Blue Dawn (2 page)

“He was a hunk, an absolutely incredible hunk.” She rolled her eyes, then shook her head.

Despite herself she shivered. “But a lunatic. I mean he actually said—can you believe it—he said he was from another planet and that I was his destiny.”

Kate grinned and ran one hand through her short, plum-colored hair. “From anyone else, no.

But from you? What is it about you that attracts the weirdos? Like that guy last month who wanted you to help him prove the decimal point was the cause of all America’s money woes? Or that woman who just
knew
she was a reincarnation of Queen Victoria? Not only that, but you attract all the sexiest guys, too.”

“I don’t want to talk about attractive men,”

Allie warned. “And don’t even think of mentioning the name Cody Walker to me. Or any other man’s name, either.”

She tossed back her hair in an attempt to toss off the hurt and humiliation that started to well in her at the mere mention of Cody. Grimly she picked up her coffee. “I’ve had it with men. From now on I’m concentrating on work. I may have only been a columnist for six weeks, but I’m going to make
Street Beat
the best human interest column in the whole city. You’ll see.”

She raised the mug to her lips. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the city editor Nate Williams making a beeline for her desk. Her gaze drifted to an unfamiliar man at his side—and froze.

Her throat seized up. She couldn’t swallow.

She choked on the mouthful of coffee and began coughing violently.

Kate grabbed the cup from her and pounded her back. Nate raced the last few steps and joined Kate in slapping Allie’s back.

“Are you all right, Allie?” Nate demanded between slaps. “I’d hate for my newest columnist to choke to death first thing in the morning.”

“Th . . .thanks,” sputtered Allie, as she escaped the helping hands. “You’re all heart. Now stop smacking me before you beat me to death.”

“Ah, that’s my Allie.” The gray-haired and roly-poly city editor beamed at her and then Kate. “I’d like you girls to meet the new photographer I just hired to replace George.” He stepped back and nodded to the man who loomed behind him. The man the mere sight of whom had made Allie think her heart was going to stop. “Erik, come here.”

Almost afraid to look again, Allie slowly swiveled in the stranger’s direction. She raised her eyes, steeling herself for the shock that had erupted with her first glimpse of him. A glimpse that had registered the same impression of strength, danger and excitement she’d seen in the lunatic stranger at her door last night.

She swallowed and forced herself to look again.

This time her gaze was slow and deliberate, starting at the top of his six-foot-two inches.

Without question, he had the same height, the same thrilling build, the same dark hair. But, she noted, the streaks in his collar-length hair were blond, not silver. His eyes were gray, not the molten lead that had glowed at her so strangely from a shadowed face in the dim hallway. For the first time she saw his broad Slavic cheekbones, square jaw, strong nose and generous mouth. Her mind assessed and concluded that the man was definitely good-looking.

But
not
the god who’d sent her pulse racing and her insides melting last night. Not the sexy stranger who had terrified her with his crazy statement.

“Allie, Kate, I’d like you to meet Erik Berenger, our new photographer. He starts today. He’s been working in Australia, in Sydney and Melbourne, for the last five years. He just got back to the States a couple of weeks ago.”

Erik inclined his dark head first to Kate, then to Allie. She forced her lips into a welcoming smile. As his eyes met hers, she noted neither the glimmer of a smile nor the slightest flicker of recognition. It couldn’t possibly be the lunatic from last night, she thought, but the realization did not generate a feeling of relief.

Nate, looking more elfin than ever beside the towering Erik, cleared his throat. “I’m sure you ladies will both be working with Erik over the next few days. He’s new to the Chicago area, so I want you to be nice to him.”

A pained expression flashed across Nate’s face.

“Not
that
nice, Kate!” he scolded.

Allie bit her lip to keep from laughing. She hadn’t missed the bold leer Kate, always appreciative of male beauty, had directed at Erik, a leer that Nate’s scolding had done nothing to lessen.

Nate harrumphed and mumbled something about lack of respect. Allie glanced at Kate. From her twitching lips it was evident she was having trouble suppressing her laughter too. If they could just keep from exploding until the well-meaning but fatherly Nate was out of earshot.

“And now, if you’ll excuse us, I haven’t got all day to make the rounds. C’mon Erik.”

Nate turned, then veered back. “Oh Allie. By the way, have you seen Cody this morning?”

“No.” The laughter bubbling inside Allie died.

She stiffened. “Why would I?”

“I just thought—” Nate’s round face reddened with awareness of the relationship he’d just implied, a relationship that even he had to know from newsroom gossip had ended. He started again. “It’s just he hasn’t come in yet. And it’s not like him to be late, or not to phone if he can’t make it.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him.” Allie noted the worry in Nate’s voice, but her wounds were too fresh to respond in any other way. And pride prevented her from adding, “M
aybe you should ask
Jane in Circulation. Or Tiffany in Advertising.”

Masking her hurt with anger, she glared at Nate. He turned away, sighing. She noticed Erik staring at her, his face impassive, his eyes cool.

She glared at him too, until he turned and followed Nate. The new photographer might not be the lunatic from last night, but he was a man, wasn’t he? she thought.

Good enough reason to let him know she wasn’t interested, right from the start. Not now, not ever.

During his extended tour of
The Chicago
Streeter’s
newsroom, Erik displayed polite interest as he committed to memory the names, faces and details Nate introduced. But his thoughts kept returning to the petite woman across the room, the woman called Alina Kazimiera Stanislawski, or
Allie
as she had insisted last night.

He suppressed a grimace. He’d told himself it didn’t matter. Still, he’d been relieved this morning to see that under the blue/gray face paint, the green and blue towels and the furred animals on her feet, was the attractive woman whose image he’d seen in the visual files prepared for him by Intergalactic Research. If anything, the images hadn’t done justice to her small but pert figure, her golden complexion and sun-streaked auburn hair, the almond-shaped green eyes.

More importantly, the research had failed to prepare him for the shock of coming face to face with the strong human emotions he’d heard about but never before seen. Open curiosity, suspicion and anger had burned in the woman’s eyes and across her expressive face, along with an unmistakable flash of desire—desire for him. Was it the naked emotions or his shocked response that had disturbed him most? he wondered.

He frowned, then checked himself. He glanced at Nate to see if the city editor had caught his temporary lapse of attention. He couldn’t afford to blow it now. So far Intergalactic Research appeared to have done a good job —no one had questioned his credentials, his story, his identity.

Thank the crystals that he hadn’t given himself away completely last night with his foolish attempt at being direct. Despite urgings from his advisers that he simply kidnap the woman and be done with it, he had hoped that his destined mate would be intelligent enough to understand the facts and accept her fate. He had naively hoped to avoid a long campaign to win her acceptance.

But no. He had underestimated the huge gap in knowledge between the faraway planet of Zura and Earth, as well as the human shock in the face of an alien encounter. It was a mistake he would not, and could not, make again. Not if he hoped to avoid the emotional and mental destruction his grandfather had wreaked some fifty years earlier while fulfilling his destiny.

But could he do it? He had a maximum of two months before the Idlanta III, now orbiting the Earth behind the moon, departed for Zura and his homeland. Two months to convince the Earthling to willingly forsake her home for the superior Zalia, his native country in the northern hemisphere of Zura. Two months to convince her their fates had been irrevocably entwined since the day so long ago when he had learned of his destiny. Two months to overcome her resistance and convince her to accompany him back to Zura as his mate.

Two months, he thought, his mouth tightening and his eyes narrowing. Two months to succeed and finally win full acceptance. Or to fail and face shame, belittlement, and ultimately death.

Nate paused in his ramblings and Erik glanced across the room, to the untidy desk where his destiny sat, a telephone receiver cradled between her shoulder and her ear as her fingers raced across the keyboard of her computer.

A glimmer of feeling rippled through him. For a second he grappled with it, unable to identify it or to understand the uneasiness it provoked.

Then, with a shake of his head and a sense of relief, he seized on the only logical answer. What else could it be but the lure of the chase, the challenge of the hunt that was sending a spurt of adrenaline through him, preparing him for the battle ahead? He had experienced this so-called feeling only once before, on the eve of a mission to the south of Zura to ferret out the information Zalia needed to defeat the rebels. A mission which, he remembered, had concluded successfully.

With hooded eyes, he continued to watch his destined prey, measuring and cataloguing her physical properties and actions. Properties he had decided in the last few minutes were more than satisfactory.

Maybe he was going to enjoy the challenge posed by his destiny after all.

“Are you sure you’ve taken enough pictures?”

The new photographer nodded, maintaining the silence that had annoyed Allie more with each passing minute since they’d left the newsroom an hour and a half ago. If Erik was playing the strong, silent type, she thought, he was taking it too far.

Allie frowned, but the expression on Erik’s broad, handsome face remained calm and unreadable. The camera dangled from one of his large hands. Short of ordering him to take more photos of Maggie and Sarah Rankin—an action not usually necessary with an experienced photographer—there wasn’t much she could do.

She’d just have to wait to see what he produced.

Allie checked her irritation and turned to the young blonde woman she had just spent the last hour interviewing. “Thank you,” she said, extending her hand. “I really appreciate your willingness to share your story with the readers of
The Streeter.
Your perseverance is inspiring.”

Allie smiled warmly. She meant every word. It was a great story. Maggie Rankin had spent the last year single-handedly tracking down the ex-husband who had snatched her daughter and disappeared. Her efforts had paid off three weeks ago when her ex-husband had been arrested and she and her five-year-old daughter were reunited.

Allie had been moved by the woman’s tenacity, her love and her faith, and her ability to forgive.

In those circumstances, Allie wondered, would
she
be strong enough to do the same? The woman was inspiring, and she wanted readers to be aware of such perseverance in their midst.

Besides, she thought as she stowed her notepad and pen in her large shoulder bag, it was the kind of underdog story readers loved. Though she’d been with
The Streeter
since it began two years earlier, she’d been a columnist for only six weeks—quite a coup for a twenty-five-year-old. To be successful, she needed to make a splash, and she was counting on this story to do it—and boost
The Streeter’s
circulation.

She just hoped Erik had caught the woman’s spirit in the few shots he had taken. But she doubted it. She’d never seen a photographer so uninvolved in a shoot. He could have been in another galaxy, for all the interest he’d shown.

She should have demanded he take more photos, she thought morosely.

Allie said her goodbyes and left the tiny apartment in a lowrise not far from where she lived near the north branch of the Chicago River.

As she traipsed down the uncarpeted stairs to the plain lobby and the street, she heard Erik behind her, a looming presence that not only annoyed her but distracted her with his silence and inescapable maleness. Because whatever else Erik might be, you only had to look at him to know that he was all man. She sniffed disdainfully.

Out on the street she located the bronze-colored Honda Civic that she had sandwiched between a battered pickup and a rusted-out Chevy. She unlocked the passenger door, then proceeded around to the driver’s side.

Inside, she glanced at Erik as she turned the key in the ignition. Scrunched into the small space, his knees forced close to his chest, he seemed larger than ever — and impossible to ignore.

She rolled her eyes. “You can let the seat back, you know. The handle’s under the seat.” She didn’t try to hide her irritation.

Silently he released the seat and his long legs unfolded into the increased space.

Allie glanced into the side mirror, then pulled away from the curb. She felt her agitation rising.

What was it about Erik, about everything he did or didn’t do, that raised her tension level? Not only had an annoying, low-grade humming sound settled into her head since Nate had brought him over after the introductions this morning and said he was to accompany her on this story, but she felt inexplicably edgy. And it wasn’t Erik’s similarity to the lunatic who’d appeared at her door last night; she’d already discounted that. Nor was it just a bad mood.

“Why do you drive this car?”

The question surprised Allie so much after ninety minutes of unremitting silence that she almost rammed into the car stopped at the red light before them.

She jammed on the brakes. “Well, whaddya know. The man not only breathes and walks, he speaks too,” she muttered. She glanced at Erik; he acted as if he hadn’t heard.