Parallel Desire (9 page)

Kelsey's throat constricted, and she couldn't bring words forth at all. Her father's warm eyes grew cold, angry. "How can you claim I was never there for you?"

"I didn't say that," she managed to squeeze out, hot tears filling her eyes. "But you didn't care what was good for me, or what I needed."

"You needed a father, and that's what I was."

"No! I needed my home, Daddy! I needed to be here, in Wyoming, close to the life we'd led as a family. And to my memories. Instead, you just uprooted me and went after your own dreams."

Kelsey leapt to her feet, pacing the room. She'd never been allowed to return home throughout high school, only later—when she'd insisted on attending college out here—had she even set foot on Wyoming soil again. From that moment, she'd felt the heavy sense that something was missing. Someone more than her mother.

"I might even have found Jared sooner." She threw her hands into the air. "Who knows, Dad, but none of that matters anymore. All I have is here and right now, and you can either turn your back on me again, or you can try and understand why I love him so much." She stopped just behind Jared, planting her hands on his shoulders. Jared covered both of her hands with his own, and she longed to see his face.

Love, take it easy
, he cautioned gently.
He just needs time
.

"No, he doesn't! He needs to support me," she cried aloud, not caring whether her father understood the private bond she shared with her mate, that it allowed them to communicate privately. "So, Daddy, you still planning to marry Blaire?" She practically spit the woman's name.

Her father's reaction was surprisingly sedate. "We're making plans, yes, sweetheart."

"And you have the nerve to judge me? At least Jared's older than me, basically the right age for me, even if he is an alien! Unlike you, obviously dwelling in midlife-crisis-land, pining after some schoolgirl who barely has boobs yet."

For the first time since arriving, her dad smiled. A real, honest smile that revealed the warmth he usually displayed toward her. "You just looked so much like your mother." He reached toward her, opening his arm to draw her close. "She was a gorgeous pregnant woman, just like you."

Kelsey crumbled, her anger fading to dust as she allowed him to pull her close against his side. She buried her forehead against his short-cropped auburn hair, the tears streaming anew. "I need you to support me, Daddy. Please."

He nodded his head wordlessly, the two of them in an awkward tangle because of her position standing over him, and then he slowly disengaged, rising to his feet. He took her by both shoulders. "You've got to let me catch up here, Kelsey. Just a little bit. There's so much I'm trying to understand right now. If you love Jared"—her father paused, turning meaningfully to look at her husband—"then I accept that. I trust that and I trust you. You've always had terrific instincts."

Kelsey wiped her eyes, one hand flitting nervously to rub the strake stone she wore around her neck. It had been Jared's wedding gift, a rare Refarian jewel that possessed an almost magical power—it was hot to the touch for anyone besides the person who wore it.

Grinning, she glanced up at her father through the tears that blurred her eyes. "I want to show you something wild." She retrieved the stone from where it dangled from a necklace, hidden between her breasts. "Jared gave me this on our wedding day."

Patrick reached into his jacket pocket, retrieving a pair of reading glasses, studying the stone closely. Beneath the track lights overhead, it gleamed a particularly luminous ebony shade. "That's unlike anything I've ever seen."

"It's from Refaria, called a strake stone." Winking at Jared she added, "You should touch it."

With a tentative hand, her father reached to feel the stone, instantly jerking his hand away. "That sucker's hot!"

"I know! Crazy, isn't it? It feels perfectly normal to me, but that's because I'm wearing it."

Jared rose from his position at the table, joining them. "Sir, that was the prize jewel in my father's crown, something my people smuggled out for me. It's always been a symbol of the world we hope to one day restore."

Patrick lowered his reading glasses, tucking them back into his jacket. "And will you take Kelsey there one day, too?" he asked Jared softly. "Should I prepare myself for that sort of separation?"

    Jared planted both hands behind his back. "We don't know what the future will bring. Right now, our role here is to protect your world. It's our highest calling, and now that we're working with the USAF, that role is more important than ever. Our enemies are many, their plans as nefarious as they are ambitious."

Patrick's blue eyes widened. "What sort of plans?"

Jared tilted his chin upward, smiling faintly. His next words rocked Kelsey to the very core. "Actually, sir, I was hoping you might be able to help us on that matter."

J
ared had never intended to
draw his father-in-law into the fray, but something about the moment—the need to gain his trust—had made the idea seem right. Perfectly right, even though it was a considerable risk to release any of their intel to an outsider. Still, this was Kelsey's father, her own flesh and blood, and using his intuitive gift, he felt certain that the man could be trusted. That he would never do anything to betray Kelsey, that much was evident from being around him, and also from reaching with his gifts to confirm what his gut instincts told him.

"I've known the vice president for more than twenty years. I find it impossible to believe that he's any kind of traitor." Patrick stared at the table between them, clearly trying to digest all that Jared had just told him.

Kelsey, for her part, seemed more angry than shaken. "This is what you were talking about earlier. The reason security is elevated."

Hell hath no fury like a woman pregnant with an alien child,
Jared thought ruefully.

"We received our intel yesterday, from a very high-up source. The suspicion is that the switch has already taken place."

"What are you people, then?" Patrick fixed him with a piercing stare. "Body snatchers?"

"Not them, Dad—the Antousians," Kelsey explained impatiently, her gaze never leaving Jared. "You're saying they somehow replaced Vice President Clarke?"

"So these Antousians are body snatchers?" Patrick pressed, a look of mild horror on his face. "Like some B-grade horror movie?"

Jared rubbed his jaw. "Sadly, it's far more complex and evolved than what you're imagining, sir, but yes. The short answer is that our enemies are capable of seizing human hosts, and by some act of subterfuge we believe they may have done just this with the vice president."

Patrick reached for his water glass, his hand shaking so badly that the liquid sloshed inside of it, nearly spilling. "That puts your enemies just one step away from controlling our missiles."

"Which would be their plan, sir. I'm sure the USAF team explained the attack we diverted at Warren?"

"In vague terms, yes."

"They almost gained control of the silos then, but we were able to shut them down. It seems that in their anger, they reached a bit… higher."

"How can I help?" Patrick asked.

Jared hesitated, glancing cautiously at Kelsey, whose anger seemed much more muted now that she'd heard the facts. "I was hoping you might try to meet with Clarke. See how he seems to you. You've known him for many years—I believe you could tell us if he is changed at all. Different. Not that you're to say anything to him, simply to get recon as to his behavior and frame of mind."

Patrick threw his head back, releasing a deep, rumbling laugh. "In other words, you want me to join forces with you just like my daughter?"

Jared couldn't help smiling in return. "I believe your unique placement could be of great benefit."

Patrick kept smiling. "My daughter told you to do this—right?"

"No, I didn't know anything about it at all, and frankly I'm a little pissed that he didn't warn me." Kelsey wiped a hand across her brow, where a thin sheen of perspiration had broken out.

Once again, Patrick's expression grew somber. "If my friend is gone—and one of these aliens is in his place—will he ever make it back? Back to the surface or however I should think of it? Or is he—"

"I'm sorry, sir. If he's gone, well …" Jared's words trailed off.

Patrick fell silent, then added, "If he's gone, then our world is in serious trouble. That's the real gist of it, right?"

Jared bowed his head significantly. "Now you understand why I decided to ask for your help."

"S
o, cowboy, it's straight up on
six o'clock, and that makes about five hours you've been sulking over there in that passenger seat." Shelby shifted, a thin sheen of sweat having formed beneath her thighs that caused them to slide against the leather seat of Jake's truck. She'd volunteered to do the driving because it made the time pass faster on the long journey home.

For hours and hours they'd been rattling across Texas, through oil fields and open range, until she thought the empty terrain would never end. Especially with Jake slumped against the window, not sleeping, but hardly living, either.

She gave his arm a poke. "What? You're not going to talk to me? I know you're awake over there."

"Just watching this lovely scenery go by." He sat up straight in the seat, stretching his arms overhead. "The varied terrain, the unparalleled beauty that is northern Texas."

"You're just acting assy because I wouldn't stop at that bar."

"I wanted Tex-Mex."

"You
wanted
a beer."

She turned to smile at him, but it wasn't an expression he returned. She figured he was in a funk because he dreaded returning to camp, dreaded the possibility of seeing Hope again, and mostly dreaded having to face the facts of his existence here in
this
time. After all, he'd pretty much hightailed it away from the compound and hadn't looked back for the past four months. He'd never exactly dealt with the fact that he was marooned in this reality— and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it, either.

She hated seeing the bleakness in his eyes, the thousand-yard stare haunting his eerie green eyes. With a sigh, she watched another mile marker go by; they still had a good ten hours ahead of them until they got back to Jackson, and she felt it her particular duty—she was, after all, a nurse—to cheer Jake up.

Distraction was always a good tactic, so she tried again. "You haven't asked me about being a time walker. I'm sorta surprised. You're pretty direct about things, and all that. I figured you'd have grilled me by now."

He stretched his arm along the bench seat, his fingertips slightly grazing her shoulder, bare except for the halter-top strap that looped about her neck. Swallowing, she wrestled to focus her thoughts, but it was tough when every bit of her awareness had flooded to that soft place on her shoulder where Jake's rough fingertips touched her. She might as well have received a casual caress from a lightning bolt.

"Well," he answered, glancing her way, "I don't actually believe you. So my only curiosity, Shelby, would be why you needed to claim to be a time walker when there's no way in hell that you actually are."

Her rush of desire was instantly replaced with a spark of anger. She tilted her chin upward, kept her eyes on the road, and slipped into formal speech. "Well, lieutenant, lying to a superior officer would certainly land me in the brig. Perhaps you haven't thought through that line of reasoning, at least not thoroughly."

A raspy rumble passed over his lips. "You might be under orders from our commander. In fact, you've already said as much."

"Still couldn't lie to you, sir. That's not who I am."

"So you're a time walker." He slid just a fraction nearer, his long arm slipping closer along that damned bench seat. "The first I've ever met, Tyler. Tell me what it means."

Her whole body warmed at the physical contact with him. She couldn't decide whether this maneuver with his arm was a come-on or if he was simply opening himself physically in order to hear the truth about her gift. Her confusion on that point was more than just a little bit disconcerting; she forced her gaze onto the open ribbon of road that wound ahead of them. "You're a deeply spiritual man, sir," she answered softly. "You know what a time walker is, what it means I am."

"Deeply spiritual?" He gave a scoffing laugh. "Yeah, I worship All, and he's watched my back on plenty of occasions. But I'm not sure he's doing more than mocking me at this point."

Something in his tone frightened her, hearing him speak so caustically about the God they both believed in. "We all lose people, Scott," she murmured.

"
Jake
." His tone could have cut her very soul to shreds, and she winced.

"Sorry."

Her heart hammered in her chest, partly from fear and partly from emotions she wouldn't dare name. Being with Jake Tierny scared the bejesus out of her on more levels than she could count. He thought he was the only one with a past? Who'd lost someone he loved?

Don't go there, girl.

Oh, he terrified her all right, so much so that her hands had begun to sweat against the steering wheel, and they shook with slight tremors. Maybe if they had sex, then he wouldn't scare her so bad; the playing field would be more even. In fact, it was a whole, whole lot easier to just focus on the thought of them doing it. Until she was blind and senseless and didn't feel anything else: until the aching place in her chest—the one that intensified when she was around him—went away. The place between her legs grew damp against the leather seat, and it took all her soldier's discipline not to reach for his hand and draw it right down to where she ached for him. To let him feel how he affected her.

Jake had been absolutely right. She liked sex and not a little bit. She had an intensely high libido, one that never seemed to find total satisfaction. Only once had she been with someone who'd come close to being her sexual match, and that had ended in heartbreak and disaster. So she'd tried going celibate, hoping it would tame the lust and senseless hunger inside her. It wasn't feminine; hell, it just wasn't right.

Jake's fingers slid along her bare skin, skimming upward toward her neck.

Just screw me, baby. We'll forget everything together.

Abruptly, he withdrew his hand, folding both arms over his chest. "I've read a bit about time walkers in my studies of the scriptures. It's the rarest gift that All bestows.… Frankly, I've always believed it pure myth that someone like you would even exist. It's said to be the highest blessing."

The man was talking scripture when she was thinking about the physical. The very, very physical. "More of a curse, really." She meant the words to stay inside her head—honest, she did—but still they slipped past her lips.

Jake threw his head back and laughed. "So that makes two of us who believe the gods have forsaken us."

That one? Well, that one she just wasn't going to touch.

He turned in his seat, fixing her with those gorgeous green eyes of his. "You don't like that?"

"Don't agree with it, that's all."

"Then what did you mean about your gift being a curse? How does time walking work? The scriptures are entirely vague on the matter."

On the radio, a Tim McGraw song came on, and for a minute she just listened. "Live Like You're Dying"—a pretty good motto considering all the death she'd seen.

"I love this song." She reached to turn up the volume, but Jake's massive hand halted her. Their fingertips brushed together, their hands suspended in a strange dance of electricity and need.

In the silence, she could hear his breathing grow heavy, just as hers did. He seemed to be waiting on something from her, asking for something more than plain facts about her gift.

Closing her fingers around his hand—as cautious as she would be with that bear he kept reminding her of—she waited. For a reaction, for him to pull away or lash out, but he remained perfectly still beside her, frozen except for the heavy sound of his huffing breaths.

One of us has to make a move,
she thought, cursing herself for being so blinded with lust for the guy who she couldn't think worth crap around—much less control her physical reactions to his unstoppable sensuality. If she'd ever doubted he might be Scott Dillon in another body, well, his barely constrained physical presence was all the proof she'd ever need. Only one other man that she'd met in her life had ever radiated so much hunger and passion without even uttering a word, and that was absolutely Scott Dillon.

"What do you want?" Her question came out breathless, edged with frustration and emotion.

Jake took her hand, anchoring it against his thigh. "I think you know."

"You'd better tell me, just so I'm sure."

"I want to know my future. I want you to be a time walker, Shelby, to walk
me
." He slid her hand a little bit higher up his thigh. "And tell me if I succeed in killing Jakob Tierny in this timeline."

J
ake's hand was practically flung
back at him, if such a thing were even possible, as Shelby yanked her own out of his grasp.

"Frak me!" she cursed.

"Frak
what
?"

She shot a furious glare at him. "
Battlestar
, baby. Not that I'd expect you to know that." He didn't know what the hell she was talking about but wasn't about to reveal that fact to her. She continued ranting. "Seeing as how you don't know who the Grateful Dead are, or what your own dang tattoos mean, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't know about
Battlestar Galactica
." She threw both hands in the air, completely releasing the steering wheel, ignoring the fact that the car veered slightly over the line. Good thing Texas was so flat.

"Well, frak you, too, sweetheart." Leaning closer to her, he sidled across the seat and allowed his words to absolutely drip with seductiveness. "I mean, who wouldn't frak you, as hot as you are. You're my very own little Texas tamale."

She stiffened, her full lips quivering slightly with emotion. "This ain't about that."

"
Ain't
about what?" he mimicked. "That southern accent of yours hits overdrive every time you're emotional or upset or"—he reached for a lock of blonde hair that had come loose from her clip, stroking it between his fingertips suggestively—"turned on. Especially when you're turned on." He watched as deep color infused her face, feeling his own body flush with unstoppable heat.

"I—I thought you wanted to talk about my gift."

Trailing his fingertips across her cheek, he stroked the nape of her neck, watching a pure look of sexual satisfaction pass over her face. It might have been a long time since he'd touched a woman, but some things you just never forgot—not when you'd bedded as many women as he had over the years. With a languid gesture, he ran his fingers along the base of her scalp until her eyes slid halfway shut and she squirmed slightly in the seat.

"I'm gonna have an accident if you don't cut that out."

"Pull over." He invoked his voice of authority, sounding every bit her commanding officer.

She jerked in surprise, leaning forward and out of his grasp. "Not out here—there's nowhere to stop."

"Like I care—do it, Tyler. Now. Pull over this vehicle." He turned in the seat to face her. "That's an order, Medic."

H
alf a mile down the road
, without ever saying a word, Shelby located a dusty pull-off that led to absolutely nowhere. Perhaps a turnaround for cattlemen in the area, it wound a small distance off road and behind a copse of cactus and brush. When he realized the privacy the place would afford, he issued another order: "Park here, Shelby. This is the spot."

Once the car was parked, she turned to him, her clear blue eyes brilliant with emotion. He was tempted to soul-gaze her, to figure out what was really going on behind those gorgeous, long-lashed eyes of hers. But he knew that she'd call him down on that before he'd even get started.

"What do you have in mind, sir?" She folded both arms across her chest—both bare arms because from this angle he mostly saw skin, inches of pale, beautiful skin that had been left exposed by her halter-top and miniskirt.

"Gods, you're a gorgeous woman." He rubbed his jaw, just looking at her, appreciating her pure, unspoiled beauty—possibly for the first time. He'd thought her hot as hell back in the motel, but here with the sun setting behind her, with the heat of emotion showing on her face, he could see her for what she really was: an absolutely breathtaking beauty. From her full, pouty lips to her thick, feathered eyebrows, there wasn't a single aspect of her that wasn't sensuous. Deeply, provocatively sensuous.

"This isn't about me. You wanted something; now, tell me what it is, or I'm pulling right back on that highway."

The directness of her question, the proximity of her utterly feminine body, knocked the breath out of his lungs, terrified him to the very marrow until all he could think was that he had to get away. "Bad idea, this," he grumbled. "Terrible, terrible idea."

Gods, he was suffocating. This woman was choking the life out of him, and he had to break away from her before he did what he most wanted, which was to make love to her, here in the desert without worrying who might drive by or who might see. Wanted to take her lithe little body up underneath his own massive one and brand her with his mark. To bind her to him somehow, in some way that neither time nor death could ever challenge.

Only, he of all people knew that caring for any woman was a danger because death was always a possibility. The one woman he'd ever loved had died, taking his soul with her to the grave; the last thing he needed was to fall hard for Shelby. His heart went wild inside his chest as grief and longing spun together, practically choking him.