'll call an ambu­lance."

Cassie clutched her favorite cardigan to her chest. "No ambulance."

"Yes, ambulance. And then we're calling the police."

"No." Her mother's eyes filled with tears. "They'll do tests on him. He'll end up preserved in a row of test tubes like the aliens who crashed in 'forty-seven."

Andie groaned. Her mother believed so fervently that the rumors of a spaceship crashing in 'forty-seven were true, and that the government had covered up the evi­dence. But a debate over who was right and who was wrong, using almost seventy-year-old hearsay as ammu­nition, was the last thing Andie was in the mood for. She'd come home to disappear for a while before the impending media frenzy stole away the last shreds of her private life, not to deal with some poor man her mother had labeled an alien and brought home in the trunk of her car.

"Promise me you'll not tell a soul," Cassie beseeched her. "No one knows he's here but us."

"Okay, okay," Andie said tiredly in hopes of temporar­ily placating her mother awhile longer.

Cassie slipped careful hands under the man's shoulders as Andie grabbed hold of his legs. He wore a black shirt and pants, matching knee-high, socklike boots, and a pale gray skullcap that hid his hair. He didn't look to be in pain or shock. In fact, he appeared to be sleeping, as her mother thought, although his expression was more sad than serene. At that, her heart gave a little twist.

"God—he's heavy," Andie huffed as they hoisted him up and over the lip of the trunk.

Cassie staggered backward.

"Watch it, Mom, or you'll"—the man's upper body slid to the ground—"drop him," she finished flatly. His head landed on the dirt with a muffled thump, leaving Andie standing there, holding a strange guy by the ankles in a dark driveway at eleven o'clock at night. "Way to go. If he doesn't have permanent brain damage, he'll probably sue you for dropping him on his head."

Her mother bit her lip.

Andie struggled to keep from losing her temper. If NASA suspected even a speck of scandal before they an­nounced the names of the six Mars astronauts at the end of the month, they'd quickly and quietly replace her with one of the eager runners-up waiting in the wings. She'd lose her one chance at her life's dream, participating in humanity's greatest endeavor since reaching the moon, all because her mother had decided to abduct a hapless ac­cident victim and turn him into one of her alien fantasies.

Andie exhaled. "Let's switch places." She wrapped her arms around the man's chest and lifted. His muscles had the solid, firm feel of someone who worked out.

His clothes caught her attention in a different way. The black fabric had a pearly sheen to it and felt like her mother's quilted oven mitts. The material was warm in places, cooler in others, as if it were adjusting to the man's body temperature.

She squeezed her eyes shut. It's not a space suit, it's not a space suit, she chanted to herself, as if words could in­oculate her against her mother's crazy ideas, which Andie hoped weren't communicable like typhoid or the flu.

"What did you say?" Cassie asked, breathless.

"Ah…the door. It's not open," she improvised as she stopped in front of the museum's front entrance.

Her mother lowered the man's feet and stiffly reached into her waist pouch. For a moment, the jingling of keys blotted out Cassie's labored breathing.

Once inside, Andie called upon her gym-honed strength and triathlete's endurance to drag the man's tall frame, solo, the rest of the way into a spare bedroom separated from the museum proper by another door. The man's legs swished over the linoleum floor as she pulled him past a cash register, a display case of wide-eyed plastic E.T.s with $14.95 price tags hanging from three-fingered hands, boxes of Reese's Pieces, and green sippy cups emblazoned with the phrase, Abduct an alien in Roswell, NM. Andie could only imagine what the man would think if he woke now.

With Cassie's help, she got him on the mattress, nearly falling atop him when his weight settled. Winded, she pushed away, gazing down at him. Now that she could study him in the light, his broad, high cheekbones and rugged features brought to mind Anatoly Butin, the Rus­sian cosmonaut she'd trained with in Siberia, a blond god of a man who'd grown up riding bareback on the steppes of central Asia. But she'd never reacted to Butin with the pulse-pounding awareness she felt now as she watched the exotic stranger sleep.

"A hunk, isn't he?"

Andie swallowed, finding it hard to pull her attention from the man. "Not bad." She avoided meeting her mother's mischievous eyes. "I'll call the ambulance now."

"Oh, baby, no. We can't tell anyone. Promise me. We're his only hope of survival."

Headlights flashed outside the curtained window. "Good. It's Dad. He's the expert; I'll go with whatever he says." She couldn't imagine her father not sending the man to the hospital.

Frank Del Sarto appeared in the doorway, a bemused smile on his face. His silver-and-black hair flopped over his forehead as he set his medical bag on the floor.

"Hey, Dad." Andie walked into his embrace.

He gave her a tight squeeze then peered over her shoul­der, seemingly pleased with what he saw on the bed. "Ah! Why didn't you tell us you were bringing someone home with you?"

"I wasn't. I mean, I didn't." She shoved her hands through her hair. "Mom brought him here."

He raised a brow at his wife.

Cassie said under her breath, "His spaceship crashed, and he might be hurt."

"Hmm," he said.

Only in the Del Sarto household would this conversation take place, Andie thought. "I wanted to call an ambulance, but Mom's afraid they'll whisk him away to Area fifty-one. He's out cold, obviously. He might be bleeding internally. Or have a head injury."

Cassie confessed, "I dropped him."

"He was already unconscious, though," Andie pointed out.

"Hmm," her father mumbled again. "For how long, do you think?"

"Oh, Frank. Close to an hour." Cassie wrung her scratched hands. "He slept in the trunk while I covered the furrows."

"Furrows…?" he said blankly.

"That the spaceship made," she explained.

The discussion begged for redirection. Andie held up her hands. "Dad, I promised Mom I'd go with what you said. If you think he needs to go to the hospital"—she shot her mother a challenging stare—"then we'll bring him."

He rolled up his sleeves. "Let me have a look." Unper­turbed—he'd lived with this craziness for forty years—he removed a stethoscope and a blood-pressure cuff from his medical bag. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed his hands over the man's chest. "Help me, An­die."

Andie saw the problem. The shirt had no buttons, zip­pers, or recognizable fasteners. She knelt on the other side of the bed and searched, running her hands over the man's chest and down to his lower abs. The man's stom­ach muscles contracted, and he groaned softly. Andie froze. Then she steadied herself, saying, "I'd swear he re­acted to that touch." She had reacted, too.

"Keep stroking him," Cassie suggested.

Andie gave her mother a long look. Then she traced her fingertip along a seam running from waist to neck. It opened magically under the pressure of her finger. "That was weird."

Her father paused in his task. "What was?"

"His shirt. The seam opened by itself. Like a Ziploc bag, only better." She spread apart the man's shirt. Under­neath, he wore a dove gray undershirt of the same soft, plush material as his sock-boots. It reminded her of long underwear. Not the kind of clothing one wore in mid­May—in this area, at least. She began to have doubts that he'd been in the area long, unless he'd come down from the mountains. "He could be running drugs," she whis­pered. "And sampled some of his own wares."

Her father frowned as he prepared to aim his penlight into the stranger's eyes. "Could be. He certainly isn't showing signs of trauma." He jerked up the man's left sleeve and fastened the blood-pressure cuff around his arm.

"I'll check for weapons, just in case." Andie patted him down. Nothing. Then she got to his right forearm. "Wait. There's something under his sleeve." It was rectangular with a bumpy surface. She pushed the sleeve higher. "Whoa. Look at this."

Her mother stepped closer. "What is it?"

"I think it's a computer." It looked like a very expensive piece of tech, too. It was flat and fit like a gauntlet on his arm. Riddled with optic fibers and minuscule blinking lights, it was labeled with letters in a language she didn't recognize.

Oh, brother. This was not going to help in convincing her mother that the guy wasn't from outer space.

Gingerly, she touched her fingertip to a raised ring in the center of the gauntlet. There was a beep, almost below the range of her hearing, and out popped an inch-high, three-dimensional figure.

Andie jerked backward. Her father gasped, and her mother gave a muffled cry. Then it got very quiet as they gaped at the tiny silver man gesticulating on the gauntlet's raised circle.

This was nuts, Andie thought. She had to extract herself from the situation. Immediately. But her mounting curi­osity commanded otherwise.

She rose off her haunches and leaned forward. The fig­ure was fluid and featureless, as if it were made of liquid mercury. "Amazing," she said under her breath. At the sound of her voice, the tiny figure stopped moving, as if awaiting orders. If she took the Paper-Clip Guy—that an­noying animated Office Assistant on old versions of Mi­crosoft Word—and combined it with advanced three-dimensional holographic technology, this little silver man would be the result.

"Hello," Andie said.

"Hello," it replied in a tiny, metallic voice. She smiled. "What are you?"

But it only repeated her words. She studied the gauntlet computer. That was when she noticed that the edges of the incredible device disappeared into the man's skin, from where information was routed God knew where. Embedded biotech. It would be decades, maybe another century, before anyone perfected such technology…on Earth.

The oddest sensation swept through her—part fear and part fascination. What if this really was a space voyager, a galactic traveler who glimpsed daily the distant wonders that were the stuff of her dreams?

Almost reverently, she placed her hand over the man's warm cheek. "Who are you?" she whispered. "Where are you from?" Please tell me you're a software rep from San Jose.

A muscle in his jaw jumped; she felt it tap her palm. Then his eye lids opened, and Andie's toes curled as he focused on her with irises as bewitching and liquid-silver as the little man he wore on his arm.

Chapter Three

The confusion in the stranger's unwavering gaze slipped into curiosity. Slowly that curiosity intensified into fasci­nation. Andie couldn't pull her eyes from him, either, though she almost blushed at his obvious bedazzlement. He was more than just good-looking. There was some­thing indefinably compelling about him. Now that she was the target of his attention, she felt the full impact of that breathtaking magnetism.

Abruptly her father's head and shoulder blocked her view of the man's face. As he pointed his penlight into the stranger's pupils, one at a time, she exhaled sharply, thankful for a chance to gather her wits. This was insane; she couldn't involve herself. She was slipping—slipping into the quicksand that was the wild, wacky world of her mother.

Yeah, but this man made your toes curl with a single look.

That was what she'd wished for, wasn't it? Maybe he was from space, and the sheer intensity of her plea had ripped his ship off its flight path, yanking the craft and its unwilling rider down through Earth's atmosphere and into her waiting arms.

She made a choking noise. Delusions. What came after that? Voices in her head? As if it mattered. Psychopathic episodes and harboring aliens would all weigh equally in getting her booted off the Mars mission.

Her father finished his initial examination and leaned toward her. "Take a close look at that device on his arm," he said under his breath.

"I did. It's implanted in his skin."

"Yes. Man combined with machine. Fascinating."

In his face she saw what she most dreaded. Her father's dark brown eyes sparkled, reminding her of how he looked in the photographs taken of him when he was an idealistic young resident. "You believe Mom," she said.

She waited for him to deny it, but he didn't. He'd al­ways been Andie's ally, her partner in reason. Reflexively, she clutched her stomach. Would she be her mother's next victim?

As her father turned back to his patient, Andie fought the sensation of trying to struggle free of quicksand.

"May I remove your hat?" her father asked the stranger in a gentle voice perfected by years of reassuring five-year-olds fearful of needles and wooden tongue depres­sors. "I need to check for injuries." He reached for the tight cap covering the man's scalp.

One muscular arm shot up. With fighter-pilot reflexes, Andie blocked the man's hand, keeping him from harm­ing her father if that was what he intended. Cassie cried out, and Frank lunged to protect Andie.

It was as if the four were all trapped in a freeze-frame action scene; no one moved and no one spoke. The fear in the room was palpable.

The stranger broke the silence with a sound of dis­mayed apology. The little figure standing on his wrist fell to its knees, tiny hands held over its head. Its owner rolled his eyes and slapped his hand over the computer. In an instant, Mr. Mercury was gone.

Clearly worried about startling them again, the stranger slowly and carefully raised one arm and peeled off his cap, revealing an inner lining of sensors and wires—and a head of layered, dark pewter-colored hair. Andie had the sinking feeling that the striking shade was what he'd been born with, not one he'd aged into. Her hopes that he might be a computer salesman fizzled.

The stranger winced as her father examined his skull. "You've got quite a knot there," Frank Del Sarto said as he explored an area behind his head.

"He does? Oh, my." Cassie wrung her hands guiltily. "I'll get an ice pack." She perked up. "And food. Do you think he's hungry?" She hurried to the bedside and bent forward, her hands spread on her powder blue leggings. Both knees were muddy; one was torn. The huge crystal she wore on a pendant swung over her breasts. "Can I make you something to eat?" She rubbed her stomach with exaggerated motions. "Lah-zah-nyah?"

The stranger stared at her, his expression growing warmer.

Andie wanted to howl. This could very well be the end of the world as they knew it, and her mother was offering reheated leftovers. It didn't help that her father appeared to be enjoying this as a diversion from the daily grind of screaming infants and poverty-stricken migrant workers.

Only in the Del Sarto household. Any normal family would have fled, screaming. Again, her fingers went to her temples.

Sighing, Cassie straightened. "He doesn't understand me."

The comment spurred Andie into doing something that made sense. She tried to communicate with the man. "We want to help you," she said slowly and distinctly.

Their eyes met, and her heart did a little flip. His silvery gaze intensified so swiftly that it felt as though all the air had left the room, forcing her to press her sandals onto the linoleum floor to make sure her toes didn't curl. "You've been in an accident," she told him. "This man is a doctor, and he wants to see if you're hurt."

He watched her speak, his mouth gently twisting. The fingers of his right hand twitched as if he wanted to reach for her. Failing that, he made a hoarse and drowsy attempt at speech.

The words were unintelligible. She tried Russian, then Spanish: the other languages in which she was fluent.

He shut his eyes briefly and answered with a sound of frustration. She lifted both hands and shook her head. The apology in his gaze, though, was easy to understand. Clearly exhausted by their abortive attempts to converse, he settled his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

She fought the almost irresistible urge to smooth his hair off his forehead. "I think he passed out again."

"He's sleeping," her father corrected.

"Oh, my!" Cassie whirled away from them. "I forgot to call the UFO group. They'll think I've forgotten them."

"You did, Cassie," her husband said drolly.

She giggled. "Wouldn't they love to know why, too? And, no, I'm not going to tell them!"

Again, Andie felt as if she were the sole voice of reason. "Mom, when you come back, bring the rifle."

Cassie's mouth tightened. "Why?"

"For protection." Andie studied the stranger, who now looked vulnerable with his eyes shut. "Ours and his."

When her mother left, Andie said to her father, "I saw a meteorite earlier. Mom thinks it was this man's space­craft." She checked her watch. "The local news ended forty minutes ago. We won't know until morning what the spin is on the incident." Or whether the National Guard is out combing the countryside for alien invaders, she left un­said. Returning her attention to the man in the bed, she saw that his breathing had slowed further, but he didn't appear to be in pain. "He can't stay awake."

"My impression is that he's sedated. His heart rate and respiration are depressed." Wearily, Frank loosened his tie and undid the top two buttons of his chambray shirt. "But without lab work, I don't know what he's on."

"We're bringing him to the hospital, then?"

"No," he said firmly. At her expression of dismay, he exhaled. "Andromeda, admit it. Does he look like any man you've ever seem before?"

"Ah, no."

"And consider his arm…that device. Where have you seen such a thing before, aside from science-fiction novels? If we take him to the hospital, we might be placing him in danger. And us, too."

"How's that?"

"The reason no one knows what happened in 'forty­seven is because people talked about what they found. Because of that, they caught the attention of certain ele­ments of the government—dare I say obsessed and fearful elements?—who then stepped in and put the clamp on the story. It was their own fault, Andie, those people who recovered that UFO. In their excitement, they drew the au­thorities to them and to what they found. We won't."

"We won't what, exactly?"

"We won't say anything to anyone. It'll only attract potentially hostile parties to this house. I will not bring that risk to you, your mother, or him." His gaze drifted to the sleeping man with his pewter hair and quilted black clothes. "This time we're doing it right."

"I don't believe this. I thought only Mom talked about this…this garbage." Andie's mother was the one who'd made her school years a mire of embarrassment. She was the one who'd made it impossible for Andie to invite friends home. She was why Andie had asked her high school dates to meet her anywhere but at the house. Not her father. "You don't believe in UFOs," Andie implored helplessly.

"I believe in what I see, Andie. And I think you do, too."

"If he's an accident victim and we keep him in a private home when he should be in the hospital, he could die. Or, if he lives, he could sue us and have every right to do so. This could be seen as abuse. Or kidnapping!"

"Ah, abduction." Her father's mouth curved mischie­vously. "What goes around comes around, eh? The E.T.s have been doing it to US for years. Now it's our turn."

She glared at her father. "You can't be serious."

"The bottom line is that he stays here under our pro­tection until we find out more about him. And where he's from."

A shiver ran through her. Where was he from? She thought of the little mercury guy and the astronomical phenomenon she'd seen shortly before her mother had "rescued" this strange, silent man with his unusual cloth­ing and indescribable computer. She could remain in denial as long as she liked, but dismissing the possibility that he'd crash-landed in a spaceship might be premature.

"Okay," she whispered. "Let's say he is an extraterres­trial. That makes him a threat to national security. I'm a military officer, Dad. I'm sworn to defend the country." She gestured to the bed. "That…creature could very well be his planet's equivalent of the first marines to hit the beach."

Her father lifted a brow. "Do you honestly think so? Your instincts are as good as mine, Andromeda. If he were truly evil, you would have seen it. He doesn't intend to harm us."

She lowered her arms to her sides. She'd read a lot in the stranger's eyes, more than she'd expected—or intended—but not hatred and certainly not treachery. "What if he's carrying germs for which we have no cure?"

"Why worry, then?" her physician father reasoned. "If that's the case then you, your mother, and I are already dead meat."

"True." The ice cream she'd eaten earlier sat in her stomach like a cold stone.

Cassie appeared in the doorway, offering Frank's rarely used hunting rifle to Andie as if it were a boot caked with horse manure. "Sleep with our guest tonight, baby."

Andie sputtered. "What?"

"There, on the chair. He's hurt and lost. I don't want him to wake alone and in the dark."

"Oh. Right. The chair." Andie took the rifle.

"I'll stay with her, Cass," Frank said, weaving on his feet from exhaustion.

Andie spoke up: "No, Dad, go to bed. You have to work in the morning. I, on the other hand, am on vacation." She let out a breath. Some vacation.

Frank glanced at the sleeping man, then back to her, and rubbed his hand over his face. He had a few reser­vations about leaving her, after all.

"I'll be fine," she reassured him. "Besides a gun, a black belt, and a rip-roaring case of PMS, I have a cell phone with a hot button to nine-one-one."

"Oh, dear." Cassie's expression made it clear that she now considered the stranger far more at risk than Andie.

Frank dug his hospital pager out of his pocket and handed it to Andie. "Keep this, too. If you need anything or if his condition changes, call me. The panic button rings by my bed."

Her parents walked to the door. There, her mother stopped and smiled approvingly at the man in the bed. "I started a pot of coffee brewing out in the museum." Then she winked at her daughter and left with Frank for the house.

Andie sagged onto a faded purple-checked chair at the foot of the bed. The cushion was flat, and old springs poked her rear end. With the loaded rifle sitting crosswise on her jean-clad thighs, she propped her heels on the edge of the mattress and gazed at her charge.

She was baby-sitting an alien. Worse, she might have wished the guy here.

She tipped her head back against the wall and tried to conjure the rational, sensible being she had been before she had set foot on her parents' property only four hours before. But as hard as she struggled to keep logic afloat in an ocean of absurdity, she had the sinking feeling that the stranger with the silver eyes spelled the end of her life as she knew it.

Chapter Four

In the washed-out light of dawn, Andie noticed that the man was awake. She didn't know how long his eyes had been open, but there he was, her mother's "alien," regard­ing her from the bed.

Her heart exploded with a rush of adrenaline, and her hands tightened over the rifle. "Aash," he said in a loud whisper. His hands came up, fingers spread, the gesture clearly made to calm her.

She studied him in the light of a sun that hadn't quite risen. The mellow illumination turned his golden skin the color of warm honey, leaving shadows in hollows below his cheeks and jawbone, and in the sinews of his wrists and hands. But it wasn't his physical appearance that captured her attention; it was something in his eyes, his face—a hint of sadness, of loneliness, of unrequited longing—that drew her to him on a fundamental, almost primal level.

Star light, star bright…

The events of the evening before came rushing back: the meteorite, her reluctant acceptance that it might have been this man's ship, her even greater unwillingness to ponder the coincidence of her wish and his appearance in the first place. Like a flood victim clinging to a piece of driftwood, she was averse to letting go of the possibility that he was an accident victim or a lost hiker. "How are you feeling? You were unconscious when we brought you here."

His reply was an apologetic murmur. He didn't under­stand. After attempting the same question in a variety of languages, she switched to simple sign language. Using her hands to tell a story in fighter-pilot fashion, she mim­icked a craft plunging through the atmosphere to Earth.

He nodded enthusiastically and repeated her gestures, adding a few more to help describe a rough landing.

Her blood froze. Instead of denying the allegation that he was an extraterrestrial, he'd embellished it.

His next gestures were made with increasing concern, using motions that left no doubt he was asking about his ship. Where is it? his eyes asked. Where am I?

"I'm sorry. Only my mother knows where your"—she forced herself to say the word—spacecraft is."

Interpreting her body language, if not her words, the stranger sagged back onto the pillow, his gaze turning in­ward. What the hell do I do now? was written all over his face.

He wanted to return to his ship. He wanted to leave Earth. And since she hadn't been able to give him the information he'd needed, he would believe, understand­ably, that he'd been taken against his will. Now it's our turn, her father had joked. At that, she winced. This cra­ziness had gone too far-she wanted out. Now. She didn't care how many housewives had been abducted by little green men in the past. She would have no part in Earth's revenge.

She spread her hands. "Tell me how to help. What do you need? I'll try to do it."

The edges of his mouth softened, and in his gaze a gen­tle light flickered. He must have sensed the meaning be­hind her words. Between the two strangers sparked an understanding, a cautious trust. With what she perceived as renewed optimism, he gestured at his gauntlet com­puter and then to his eyes. He repeated the motions, stop­ping only after it was obvious she didn't know what he wanted. Clearly stymied, he scrutinized the room's four walls, his gaze hesitating on the electrical outlets and phone jack. Again he spoke to her in his strange language. Brows drawn together, he poked his finger at what looked like a port in his computer.

"Do you need to plug in?" she asked. With technology as advanced as his, she couldn't imagine he needed to recharge his battery. But one never knew.

He raised his computer-clad wrist, this time to his mouth. Again he pointed to his eyes.

Maybe he was asking to use a computer. She tapped her finger on her chin. Was it too much to hope that he could download the English language from the World Wide Web and use that data to speak? To give him access to a PC, though, she'd have to bring him into the house, where her parents still slept. She wasn't sure if she trusted him enough to do that yet.

The man noticed her unease. Stiffly but carefully, as if she were a skittish creature that he didn't want to frighten, he swung his long legs off the mattress.

She hopped to her feet and placed her back to the door, ready for anything he cared to try. But he appeared to be in a depleted state. Sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, he caught his head in his hands, as if to ward off dizziness. If he'd come off a long space journey, his metabolism might have been depressed intentionally, ex­plaining his drowsiness from the evening before and his exhaustion now.

As he lifted his head, a few locks of his thick, shiny hair spilled over his forehead. Shoving them out of the way, he spoke earnestly in an unintelligible series of syllables.

She shrugged. "I don't understand."

He followed up with a series of guttural clicking sounds. She made a face, and he switched to a language with a cadence similar to a Ukrainian dialect she'd picked up during her yearlong training stint with the cosmonauts. Unfortunately, the stranger's version was indecipherable.

Looking worn-out, he tapped a finger on the center of his broad chest. "Zefer," he stated.

"Zefer?"

His eyes sparkled, and he nodded. "Zefer."

Ah, so that was his name. She pointed to herself. "An­die."

"Ahn-dee," he repeated in a deep, rich voice.

You Tarzan, me Jane. She fought to keep from smiling, and lost. An answering grin infused Zefer's hard features with boyish charm.

She melted. He noticed.

Their mutual awareness intensified.

He was gorgeous, she acknowledged, but not in the classic sense at all. He was rugged, mature, dignified; there was nothing "pretty boy" about him. At that, she stifled a ripple of longing. She hadn't realized, until then, just how tired she'd grown of "boys."

"So," she said.

"So," he replied.

She laughed softly and shrugged. His eyes sparkled. She could tell he found the primitiveness of their inter­action amusing. Equally, he seemed to be frustrated that they couldn't talk to each other. How she knew that, she wasn't sure—she never imagined there could be so much communication between two people without a common language.

Zefer pressed the raised circle on his gauntlet computer. Out popped Mr. Mercury, the 3-D, holographic Paper Clip Guy. Zefer said something to it and the little figure turned to her. In its tinny voice it recited the words she'd used the evening before: "Hello…what are you…hello."

Zefer pondered her with an unsettling mix of interest and hopefulness. "Hello," he said. "What are you?"

"Very attracted to you."

The words simply slipped out. Only by sheer force of will did she keep herself from blushing. When it came to expressing her feelings, she was very reserved. If it turned out that Zefer understood English, she'd absolutely die.

The air outside throbbed with a distinctive sound. Zefer cocked his head as a helicopter flew over the house. Low altitude, Andie noted. Was the crew on a routine mission or were they searching for something?

Someone?

She came back to her senses. Freezing her expression, she worked at recovering her professionalism. She didn't want it going down in history that all it took to disarm Earth's first line of defense against malevolent alien in­vaders was a pair of great eyes and a sexy smile.

The bedroom door flew open, bumping her in the back. "Andromeda!"

Andie stepped aside. Her mother breezed in, a covered tray in her hands. Her father followed, relaxed, business­like, and dressed for a day at the hospital. Traitor, she couldn't help thinking, twisting her mouth.

The savory smell of breakfast filled the room. "Good morning!" Cassie sang, setting the tray on the foot of the bed. Dressed in the hooded navy blue NASA sweatshirt Andie had given her for her last birthday, she simply glowed. It was clear this was the high point of her life. She'd snagged the ultimate prize, a real, live alien, the crown jewel of a lifelong obsession with extraterrestrials. She'd be the envy of UFO hunters everywhere.

Spock the parakeet sat on her shoulder, chirping riot­ously. Seemingly charmed by the wriggling green ball of feathers, Zefer smiled with his eyes. He stood up. Ap­pearing even larger in the black outfit seemingly made of oven mitts, his tall frame filled the bedroom, a chamber that made no secret of its storage-closet origins. But his manner was gracious, not overbearing. Space explorer, diplomat, scientist, or soldier—what was he?

Respectfully, he inclined his head toward her mother and father. "Zefer," he said.

Andie informed her parents, "That's his name." She made a round of introductions in Tarzan-Jane fashion.

"Hello, Zefer," Cassie enthused.

"Hello," Zefer replied. Spreading one hand over his chest, he added, "Very attracted to you."

Andie made a choking noise.

"Well," her mother said, smiling.

Frank's inquiring eyes swerved to Andie. She gave her father a look of utter innocence and said, "He has a knack for languages."

"And charm, too," her mother answered. She lifted the cover off the breakfast tray. Scrambled eggs and chorizo, shredded cheese, tortillas, salsa, and plump wedges of Florida grapefruit filled plates that Andie recognized as her family's best china. There was a bowl of plain oatmeal, too, and a few slices of white bread. "In case he's not quite ready for Earth food," Cassie explained gravely.

As Andie helped her mother serve the meal, Frank somehow communicated the concept of the nearby bath­room to Zefer, but not before he checked the alien's vital signs and injuries, and asked for a blood sample. At which point even Zefer appeared dazed as he allowed her father to stick a Band-Aid on his finger. Andie imagined herself in his shoes, crashed on a strange planet, bruised, tired, separated from his ship and unable to communicate with the strange natives who had rescued him. He had a lot pressing on his mind. Despite it all, he was being one hell of a good sport. More so than she was, Andie admitted grudgingly.

"I'll show Zefer where he can refresh himself," her fa­ther said. "Then I have an early meeting at the hospital. I'll try to get back from the clinic tonight as early as I can." Andie understood too well the improbability of his ful­filling that promise.

Zefer walked with her father into the main part of the museum, gazing at the UFO sippy cups and the Star Trek posters with the unabashed excitement of an archeologist in an undiscovered, artifact-filled pyramid. Spying the dis­play of $14.95 little green men, Zefer laughed. "Weezahs," he told Andie over his shoulder, as if sharing an inside joke.

The wide-eyed, price-tagged, three-fingered plastic toys stared innocently back at them. "Weezahs?" she asked.

Zefer made motions with his hands indicating flight, explaining with a stream of unintelligible words that made it seem like the little green men really existed.

She didn't ask. She didn't want to know.

When Zefer closed the rest-room door, her father kissed Cassie good-bye and ruffled Andie's hair. Then he left.

Andie hid her face in her hands and counted silently to ten. The nightmare didn't go away: there was an alien using the bathroom in her mother's UFO museum.

She turned to Cassie and whispered, "We need to dis­cuss what we're going to about this."

"This?" her mother asked innocently.

"You know." Andie jerked her chin toward the mu­seum. "Him. He wants out of here. He wants his ship."

"Then we'll see to repairing it so he can go home."

"And it'll be that simple, hmm? I heard a helicopter fly over the house. Have you had a chance to watch the news? What are they saying about the meteorite?"

"The spaceship."

"The flying saucer. The starship Enterprise. Whatever."

"I haven't seen or heard anything. Roswell This Morning comes on at six. We'll see what they have to say." Cassie's hand fluttered over her crystal pendant. "I'm worried, too, baby. But no one saw me bring him here."

"You don't think anyone saw." Andie rubbed her tem­ples. Every minute that went by dragged her deeper into this mess. It was her duty to tell someone—the military, the government, NASA—about Zefer. But last night she'd promised her parents that she would keep his presence secret. And now that she'd met Zefer, she was less certain than ever that she should divulge his identity without his consent or understanding of the possible consequences.

She hugged her arms to her chest and paced in a three­-foot square. National security or her parents' trust: she had never dreamed she'd be forced to choose between two such fundamental loyalties. Moreover, she herself had guarded Zefer during the night, and was in effect guard­ing him still. Whether his appearance turned out to be an accident, a threat, or a hoax, she was in too deep now to escape unscathed.

Hungry for sensationalism, the press was going to eat this up—in twenty-six days…if they didn't find out sooner. She made a mental vow to make sure they didn't.

Her mother said softly, "This is all so fascinating. So many questions to be answered. I have to ask him about the summer of 'forty-seven, of course. And—oh!—the cir­cles in that English farmer's field. Hmm. Do you think he knows anything about that woman's abduction in 'sixty­eight? Though it probably happened before he was born." Cassie glanced in the direction of the rest room, her voice hushed. "The rumor is that she bore her captor's twin sons, but she never allowed any DNA testing—for the sake of the children." Her voice trailed off into a sigh.

Andie whirled on her. "To you this is one big adven­ture!" Remembering that Zefer was in the bathroom, she lowered her voice. "Life's just a game, isn't it? You just go happily along, doing what you want, saying what you want. Have you ever stopped to think about how your actions affect me? Or my career?"

Clearly taken aback, Cassie reached for her. Andie pulled her arm away.

"Am I an embarrassment to you?" Her mother asked the question as if she'd never contemplated the possibility. It proved just how unaware the woman was of her own behavior.

The urge to answer in the affirmative bubbled up inside Andie. She thought of her school years, the ridicule, the smirks of adults and children alike. Because she truly loved her mother, she'd always held back from explaining the reason for her resentment, why she'd stopped bringing friends to the house, why she'd used college as an excuse to flee home at seventeen, why she'd spent every year since trying to show the world that she was nothing like her mother. Even now, when asked the question directly, she was compelled to soften the blow. "As a kid, I…I wanted you to be like the other mothers."

"I see." Spock sidled closer to her mother's head and loosened a frizzy red curl with his beak. Cassie's attention remained on her daughter. "You wanted me to view the world and its wonders in a way that was socially accept­able."

Andie cleared her throat. "Yes."

"Life is made of rocks, Andromeda. I don't think I ever told you that."

Andie's shoulders sagged. A normal conversation—­they'd been almost there, she thought, burning with dis­appointment.

Her mother went on: "I've always been one to lift up a rock to see what was underneath, even at the risk of dirt­ying my hands…or finding a horrible spider. Am I will­ing to change just to satisfy others' expectations of me? No, I am not. I wouldn't want to live my life looking at only the top sides of rocks, any more than I think you­—pilot, astronaut, Air Force officer—would want to spend your days as, let's say, an orthodontist."

Goose bumps trickled down Andie's arms. She never knew that was how her mother viewed her life—their lives.

"I'm not ashamed to dream," Cassie said. "And I'm not afraid to take risks. I don't want you to be either, baby."

Andie thought of her years spent flying fighters and then the long and dangerous upcoming mission to Mars. "I know all about risks," she said dryly.

"Not of the heart, you don't. Your father was much the same way…many years ago."

Andie's first impulse was to deny the charge, but her mother's remark unleashed a niggling doubt deep inside her. What if she was right?

You wished on a star and Zefer came. Crazy.

But still possible. This could…

No! There was more at risk here than her heart.

With timing that couldn't have been worse, the alien menace himself emerged from the bathroom. His black jumpsuit was zipped to his neck once more, the seam in­visible, the exotic fabric stretched snug across his chest. He must have washed using the sink. As he combed damp hair back from his face with his fingers, he gave Andie a killer smile that made her think of long showers for two and a few other scrumptious activities she had no right pondering—not because it had been so long since she had, but because fantasizing about this god-from-the-stars, with the future of Earth possibly hanging in the balance, was downright irresponsible.

You wished for him.

She groaned. "I'm going for a run," she told her mother. She needed to think. And she thought best alone. "A long run." Maybe all the way to the airport in Amarillo, where she'd hop on the first flight to Florida. She'd be home in no time—sane, safe, and in total denial that any of this had ever happened.

Her cell phone rang. She read the caller ill and an­swered, her eyes lifting to her mother's. "Yeah, Dad," she said uneasily as another helicopter flew over the house.

"Turn on the radio—Early Morning with Ed Fritch—now. And you might as well warn your mother: she's about to get a phone call."

Chapter Five

"Ed Fritch." Andie hung up the phone. "Isn't he in your UFO club, Mom?"

"He's vice president." Cassie wrung her hands. "I don't know why he'd be calling, unless—"

The telephone extension in the museum rang. Spock chirped, imitating the sound. "Oh, dear. Andromeda, lock up the museum, and make sure the closed sign is dis­played. Then come to the house. Zefer, too." She scurried off to take the call in the house.

Zefer frowned, as if he sensed the situation involved him and that it had gone sour.

"We have to go," Andie said tersely. She grabbed the rifle and the keys, and pointed to the exit. "Mother's or­ders."

In the entry, Zefer searched the parking lot and sky be­fore stepping outside. Then he took her arm by the elbow, making it clear he saw himself as a cohort, not a captive.

They strode across the driveway, skirting droplets of oil staining the spot where her father liked to park his Volvo. It was still early, and the air smelled like dust and roses. Zefer noted the little-green-men lawn ornaments with amused eyes. Then, breathing deep, he soaked in the out­doors like a man shaking off a severe case of cabin fever.

A helicopter flew low over the neighboring pasture.

Its occupants were definitely on someone's trail, though she hoped not Zefer's. The helicopter was a civilian model, not Army or Air Force. However, if word spread that a spaceship had crashed, the authorities would come look­ing for evidence and it'd be 1947 all over again. Only this time it wasn't a weather balloon; it was real and Andie was smack-dab in the middle of it.

She gritted her teeth. "I don't want to be involved in this. I can't afford to be involved in this." Everything had been so simple before. Now her loyalties, her obligations, were pulled in so many different directions.

Zefer's fingers pressed gently into her skin. "Aash."

"I don't want to 'aash.'" Where was he from? What was his reason for coming here? "Damn it, Zefer. This is ridic­ulous; we need to be able to talk!" She scowled and addressed the little silver man on his arm: "Just so you know, 'damn' is not a nice word."

"Ed Fritch," it droned in its robot voice.

She let out a breath. "Hmm, maybe that's not such a nice word, either." Hoping Mr. Mercury would upload her explanation for later translation, she said, "Ed and my mother have been friends for over fifty years. And I think they've spent most of it in an unofficial race to be the first to make contact with aliens." She'd never had any doubt that they'd both go to the grave defeated. That was, until last night.

"Ed hosts a talk-radio show on local, unexplained phe­nomena. It has an almost cultlike following, so you'd bet­ter believe that everyone who saw the sky show last night is going to call in. And, as always, he'll invite longtime Roswell resident—my dear mother—Mrs. Cassiopeia Del Sarto to share her expert opinion." Andie mimicked Ed's exaggerated fanfare, then continued: "Fellow seekers, join me in welcoming the president of UFO Hunters of Amer­ica—senior division!"

It was clear that Zefer had no idea what she was mock­ing, but it seemed her animated cynicism amused him. She could feel his attentive gaze on her even after she shifted her eyes to the front porch.

They trotted up the steps. "Mom missed their weekly UFO meeting last night," she told him in a more serious tone. "Knowing Ed, he's suspicious. He'll want to find out what she knows…that he doesn't." She made a face. "And my mother's a horrible liar."

His fingers flexed on her arm. We're in this together, the gesture assured her.

Only she didn't want to be in this at all—with him or anyone else. She was an unwilling participant in her mother's greatest fantasy. Skidding…sliding…Reflex­ively, her fingers twitched; she could almost feel her nails dragging over the dirt as the quicksand pulled her in.

Inside the house the TV was on, a commercial playing. Cassie sat at the kitchen table, a phone pressed to her ear. "Actually, Ed, I think this one burned up before impact," her mother fibbed with a surprising degree of sincerity. "My daughter's visiting, the astronaut, and she thought so, too…"

Spock flew across the living room and landed on Zefer's wrist. Squawking, the bird pecked at Mr. Mercury. The little figure batted at the bird with tiny arms. "Damn it!" it blurted.

Andie moaned. "I'm a horrible influence."

Zefer stowed the little man. Triumphant, Spock sidled up Zefer's now-unoccupied arm to his shoulder. Like an interstellar Captain Hook, Zefer stalked around the room, peering at electrical outlets and pointing to his eyes.

"I think I have what you need. Over here." Andie steered him to the spare computer in the kitchen that her father used only to download the New York Times and var­ious medical journals to which he had Internet subscrip­tions. No important files were saved on it, making the PC a relatively risk-free way to set Zefer loose on the World Wide Web. She brought up her favorite search engine and moved aside. "Good luck," she said, and hoped he knew what to do to get what he needed.

He ignored the keyboard. There was a soft whirring noise as the device on his forearm opened. Spock took to the air with a rustling of feathers. From a shallow com­partment in the gauntlet, Zefer extracted a pair of glasses, sleek and dark, and donned them. He gave a verbal order in his language and a silvery cable snaked out from near his wrist and found the PC's USB port.

The Del Sarto computer's antivirus protection launched a fleeting, futile protest before succumbing to an assault its creators hadn't anticipated. The display on the com­puter screen jumped from site to site so rapidly that Andie had to work at keeping her eyes from crossing. Then the monitor blurred completely. Streams of data flickered be­hind Zefer's lenses. His lips parted slightly as he took in an incalculable amount of information.

The amazing sight touched upon every dream she'd ever had of the future: the unlimited promise of technology, of man married to machine, science improving hu­man existence. Her underlying attraction to the compelling silver-eyed man melded with awe and a hunger to know the wonders he had known. And it erased the last of her doubts about his origins.

With a pop, the monitor went blank and the cable whirred back into Zefer's computer. She made a mental note to keep him away from her laptop.

"The search goes on for survivors of a possible plane crash yesterday evening…"

Andie spun around. The television was playing the morning news.

"Though some local organizations insist that once again aliens have crash-landed in Roswell, search crews con­tinue to comb the countryside looking for a downed air­craft…"

"Good," said a heavily accented deep voice. "Ed Fritch does not look for ship."

Andie's breath caught. Slowly she faced Zefer. "You spoke English," she said.

"I download all languages of Earth, but I choose En­glish. Your language, Ahn-dee," he added with a dazzling smile.

At the sound of her name on his lips, her heart did a little flip. She wanted desperately to remain unaffected by him. But the unaccountably intimate tone of his voice made her think of moonlight and kisses. "Your technol­ogy—it's incredible."

"Program will continue to improve on itself," Zefer ex­plained, "so I speak better each time."

"Do all your people have implanted, integrated com­puters?"

"Not yet." He glanced at his forearm. "Still experimental. I, and many others, we volunteer. I am bachelor and in good health. Makes me perfect test subject—expendable and long-lasting." He shrugged. "Before, I do not use it much, the…enhancement. It brings me headaches, fa­tigue. But this…being able to speak to you"—he waved his hand at her mother—" and your people…it is finally worth all the trouble."

"Is that what brought you here? Exploration?"

"I do not know what brought me here." He walked to the window and peered out. "One moment I am going into deep-sleep mode used for long solitary journey. Next, computer wakes me and ship is roaring through atmo­sphere of a planet not on flight plan."

Andie brought her hand to her mouth. Her wish…?

"I barely gain control of craft before landing it." He grimaced. "More a crash than a landing." His attention shifted to Cassie, who had, without Andie noticing, ended her phone conversation. She was gazing at Zefer, a look of blissful amazement lighting her face.

"You were there…Mrs. Del Sarto," Zefer said, dearly taking pains to pronounce her name correctly. "You helped me. Is my ship intact?"

"Yes," her mother assured him. "A few dents and scratches to the hull. The inside, well…you'll have to be the judge of that."

Relief suffused his features.

The phone rang, and Cassie answered it. Her face paled and she said, "Sure, Ed. I'll be here."

Swallowing, Cassie hung up.

"He's coming over," Andie said flatly.

Her mother nodded. "He wants to meet with me, re­garding what we saw last night. I had to, Andie. If I'd acted evasive, or tried to meet him somewhere else, it would make him even more suspicious than he is al­ready."

Andie held up her hand. "Okay." Swiftly she recovered her cool demeanor and asked, "When?"

"He'll be here after the show. In an hour or so. I'll chase him out as quickly as I can, but"—her sigh was fraught with worry and irritation—"I think you should take Zefer out."

"Out?" Andie's mouth dropped open. "Look at him! He looks like a refugee from a Star Trek convention."

Zefer slid a dismayed and wary glance downward at his black jumpsuit.

"I'll find him some of your father's clothes," Cassie said. "Those oversize sweats," she added, eyeing the big alien critically. "The shoes won't fit, though."

"No, and we have to get him out of here before Ed comes." Studying Zefer, Andie tapped her finger against her cheek. "I can take him with me, dressed in Dad's clothes. He'd be safe, I think, waiting in the car until I get him some shoes." If no one scrutinized him too closely, she thought. "But it's only eight o'clock," she murmured. "That doesn't leave us many choices for an emergency fashion makeover."

"Wal-Mart will be open," her mother suggested brightly.

Andie nodded curtly. "It'll have to do."

Zefer finally spoke. "It will have to," he said, humor glinting in his eyes. "I do not want to look like a…ref­ugee."

Andie laughed at his self-deprecating joke, to his ap­parent pleasure, and then sheepishly spread her hands. "I'm sorry, Zefer. I didn't mean to insult you."

His eyes told her that he remained more amused than insulted. "Where may I don my borrowed clothing so we may embark on our expedition?"

Andie's smile faded. Zefer's question drove home the fact that she was actually taking him into town. Slipping… sliding…The quicksand gripped her all over again.

He searched her face, his expression suddenly grave. "I bring you danger."

Cassie wrung her hands. "You're who we're worried about, " she said.

Zefer's gaze, lingering on Andie, turned regretful. "Ah. I understand. Earth does not know the history of our race, the Progeny, or our common heritage, the Seeders. Not only does this lack of knowledge explain Earth's fear, it is against my laws to stay here without the knowledge and consent of my government. I will leave as soon as my ship is fixed."

"Wait a second," Andie said. "Who are the Seeders?"

"The Original Ones. Several hundred thousand years ago, they sowed their DNA across the galaxy. We thought we knew of all the worlds they touched; in fact, we were sure of it. But folklore recounts many tales of a lost world, one we have never seen, that became separated from us by time and distance. It was assumed to be a legend only. But"—his eyes sparked with wonder—"perhaps that lost world is Earth."

Andie and her mother gaped at him. It was as if he'd opened a volume entitled Secrets of the Universe, and was reading them the pages.

"I am an explorer. My parents were explorers, as were my grandparents before them. It is in my blood. Since I was a boy, I dreamed of being the one to discover the lost world, to reveal the truth of its existence to my people." He didn't take his eyes from Andie's, his face as deeply expressive as his voice. "There would be a woman there, whose soul I'd find was bound with mine. And as our worlds came together," he said quietly, "so would we."

Andie wanted to laugh out loud. She wanted to weep. She wanted to kiss Zefer hard on the mouth. She wanted to go on a run—five, ten, a hundred miles. She wanted to escape this vortex of insanity and never return.

Breaking eye contact, she twined her hands together and pressed them under her chin. If there was one thing she'd learned from her years flying fighter jets, it was this: if the rules of engagement changed, you adapted. Or else someone would turn you into—in fighter-jock terms—­toast. The parallel to her current situation was clear. She was in deep—too deep to extract herself. She had no choice but to team up with her mother and, in so doing ensure Zefer's safe departure. Now all she had to do was figure out how to accomplish that without compromising her dreams, her planet, or her heart.

Chapter Six

Andie took a quick shower, while Zefer squeezed into a pair of stretchy old shorts and a T-shirt that were baggy on her father but snug on him. After he rushed hungrily through the breakfast Andie's mother prepared, Cassie shoved them out the front door to ensure they were gone long before Ed arrived.

Without Andie's needing to show Zefer how, he found the seat belt and buckled it. As she drove along the pitted dirt driveway to the road, she stared dazedly ahead. Last night she'd driven past this very spot. Twelve hours later, she was bringing a barefoot extraterrestrial to Wal-Mart.

She swallowed a groan as she drove past a man selling paintings of aliens and Elvis from the back of his pickup parked below a billboard advertising: THIS EXIT! EXTRA TERRESTRIALS-R-US—ROSWELL'S OLDEST UFO MUSEUM.

"I know you want to see your ship," she said, ''but I have to keep you out of sight for a while." She went into detail about Ed and her mother's UFO group.

When she finished, Zefer nodded gravely. "No problem. We will keep a low profile until nightfall."

His use and adaptation of slang was remarkable. His "program" was improving on itself, she thought as she pushed a disc into her new CD player, a device that sud­denly seemed so…primitive. "You'll stay in the car while I buy the clothes," she said.

He nodded. "I will stay."

"And if anyone asks, you're my Russian cosmonaut boyfriend." She could have just as easily chosen buddy, or business associate. Boyfriend? Zefer had downloaded and, she guessed, understood the meaning of the term. Still, if he didn't seem to mind their invented relationship, neither would she. "Being Russian will help explain your accent. We'll need to pick a name for you, too." She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "How about…Anatoly Butin?"

Sunlight glinted off the dark sunglasses Zefer said he needed to wear for enhanced language translation. "He is your lover."

Her foot convulsed on the gas pedal. Zefer didn't ap­pear to notice the sudden acceleration. "No," she said firmly. "He is not my lover." She and Butin had ended up in bed one cold Siberian night after consuming too much vodka. And they'd repeated the venture, minus the vodka, a few more times in her remaining weeks in cosmonaut training. But they'd had their careers to think about, and not enough motivation to keep their relationship going with cultural differences and thousands of miles of sepa­ration complicating the issue. "But yes, I used to see him. That was a long time ago."

"Then you have a new boyfriend?"

"Nope, no boyfriend." Who do you have, baby? She forced a bland look onto her face.

"Forgive me all my questions," Zefer said after a few moments of awkward silence. "But are you engaged? Mar­ried? Separated?"

She cracked a smile. "None of them. I'm single and healthy—'expendable and long-lasting'—same as you. Only no one's asked me if I want a computer implanted in my arm."

They had, though, invited her to go to Mars: an ardu­ous, dangerous, nearly three-year round-trip. Everyone NASA had chosen for the Mars flight was unmarried. That alone summed up the nature of the mission.

Zefer nodded. "You are very attracted to me."

In the midst of passing a slow-moving truck, Andie changed lanes so abruptly that the tires shrieked. Trained to disregard distractions, she tried her hardest to do so, frowning as she followed the road into town. "Zefer, when I said that I didn't think you understood English!"

"I reviewed the transcripts."

She glared at Mr. Mercury. "Snitch," she said in a hiss. "Hello," the little figure replied innocently.

She turned into the Wal-Mart parking lot and parked, only to leave the Corvette idling while she watched people walk in and out of the store. Normal people with normal lives, she thought wistfully.

Zefer reached across the dash. With a jangling of keys, he shut off the ignition. He stayed in that position, bent toward her, one muscular arm propped on the dashboard. "I am, too," he said with gentle frankness.

She clutched the steering wheel, as if she could hold on to something she feared she'd already lost. "You are what?"

"Very attracted to you."

His sincerity raised goose bumps on her arms. At the same time, sweet warmth flooded her, a sort of buoyancy; a laugh-out-loud giddiness. It was that teetering-at-the­-edge-of-the-abyss sensation when you first wondered if you were going to fall in love. She hadn't felt this way in so long, and certainly never with the force and poignancy that she did now.

Her hands slid limply into her lap. "That's saying a lot," she murmured, staring out the bug-spotted windshield, "seeing that we've only known each other a few hours."

Sunshine flooded through the windshield, heating the car. But it was their heightened awareness of each other that made the temperature soar.

Her eyes dipped to his mouth. His fingers brushed over her kneecap. He wanted to kiss her. She wanted him to kiss her. But she had no business kissing him at all.

She'd gone above and beyond the call of a daughter's duty to her mother by agreeing to disguise him. From now until Zefer returned to his ship, he was her mother's proj­ect, her mother's worry.

Something rapped on the driver's-side door. Andie wrenched her gaze from Zefer's and rolled down the win­dow. A woman dressed in pink-and-green floral scrubs and sensible white shoes waved frantically. "Hey, girl! Dr. Del Sarto told me you'd be coming for a visit. And wouldn't you know, I run a few errands and here you are!" The nurse winked at Zefer. "I'm sorry if I interrupted something, but I was so excited when I spotted your car. Small world, huh?"

"Very small," Andie agreed. Sickeningly, suffocatingly, Career-endingly small. "It's great to see you, Tasha." She managed a smile. "How about we do lunch later in the week and catch up?"

"I'll call you." Tasha bent forward, peering into the car as her plastic shopping bag dangled from one arm. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Andie realized there was no way she was going to avoid formal intro­ductions.

Andie cleared her throat. Meet Zefer. He's from outer space. And he's here because I wished on a star. Can you believe it? I must have one heck of a fairy godmother. I mean, look at him. Have you ever seen a sexier alien? Not only that, he's a nice guy, too.

But of course, that wasn't the response that made it past her internal censor.

"Tasha," Andie began, "I'd like you to meet my friend Anatoly Butin. He's visiting from Russia." She turned to her composed, almost Zen-like passenger and said, "An­atoly, this is my friend Latasha Williams. She's a nurse in pediatrics at the hospital with my father."

Zefer's dark glasses made his smile seem all the brighter. "It is my pleasure to meet you, Latasha."

"Lo-ove his accent," her friend confided to Andie before returning her attention to Zefer. "Welcome to Roswell, hon. When did you arrive in the States?"

He didn't miss a beat "Last night. It was a late flight."

"I bet you're jet-lagged."

"Time: it is all relative," he replied with a surprisingly Slavic shrug.

"Well, you be sure to rest up. Nice meeting you! I've got to run." Tasha called over her shoulder as she walked off, "I'll let your father know I bumped into you two, An­die!"

Andie flopped back against the seat. "Damn it."

"Damn it, is right."

"Listen to your language. I told you—I'm a bad influ­ence."

"I saw far worse on the Internet."

"I bet you did. And look who showed you how to get there. I'm corrupting you."

He dragged his fingertip over the knuckles of her right hand. "I hope that is a promise."

Her smile faded. "Zefer…"

He sobered along with her. "It was a joke, Ahn-dee."

"I know," she murmured. "I…We…" She sighed a sigh that would have made her mother proud. "Zefer, it's impossible."

He sat back in his seat, his mouth tight. "You are an astronaut, one who explores space."

"You know?"

"I read the files in your computer."

She smiled at that. "My father. He's a one-man clipping service. I think he has every article ever written about me."

"You are to go to Mars," he said firmly. "The fourth planet from Sol, your star. I read this."

She gaped at him. "No decision's been made yet. That information hasn't been—"

"Ahn-dee." He acted exasperated. "You have been told. I look at you and see it in your eyes. It may be a secret to others, but not to me. Your desire to walk upon the Red Planet glows in you like fire. I know. I am an explorer, too. Like knows like."

A tremor ran through her. Like knows like. Was that why she was so drawn to Zefer? But she'd dated astronauts before. Even slept with a cosmonaut. And it had never been like this. There must be more to her connection with Zefer than a hunger to explore the stars.

The wish. She gulped guiltily. "Comparing you to me is like comparing a deep-sea diver to a child dipping her toes in the water. My only trip into space was a two-week stint on the International Space Station." And that was only an orbiting structure held tight to Earth's bosom. "But I've always wanted to be what you are, Zefer," she said with longing. Even his name embodied freedom. Zephyr—the wind. "I want to pioneer. I want to feel the risk, the thrill, of arriving first. Now I'm finally going to be able to see what that's like. Too bad that the space program here is still in its infancy, and Mars will be my one and only shot." She shrugged. "But life goes on."

She unbuckled her seat belt and moved to unlock the door. Zefer stopped her before she could let herself out.

"I am on my way to the Outer Fringe," he said, "the farthest known settlement known to the Progeny of the Seeders. I am to be the commander, my first leadership position—not the first such opportunity I have been of­fered, but the first one I have wanted to accept. Daily, surveyor vessels will depart the space city and others will arrive from areas never before explored. All will share in the wonders discovered. And I am to help determine which new worlds are to be colonized."

Again, that odd mix of hope and longing flickered across his face. Reflecting on the wish she'd made, she wondered if he saw the same yearning in her.

"Come with me when I leave here," he said. "To the Outer Fringe." The intimate way his hand moved over hers assured her she'd be more to him there than a pro­fessional associate.

"But ... I'm going to Mars. In four months."

"I will take you there. On our way out of your planetary system. Which topographical area would you like most to see? The north pole, or south? Or perhaps the equator?"

His invitation so rattled her that she could hardly form a response. "You're offering me a lift? To Mars?" She yanked her hand from his. "I don't want anyone to bring me there. I want to go, Zefer, under my own power. Like knows like?"

She huffed, then continued, "If you really believed that, you'd never make this offer; you'd know I wouldn't give up the uncertainty, the months of boredom, the mistakes, the moments of terror, the anticipation, the thrill of par­ticipating in the greatest adventure in history—Earth's his­tory, which was, until you came here, all that mattered." She shoved the door open. "Thanks, but no, thanks."

She planted her feet outside the car. Then she looked over her shoulder. Zefer's mouth was still hanging open. He reminded her of a little boy who'd presented a crum­pled bouquet of carefully chosen dandelions only to have them cast off. Her heart wrenched. What was wrong with her? What had happened to the person she used to be? The cool, calm, considerate individual? Ever since Zefer had shown up in her mother's trunk, she'd been a seething knot of conflicting emotions.

She took a steadying breath. "I'm so sorry."

It was silent for a moment. Then Zefer said quietly, "You are right. I know you are right. Yet I said the words; I made the offer." He shoved one hand through his hair. "I am not acting in any way that is remotely like my usual behavior."

The tension seeped out of her. "I've been pretty much thinking the same thing about myself." She recalled what her mother had said about taking risks of the heart. Was that what was happening to her? To them? "Sometimes when you peek under rocks, you find some ugly spiders. Maybe this is the part where our hands get dirty." He looked totally confused. She was too drained to explain.

Slamming the door behind her, she strode across the parking lot—and didn't look back. She could pull an Ame­lia Earhart—right now—by disappearing mysteriously. It was tempting to keep walking, through the store, out the back, past the adjacent shopping mall, and down the block, where she'd seen a little rental-car place. As lunch­time rolled around, she'd be well on her way back to Flor­ida and miles away from this…this insanity.

But once inside Wal-Mart, she veered toward the men's clothing section as if she were on autopilot. As bloody as it was turning out to be, she was in this battle for the duration. Her only hope was that when the end came, it would be painless. And quick.

Chapter Seven

Sipping a Diet Coke, Andie waited outside a gas station rest room until Zefer emerged dressed in imitation Doc Martens, jeans, and a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt. An Ace ban­dage covered his gauntlet. "Well. You look almost…lo­cal. But Mr. Mercury won't be happy, smothered under that bandage."

"Ah, but he'll still maintain all his functions."

"Including snitching?" She pretended to scowl.

He chuckled. "His simulated personality seems so gen­uine. I created him for entertainment only, yet even I sometimes forget he's not real."

"That's his only purpose?" she asked as they climbed back into the car. "Entertainment?"

"When you spend as many weeks as I do alone, such amusement is a worthwhile diversion."

That she could relate to—weeks alone—she thought as she drove Zefer past her elementary school and high school, and the airport where she'd learned to fly. After the minitour of her past history, and a check-in call to her mother, she picked out a buffet restaurant for lunch, so Zefer could better choose foods that appealed to him. Over a heaping plate, he answered her questions about his civilization, the ruling government, their technology and space ventures. And he eased her reservations about Earth's first contact with his people, giving her a rush of homecoming joy when he painted a mental picture of Earth's poignant reunion with the only other beings in a vast and lonely galaxy who shared their DNA.

They'd finally moved on to tales of his boyhood spent on starships and rugged, far-flung planets as the only child of explorer parents, when he stopped suddenly mid­sentence and grimaced, pressing his fingertips to his fore­head. Andie's chest contracted. "What's wrong? Are you ill?"

"Not ill." He paused to catch his breath. Speaking seemed to be an effort. "It is the computer—using it to communicate verbally drains me."

"Then stop talking."

He looked as if he would protest. She held up one fin­ger. "Enough said."

It was too early to risk going home. She thought for a moment, then perked up. "I'll take you to the movies. You can watch either with the glasses or without. And you won't have to talk."

Once there, they watched two movies in a row. Before the end of the second film, he fell asleep. He'd sunk so low in his chair that she didn't realize it at first, but his slow, steady breaths confirmed her suspicion. "I must be an exciting date, huh?" she teased. But he was beyond hearing, beyond caring.

When the lights came on at the end, she nudged him awake. "It's late and you need sleep," she whispered. "Let's go."

His face was pale as he walked slowly out of the nearly empty theater.

Once back at the house, Andie parked in front of the museum. " 'Closed,' " she read from the sign posted near the front entrance. " 'Renovating to better serve you.' " She glanced at Zefer. " 'Grand reopening July first?' Sounds like my mother plans to keep you around for a while."

Zefer did some mental calculations and shook his head. His already weary expression turned pensive. "But if I could stay until then…The situation for me is compli­cated. First I must file the existence of Earth through of­ficial channels. Moreover, I am overdue at my new assignment. Yet despite my obligations, I don't want to leave here. I am being pulled in many different direc­tions."

Andie exhaled. "I know what you mean."

"Do you?" His hand moved behind her head and he cupped it. His sunglasses blotted out anything she could have read in his eyes, but his mouth was so close that she could see the tiny nubs above his upper lip where he needed to shave, and a small scar just to the right of the center of his chin.

His other hand lifted, dry fingertips skimming lightly down her cheek to her throat. Parted slightly, his lips grazed over hers, his breath warm, soft, and scented with buttered popcorn.

Her heart bounced in her chest. She let out the softest of sighs before she thought to suppress her reaction.

"Ahn-dee," he whispered. And then he dipped his head and kissed her.

The surge of rightness inside her and the passion with which she returned his kiss made absolutely no sense at all. It was reckless; it defied reason. And she had no doubt her mother would approve wholeheartedly.

Cassie always shook her head at Andie's methodical ap­proach to relationships, insisting that logic and love were like oil and water: if you tried to mix the two, all you did was cloud the situation. Love and logic were destined to remain apart. "And that's far from being a bad thing, An­dromeda," her mother would say.

Andie never in a million years thought she'd admit that her mother just might have been a little bit right. But she would have, right then, without any hesitation, had any­one thought to ask her in the midst of that blinding, heart­-stopping, incredible kiss.

Breathless, they moved apart. Zefer stroked three fin­gers down her cheek. "I told you we do not need words."

"Shush," she whispered, her lips still tingling. She wanted another kiss, and more after that, but she forced herself to get out of the car and walk around to the pas­senger door.

Zefer let her help him climb to his feet. He leaned heav­ily on her as they struggled from the car to the spare bed­room. His eyes were half-closed by the time she helped him lie on the bed.

"Tomorrow your family must take me to my ship," he said. "I have to determine what, if any, repairs are to be made and begin making them." His face contorted and he pressed his palms to his forehead.

She pulled off his glasses. "It's worse than you're telling me," she whispered.

In English made halting without computer assistance, he said, "No. Tired only. Sleep will fix."

"If it doesn't, I'll call my father. Meanwhile, no more talking." She held up her hand. "And no arguing."

His mouth curved gently as his lids drifted closed. She watched him, her throat strangely tight. He'd used the computer to speak to her almost nonstop, knowing that it would do this to him.

She walked to the window to draw the curtains closed, but paused to gaze out at the stars. The sky was where all her dreams had begun, and where her heart now told her they would conclude. She'd never listened to her heart in the past. Was she ready to now?

She turned back to Zefer and brushed her fingertips over the silky strands of hair lying on his forehead. "Sleep well, star man," she whispered, and then left him in the quiet, shadowy museum.

*****

Andie traded breakfast the next morning with her much­-too-perceptive parents for a long, mind-clearing run. After returning and showering, she found her mother in the kitchen preparing tuna-fish sandwiches. Andie filled a glass with water, leaning against the counter as she drank. Roswell's relentless wind had buffeted her on her run, and she still tasted dust.

"You got in late last night," Cassie observed with a mother's concern that hadn't ebbed one iota since Andie had grown up and left home. "I was afraid you ran into something unexpected."

Unexpected was an understatement. Andie took the knife resting on the cutting block and a stalk of celery. She longed to share with her mother what she felt when she was with Zefer, the sensation of rightness that had overtaken her when they'd kissed outside the museum, but she didn't quite know how. After a few moments of strip­ping the vegetable, she confessed, "I took your advice. I looked under a rock."

"Ah." Cassie wiped her hands on a dishtowel embroi­dered with E.T.s wearing little aprons. "Did you find any­thing interesting under there?"

Andie hacked away at the celery. "Spiders."

Her mother's mouth quirked. "Don't worry; the light will scare them off."

"I wouldn't know. I think I dropped the rock too fast."

Her mother's eyes sparkled knowingly. "Where is he?"

"In the museum. Still asleep. He's got a hell of a headache, and I don't dare give him anything for it until I talk to Dad. It's the computer. Using it to speak yesterday wiped him out."

"Oh, dear," her mother murmured.

"He wants to see his ship today."

"Best we take him tonight—under the cover of dark­ness."

Andie lowered her knife. "We?"

"Why, someone has to keep watch while Zefer and I are on board his starship. There's no better person than you, baby."

Andie grabbed another stalk of celery and chopped it almost to pulp with determined whacks of the knife. The sensation of being dragged toward quicksand had long since stopped. Now she felt it closing over her mouth and nostrils.

But how could she refuse to help? It sickened her to think of Zefer being apprehended by those who would fear him, stop him before he could complete his mission. And he had to get home to his people—Earth's cousins—and tell them of the "lost world" he'd found. He had to return to his ship, repair it, and resume his journey to the Outer Fringe.

She'd accepted all of that: who he was, where he came from. Yet taking that last step, accompanying her mother to the site of an alien crash-landing, loomed in direct con­trast to everything she'd believed herself to be: not like Mom.

The doorbell rang.

"Oh, dear," she chorused along with her mother.

"I bet that's Ed," Cassie murmured.

"Again? What is it with you two?"

Her mother pouted. "I thought I put him off the trail. But I don't think he believes me."

"And that surprises you? You can't lie to save your life."

"I'm going to have to learn…if I'm going to save his." Bravely, she gestured toward the museum with a slice of whole-wheat bread.

"Cassie, are you home?" a voice called from the front porch. Spock began squawking.

"Stay put," Andie told her mother. "I'll handle it."

Spock the parakeet dove down from the top of a potted palm tree and landed on her shoulder as Andie opened the door. Ed Fritch stood on the porch. Short and wiry with intense blue eyes, he had a leathery farmer's neck and pomaded yellow-white hair combed to the side. He smelled like cigarettes and aftershave.

She pasted a smile of welcome and surprise on her face. "Ed. What a treat. Come in."

"Andie, good to see you!" Entering the house he shook her hand, his grip roughened by years spent outdoors in a harsh climate, and they exchanged the usual pleasant­ries. "I'll have to have you on the show before you go home," he told her. "You and your activities are as much of a phenomenon as anything else in this town."

She winked at him. "You wouldn't believe how much."

Cassie walked up behind them. Ed told her, "The Civil Air Patrol's ready to call off their search. But I knew it all along: no plane crashed."

"No," Cassie said. "Nothing crashed at all." She slammed the front door to keep out the dust blown by the wind.

Ed's eyes narrowed. "It's not like you to give up the hunt before it's begun, Cassiopeia."

"It was a piece of space junk, Ed," Andie interjected with easy authority. "There's nothing to hunt for. I ex­plained that to her."

Ed chewed on that. "I don't know…Instinct tells me it's more. I know you're not a believer, Andie—and it's too bad, if you ask me, what with you being an astronaut and all—but if you're wrong, if something landed here in Roswell, then, by God, it's our citizens' duty to search until we find out what it is."

He puffed out his chest. The pack of Marlboros in his front left pocket made a crinkling noise, but he didn't dare smoke in the house—Cassie's law—and that told Andie the balance of power between them remained even de­spite Ed's overt bossiness. "As vice president of the senior division I have the right to call an emergency meeting," he said. "And so I have. Everyone but Marsha is on their way over."

Cassie's voice came out in a squeak. "Here?"

Andie elbowed her. Cassie cleared her throat, recover­ing nicely. "I'll make more tuna sandwiches," Cassie said, and escaped into the kitchen.

A movement caught Andie's eye. She glanced out window, the one that faced the museum, and saw Zefer walking across the driveway. Her stomach plunged, and she practically shoved Ed into the kitchen. "Go, Ed; Mom's tuna sandwiches are the best."

She threw a frantic glance outside but she could no longer see Zefer. Okay. Throw Ed in the kitchen and then intercept Zefer before he reaches the front door.

"So," she said as conversationally as she could, "where exactly do you plan to go hunting?"

"We'll start near Six Mile Hill."

That wasn't where her mother claimed Zefer's ship was hidden in a brush-covered arroyo, but it was only a matter of time—days, maybe—before the group made it to that area, too.

"Mrs. Hobbs uses a walker now; that'll slow you down, won't it?" she asked hopefully.

"Gloria Ruiz borrows her grandson's Hummer. Mrs. Hobbs rides in the front and mans the radios." Ed's body twitched with excitement. He can smell his quarry, Andie thought with dread. "We may be senior citizens, Andie, but if there's something out there, we'll find it. Before any­one else does."

Not if I have anything to do with it. She wasn't sure if it was possessiveness, her dogged sense of honor, or plain old stupidity that drove her decision, but like hell was she going to let Ed Fritch sink his claws into Zefer.

"Well, I wish you the best of luck, Ed." She swallowed and looked over her shoulder. Any second Zefer was go­ing to show up on the front porch. She led the man to the kitchen and backed away, almost stumbling over a floor mat. "Don't forget sunblock. It's warm out there today. Buh-bye."

She dashed to the front door, but before she had the chance to wrap her hand around the handle, it flew open. On the porch was Zefer, his thumbs hooked in the waist­band of his new, slightly baggy jeans.

"No, no!" she whispered loudly. "Out, out!" She marched him backward. "I thought you were sleeping."

"I was. But the computer woke me. Your 'Mr. Mer­cury.' "

Andie saw the little guy's head trying to poke through the Ace bandage covering him. "Ed Fritch," it said in a muffled, barely audible voice. "Damn it—Ed Fritch."

"I feared you were in trouble," Zefer whispered as they stumbled across the porch. He was still unsteady on his feet. Her heart wrenched with worry for his health.

"You're the one in trouble, Zefer," she said under her breath. "Not me. Ed's here." She tried to march him back­ward, but his mouth spread into a brilliant grin.

"Hello!" he called suddenly.

There, in Zefer's dark sunglasses, was the distorted re­flection of Ed Fritch, watching them as he stood in the doorway.

Chapter Eight

Andie had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. But the warrior in her would not let her surrender. To prevail, she must think like a winner and act like the vic­tor. Starting now.

Smiling, she slid her arm around Zefer's waist and turned around. "Ed, this is my boyfriend, Anatoly. He's visiting from Russia."

"Anatoly Butin," Zefer emphasized in his deep, ac­cented voice. "My pleasure to meet you." He held out his hand to Ed and the men shook hands, Earth-style.

"Anatoly Butin?" Ed's face lit up with sudden recogni­tion, and Andie wondered in a moment of panic if Ed would notice the differences in appearance between the two men. But he didn't. "You're the cosmonaut, right?"

Zefer nodded. "Yes. In Russia, that is who I am. But here, I am Andie's only." The breath rushed out of her lungs as Zefer tucked her firmly into his strong, warm body. Then of all things, he pressed his lips to the top of her head. Her legs turned to rubber.

Cassie appeared behind Ed, twisting· her alien dish towel in her hands. "Zef—"

"Mom," Andie interrupted. "Anatoly's done sleeping off his jet lag." She gazed up at Zefer and smiled. "But you shouldn't be talking, should you? Dad said you'd lose your voice." She turned to Ed. "Anatoly's nursing a bit of a cold. If you'll excuse us, we're going for a nice, quiet walk."

Once out of sight of the house, she slowed their pace. In silence that felt more companionable than what little time they'd known each other could explain, they walked along a trail that skirted the western edge of her family's property. "This is where I like to run," she told him, point­ing out interesting aspects of the harsh terrain she none­theless found beautiful. Gourd plants and cacti stood firm in the daily onslaught of wind. Long, dry grasses hissed in chorus with a few halfhearted cicadas. And to the dis­tant east, cumulus clouds were already boiling into thun­derstorms.

Zefer was enthralled by what to him must be an exotic and alien landscape. But weariness made him eager to rest when they stopped by a rusted old pickup truck with four flat tires, abandoned years ago under a massive, ancient walnut tree. The flatbed was littered with dead leaves, broken branches, and several seasons' worth of nuts. An­die hopped onto the lowered tailgate, her legs dangling over the edge. "Try not to talk," she reminded him. ''You'll need your strength for later."

He smiled as he stepped between her legs and took off his glasses. His eyes were no longer silver but smoky gray. "Words, Ahn-dee, we do not need." Seemingly entranced by her, he picked up a twig and drew its tip lightly over her cheek and jaw.

She bit back a sigh. She never used to sigh much; only her mother did. Now she made the little verbal noises constantly, it seemed. Around Zefer, anyway.

She held herself still as he replaced the twig with his hand, stroking his fingertips over her lips. She tilted her face up, giving in to the pleasure of his touch, her eyes half-closed. "I love the way you kiss, you know," she mur­mured.

At that he made a soft, satisfied sound, teasing her with small, nipping kisses until she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her. His lips were warm, his mouth moist and hot as his tongue slipped firmly be­tween her lips. The kiss turned passionate.

The pulse in his throat thrummed under her palm. The rhythmic beat was so reassuringly human. Yet, if what his people hypothesized was true and their races shared the same DNA, then she and Zefer were more alike than not. Did that mean they could have children together?

The thought elicited a shiver. Her space-explorer hus­band. She'd wished for this. For him.

But the only way she could be with him was if she gave up everything that mattered to her: her family, her goals, her career. It was more than unfair. It out-and-out sucked.

Breathless, she pulled away. She jumped down from the truck, working hard to hide her disappointment and her frustration. "Are you ready to finish the walk?"

Zefer pushed his glasses onto his face, reminding her of a galactic Superman-turned-Clark Kent. He regarded her as if she were a phenomenon he didn't understand. "I did not expect that you would want to leave already."

She didn't want to leave. But instead of admitting that, she cast about for something that would invalidate what she'd begun to believe they shared. What it was impos­sible that they were sharing. "Actually, I'm thinking we should talk, instead, about this lost world of yours. You were obsessed with finding it, weren't you? But maybe even more so with your idea of finding a woman there."

The way he pressed his lips together told her that she was right.

"And now you think that woman is me."

He started to answer, but she held up one finger. "Just shake your head, yes or no."

He nodded.

"I thought so." She should have known this was all too perfect! Zefer saw her as interchangeable with anyone of a million other "primitive" Earth females he might have met. " 'Worldly adventurer woos simple native woman,' " she said with disdain. "The ultimate in explorer fantasies. Awe the local girls and take them to bed. Captain Cook did it. They all did it. But I have news for you: I may be native, but I ain't simple. Find your fling somewhere else, star man!"

She lurched away to flee. He caught her by the arm before she could. "If I wanted a simple woman, Ahn-dee, I would never have chosen you." At that, he winced in pain.

"Don't talk," she ordered.

"I will do so if I like. Particularly since it appears you want my silence only so you can convince yourself of silly things, so you do not have to listen to the truth."

She tried to wrench away. He held on to her arm. "The truth?" she said in a gasp. "What is the truth, Zefer?"

He pulled her into a fierce and possessive kiss. Her knees wobbled and she saw stars the likes of which she'd never seen in three decades of studying the night sky.

Slowly, Zefer pushed her back. "Did that feel like a lie to you?" he demanded.

She lifted one trembling hand to her lips. "No," she whispered. Nothing had ever felt more real.

She steeled herself against tears. No way was she going to cry. It was as pointless as wishing for a future with a stranger she barely knew.

But your heart knows him…

She made a strangled groan. "This is so…not…me." Almost pleadingly, she said, "I want my old self back."

"I do not think you want that any more than I want to return to the man I was before."

"Shush," she warned.

"No. We need the words. I want to tell you how I came to be here. How I came to be with you."

Though he stood tall against a backdrop as rugged as he was, the expression that flickered over his face betrayed an inner vulnerability.

"The past few years have been good, Ahn-dee," he said. "I had finally reached the place in my life where I wanted to be. But my success did not bring me the satisfaction, the contentment for which I had hoped—and perhaps ex­pected."

She saw what was in his eyes, and her heart gave a little twist. "You were lonely."

He answered with a curt nod. "And it caused me more than a few moments of self-disgust. I had always viewed such feelings as weakness."

That, she could relate to.

"I had everything," he explained. "Success, professional respect, a secure future…"

"But it wasn't enough," she finished for him, nodding.

"No. It wasn't." His quiet voice had joined with hers in an opera of sorts, an awkward duet of two people not used to sharing such personal disclosures. "On my jour­ney to the Fringe," he went on, "I put myself into stasis early, because I couldn't abide my unwarranted self-pity all the way to my new assignment. But as I slipped into sleep, I tried to pinpoint what I thought—what I hoped­—would complete my life. Then, impulsively, I took that longing and formed it into a single wish."

A wish. Bracing herself, Andie forced herself to ask the question burning inside her: "What did you wish for?"

"You."

Oh, Lord. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth. "This is crazy," she cried. "It makes no sense."

He lifted his hands, an almost helpless gesture for such a large man. "I know it does not."

She fell silent.

"What is it, Ahn-dee?" He squeezed her arms. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," she blurted. "I'm scared because—damn it—it's all so right." She pressed a shaky hand to her stomach, as if the words were being wrenched from her soul. "I made a wish, too, Zefer. I wished…for you."

He gaped at her, clearly astounded.

Her innermost thoughts spilled out. "Yes. I wished for a man who wouldn't be intimidated by me, a lover and best friend, someone who'd stay by me until the very end." Shyly, she cracked a smile. "A guy who could make my toes curl with a single look."

His smoldering glance seared through every barrier she'd ever erected to guard her heart.

"Yes," she said. "Like that."

Laughing, he swept her off her feet and swung her into the truck, climbing in after her. Embracing joyfully, they rolled over the twigs and leaves, their hands tangling in each other's hair.

Andie shut her eyes and savored every blissful second. For the first time in her life, the openness and honesty she struggled for had come easily. This must be what her mother shared with her father, she thought. And now that she'd experienced it herself, she couldn't imagine living without it.

"Oh, Zefer, what are we going to do? How are we going to make this work?"

He steadied her by placing his hands to either side of her head. "We will find a way," he said. Then, straddling her, he kissed her soundly. His jeans abraded the thin Ly­cra of her running shorts, and the thick, hard ridge under the denim left no doubt that this alien, at least, was built like any human male.

Their embrace heated so quickly that she knew it would end in their making love. But reality came crashing back with the sound of a vehicle driving up the trail.

They jerked apart. "Someone's coming," she whispered, her heart thumping.

Zefer's passion-glazed eyes sharpened instantly. "Ed Fritch," he surmised darkly, donning his glasses.

"He was supposed to stay at the house. If he's here, it means he's looking for something. Or someone."

Zefer's hand landed on the side of her head, soothing her. "I am Anatoly, remember? It will be all right."

Bits of leaves, broken walnut shells, and things she didn't want to think about fell from her hair as she sat up. A silver Hummer pulled up to the pickup truck and parked alongside it.

Gloria Ruiz waved cheerily from the backseat. She had wispy white hair and deeply creased brown skin. "Enjoy­ing the weather?" she asked mischievously, her twinkling eyes shifting from Andie to Zefer and back again.

"We were trying to," Andie said wryly. She was getting used to this. Every time she kissed Zefer, someone inter­rupted. "Napping in the sunshine is always nice."

Gloria didn't believe a word of her explanation, and Andie couldn't help smiling. Despite her fragile appear­ance, the woman emanated astonishing youthfulness. But then, any eighty-year-old who went UFO hunting, week after week, wasn't your typical grandma.

Andie's smile faltered when her attention shifted to Ed. He was sitting in the front passenger seat next to the un­familiar young man at the wheel of the Hummer.

"My grandson Tony," Gloria explained, and a brief round of introductions ensued.

Tony had lean, muscular arms, a pencil-thin mustache, and he wore his baseball cap backward. His faded tank top was loose-fitting, exposing his armpits and half his chest as he leaned his arms over the wheel. "Nice to meet you both," he said, twirling a toothpick between his teeth, just like Ed.

Andie didn't like that the younger man had come along. A group of not-so-physically-fit senior citizens she could deal with. A guy like Tony—well, he made her nervous. He'd have the stamina to search 'round the clock—if prop­erly motivated. How many more hardbodies like Tony had Ed recruited for a hunt that was clearly consuming him?

"What happened with your meeting?" Andie asked Ed.

"The rest of the gang hasn't shown up yet. We're killing time." He gave her a false, showbiz smile. "Do you and Anatoly want to come along? We're taking a spin around the property."

Her parents' property, Andie longed to point out. She had no doubt that Ed was looking for signs that her mother had hidden an alien spacecraft somewhere nearby. His tenacity troubled her. Ed wouldn't give up until he found Zefer's ship. And then he'd use that coup to focus attention on himself, giving little thought for Zefer or his welfare. She didn't know that for sure, but she'd heard enough stories over the years from her mother to trust her instincts on the matter. "I think we'll stay here, Ed. But thanks for the invite."

Ed gave her a penetrating glance. What are you and your mother hiding from me? Her stomach chilled as she won­dered just how much he was able to read in her face. But maybe her fears were due only to her burgeoning paranoia.

Tony started up the Hummer. "Well, we're off," Ed said with a jaunty salute. Gloria waved good-bye as the squat, wide vehicle kicked up dust and pebbles and bounced away across the field.

Andie glowered after them. "Pray he doesn't figure out who you really are."

"He will not," Zefer said firmly. "But tonight nonethe­less I must inspect the damage to my ship."

"How long do you think it'll take to repair it?"

"The craft is capable of a good deal of self-repair. I sus­pect it will take another day, perhaps two, for me to fix the rest." He leaned toward her, tucking strands of hair behind her ear. "But I want more than that. A week, at least. I want to stay with you, and be with you for as long as possible."

"You can't. There's too much at risk."

"A week," he insisted, his voice tired and edged with pain.

"Okay," she whispered finally. They had a week.

With Ed off driving in the Hummer, it was safe to walk back to the museum. Zefer needed rest if he was to regain his strength, necessary if he was going to get anything worthwhile done on his starship later.

Soon they were back in the quiet stillness of the deserted museum. Andie no longer gave a second thought to the wacky items for sale there. Her own life had gone far be­yond anything her mother could stack on the shelves.

In the doorway to Zefer's bedroom, Andie paused, feel­ing his gaze on her. A half hour before, she'd been ready to make love with abandon in the back of a truck. Now she felt awkward, staring at a normal bed.

When she turned back to Zefer, his expression was mournfully frank. "I want you, Ahn-dee," he said in a quiet voice. "I want to make love to you. But I don't want part if I can't have all."

She shook her head. "Do you mean you want my heart, too?" She smiled. "Well, I don't think you need to worry about that."

He stroked one knuckle over her cheek, making her shiver. "Yes, I want to win your heart. But I want your future, too. And until that is assured, I am willing to wait…if you are."

They regarded each other. "Think what we'll have to look forward to," he added.

She sighed. "You're a pretty amazing guy."

He smiled wryly. "I do not know about that," he said, and drew her into his arms. "But we belong together. That is a given. Now all that is left is for us to figure out how to make it happen."

"Yes. Even if we have to meet up on Mars."

They both froze. Then they moved apart to look at each other. Her remark had been meant as a joke, but as they both considered the feasibility of Andie's proposal, the beginnings of the wackiest, craziest plan ever attempted by the human inhabitants of the galaxy began to take form.

Chapter Nine

The day before Zefer's departure clouded over early. It was barely noon, but already thunder rumbled in the dis­tance. The air was heavy with the tang of ozone, made stronger by the curious lack of wind.

Andie had already run ten miles, but Zefer still slept, brought low by exhaustion and headaches from his stub­born use of the computer to communicate. Compounding the problem were a week's worth of nights spent readying his starship for flight. Andie's father had treated him with nonprescription Motrin and similar meds, but he felt stronger painkillers might interfere dangerously with the biostasis Zefer would have to enter for his journey to the Outer Fringe. None of them dared risk it.

Andie brought a protein shake out to the front porch and leaned over the railing. As she watched the storms darkening the horizon, she found herself hoping the weather would be the same tomorrow and delay Zefer's launch another day. But the technology at his command didn't even blink at mere hazards like lightning and wind. Face the facts. He was leaving, and it would be over a year before she saw him again. If she did at all.

For their planned reunion to happen, he'd have to launch tonight without being intercepted, and then he'd have to make it to the Outer Fringe safely. She, on the other hand, still had a 259-day journey to Mars ahead of her, not to mention the landing that was up to her to make on the Red Planet, assisted by a computer that had never been there, either…

Dust and the sound of an approaching car dragged her attention to the road and away from her ifs and doubts. Her mother, she thought, returning from Home Depot and Radio Shack with more goodies for Zefer's ship. Andie hadn't a clue as to where all the carloads of stuff her mother bought were going, though, because she hadn't once boarded the marvelous craft. Her duty was to stand watch, and so she had, fearing that the one time she'd fall down on the job, something would happen to Zefer or his ship. Like a Chinese border guard protecting the premier himself, she'd patrolled the perimeter of the crash site each night for a week now, never allowing her concentra­tion to flag, until Zefer and her mother emerged in the hours before dawn.

It had been worth it, though. There were nineteen days to go until the identities of the astronauts on the Mars mission were announced, thirty-six hours remaining until Zefer's launch, and miraculously they were both still in the game.

The vehicle was closer now. She squinted at the road and made out a familiar maroon Suburban. Crap. The truck belonged to Ed Fritch.

The mouthful of shake she'd just swallowed dropped into her stomach like a tennis ball, and as the truck pulled into the driveway, she cast her eyes around, wondering what she should do or grab first.

Ed hopped out and waved.

"Mom's not here," Andie called. "She's shopping."

"It's you I came to visit, Andie."

She set the glass down on the railing. "What's up?"

"Oh, I was doing a little research last night, and I saw that your friend, Mr. Butin, was at the International As­sociation of Astronautical Engineers' annual conference. As keynote speaker, no less."

She let out the breath she'd been holding. He was only curious about the cosmonaut.

"In Denmark," Ed went on.

"Anatoly's invited to speak all over the world—"

"Yesterday."

Ed eyed her coldly, daring her to prove him wrong. But God help her if she didn't try. Her blood rushed from her head, pounding in her throat, but she fixed him with the flinty glare of a seasoned warrior. "That must be old news."

"I'm afraid it's not." He pulled from his shirt pocket a piece of paper folded into quarters and handed it to her.

She unfolded the sheet. It was an ink-jet image of An­atoly, standing behind a podium. He looked good, she thought. Contented. Warmth filtered through her. Anatoly had found with someone what she had with Zefer; she could see it in his eyes.

"Your Anatoly is not who you think he is."

"No," she said. "Apparently not."

She expected Ed to take pity on her and leave. But he persisted in his inquiry. "In fact, your friend isn't what any of us originally thought." He swaggered toward the museum.

She held up one hand. "That's far enough."

His face turned purple, and he spun on her. "You have an extraterrestrial, don't you? Why else would you be so set against me going in there?"

She snorted. "I don't like the idea of you snooping. Nei­ther does my mother." She marched over to him. "Go home, Ed."

"I have a right to see it."

"It?" She knew now that she'd never let him near Zefer.

"I want to know what Cassie found."

She grabbed his sleeve, stopping him as he begun again to walk toward the museum. He was stronger than she expected, and threw her backward.

Regaining her balance, she bolted after him. "Hey! You're way out of line. Get the hell off our property. I'll call the sheriff, I swear it."

He lunged at her when she tried to block him from grabbing the door handle. There was going to be no stop­ping him without using force. So she slugged him.

Her fist caught him under the jaw. He stumbled back­ward, and she shoved him the rest of the way onto his rear. "Stop it, Ed," she pleaded, gasping. He had to be past his mid-sixties; she didn't want to hurt him. "Go home. There's nothing for you to see here."

"Oh, I disagree, Major Del Sarto," he replied as his eyes glinted with the hunger of a starving man presented with a seven-course meal. "I see it now."

Cradling her throbbing fist, Andie turned around. Zefer stood in the doorway, his gauntlet computer aimed at Ed. "My apologies," he told the man. Then his computer emit­ted a silent, too-bright-to-look-at thread of light.

The beam pierced Ed's forehead. He stared at Zefer with an expression of startled awe. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he sagged onto the asphalt with the slightest of whimpers.

"Oh, God." Andie fell to Ed's side and probed for his pulse. His heart thumped away, as stubborn and indig­nant as its owner. "What did you do to him?" she de­manded.

"I put him to sleep."

"Oh, beautiful. Now when he wakes up, he'll tell every­one how Cassie's alien shot him with a ray gun."

Zefer tugged her to her feet and gently brushed her free of grit. "He won't remember anything of the incident." He frowned. "And maybe nothing of the past few days, as well. But beyond that, his memory will be as before."

She shoved the crumpled picture Ed had shown her into his hands. "This is the real Anatoly Butin. Who knows how many people Ed showed this to? You have to leave." She swallowed. "Leave Earth."

"And not tomorrow, as we planned," he agreed. "I must go now."

The thought left her hollow. They regarded each other as the realization sank in. Zefer exhaled. "Ed Fritch will wake shortly."

He squeezed her arm, then left to retrieve his few be­longings from the bedroom, while Andie requisitioned an Extraterrestrials-R-Us sweatshirt from the museum. She wadded it, wedging the garment gently behind Ed's head to cushion his skull from the asphalt. Then she folded his hands over his stomach. "Be patient, Ed. You'll find out about your aliens soon enough." Along with the rest of Earth's population. Maybe someday she'd even tell Ed that he'd been right about Zefer all along.

Zefer emerged from the museum. "Come," he said, tak­ing her by the arm.

They scrambled into the Corvette. As she thrust her key into the ignition, she called her father from her cell phone. "Dad. There's a problem. It's Ed Fritch. He's at our house and needs a doctor…it's an emergency." She cleared her throat and exchanged glances with Zefer. "I'll tell you the rest later."

With an ambulance on the way, she sped onto the high­way and then onto the ranch road leading to miles of rug­ged landscape—and Zefer's starship. Everything was happening too fast. She wanted time to slow down. She'd expected to have a night and another day before having to let Zefer go.

She glanced into the rearview mirror, and for the first time in her life she wished her mother's Cadillac were barreling down the road after her. Her mother should be here, too. Cassie would hate that she hadn't gotten to say good-bye to Zefer, and that she hadn't finished redecorat­ing his ship.

Zefer's warm palm covered her hand. "Your mother and I will meet again," he said as if reading her thoughts.

Too desolate to reply, she squeezed his hand.

*****

The first thing Andie noticed when she climbed aboard the starship wasn't the advanced tech of the cockpit, the gleaming white walls that formed the interior fuselage, or the runes in an exotic and alien language; it was the blue-­and-white country-plaid curtains and the assortment of multicolored rubber-backed mats that her mother had bought at Wal-Mart. "Mom's added her special touch, I see."

Zefer's smile held no derision at all. Instead, his obvious affection for her mother softened the sharp features of his face. "She makes my ship feel like your home."

Andie noted that he didn't say his home, but hers. She was so touched that she turned away, unable to speak.

Dragging her fingertips over the flight console and the pilot's chair, she drank in the incredible cockpit. The com­mand seat was riddled with computers, sensors, and three-dimensional holographic readouts, as well as some items she hadn't the knowledge to understand. Someday, she vowed, she'd learn to fly a ship like this. Anything was possible. Hadn't her mother told her that many times?

Zefer's deep voice invaded her thoughts. "I am ready."

He had changed into his black oven-mitt flight suit. Her throat constricted. "I'm not," she said tightly.

He dipped his head and kissed her, his touch loving, tender. "I hate this," she whispered. "I miss you already."

He cupped the back of her head with one big hand. "It is time you learned my words. Uhn t'arashah, Ahn-dee," he murmured. "It means: 'I love you.' "

Her heart was so full she thought it might explode. "Uhn t'arashah, Zefer."

His expression told her that his heart was as filled as hers. Wordlessly, she dragged her finger along the seam running vertically down the front of his black flight suit. Smoothing her hands inside the parted fabric, she savored the feel of his muscled chest and firm stomach under the soft inner shirt he wore.

He took her wrists in his hands. "Ahn-dee?"

"We said we wanted to wait before we made love for the first time."

He nodded. "Only so we would have it to look forward to."

"I changed my mind. I don't want something to look forward to." Her voice grew husky. "I want something to remember."

He drew her into another kiss, this one much more pas­sionate. His tentative fingertips gliding up and down her throat became confident hands that explored the curves of her body, and he pressed her hard against him. Only then did he make a sound: a low, deep groan of longing.

With a shuddering breath, he pulled back. "Your father believes we will be able to have children together," he said, twisting his fingers in her hair. "And one could very well come of this. I cannot leave until we know for cer­tain."

"The time of the month…and the pills I use to prevent pregnancy—I don't think anything will happen."

"You are sure?"

"As much as anyone can be. Nothing in life is guaran­teed."

As he considered that, she removed his glasses and set them on the console behind her. "Oh, Zefer. We're letting words get in the way." He must have thought so, too, for he scooped her up and brought her to the bunk where he slept.

They had to hurry through the process of stripping off their clothes, when they would rather have taken their time. There was little time to savor the feel of bare skin brushing over bare skin, or the intimate caresses that pre­ceded their lovemaking. Knowing the clock ticked relent­lessly toward a future that was as uncertain as they were sure of their new love, she pulled him on top of her. As he fitted himself deep inside her body, she clutched his broad shoulders and inhaled on a long, shuddering breath.

Passion rose quickly, yet he took time to smooth his hands over her breasts, her throat, her face, as if trying to memorize her. Heat radiated out from where they melded together. Each roll of his hips sent a shock wave of plea­sure coursing through her. Taking full breaths became im­possible as he brought her unselfishly to the most delicious, drawn-out peak imaginable.

Cradling her head with his palms, he watched her face contort with pleasure, a gesture that was, in its astonishing intimacy, even more erotic than the way he moved inside her. He rocked with strong, rhythmic thrusts and she pushed hard against him, until, at last, they found the completion they'd long sought…in each other.

*****

Something pounded frantically on the outside hatch as they dressed. Andie struggled into her top and shorts. Donning his flight suit, Zefer checked a display showing the exterior of the ship. "It's your mother."

He opened the hatch. The sky was dark with roiling clouds, and although it smelled like rain, none had yet fallen. Waving, Cassie stood at the bottom of the entry ladder, her red hair wild in the wind. "Oh! You are here. I didn't see your car."

"I parked it in the brush, just in case," Andie shouted down to her. "Did you see Ed?"

"Yes. The ambulance was there. And your father told me you called."

There was a flash of lightning in the distance. Andie and Zefer climbed down from the ship. Andie tried to comb her tangled hair with her fingers, while Zefer, sport­ing a pair of pink splotches on the side of his throat where she might have kissed him a little too hard, worked at straightening his flight suit. It had to be obvious to Cassie that they'd just made love. But to her credit, the woman didn't scrutinize them.

Somehow Andie held her emotions in check through her mother's tearful farewell with Zefer. Then it was her turn, and Zefer squeezed her so hard that she became light-headed. Holding her by the shoulders, he moved her back. ''Your journey to Mars will be safe," he said, as if willing it to happen.

Cassie's eyes widened. Now she knew what was to be announced in a matter of days, Andie thought. But with her mother and father the secret would be safe.

"I will find you on Mars," Zefer assured her. "And then we will proceed as we have discussed."

"Your ship will contact us."

"And you will pretend not to know me."

"Same with you." She nodded. "And then your people will guide us through our first encounter."

After that, she would go with Zefer to the Outer Fringe to live and work, as she'd always dreamed. And to be­come Zefer's wife. Odd, the image that popped into her mind was one of Zefer enjoying periodic visits from his very unconventional mother-in-law. Tears stung her eyes.

"Do not doubt, Ahn-dee. It will all come to pass."

She saw the resolve in his gaze. He'd be there, waiting. All she had to do was hold up her end of the bargain and bring her crew to Red Planet in one piece.

Zefer pointed to an embankment about half a mile away. "From there it will be safe to watch."

Andie slid into the passenger seat of her mother's Cad­illac and Cassie drove to the edge of a depression carved out by a long-dry stream. In the front seat, they hunkered down. It began to rain, plump, cold drops splashing onto the windshield. Thunder rumbled. Soon the ground shook with a different kind of thunder. Zefer's starship.

Andie's hand found Cassie's. Shielding their eyes against sudden brilliance, they watched a white-hot ball rise into the coming storm. "Star light, star bright," Andie whispered in a shaky voice.

"I wish I may, I wish I might," her mother murmured along with her.

"Have the wish I wish tonight."

They sat there, hands squeezed together, long after Ze­fer's ship had disappeared, gazing at the sky just as they used to all those years ago.

"Mom?" Andie asked after a while.

"Yes, baby?"

"I just wanted to say…that you were right. About love and logic, about the rocks, all of it."

Cassie brought a trembling hand to Andie's cheek, love and pride shining in her eyes. "You surely are your daddy's girl."

"Yours, too," Andie whispered.

Tears welled in her mother's eyes. Andie compressed her lips to quell an answering upsurge of emotion. Then she realized what she was doing and threw herself into Cassie's generous embrace. Together they let their tears fall.

Chapter Ten

It was a pleasant day—by Martian standards. By mid­afternoon, sunshine had warmed the barren, rock-strewn plains to sixty-four degrees below zero. Andie rode shot­gun in the Martian rover and, peering straight ahead, she scanned their route for hazards. This was supposed to be her rest period, but, fidgety, she'd insisted on coming along with the mission's two geologists on a soil-collecting expedition.

Spread out before her was a pale, salmon-colored sky and miles of pebbly red soil, and she kept wanting to pinch herself to see if she were dreaming, or if she was really on another planet. The only dark spot on an oth­erwise exhilarating experience was that after two full days here, there was no sign of Zefer or his people.

He wasn't coming. Something had happened to him. Or he'd changed his mind about their reunion…and their future. It had been a year since they'd parted. She sagged back in her seat, her mood as desolate as the terrain.

All the astronauts had communications equipment built into their space suits, a receiver and a transmitter that were always on. Andie had gotten so used to the breathing of her companions that she didn't hear it any­more. But a sudden scratchy transmission from the other three astronauts back at the base camp came through loud and clear.

"Do you hear that!" blurted a voice that sounded like Jeff Squires, the mission commander.

Andie's heart lurched. "Hear what?"

"Oh, my God!" What sounded like chaos at the base camp exploded in her headset.

The rover's fat tires bumped over a boulder, almost knocking her out of the vehicle. "Someone transmitted, 'Oh, my God'?"

"No. Listen to this!"

Andie heard another burst of static. Then a series of beeps. Was it Zefer's signal? It had to be.

Chris Goldman stopped the rover. "Morse code I can do."

Andie and the geologist watched Chris's thickly gloved hand struggle to hold a pen as he scratched letters onto the tablet fixed to the dash. When he was through, she and Jessie, the other geologist, crowded around him to see what he'd written.

Hello. What are you. Hello.

Andie closed her eyes. Thank you.

"You weren't kidding." Chris transmitted back to base camp: " 'Oh, my God' is right."

"Where did the signal originate?" Andie asked Jeff.

"Two clicks ahead," he radioed back. "On the north­western edge of the ridge."

"I say we go take a peek," Chris proposed. "That is, if we're all in agreement."

"Yes, let's go!" Andie chorused with Jessie. Meanwhile, at the base camp, Jeff worked on contacting Houston.

They drove the rover up a gently sloping hill. The only sound from her companions was the harsh rasp of their breathing. When they crested the hill, they stopped the rover. Below was a shallow valley that scientists specu­lated was once a body of water. In its center was an im­mense starship that sparkled in the tiny pearl-like sun's light.

The rover skidded to a stop. Andie hopped out. Her limbs were weakened from too many months at zero G; nonetheless, she felt buoyant in the gravity that was one-third that of Earth. Somewhere down there Zefer waited for her.

"Andie!" The occupants of the rover stared at her in horror. "Don't go down there," Chris warned.

"What's she doing?" screamed Jeff from base camp. "Andie—we don't know who they are! We're still waiting on a response from Houston."

Morse code continued to tease them: HELLO. WHAT ARE YOU. HELLO.

Andie cast a long and solitary shadow as she faced the strange ship. The hatch opened, and she took a step for­ward. Then she glanced over her shoulder. "Well? Aren't you coming with me?" she called back.

After a moment's hesitation, Chris and Jessie followed her.

Jeff was having fits back at base camp. "We aren't cleared for this. It's too damned dangerous!"

"Chill, Jeff," Jessie told him. "If they meant us harm, we'd be dead already."

There was a long silence. Then a hiss of static. "Okay. Go with God, you guys."

As she and the geologists made progress toward the great alien craft, Andie perspired in her space suit, her stomach uneasy. Some might call this scheme manipula­tive. Yet was it so terribly wrong if it would bring benefit to Earth? When one figure separated from the rest and walked toward them, certainty flooded her.

It was Zefer. She could tell by his height and his broad shoulders, defined by a space suit so much more close­fitting and high-tech than the bulky outfit she wore. She must not give anything away. That they knew each other would be a secret they'd take to their graves. It had to be. This moment would go down in history as the first meet­ing between Earth's humans and the "family" from which they'd been separated for eons.

Flanked by her two companions, she stopped in front of Zefer, framed in his moment of glory by a dozen others, men and women. As she looked into Zefer's eyes, her breath caught. The love she saw there was so apparent that she couldn't imagine their companions not seeing it. But everyone's attention was luckily too diverted by the magnitude of the event to notice.

Again, she reminded herself of the significance that this day would have on both civilizations. But as she gazed into the eyes of her future husband, she realized that she no longer needed to hold on to something to remember—­there was so much more to look forward to.

Suddenly Zefer took a step closer and pushed at a rock with the toe of his boot. Both groups stared politely but with some obvious confusion as Zefer flipped it over. Then he glanced up at Andie and grinned.

Andie smiled back. Her mother would surely approve, she thought. The underside of the rock gleamed as new and unspoiled as the future awaiting them.