The Safety of Nowhere (2 page)

As for the “ew,” she’d meant it. Whoever Rocco Evers found to date him was a desperate case by definition. Dinah tried amending this for Gordon’s sake. Maybe, if this new woman had asked to meet the man’s disabled son, she had some good in her. For the sake of her buddy G-man, Dinah hoped the mystery girlfriend was endowed with heart and brains despite her lack of taste in men.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“Vrroom,” came Gordon’s answer. “Motorcycles.” He hunkered down over his bike and twisted both his wrists.

Shit, thought Dinah. Shithead, came the afterthought.
Rocco and his fucking bike.
She hoped with all her heart she was becoming a judgmental bitch and that this father-son thing would turn out all right.

“Have fun,” she said as brightly as she could.

“I am having fun!” Gordon made a loopy circle, whooped it up with laughter.

Those hopes are way too fucking high.

She made a silent wish the child’s day would not be a complete disaster. With Rocco Evers’s tendency to be a posturing, belligerent prick, she had reason to doubt. Lots of men in town made Dinah queasy. Rocco had enough whacked-out violence in him to make her keep her distance.

“You be careful with all the macho vroom-vroom stuff, okay? I need you back here in one piece. I’m powerless against the heavy stuff without my G-man, remember?” That was true. The kid was worth his weight in gold when it came to hauling around big bags of manure.

Gordon stopped. He stood on tiptoes, straddling the too-big bike, a serious expression on his face. “You need help now?” It clearly broke his heart to offer. Dinah would have hugged him if he wasn’t adamantly antihug.

“Nah!” She waved him onward. “I’m just watering today. But don’t go crazy. Come back safe.”

She watched as Gordon made his shaky start back into motion. He labored on the upward incline. She willed him forward to the crest of the small hill. Then he was rolling downhill fast, making those crazy, high-pitched
hees
she couldn’t get enough of. As always Gordon dared himself to let go of the handlebars—let go, hold on, let go, hold on. Eventually he got both arms out at his side, and that amazing bravery let him fly into the wind until the ground went flat again and Gordon peddled hard, hurtling forward out of view.

Dinah stooped to move the hose so water seeped more evenly into each bed. She snapped some spent blooms off a couple of bushes, pausing only when an unaccustomed shape moved in to her peripheral vision.

The sight made Dinah turn abruptly toward the house, and there he was—the man. Her alien.

Thank God.

He was standing naked on the porch where anyone could see him. Dinah dropped the crumpled wad of petals in her hand and hurried toward him, stomping so the dirt would shake loose from her shoes.

He watched unmoving, deathly pale. Something in his stillness made her hesitate at the foot of the stairs.

“Are you okay?”

His gaze shifted toward her, narrowed with discomfort—or was that worry? “I don’t know how I am.”

“I can believe that.” She stooped to turn the water off and took another step toward him. “You’ve been ill. Let’s go inside. It’s easier to talk in there.”

He didn’t move.

“We can’t let someone see you.”

At that, he scanned the vast expanse of nothing all around them, after which he settled his attention on her face. She tried to look trustworthy and benevolent. Maybe she succeeded. In any case, he turned and walked back through the door the way she’d asked without a word.

Frowning at the knotted muscles in his back, Dinah stepped out of her plastic clogs, shucking hat and jacket in the entryway as always. She peeled off Cy’s old shirt and pants, hanging the damp clothes against the wall until she got down to her bra and panties. Then she crossed the room, plucked her robe off the bathroom door, and slipped it on.

He watched her do it all. She didn’t care. Modesty was not a thing with her. Or him, apparently. He didn’t even seem to notice he had nothing on.

For her, it wouldn’t be so easy to ignore his naked body. Asleep he had been gorgeous and awake…
Good God.

“Who are you?” he asked. That very basic question gave her pause. What must it be like for him, standing in her cabin, having no idea where he might be? Not completely pleasant, obviously. He looked at sea, uncomfortably muddled, almost too straight and still where he had every right to be unsteady.

He glanced at her expectantly. She started to speak and paused. Something was different about him—something in his looks she hadn’t seen while he was sleeping. She tried but couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was

“I’m Dinah Kelley,” she said finally, knowing it would not mean much. “Two women brought you here yesterday from a small clinic southeast of the Body House. Do you remember anything?” She wanted to tell him to sit, or better yet, go back to bed, but everything about him told her he was staying on his feet.

“Why here?” His gaze locked on to hers. And that was it. The eyes. That was the newly devastating thing about him. She hadn’t seen them while he slept, and now it struck her that he had amazing eyes: intensely blue and streaked with lighter flecks that made them look like shattered glass. Shattered, sexy glass.

He cleared his throat. She heard a dry sound rattle in his chest and grabbed one of her lemons from the windowsill. A fragrant, oily mist rose from the fruit when she sliced in to it, and
clack
,
the sound the knife made on the cutting board was good.
Clack, clack.
She placed a juicy yellow wedge into a glass and poured fresh water over it.

“Here.” She held it out to him. He took the offering and sipped, then drank the contents thirstily and handed back the glass.

“Thank you.” He nodded. She thought she saw a tiny bit of agitation move aside for him to express gratitude. It looked good on him, and she liked it. Maybe he was hungry too.

Dinah checked to make sure there was water in the kettle, put it on the range, and lit the gas. “They relocated all the Bods to private residences,” she explained, pulling food out of the fridge. “Because of Earth First and its roadblocks, raids, and ambushes, there’s no way anyone can go to one of Amin’s compounds in the north, so they took all of you south, straight into enemy territory. You’re being hidden in the Outlands, right under Earth First’s noses. Clever right?”

She watched him take this in. When his attention shifted back to her, his scrutiny played on her skin like wind after an icy dip into a stream. “Clever? I’m not certain I agree.” He paced the room, examining the doors and windows. She almost mentioned he was free to leave, but would he do it? Stride off naked, God knew where? That would be horrible.

“I understand what you’ve just said about the roadblocks and the Outlands, but why this place? “ He gestured at the four walls of her cabin. “Why bring me here?”

“Because I said they could,” she answered. “I volunteered. I joined the Citizen’s Brigade against Earth First. Actually”—she spooned coffee into the pot— “they’re not calling it Citizen’s Brigade anymore. I’ve heard lots of replacement names suggested: Heart First, Head First, Open Earth. I don’t know which of those they’re going with, if any. Whatever it’s called, I agreed to hide you here until the roads into the city are secure and they can get you home again.”

“Home?” His voice was dull, the question hollow, and she would have hugged him if she could. That’s what had been good about him being out of it in bed. It had made it a lot easier to express her outraged sympathy for him. As reasons for a dark mood went, she had to say he had some pretty good ones: targeted for what, not who, he was and witness to a blind, unthinking hate that cost innocent lives. It was a horrible injustice, and she was pleased to have some minor way to stand against it.

“What is it?”

“What is what?” She shrugged the urge to paw at him away and cracked some eggs into a bowl. Next, she started slicing bread. Scrambled eggs and toast: her favorite feel-good meal.

“They may have found a new location for the Body House already,” she said. “In fact, it could be halfway built. Things go so fast these days. I’m sure it won’t be long before you’re back with all your friends.”

“The roads aren’t secure?”

“What?”

He sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed and stared at her. It was quite something to be watched by him. He had a patient focus that got right under her skin. She was glad they were on the same side, because those eyes could make a woman give up all resistance in a hurry. “I asked you if the roads were still impassable.”

Dinah watched her eggs and did her best to reconstruct what she’d been told. “Impassable, no. Dangerous, yes. The organized assault on aliens seems to be over. But there are still random attacks. You could message someone to come get you, but anyone who did would risk his life.”

“So I should stay here and risk yours. Is that the plan?” Clearly he was voting no on that idea.

Dinah lowered the heat underneath the pan and turned to win him over with her genuinely unworried expression. “You’re not risking my life. I’m fine.” She spread her arms to demonstrate the fact. “I’m making breakfast in my kitchen, just like always. There’s no way anyone could know you’re here.”

“What if they find out?” He leaned toward her, blue eyes coaxing information from her in a way she found unfair. “Imagine. Earth First discovers you’ve joined some impromptu force against them. Hidden a supposed foe. A group of them come knocking at your door when I’m long gone and you’re alone here? What happens then? Do you think I could bear to know you’d suffered repercussions for my presence here? I couldn’t. If there’s a chance of that, I won’t stay, whether someone comes for me or not.”

Dinah considered this. Considered him. Abruptly she dismissed it all, jabbing her spatula into the eggs. “Fuck Earth First,” she said. “It’s just a new name for the same old dickheads I grew up with. I wasn’t afraid of them when I was ten, and it’s not because the pricks have joined some fucked-up club to hunt down aliens that I’m going to start trembling around them now. I was born in 2032. Just in time for the cybermeltdown to freak everyone out. Then there was that little Second Civil War, so this is hardly my first whiff of danger. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m sorry, but that isn’t possible.” He did look sorry, actually. “I have enemies. You’ve involved yourself. Ergo, you’ve become my chief concern.”

Dinah turned off the heat and took a step toward him. Their gazes locked, exchanging speaking glances of the mutually unrelenting kind.

“That’s very sweet, and I can understand why you’re concerned after what happened at the Body House,” she said. “But I’ll be fine. Let me take care of me if you don’t mind.”

He minded. His silent resistance to the notion could not be missed: blank face, squared shoulders, and an unrelenting glint in those amazing eyes.

Stalemate.

“Will you sit down and eat something? Or can you only worry for no reason on an empty stomach?”

“I’ll eat,” he said.

“Good!” She dished some eggs out, buttered up the toast, and pulled a few more brunchy things out of the fridge: sliced oranges from her trees, fresh tomato salsa, clotted cream with chives. She fished some silverware out of the drawer. Steam from the kettle made her stop halfway into setting the table to pour hot water over the dark coffee. The rich, nutty fragrance rose around her, making her mouth water as she brought the glass pot to the table, beckoning for him to join her. “Sit,” she said.

He sat. She took the other chair.

And just like that, the two of them were having brunch. She and a naked superman from outer space.

“You mentioned Amin,” Malcolm said. “Where is he?”

“Amin Clay? I’ve no idea.” Dinah shrugged a brief apology, although in truth she also didn’t care. She never got why people made such a big deal about that man. Because he had broad shoulders, lots of money, and a pretty wife? So what?

“The last I heard,” Dinah said, focusing, “Amin was vacationing with his wife.” She took a bite of bread slathered with butter, awakening her own extremely healthy appetite. “Yum,” she said and started eating, hoping he’d follow her lead. In truth, he looked a little thin for an Adonis. Two weeks in a coma had a tendency to do that to a man. “There’s a lot of speculation about that, of course—the fact that Amin Clay was out of town. It’s all a little too convenient for conspiracy lovers not to salivate over. Some people say the Clays came back immediately. I don’t know. I doubt they’re making too many public announcements at the moment.”

“Was their home damaged?” Malcolm had picked up a slice of bread, which he put down again. His posture changed. She saw new tension. New concern.

“It was attacked,” Dinah said, studying him, “but I don’t think they made much of a dent in the place.”

“You’re sure no one was hurt?”

“I’m sure.” She blinked and then remembered. “There was a Bod there, right? A married Bod they said. Was he a friend of yours?”

“A friend,” Malcolm agreed.

“And are there really married Bods?”
Married sex workers from outer space?

He shook his head, picked up his fork. “Not Bods,” he said. “One Bod. His name is Raj. He was the first in history to ever fall in love. It’s never happened once on Backus.”

“Maybe it’s Earth’s atmosphere.” That was a joke, but he appeared to give it full consideration.

“Perhaps,” he said, his blue eyes flickering as he perused her face.

Dinah poured the coffee and tried to find the thread of what their conversation was about. “Well,” she said, “whatever system Amin Clay used to protect his home would have come in handy at the Body House. Some of his bricks were chipped. You lost half your building.”

Malcolm pushed his plate away and swallowed hard. Dinah closed her eyes and felt like shit. She’d always been a blurter, and sometimes that really sucked about her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

He waved the signs of her remorse away. “We were working on security. Days away from having everything in place.” She watched his gaze move over the small room. Assessing what? The nonexistent safety features? He turned back to her, ran his hand distractedly over the soft bristle of hair, and frowned. “How long have I been ill?”