Wooing Wynter Read online

  Glancing at the gauges, she sighed with relief when she realized the vehicle had a nearly full tank of fuel. Civilization could be a long way away, and she needed to find it and help fast.

  Chapter Two

  “WHAT DO WE PLAN TO do about the rumors running rampant in Roswell,” Geno asked his sons as he leaned forward and took a sip of his coffee.

  They’d taken a table in the corner of the coffee shop that his daughters-in-law opened the month before. The Shifting Grounds coffee shop and diner was the best in town, as far as he was concerned, but he was biased—as he should be. Birgit was one of the best cooks he’d ever met, and Charly, used to brewing concoctions in a lab, made the best coffee and other drinks he’d ever put in his mouth.

  “Someone needs to go find the idiot spreading the stories.” Ceno, his second-oldest, sat back in his seat with a frown. “Sela and I were about to go back to the ranch, but I guess we could stop by Roswell and try to quell the gossip.”

  “No.” Geno shook his head. “You two go on home and get back to your mine. I’ll go. I don’t have a mate to worry about. You four do. Do we know anything about the person spreading the rumors?”

  “We only know it’s a kid. A male about eighteen, by the description. We could send Rowen and Ronin. It might be easier for them if it’s someone close to their biological age.” His oldest, Reno, said as his mate, Birgit sauntered up, took off her apron, and plopped onto his lap. “You might want to be careful, lincha,” he said with a small grunt. “Otherwise, the child you carry might be your only one.”

  Geno smiled sadly at their exchange. He loved his daughters-in-law dearly—every one of them. Each of them reminded him of his Rowninda in some small way. His chest ached at the memory of his deceased mate. He longed to be with her more and more each day.

  The last twenty-nine years had been the most difficult of his life. He’d nearly fulfilled the promise he’d made to his mate, and he was more than ready to join her in the afterworld.

  The love of his life had passed at a young age. They hadn’t the aid of a doctor when she went into labor for their youngest set of twins. Rowninda died of complications during the birthing, leaving him with a broken heart and a new set of twin boys. The only reason he’d kept going was because he’d had six young sons and no one to raise them but himself.

  Soon, his youngest sons would reach the age of rac’ha. The people of Earth called it adulthood. Their species aged slowly. Thirty-years-old was barely out of puberty, but like the Earthlings new adults, they would be of legal age to live alone, and he could finally rest.

  Meanwhile, hunting down the boy who was telling people about the strange goings-on in Magic would give him something to do to keep his mind off his solitary existence. While he was gone, his youngest sons could hang out with their older brothers and learn how to become citizens of Earth.

  While the people of Magic were proud of their various abilities, they never advertised their differences with the humans outside of their little town. They did their best to avoid the possibility of government intervention.

  Having someone talking about how they’d seen the Zolonian ship near a lake on the outskirts of town was something he was responsible for containing. It had been his ship someone spotted while covert agents tried to capture them.

  The way he saw it, it was his fault and his alone that the boy had seen them and gone blabbing. Therefore, he saw it as his responsibility to stem the gossip as soon as possible.

  “No. I will be the one to clean up this mess.” He spun his cup on the table as he thought about the consequences of their carelessness.

  “Are you sure?” Ceno wrapped his arm around his mate and cocked his head to the side. It was a look so much like his mother’s that Geno’s chest tightened at the sight.

  “We can do it if you’d rather not.” Sela leaned against Ceno with a smile and pressed a kiss to her mate’s cheek.

  “Thanks for the offer.” Geno shook his head and sat back in his seat. “This is my fault. It’s my ship they’re talking about all over Roswell. I should be the one to straighten out this mess.” He picked up his mug, tipped it back, and drained it. “You do make some good coffee.” He smiled at Charly. “I think I’ll miss it when I return to Zolon.”

  “Return?” Ceno sat forward in his seat. “I thought you were staying here.”

  “I’ve decided to go home.” Geno shrugged and met his son’s narrowed gaze. “I miss the heat of the twin suns and the dry air.” He shifted his gaze to his lap. “And I miss your mother.”

  “Mother is here.” Deno, one of his older set of twins, thumped the center of his chest. “She’s not on Zolon anymore than we are.” Amber eyes, so much like his, narrowed. “You’re going back to perform the cal’tratu, aren’t you?”

  All four of his older sons stood up, their chairs scraping against the tile floor. Reno had stood, still holding his mate.

  “No!” They said in unison, their deep baritones gaining the attention of the other patrons.

  “Father, you cannot,” Reno set Birgit down and leaned over the table, his scowl intense, but not so fierce that it could sway Geno’s plans.

  “What’s the cal-tray-too?” Birgit asked, meeting Geno’s gaze with wide eyes.

  “It’s the ritual suicide performed by Zolonian males who have lost their mates,” Ceno said as he moved around the table to stand next to Geno, as though his mere presence would stop him from doing something rash.

  “Whatever I plan to do is my right as an adult male.” Geno set his jaw. His sons would not tell him how he could live or die. “I am a Zolonian warrior, and I will die the way I choose.”

  “What about Ronin and Rowen?” Reno fisted his hand on the tabletop. “Are they to just flounder about until they reach adulthood, or do you expect us to keep watch over them for the next year?”

  “Not that any of this is your damned business,” Geno balled his hands into fists and growled at his four eldest sons. “But I don’t plan to do anything until they’re thirty-years-old. At that point, my obligation to them, to you all, is over. All of you will be adults, and I will be free to join your mother.”

  His heart ached at the thought of continuing any longer without his mate. He’d lived nearly thirty years alone when others in his situation would have already performed the cal’tratu. The only reason he hadn’t already carried it out was because of the promise he’d made to their mother. He’d promised his beloved Rowninda that he wouldn’t allow strangers to raise their children. And after nearly thirty years, he was damned tired of being alone.

  “Anything to keep you busy and your mind off the cal’tratu.” Reno glowered at him from across the table. “I wish you’d reconsider. I would hate being the damned patriarch of this group of morons.” He glared at each of his brothers. “I put up with their idiotic nonsense for more than three years when we crashed here. I’d rather not have to go back through that again.”

  “Whatever I decide, you’ll have nearly a year to come to terms with it.” Geno stood. “Who’s going to lend me a car?” He rested his hands on his hips and stared down at his sons.

  “You can take mine.” Birgit pulled a set of keys from her pocket and tossed them into the air.

  “Thank you, daughter.” Geno caught the keys and smiled. “What should I do with the big mouth when I find him? Should I neutralize him or do a memory wipe?” To do a memory wipe, he’d have to bring the culprit back to Magic and his ship. Only the medical bay on his spacecraft could change a human’s memory without doing brain damage.

  “The memory wipe, dad.” Reno’s mouth lifted at the corners. “As much as you might like to kill the gossip, we don’t do that kind of thing here. It draws too much attention from the authorities.”

  “Fine.” Geno heaved a disgusted sigh. “I’ll bring whoever it is back, but I don’t have to like it.”

  First, he needed to grab a stunner pen and a set of magnetic wrist cuffs. Once he found the loudmouth, he wasn’t about to let him es
cape.

  After a trip to his son’s garage to grab a stunner and the Magni-cuffs, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys Birgit had given him before he left the diner.

  “Who are you, and just where do you think you’re taking me?”

  Geno closed his eyes with a groan at the sound of the female voice when he slid behind the wheel. He’d forgotten Birgit’s car was sentient. He was used to his ship’s computer talking to him, but not the Earthbound automobiles.

  “I’m Geno, and I’m Birgit’s mate-father. I think she would call me her father-in-law. She has allowed me to use you.”

  “Use me?” The voice made a sniffing sound. “No one uses me.”

  “Whatever you like to call it.” Geno turned the key and listened to the powerful hum of the ion propulsion unit that powered the vehicle. “We’re driving to Roswell to pick up a passenger.”

  “Ooh, a road trip! Shotgun!”

  Closing his eyes, Geno shook his head. The personality of the vehicle’s computer was very similar to the one on his ship. In fact, they almost sounded like the same unit.

  “Yes, a road trip, and how can you ride shotgun with yourself?”

  “Just let me have my fun, party pooper. Pfft.”

  “Don’t you make noises at me. I’ll rip your computer chip right out of you if you sass me again.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Geno was certain that if the car could have saluted, it would have. Damned sentient machines were too full of smart-ass remarks for their own good.

  Ten hours and fourteen hotels later, Geno smiled with satisfaction as he saw the man-boy that more than twenty people had described to him. He stood with a group of young adults, his tongue wagging so fast, his mouth should have been a blur. No wonder Birgit referred to him as Loose-lipped-Larry.

  “I’m serious!” He raised his hands over his head.

  If Geno were to cuff the boy, he probably wouldn’t be able to say a thing. His hands moved so much while he talked. It was like watching a mime—a very talkative mime—one who wouldn’t shut up.

  “The huge ship beamed up the car full of people, then shot out over the lake. It hovered there for a few seconds and then took off, straight up into the sky and disappeared.”

  “That’s so cool, dude.” The—what had Charly called them—“sci-fi geeks” gathered around him, all of them listening, their expressions rapt.

  “What happened next?”

  “Yeah. What happened next?”

  “Nothing, duh.” He shook his head. “Like I said, they disappeared. Weren’t you listening?”

  “Oh, bummer.”

  The group of kids stood together, mumbling amongst themselves as Geno straightened his black suit jacket and tie before he slipped on the reflective, black sunglasses he’d bought at the local dollar store. Having read up on the UFO phenomena on Earth, He’d decided to play a part. With luck, he would intimidate the kid and his companions and be on his way back to Magic in no time.

  “Excuse me.” He tapped Larry on the shoulder.

  “Wait a minute. I’m talking to—whoa! What do you want?” The man-boy’s voice cracked, his eyes went wide, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. The scent of fear rolled off him.

  “I’d like to talk to you in private.” Geno stared into the boy’s eyes and tried not to laugh. He wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if the youth urinated in his pants at the sight of his costume.

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  The boy’s hands trembled, but he was brave. Geno had to give him that, and he had to respect it. As much as he wanted to leave the boy as nothing more than a grease stain in the middle of the stretch of highway separating Roswell from Magic, he couldn’t do that now. He respected the boy too much for that.

  “Follow me.” Geno turned and headed for the front door of the hotel. He half expected the boy to run, but he didn’t. He stayed right on his heels until they exited the lobby and headed toward Birgit’s car. “I expected you to run.”

  “I might have if you would have really been a man in black. You had me fooled at first, though.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?” Maybe the kid was smarter than he looked.

  “The real men in black travel in pairs. You should know that if you plan to attempt something like this again.” He stopped some distance from the car. “I’m not going any farther unless you have a really good excuse. I might have a black-belt in karate so that I can defend myself, but I’m not stupid enough to get into a car with a stranger.”

  Geno wanted to ask him what karate was but decided against it. He could find that out later.

  “You must enter the vehicle.”

  “Uh, no way, mister. What are you, some kind of freak?” The youth held his hands up and backed away, glancing behind him occasionally. Self-preservation must have kicked in because the scent of his fear grew stronger, and he appeared ready to run.

  “I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to do this.” Geno pulled the stunner pen from his pocket, pointed it at the kid, and pressed the activation button.

  The boy collapsed onto the ground about fifteen feet from the car. Sighing, Geno picked him up, carried him to the car, then set him in the passenger’s seat and clamped the magnetic cuffs around his wrists and forearms. After setting the lock, he slid behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled out onto the road.

  “Is he dead,” the irritating car asked. “Are we taking his body back to Magic? What will you tell your sons when you bring back a dead body? I mean, I don’t care, but do you think they’ll approve?” The questions from Birgit’s nosey car were almost constant.

  “Don’t you ever shut up?” Geno clenched his teeth, and his head pounded.

  “Only when I feel like it, and I don’t feel like it.” She turned on the radio and started singing along to what his daughter-in-law, Charly, referred to as old-timey fifties music.

  Geno kept his mouth shut. The singing was better than its incessant questions. Not by much, maybe, but still better.

  The boy slept with his head resting against the window. Luckily, he didn’t snore. Geno didn’t think he’d have been able to take both the car and the boy making noise at the same time. He wasn’t sure, but he might have put a hole in one of them, and neither would have been a good choice.

  Chapter Three

  WYNTER LIFTED HER FOOT from the accelerator and steered the car to the side of the road. Dust billowed around the sedan, and she sat still for a few moments, thinking of what to do next. She checked the rearview mirror, looking for anyone who might be tailing her. Seeing nothing but a strip of empty highway, she bowed her head with a sigh.

  Exhaustion beat at her, but she refused to stop and rest. Driving straight through seemed the best course of action. Besides, she promised Ryder she wouldn’t stop until she reached Magic.

  Fear was nothing new. It had dogged Wynter since the strange men kidnapped her and took her to the warehouse in the middle of nowhere six weeks before. It constantly squeezed her chest like a corset someone had drawn too tight.

  Shoving the gearshift to park, she lowered the windows and turned off the ignition. She sat for a moment, staring out through the dirty windshield as the car filled with the desert heat. Nothing but the view of a stark, desolate tract greeted her. Seeing no more than dust and a dark ribbon of hazy asphalt that stretched into the horizon, she closed her eyes for a moment and tried to relax.

  With no one for as far as the eye could see, Wynter should have felt some modicum of safety, but she didn’t. If someone could grab me off the street in broad daylight, is anyone ever truly safe?

  Still, she couldn’t give up—especially now. They were in New Mexico and too close to their destination to give up now. She didn’t dare stop until they arrived in Magic.

  The empty road behind them did little to settle her nerves. Wynter pressed her hand to her roiling stomach and fought the urge to retch. Her head spun, and her stomach churned as she thought about everything she’d gone through over
the last few days.

  Her eyelids felt like sandpaper when she blinked, and her gaze blurred while she searched the horizon for signs of civilization.

  God, I’m tired. Wynter hadn’t slept in two days.

  Wynter was so exhausted she could have dropped to the ground and die where she sat and not give a damn—if she’d had no responsibilities, that is. But that wasn’t the case. Not anymore. She’d made a promise, and by God, she intended to keep it.

  After a small prayer, Wynter glanced back at the boys sleeping in the backseat before she wrenched herself from the car and stretched. Stiff muscles complained, causing painful cramps. Her back and hips ached almost more than she could stand. The accident during their escape had taken its toll on her forty-eight-year-old body.

  The hot breeze pushed a lock of auburn hair into her eyes, and she brushed it back with impatience. It was too long. Wynter had been on her way to a local salon. She’d planned on getting a style more appropriate for a woman her age. The men who’d abducted her had put a stop to that in a hurry.

  She huffed out a disgusted sigh. How could she think of a trip to the spa when somewhere, evil people searched for them? She needed to find a safe place—fast. Magic, New Mexico, wasn’t well known and not easy to find. At least, according to Ryder. But he swore they would be safe there.

  When they escaped, she couldn’t shake the feeling someone would find her if she kept using the car she’d stolen. Luckily, the warped, so-called scientists hadn’t kept them far from her home town. She stopped at a local convenience store that still had a payphone and called her friend, Ella, collect. After a trip to a local mall to meet her friend, from whom she’d borrowed a different vehicle and some cash to facilitate their escape, the three of them were on the road again and heading south.