They were almost finished talking when he was notified the first flight on the addendum of the new contract had crashed in the woods near a small Georgia town he’d never heard of called Nocturne Falls. From that point, it had been all hands on deck all week long.
Diesel had sent a team, of course, with a mission to hide the craft and recover the three people aboard the ill-fated flight. Stella Grey, Elise Greene and Victoria Midori, his very best crew, had gone out shortly after the report came in.
Cam had shouldered the heaviest part of the load after the initial team had been sent, because he was in security. Axel was typically in charge of the communications regarding recovery, but much still had to be done to ensure no humans found out about it, so Diesel was helping out where he could.
To that end, he’d spent hours and hours scanning for any tidbits of information on the human airwaves and Internet that might have signaled the cloaking device hadn’t worked as intended when the small craft crashed. Axel had also been very involved, since he’d set up the whole addendum and primary contract flight for extra money in the first place.
Luckily, it didn’t seem any earthlings had discovered or even suspected that a UFO had crashed. However, of the three people aboard, one had been a prisoner. The other two were the guard and the pilot. They were also missing.
Another express ship had been sent from Alpha-Prime to retrieve the prisoner bound for Galactic Gulag XkR-9 and get him there as soon as possible.
Diesel had lots of balls in the air and he was glad he’d told Juliana he’d be busy for the next few days. But he missed her terribly. In the rare extra seconds he’d had over the last several days, he’d thought about her, wanting to wrap her in his embrace, rest his cheek on the top of her head and simply hold her close.
Alas, that was not to be, at least not in the near future, but hopefully soon. After five days without contact or even hearing her voice, he needed to call her and touch base. Luckily, he’d had the wherewithal to send flowers to her home the morning she’d returned, right after learning of the UFO crash, knowing he’d be busy for the next several days.
In the few spare minutes between important chores, he’d contemplated whether he’d have to give up his career. His choices were simple. In fact, there were only two.
The first was to keep her in the dark forever and always about the alien presence on Earth, which also meant a regular Defender blast to ensure she had no knowledge. He didn’t like that option.
The second option involved convincing her to move to Alpha-Prime with him and start over there once she learned he was an alien from outer space. While he wasn’t opposed to that in order to spend the rest of his life with Juliana, his true love, he did wish there was a better option to staying on Earth than blasting her with a Defender when she learned about something alien or Alpha-Prime related. It also might be more frequent than he’d be comfortable with on a day to day basis.
With their parents and sister still out of town, Cam had wanted to continue the check of the houses. His brother had mentioned in passing this morning that when he’d had one of his people check their parents’ home he’d also had someone check Diesel’s house, since he’d allowed the human to stay there unattended and hadn’t been back all week.
Diesel had blurted out a vulgar two-word phase in his head. He realized his brother was as stressed as he was about the whole issue with the downed spacecraft in an out-of-state location and also out of their immediate control.
Instead of a curse, the two words he said out loud were, “Thank you.”
Cam must have heard the attitude in his tone, though, because he added, “My employee said your back door was left unlocked, by the way. You’re lucky no one got in there and stole everything you own.”
Diesel had checked all the doors before he left Juliana there. He’d wanted to ensure she was safe. “I checked the back door that morning before I left. It was locked.”
“Maybeyour earthlingforgot and left it unlocked when she went off to her home in Doraydo.”
“Maybe,” Diesel said, but they’d talked about it the night before. He’d been concerned about the still unknown apple-throwing menace. “And her name is Juliana, not ‘your earthling,’by the way.”
Cam huffed, but didn’t otherwise respond.
Diesel was surprised to learn his back door had been left unlocked, but it was understandable. However, when Axel had accompanied Juliana to his home last Sunday, he mentioned finding his front door unlocked before someone had tried the handle and then practically broken the door down.
He would have sworn he’d locked his house up before leaving Saturday morning. Then again, his mind had been filled with the possibilities of not only Juliana’s first visit to his home, but also showing her his life and seriously contemplating a future together.
There were a few things to consider on both sides of the equation.
Diesel was calmer and happier in her company than he’d ever been with any other. Spending the night with her in his old room had been wildly unexpected, but he’d known she was the one for him. He’d known she was the only one he’d ever want. If Juliana wasn’t going to be in his life, then he’d rather live alone and die as soon as possible to end his grief.
During a rare break, Diesel went upstairs to his office and called Juliana. He just needed to hear her voice. Unfortunately, he only got her voicemail, but at least he got to hear her ask him to leave a message. He relaxed just hearing the recording. How foolish was that?
“Hi, Juliana. I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to call you until now. It’s been rather busy at work. Hopefully you got the flowers I sent and I meant every word on the note.” He smiled to himself. In the note, he told her his plan to fall madly in love with her seemed to be progressing very well and he expected to fall in love with her any second.
He relished every moment they’d spent together, whether on his four-wheeler riding through town or getting a fortune from Maxwell the Martian.
“I’m hoping to have some free time this weekend and I wondered when we could see each other. I miss you terribly. Please call and leave a message, if you’d like.” He wanted to tell her he loved her. Was it too soon? “My plan to fall madly in love with you is working perfectly. I love you and also I miss you rather desperately.”
Diesel was goofy over and completely in love with an earthling. The urge to laugh like a loon rose up, but he tamped it down. He needed to focus on his current problems and simply look forward to his future with Juliana when time allowed.
Diesel hung up and scrubbed his hands over his face. He needed to get back downstairs and finish his search of the human airwaves. But he wanted to wait and see if Juliana got his message in the next few minutes and called him back.
Was he a sap, sitting here waiting for a girl to call him? Maybe he was a lovesick, foolish idiot, but he’d already declared to her his plan had worked.
