Chapter Twenty-Six
Luca Radbourne woke up slowly. He was on his back, which seemed strange; he usually slept on his side.
He heard strange beeping noises, but it wasn’t his alarm.
He inhaled deeply, expecting to smell the scent prevalent throughout his home on Alpha-Prime.
His imported aroma machine spewed out the scent of something called fresh-sawn wood.
It was his favorite.
He frowned. What is that terrible smell? Not fresh-sawn wood! Is that antiseptic? Eww. Why?
His eyes blinked open slowly. He had the vaguest of headaches, like he’d spent too much time reading. It wasn’t uncommon for him to fall asleep while reading through…wait. Where was he?
Luca sat up. He was in a hospital. Unfortunately, the headache got worse the longer he stayed sitting up, so he lay back down. Why was he in a hospital?
He scanned his memories, trying to recall how he got here. They flashed fast and hard into his brain, like a hoard of hungry sand-claw beasts released at feeding time, making him gasp.
The information he needed came to him.
Luca was on Earth. He was on a very secret mission. No one except Cmdr. Goddard even knew he was here. Space potatoes, how could he have forgotten that?
Flashes of the last few months on Earth sped through his mind. Before he could reason through or remember pertinent answers to his mounting questions, the handle on the door of his room moved. Someone was sneaking in.
Luca tensed, ready for battle. He searched the room for a weapon, but didn’t see anything helpful. Not to mention the dawning awareness that if he tried to get out of bed, he’d probably fall on his butt, with or without a weapon.
The door eased opened, as if his visitor didn’t want to disturb him. Shockingly, Obsidian Montero stuck his head through the slender opening. He grinned when he saw that Luca was awake.
“Ian? Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here. I am on a mission —”
His best friend in the world closed the door behind him, put his hands up, palms out, and said, “I know about your mission here on Earth, Luca.”
Luca sagged against his pillow, chagrined. “Which means something bad happened and you were sent here to fetch me back home, right?”
Ian shrugged. “Something like that. What is your last memory, Luca?”
He tried to sort through his jumbled recent memories, which seemed to have crammed themselves into his brain all at once. Before he could choose one, loud voices erupted beyond the closed door of his room.
A sharp, angry female voice said, “I don’t care who you are, you can’t come barging in here right now. It’s late. Visiting hours are over.”
“Sorry, ma’am, I don’t answer to you. Go talk to your hospital administrator. He will explain. Until then, stay out of my way.”
Ian backed up, a finger to his lips, and pointed to what looked like the room’s attached bathroom. He ducked in right before the door to Luca’s room popped open.
Two men stalked in. The first man through the door was Diesel Grey, Fearless Leader of the amusingly named Big Bang Truck Stop in Alienn, Arkansas. Luca had never met him, but he knew who the man was and that he had every right to be angry.
The man with him was Wyatt Campbell, sheriff of a nearby town. Luca had met him at Dark Matter Metal instead, a beautiful redhead walked in, a relieved expression on her face.
“Hi,” she said, and grinned like she’d just won a prize. She really looked like Ian when she smiled. Were they related? “I know I’m not supposed to be here. It’s not visiting hours. But I had to see you were awake and okay with my own eyes.”
Luca squinted and said, “Sorry, sweetheart. I think you have the wrong room.”
The infectious smile dimmed and a frown appeared. Still gorgeous, though.
“Jake! It’s me. Don’t you remember?”
Luca watched the shifting emotions on the woman’s face—shock, dismay, sadness and back to shock.
Luca took the opportunity to scan his visitor from her coppery head to her boot-covered toes. She was absolutely beautiful, but he did not know her. He shook his head. “I’ve never seen you before in my life. And, trust me, I would’ve remembered.”
Suddenly restless, Luca flipped off the sheet covering his legs, removed the strange clamp squeezing his finger, unwrapped the constricting band that was around one biceps and finally detached the needle that was stuck in his arm.
He carefully climbed out of the hospital bed and gave himself a minute to get steady before he tried to walk.
“But…” The redhead reached out and clutched his bare forearm. Her warm grasp fairly sizzled his skin, but he wasn’t in a position to appreciate it right now. He had things to do and places to be. He didn’t have time to deal with a beautiful woman.
In a slightly lower and definitely more seductive tone, she said, “Jake, it’s me, Beryl. I manage the Supernova Supermarket.” Beryl? Hadn’t Ian mentioned her name? Maybe. Pay attention. She is not your concern.
“I’ve heard of the place,” he said, then shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in there before, though.”
“You have. You made a bracket for my ice machine on the first day we met and then we…dated.”
His brows lifted at her incredible statement. He would never do that. “Oh? When did we do this?”
“The past few weeks. Listen, I don’t understand any of this.” Her voice sounded watery, which normally would make him pause, but he needed to get back up to speed, fast.
Luca opened the closet next to his bed, hoping to find some clothing to exchange for the insufficient hospital gown he wore. He felt a breeze on his bare butt.