4. Clair
CLAIR
Her optimism lasted exactly one day because the very next time she stepped into the lab, another incident happened.
This time, Clair had to admit, it really was her fault.
She’d been trying to get to the bottle of plant growth formula which had somehow gotten stored at the very top of one of the shelves on her side of the room.
Clair didn’t know how it had gotten up there—she suspected that maybe Kaelus had moved it but whether he’d done it on purpose or just by accident to make room on the shelves, it was irritatingly out of reach.
She thought about waiting and asking for his help to get it—nothing was out of reach for a seven-and-a-half-foot tall Kindred. But then her pride rose up and nearly choked her.
“I’ll be damned if I ask him for help,” she muttered to herself.
He had only just started treating her slightly more like a colleague and less like an annoying child who was running amok in his lab.
If she started asking him to reach things for her, that would definitely make her less than his equal and Clair wasn’t going to stand for that.
So she positioned a high lab stool under the shelf she was trying to reach and climbed up onto it carefully.
But the stupid bottle of plant formula was still out of reach.
No matter how she stretched, Clair couldn’t…
quite…reach it. Oh, she could brush it with her fingertips, but every time she did, it got pushed further back on the shelf.
There was only one thing to do. Carefully, she lifted one foot from the stool and placed it on one of the lower shelves. Pushing herself up on her tiptoes, she could almost grab the bottle, but not quite…and that was when she heard the lab door sliding open behind her.
Panicked, she pushed up with her other foot, knocking the stool over by accident with a clatter. Now she was clinging to the shelf in a most undignified way, and she still couldn’t quite reach the bottle—though she was close.
“Dr. Donovan, what do you think you’re doing?” she heard Kaelus’s deep voice asking behind her.
“Oh, nothing—just…just getting a bottle of…of plant growth formula.”
Clair wanted the words to come out light and breezy—instead she was almost panting.
It was hard work clinging like a spider monkey to the slick metal shelves!
She’d never been any good at the rock wall at the gym, back when she went.
The instructor had said something about her center of gravity being too low—though Clair suspected it was more that she was just too heavy to climb very far.
Suddenly, she decided she would get the plant formula later. For now, she was just going to get down off these shelves as gracefully and quickly as she could.
But when she reached her foot down to find the lower shelf, she couldn’t reach it.
She was stuck there on the shelf with one foot flopping around, unable to get down to the ground without hurting herself.
She was afraid if she just jumped, she’d land wrong and twist an ankle—which was exactly what had happened the last time she’d tried the climbing wall at the gym and the reason she hadn’t tried it since.
Then she heard Kaelus’s deep voice again, this time directly beneath her.
“Let go of the shelves,” he said, and she could hear the frown in his voice.
“I…I can’t,” Clair panted. “I…I’m too high up!”
“You humans are the most ridiculous creatures,” he growled impatiently. “I don’t expect you to jump to the ground. Just let go and I’ll catch you.”
“You…you will?”
Clair risked a glance over her shoulder and saw that he was standing there with his arms out. God, he was serious!
“Yes, I will,” he said, frowning. “Now let go.”
“I can’t ask you to catch me!” Clair protested. “You’ll hurt your back!”
Visions of her landing on him and squashing him flashed through her head. Her ex hadn’t even been able to lift her enough to carry her over the threshold when they were married and she weighed considerably more now than she had then!
“Dr. Donovan, are you saying I’m too weak to catch a female?” he growled, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Of course I’m not saying you’re weak!” Clair exclaimed impatiently.
Her arms were trembling now with the effort of holding onto the damn shelves.
“I’m just saying, I’m not the kind of ‘female’ you normally see getting caught say, in a RomCom or a romance novel.
I mean, I’m not exactly skinny, you know? ”
“I’m well aware of your generous curves—they distract me daily when I’m trying to work,” he said dryly. “But please believe me when I say that I can lift many times your weight—I do so during my daily work out at the ship’s gym all the time.”
Clair couldn’t hold on any longer. Her fingers were sweating and slipping on the slick metal shelves. But she still didn’t want to play the damsel in distress for her irritating lab-partner.
“I can’t just—” she began but her words ended in a scream as she lost her grip and fell backwards.
She didn’t fall far. As he had promised, Kaelus caught her without any apparent effort on his part at all. He didn’t even make any kind of grunt of effort, and he certainly didn’t remark on how she “needed to lose a few pounds” as her ex always had when he tried to pick her up for some reason.
“Oh my God!” Clair gasped and threw her arms around the big Hybrid’s neck instinctively. For a moment, she still felt like she was falling and flashes of landing badly at the gym and nearly breaking her ankle rushed through her mind.
To her surprise, Kaelus didn’t rush to put her down right away. Instead, he cradled her to him for a moment and rumbled,
“It’s all right—I’ve got you.”
It was his warm, spicy scent that overcame her momentary panic—it invaded her senses and made Clair realize she was clinging to the male who had been making her life miserable for months.
God, he was going to be insufferable now, telling her how to behave in the lab!
So why did he have to smell so good? His scent was better than any cologne she’d ever smelled and once again, it seemed to draw her to him.
Feeling irritated with herself, Clair let go of his neck and pushed away as much as she could—though he was still holding her in his arms.
“You can put me down now,” she said stiffly. “Er, thank you for catching me,” she added, since it seemed rude not to thank him.
“You are welcome,” Kaelus said, making no move to let her go. “What in the Seven Hells were you doing up there, anyway? You’re damn lucky those shelves are bolted to the wall or you would have pulled the one you were climbing down on your head.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Clair said stiffly—though to be honest, she hadn’t been thinking anything about how the shelves were secured to the wall. “But I needed to get something on the top shelf and that was the only way I could reach it.”
“What did you need?” he asked, frowning.
It wasn’t lost on Clair that he was still holding her, but she pointed anyway at the bottle of plant growth formula.
“That—the growth formula. My T’chian tremble vine is nearly dead. I thought maybe feeding it would help.”
“I see.” And, shifting her weight to his left arm, he reached up with his right and easily lifted the bottle she’d been fighting to get off the top shelf.
He didn’t even have to stand on his tiptoes or stretch very far, Clair noted enviously.
Also, he was holding her entire weight with one arm, and he wasn’t even acting like it was difficult.
It was as though she weighed no more than a doll or a pillow—which was most certainly not the case.
“Wow, you really are strong,” she blurted out, before she could stop herself.
Kaelus gave her a steady look.
“I told you I could handle your curves.”
Somehow Clair found herself staring into his golden eyes, which were half-lidded again, and for some reason she couldn’t look away. Her cheeks felt hot so she supposed she must be blushing, but she was tongue-tied and didn’t know what to say.
“I…you…” She cleared her throat, trying to get something out. “Thank you,” she managed again, at last. “I…I mean for getting the growth formula and for, uh, catching me.” Then she remembered she’d already thanked him for that and felt her face getting even hotter.
“You are welcome,” Kaelus rumbled and, at last, he set her down though Clair had the idea he could have held her like that in one arm for hours without feeling it.
She took the bottle of plant growth formula and rushed back to her workstation to feed the tremble vine, which got its name because it shook and shivered any time someone touched it.
Clair felt a little shaky herself as she carefully injected just the right amount of formula into the vine’s soil. What was wrong with her? Why did being close to the big Hybrid make her heart pound and her breath come short? And why had he been looking at her like that?
You’re being ridiculous, she told herself sternly. He wasn’t looking at you any special way—you’re just flustered because you fell, that’s all. Also, you don’t even like him! He’s arrogant and annoying and overbearing!
But she couldn’t help replaying that long, intense stare the two of them had shared and the way those golden eyes had seemed to bore right into her soul…
Luckily, what might have been the start of some kind of feelings for the big Hybrid were knocked right out of her when she came to the lab the next day and saw that a new rule had been printed in Kaelus’s heavy, dark script on the whiteboard.
Rule 4—No trying to reach things on high shelves. If you need something on a high shelf—ASK ME FOR HELP.
Clair read the new rule and was angry and irritated all over again.
As if I’m a child and I have to beg him for help every time I need something!
she thought to herself. She vowed to herself that the very next time she went to one of the markets at the center of the Mother Ship, she would get herself a stepstool—though to be honest, she wasn’t sure where she would put it.
The lab was already pretty crowded with equipment and samples and supplies that both of them used.
Still, she was determined to get one so she would never have to ask for his help again. And in the meantime, she was going to keep her distance from the big Hybrid.
That plan lasted about two weeks, until the accident with the molecular solvent…