Blue Dawn (11 page)

“Really?” Allie frowned. The pressure of her fingers entwined with his increased, sharpening his feeling of connection to her. She surveyed him with a concern he found even more unsettling.

“I guess that explains a lot. But I can’t imagine living like that. In my family, laughing, crying, singing, fighting were the norm. No one would ever describe us as too controlled. More like loud and noisy.”

For one brief moment a vivid picture of Allie’s family crowded around a tiny kitchen table possessed Erik’s head. The noise level was fierce, but what almost knocked Erik off his feet was the palpable feeling of love and happiness. He’d never felt anything like it before in his life.

“Meowww.”

The pitiful plaint and the rubbing of fur against the bare ankle below his rolled-up jeans disrupted the unsettling picture in Erik’s head. Sharkey was rubbing against his leg.

“Well, look at that.” Allie dropped his hand, knelt down, and quickly captured the cat from the floor.

Erik watched with undisguised interest as she hugged the cat to her chest, and rubbed her cheek against its fur.

“So,” she continued, the timbre of her voice lowering to match the purr of the little cat, ”you wouldn’t dance with me but you can’t stand anyone else getting all the attention, can you, you jealous little creature.”

“Jealous? You mean cats experience jealousy?”

Erik knew about the high emotions of humans.

But animals too?

“Of course.” Allie looked up from the cat in surprise. “They’re worse than people. You must have seen that before, with one of your pets.”

“I’ve never had a pet,” he said tersely.

“No? Not even a fish?”

“No.” His gut tightened.

“You don’t like animals?” Allie’s voice held a note of incredulity.

“It’s not that,” Erik said quickly. “I just . . . we just never had any pets.”

“Oh.” An array of emotions flickered across Allie’s face. Erik knew she was remembering the incident with the bird the psychic had described.

The incident he had refused to discuss.

Suddenly she thrust the little cat at him.

“Here. You hold him.”

Startled, Erik took the cat. With awkward motions he held it against his chest.

“Pat him.”

“Pat him?”

“Yes. Sharkey loves to be stroked. He also likes being scratched behind the ears. Scratch him behind the ears and you’ll have a friend for life.”

Tentatively Erik raised his hand and stroked Sharkey. In response the little cat snuggled closer, his body warm against Erik’s chest.

Ridiculously pleased by the animal’s response, Erik experimented with scratching him behind the ears. A deep purr of contentment rumbled from the little cat’s throat.

“He likes it, doesn’t he?” Erik couldn’t keep the awe from his voice. Nor the smile from his face.

“Of course.”

The gentleness of her voice made Erik look up at Allie. She was smiling too, her eyes lit with that special warmth that did strange things to his insides, that made him feel connected to her in a way he had never realized possible. Even the knowledge gained through telepathy did not produce these wondrous results. Nor did the physical responses provoked in both of them by the strength of their common destiny. No, this was different.

She cocked her head again. “Did anyone ever tell you what a beautiful smile you have? It changes your whole face.”

Erik basked in the warmth of her smile, and the warmth of the little cat curled up against him.

For once, he ignored every Zalian restriction he had lived under since birth, and just let it happen.

His smile grew wider still.

After a final swipe with his roller, Erik stood back and surveyed the fifty feet of wall now covered with a second coat of dark green paint.

With a damp, sweaty arm, he pushed a lock of hair out of his face.

He glanced at the clock on the counter separating the kitchen area from the rest of the room. Seven o’clock. He and Allie had been painting almost nonstop since early this morning.

Through the morning freshness, and through the slow buildup of oppressive heat that lingered still, despite the constant hum of two overhead fans.

“Well, that’s that,” he said with satisfaction.

The hours of menial, repetitive work may have been nothing but part of a strategy to achieve his goal, but still, he’d enjoyed them. Was it because he was with Allie? He looked to the other end of the long room where Allie was lowering her roller.

“Are you finished?”

“Yes, yes and yes!” Allie deposited her roller in the tray. She stretched, then walked towards him.

Wisps of hair had escaped from her pony tail and now curled around a face even more paint-spattered than it had been a few hours earlier.

Just before she reached him she executed a pirouette, then stopped, her gamin face glowing, her arms extended. “I can’t believe it. We finished it all. Every bit of it. All that’s left is the trim and the window frames.”

Allie stopped in front of him. The light brush of her fingertips across his chest reminded him he’d discarded his T-shirt several hours ago—and sent a jolt through him like an electric shock.

“You’ve got paint all over. In your hair. On your jeans.” She broke into a playful grin. “On your face. You should see yourself.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She grabbed his arm and propelled him towards a full-length mirror leaning against the Japanese paper and wood divider separating her bedroom from the rest of the large open room. “See? It’s all over your chin.”

She bit her lip.

Erik looked in the mirror. Indeed, he did have paint, more than he would have thought, on his face and chest and hands. But it wasn’t the paint that startled him. It was the somberness of the man staring back at him. The cold-eyed stranger whose expressionless face was a complete contrast to the glowing eyes and curving lips of the woman standing beside him. For the first time in his life he considered what he saw—and didn’t much like it.

“You’ve got paint on your face too,” he responded stiffly.

“Yes. I know. But not as much as you.” Allie stood back, hands on her hips. “Anyway, I’ll get rid of it in a moment. First though, I’m going to figure out where I’m taking you for dinner. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. In the meantime, why don’t you have a shower? I’ll have one right after you.”

She gestured to the apartment’s only enclosed room. Before Erik started to walk towards the bathroom, she stopped him with a touch.

He turned to look at her. Her expression had gentled, the sparkling eyes had turned to a soft green mist. Her lips curved in a sweet smile that cut into him with unexpectedly sharp sweetness.

“Thank you Erik. You don’t know how much I appreciate your helping me today. I’d be painting for another week if it wasn’t for you. Thank you.”

Erik stood rooted to the spot. He didn’t even try to suppress the pleasure her words provoked, or the wave of closeness that surfaced in him when she looked at him like that. It was a new and powerful sensation, touching him deeply in ways and places he had always denied.

He swallowed. With a certainty born of years of forcing himself into a mold which did not quite fit, he knew he should reject this seductive sensation and the dangers it posed to his goals and acceptance in Zalian society. Dangerous because, in his heart, he knew it was what separated him from every other Zalian on Zura.

But his gaze lingered still on her smile, her glowing eyes. He felt the answering smile begin to crease his face.

And he knew at that moment he wasn’t going to reject it. Not yet. For once, he was going to experience this heady sense of intimacy with Allie, to explore it, to revel in it.

Time enough later to force it back into the recesses of his heart, to order his emotions into the correct Zalian mode.

But not yet. By all the stars of the Milky Way, not yet.

On the darkened beach, the quiet lap of the waves against the sandy shores slowly took precedence over the ever-present hum of the city.

Allie lay back, resting her weight on her forearms, and breathed deeply, savoring the damp warm air and the smell of water, sand and grass. The breeze that had risen only moments before caressed her shoulders, bare except for the spaghetti-thin straps of the silk camisole top she had donned after changing out of her painting clothes. She sighed deeply. How she loved Chicago, and everything that it offered, from a fast-paced work atmosphere to the most peaceful of beaches. She would never want to leave it.

She glanced up at the full moon, bright despite the city lights behind them. Her glance strayed to the man sitting as still as a statue on the gray wool blanket beside her. Erik had said little since they’d finished their take-out burgers and fries, but this time his silence hadn’t set off a stream of nervous chatter from her.

Instead, she’d found his presence strangely companionable. Even the crazy hum that plagued her whenever he was around had subsided to no more than a strong awareness, pleasantly tantalizing but not demanding of immediate action. Perhaps it had been tempered by the things she had learned about him the last day or two. And the fact he had finally started to unbend and act as if there was actually a human being behind the reserved, handsome exterior she’d suspected hid only an uncaring womanizer.

A tiny smile curved her lips as it occurred to her just how wrong she’d been about Erik. She shook her head and gazed at him again. Despite the breeze starting to ruffle his hair, he remained like a dark shadow beside her, unmoving, his gaze turned upwards on the full moon and the tiny pinpricks of the few stars strong enough to shine above the lights of the city. What was he thinking about? she wondered. Was he thinking of her, or were his thoughts far away, as distant and cool as the look in his eyes?

She was so busy wondering that she didn’t hear when he finally spoke.

“Pardon?” She sat up.

“Why were you engaged to Cody?”

“What?” Under the cover of darkness, her face flamed red. Was
that
what he’d been thinking about?

“I was wondering why you had planned to marry him. Why you went out with him. With Cody.”

“No, I heard the questions,” Allie said quickly.

“I wondered why you asked.”

Erik sat back. “From everything I’ve heard at work, Cody is selfish. Interested only in himself.

Disloyal.”

Methodically he listed Cody’s flaws, then turned to her, his brow furrowed, his gray eyes intent. “I don’t understand how you could . . . care about someone like that.”

Allie grimaced. What Erik said was true. She’d been a fool, and was still grappling with why she’d plunged so blindly into a relationship that ran counter to everything she’d ever known.

She pondered how to explain—or if she even wanted to explain. Finally she looked at him. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Not to speak poorly of the missing, what you’ve been told is probably true. And worse. And I discovered it in the most direct way,” she added, recalling with a shudder how she walked in on Cody and one of his ”other”

girlfriends.

A sigh escaped her. “Down deep, I think I knew all the time that Cody wasn’t right for me. But he was exciting, and charming, when he wanted to be, and a lot of fun. In his own way, he was even generous and helpful. We did a lot of wild things.

It filled up a lot of the emptiness I felt after my parents died.”

She fell silent again, contemplating the real reasons for her lack of judgment. After a moment, she turned back to Erik. Her eyes met his once more. Burying her pride, she stumbled forward.

“But when it comes right down to it, I guess what I wanted was someone of my own to love.”

There. She’d said it. It was the first time she’d admitted it to anyone—even to herself. She frowned, then searched Erik’s face for understanding she didn’t really expect to find.

“And to be loved,” she continued. “Looking back now, it seems my relationship with Cody had a lot to do with my parents’ deaths. I think I told you before, they died eighteen months ago, within a week of each other, Tata of a stroke and then Mama of a heart attack. Even though I’d been living on my own for several years, I missed them.

Badly. I still do. Their house had always been home and I missed it. I don’t think I realized how much until now. It was as if there was this huge hole in my life. When Cody came along, I guess I jumped at the chance to recreate all the closeness I missed so badly. I tried to blot out the grief by keeping constantly busy, by focusing on someone, whether he was the right person or not.”

Allie smiled faintly to cover the ache for her parents that still filled her heart. “I can see now it wasn’t the smartest response.”

“But understandable.”

Allie looked at Erik in surprise. In the face of the man she had initially dismissed as just another shallow playboy, was a concern she’d never expected to see. Even stranger was the sudden feeling of acceptance and reassurance that enveloped her in a warmth as palpable as a blanket. She blinked hard to keep back the tears that suddenly surfaced.
Why does he care?

The night shadows hid Erik’s expression as he turned his head towards the lake. “I told you that my parents died five years ago,” he responded to her unasked question. “In an explosion at the lab where they both worked. We were never an emotional family, so perhaps there wasn’t a lot to miss in that regard. But I know it affected me. I worked longer, harder, to forget or to replace what I was missing, I don’t know. It just wasn’t the same.”

Allie’s sympathies, always close to the surface, immediately focused on Erik. Partly because it was easier than talking about herself. But mostly because, despite herself, she
did
care.

“I guess it was hard, being so far away in Australia when it happened,” she offered quietly.

“No family, no friends. At least I had my sister and her family. And friends I’d grown up with all my life.”

A strange look crossed Erik’s face, then disappeared so quickly Allie wondered if she’d imagined it. Slowly he reached for her hand, and she let him take it. The warmth of his supple hands enclosing hers sent a thrill of anticipation through her.