Authors: Katherine Allred

Close Encounters (32 page)

“Like the Yoda?”

“Exactly like the Yoda. Only you’re taller and better-looking.”

Suddenly he got serious. “Would you really have left me and our people?”

A smug feeling went through me. “Guess I finally got one over on you, huh? I thought for sure you’d notice how well I was shielding my thoughts.”

His brows snapped together as he gave me his best “I-am-the-leader-you-will-respond” stare.

“No,” I told him quietly, letting all my love for him pour through the bond. “I never intended to leave you. If you’d talked to me when I wanted you to instead of avoiding me, you’d have known that I only wanted to discuss ways to make this work.”

His emerging smile was brighter than Orpheus’s star. “I love you, mate.”

“Like I said, you’re a very wise man.” I reached out and took his hand. “Shall we?”

Together, we turned toward our home, where a large tapestry of an Ashwani Feastday now hung on the wall in the great room. Our people were waiting, and we had a mating ceremony to prepare for.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

N
o man is an island, and no author completes a novel alone. With that in mind, I’d like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the following:

Laura Bradford, for her belief in my writing and for all her hard work getting it into the right hands.

Emily Krump, an editor with the patience of Job, who helped me make this novel the best it could be.

The wonderful art and marketing departments at HarperCollins, for creating not one but two gorgeous covers so readers could pick their favorite.

http://hubblesite.org/
whose amazing pictures of Messier 64, otherwise known as the Black Eye Galaxy, inspired parts of this novel.

Wikipedia, for providing information on everything from quartz to the female reproductive system.

And my family, for putting up with me when I was in the zone.

About the Author

KATHERINE ALLRED
is a mother of three and grandmother of four. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and has a BS in journalism. She lives in Arkansas with her husband, two Australian Shepherds, and a cat named Fuzz.

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By Katherine Allred

Alien Affairs

C
LOSE
E
NCOUNTERS

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
. Copyright © 2009 by Kathy Allred. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Mobipocket Reader February 2009

ISBN 978-0-06-179971-6

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