“How do you know this?” O’Toole had an almost fevered look in his eyes. Mac saw his thoughts, spinning in so many directions it was obvious none of them were registering.
“I know this, Mr. O’Toole, because I have made contact. I have spent time with, have spoken with, and have learned from an alien being.”
He didn’t tell them he’d fallen irrevocably in love with that alien being. Not yet. They’d know soon enough, but at their muttered gasps of surprise and disbelief, he sat back and planted his hands on the counter. “I am a very wealthy man, as all of you probably know. I have gained my wealth over the past twenty years through my innovative software and hardware developments. My inventions, my unique discoveries ...” He smiled and shook his head. “Did you ever wonder how I know the things I know? How the technology I developed was so far ahead of the curve?”
Kiera Pearce stared at him, wide-eyed. “You’re saying that you learned all that stuff from aliens?”
“I’m saying, Ms. Pearce, that you will all be learning things you never imagined possible. You will see things you thought only existed within the realm of science fiction and fantasy. All you have to do is agree to join me on the most amazing adventure of your lives. Become a member of my dream team, and I promise to show you things you never in your wildest fantasies believed could exist. I will, quite literally, take you where no man—or woman—has gone before.”
Mac poured a shot of Jack Daniel’s, stared at the glass, and then tipped the bottle again and made it a double. He stared out through the big plate-glass window with the view of Silicon Valley spread out below. The last couple of days had been hell. Waiting for the team members to tie up their lives in order to join the project was killing him, and time had dragged.
Over a thousand applicants, and only six of them had the skills he needed. He’d originally thought he’d be turning away qualified people, but instead he’d ended up with exactly the number he needed. Hopefully, that was a good sign.
An omen of success.
But what if some of them decided against going? Would any of them drop out at the last minute, figure he was nuts and they wanted no part of his stupid project? Shit. He couldn’t think like this. Not now, not when he was so damned close.
He focused on the lights spreading across the valley and searched for calm.
Impossible.
Not with his heart pounding and his mind practically tied into knots. Tomorrow was the beginning.
“Or maybe it’s just the fucking end.” He tipped the glass back and took a big swallow, choked down the fiery liquor, and breathed deeply through his nose. Getting drunk probably wasn’t the smartest thing, not with the long drive tomorrow, but he knew he’d never fall asleep sober.
He’d come home from the office tonight, still wound tight after talking to the kids a couple of nights ago. He was energized by their excitement, tired of waiting, and ready to head out
right now.
He’d grabbed a bite to eat, showered, and realized he was wide-awake. Put his jeans back on along with a warm flannel shirt and poured his first drink.
It wasn’t going to be his last.
He upended the glass and finished off the rest of the Jack, stared at the empty glass a moment, and then refilled it. Grabbed the bottle and stepped out on to the deck, flopped down in one of the redwood chairs, and stared at the stars.
He hated to admit it, but he was living proof a heart really could break.
“Are you up there, Zianne? Did you realize, when you left my bed that last morning, that you weren’t coming back? I can’t imagine you knew and didn’t tell me, so I have to believe that somehow, something went terribly wrong.”
The stars blurred and his eyes stung. Angry, frustrated, scared half to death, he ran his arm across his face, wiped away the tears he’d not allowed to fall for almost twenty fucking long years. Twenty years. It seemed almost impossible now.
He’d been drunk the first night she came to him. God, it was still so clear, like it had happened yesterday. She’d just appeared out of nowhere—naked in his shower, her long dark hair swirling over her shoulders, her violet eyes sparkling, her lips ... oh, damn, her lips were like a dream, which was exactly what she was—his fantasy woman brought quite literally to life.
He’d imagined her, described her to Dink while they’d gotten quietly drunk that night. First Dink had given Mac a perfect description of his fantasy lover, which, as Mac had expected, described him perfectly. Mac had described Zianne, a woman created totally out of his fantasies. Not an hour later, she’d materialized on her knees in his shower, perfect down to the long dark hair and violet eyes.
He’d never forget how one minute she wasn’t there, and the next she was kneeling in front of him, taking him in her mouth and giving him a blow job unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
He didn’t learn until days later that the power of his imagination—his sexual fantasy—had given her form and substance, but her intelligence, her heart, and her amazing inner beauty had been all her own. That night had marked the beginning of the most amazing four months of his life.
Four months of Zianne, of learning who and what she was, and even more important, discovering just who he was, what he was capable of, how his mind worked.
Four amazing months that would shape the rest of his life, which prepared him for the challenge he faced now and would continue to face in the coming days.
But what if they failed? What if there was no one to contact? What if the Gar had discovered Zianne’s subterfuge and pulled their huge star cruiser out of orbit, had disappeared into space, too far for Zianne or her people to connect with Earth?
Had she been left, stranded in space? Was she still alive?
Too much could go wrong. Might have already gone wrong. His mind spun in too many directions to pin down any particular problem to worry about, and then ... “Well, shit. One more thing.” He stared at a set of headlights winding up the long private driveway to his house. Where the fuck did they come from?
Who in the hell could have come through the locked gate? Only a couple of people knew the combination—his attorney was in Washington on business, and Dink had called just this morning from New York where he was shooting a news special about global climate change. No way either of them could be here.
Quietly, quickly, Mac stood and slipped inside, grabbed the .45 automatic he kept by the door, and went out on to the front porch. Standing under the porch light in full view of his unknown visitor, he waited while the headlights drew closer. He heard the soft growl of an expensive engine as the vehicle took the last switchback below the house and then rolled into the driveway.
Security lights flashed on as the vehicle pulled up to the garage, and recognition struck like lightning. Laughing, Mac opened the door and put the gun away. Then he strode quickly across the lawn as nationally famous news anchor and Mac’s closest friend since forever, Nils Dinkemann, unfolded his lanky frame and crawled out of the little Mercedes sports coupe.
“You’re supposed to be in New York!” Mac grabbed him in a tight hug and fought an uncharacteristic need to burst into tears. Damn, but he’d missed this guy.
Dink hugged him, and then stood back and looked him in the eye, something not that many men were tall enough to do. “No, I need to be here. I didn’t realize you were this close, that you’re headed up to the site tomorrow. You’re going for it, aren’t you? You’re going to find Zianne.”
Stunned, Mac stepped back, out of Dink’s grasp. “What? What do you mean?” He’d never told anyone the truth about Zianne, not even Dink. Never once had he given away her secret, that she wasn’t just a beautiful, brilliant computer geek who’d loved him and then dumped him for no reason, that she was instead an alien creature from not only another world in another galaxy but from another time.
Dink shook his head. His smile didn’t reach his eyes, and exhaustion marred his otherwise youthful appearance. “It’s okay, Mac. You don’t have to lie to me. We both suspected from the beginning that Zianne wasn’t human.” His lips tilted in that familiar grin Mac loved.
“It used to bug me, that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what you knew, but I figured you had your reasons, that Zianne had her reasons. When she disappeared ...” He shrugged and shook his head. “You gonna invite me in?”
Mac stared at him, trying to take in the fact that Dink knew, had known all along. One of the top investigative reporters of all time, and yet he’d sat on a secret like Zianne? It made no sense, but Dink’s profession was the only reason Mac had never said anything. As much as he loved the guy, he knew how important Dink’s work was to him. How much he’d always loved ferreting out a story. It hadn’t been worth the risk.
Except Dink knew. He’d known all along.
Mac nodded. Brushed a shaky hand across his eyes. “Yeah, I’m gonna invite you in. And you’re going to get roaring drunk with me while I tell you a story you can’t tell anyone, especially on the six o’clock news. Do I have your promise?”
He stared into Dink’s silvery blue eyes and saw his own reflection in their depths. Dink just smiled at him—the same smile he’d given Mac when they were just little kids trying to stay sane in a totally screwed-up world.
A world where they’d each lost their parents much too young and ended up in foster care, tossed into a system that wasn’t prepared for a couple of little boys with brilliant, totally screwed-up minds. They’d kept each other sane, in a few cases kept each other alive. Over the years they’d forged a link that not even Dink’s unrequited love for Mac or Mac’s love for Zianne could break.
Dink was looking at him now like Mac had taken leave of his senses. Then he sighed, and the sound spoke of so much pain, Mac really didn’t want to dwell on it.
“I wish you could have trusted me enough to tell me the truth.” Dink gazed into Mac’s eyes, almost as if he could see his thoughts. “That hurt, but at the same time—ah, hell, Mac. Who’s to say what I might have done while I was selling my soul to make it.” He chuckled softly. “Well, I’ve made it now, so I think you can trust me. You know I’ll do anything for you, Mac. Whatever it takes, but I’m not leaving you alone tonight.”
He reached into the car and pulled out a well-worn leather travel bag, threw an arm over Mac’s shoulders, and steered him toward the house. “And yes, I will get drunk with you, and I will listen to your story, and I will believe it, because I know that whatever you tell me will be the truth. And I promise to carry your secrets to my grave.”
Mac shot him a quick glance. That was a new twist on an old promise. “And then what?” he asked, because there was something else going on, something he realized he wanted as much as Dink.
Dink kept walking, but he turned and shot Mac a grin that reminded him of some of the trouble they’d gotten into as kids. “Then we’re going to get naked and we’re going to spend the night fucking until neither of us can get it up again.”
There was no answer to a promise like that.
They stepped into the house. Dink closed the door behind them. Mac took a deep breath, remembering. Twenty years ago, he and Dink had become lovers or, as Dink had described it, fuck buddies. While Dink had openly loved Mac, Mac had loved Zianne. Dink accepted it. He’d said he was happy with whatever Mac could give him. They’d only had sex a few times, but the best of those times had been with Zianne.
The three of them, together. It made Mac hard, remembering.
Then Dink went off to San Francisco for a shot at his dream to become a newscaster and investigative reporter, while Mac and Zianne started work on the projects they hoped would lead to the rescue of Zianne’s people, the Nyrians, who were held captive on a ship in orbit behind Earth’s twenty-first-century moon.
She’d risked traveling back in time to 1992 to find Mac when he was young enough and there were years enough to develop the technology they’d need to mount a rescue in 2012. She’d planned to work with him, juggling time while moving between Earth and the Gar star cruiser, but it hadn’t worked that way.
Zianne had disappeared, and Dink’s star had risen as he’d followed assignments around the world, reporting on wars and famines, international corruption and third-world politics; Mac had continued working on the project, working on DEO-MAP, knowing he had just twenty years to get it right.
Twenty years to bring Earth’s technology to a point where he stood now—so close to attempting the rescue that had become his life’s goal.
Not nearly as close as he now stood to Dink. They’d stayed friends all these years, gotten together whenever they could, but never again as lovers. Not since Zianne disappeared. Mac stared at his friend, fighting a smile that somehow seemed totally inappropriate. “It’s been a damned long time, Dink.”
His buddy shrugged. A curl of dark blond hair slipped over his forehead and his mouth curved up in that familiar, rakish grin that made him look twenty-six, not forty-six. “I know. Twenty years. But I’ve never forgotten. Not you, not Zianne, not the way you made me feel.” He sighed and swept a hand across his forehead. “Look, I’ve been traveling for hours. I need a shower and we need to talk. Then later, if it feels right ...”
Mac stopped in the hallway, turned, and cupped Dink’s face in his palms. He felt the roughness of a day’s growth of beard against his fingers, saw the exhaustion in his friend’s eyes, the concern. And the love. Always, with Dink, there was love. “Damn you, Dink. It will always feel right with you. Always.” Then he leaned close and kissed him, pressing his mouth against Dink’s, obviously catching him by surprise.
He heard the leather bag hit the floor, felt the shift in Dink’s body as he strained close, wrapped his arms around Mac, and held him tightly.
And kissed him back.
Mac hadn’t kissed anyone with this much emotion, this much love, since Zianne had disappeared. The times he and Dink had gotten together had been as old friends, both of them ignoring the sexual tension that always simmered in the background.
Not tonight. He felt Dink’s tongue against his lips, parted for him, drew him inside, and tasted mint and male, tasted the familiar flavors of long ago.