“Daphne Charlene is a big, fat liar.” Aunt Dixie was not one to sugarcoat things.
“Maybe so, but how does she know our big secret and where did she see Wyatt in his pajama pants?”
Aunt Dixie chewed over that in silence. All of a sudden, her eyes lit up as if some brilliant piece of information had just entered her head. “Didn’t you tell me once that Wyatt was born up north somewhere and only came to Arkansas when he was a little kid?”
Valene was regretting telling Dixie Lou Grey anything. “Yes. He was born in Minnesota, near Duluth, I think, but it doesn’t matter. He’s been here since he was, like, three years old. Besides, what difference does that make?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Aunt Dixie had that look that said the wheels were spinning like mad inside her head. That was not good.
“Listen, I appreciate you wanting to help—”
“I remember something special about a place in Minnesota. Where did I see that?” She seemed to mumble the second question to herself.
“What does Minnesota have to do with anything?” Valene asked.
A wide grin shaped Aunt Dixie’s mouth with what looked like a hearty dollop of resolve and she said, “I don’t know yet, but I’m on the case.”
Oh no. What case?“What do you mean by that, Aunt Dixie?”
Aunt Dixie stopped mumbling and turned a loving look on Valene. “It means that I think you and Wyatt should be together, but I’d hate for you to move away to Alpha-Prime. So I’ll do whatever I can to ensure that you get a happily ever after with your guyandstay in Alienn. Don’t you worry about a thing.” She patted Valene’s hand and exited the booth with a spring in her step.
Valene smiled inwardly for the first time since being ordered away from the truck stop. Aunt Dixie was a wily hoot of an old woman, but Valene didn’t doubt she’d give it her all. Then again, Valene wasn’t foolish enough to believe she’d get to have her happily ever after in this case, no matter what crazy idea her aunt came up with.
Wyatt was a human. And whether he was born in Arkansas or Minnesota, nothing was going to change that fact.
“Hey, fancy meeting you here,” said a familiar voice.
She was surprised into asking, “What areyoudoing here?”
“Well, now, that’s a long story.”
Valene gestured to the seat Aunt Dixie had vacated and said, “Well, have a seat, I’ve got time.” She took a deep sip of her third glass of sweet tea, ready to listen to a long story. Maybe it would take her mind off her troubles.
Dixie Lou Grey had never been a shrinking flower. Chasing down a way for her favorite niece to remain on Earth with Skeeter Bite Sheriff Wyatt Campbell, her true love and a human, had turned into quite a daunting task. The only way she could think of for Wyatt to be allowed into their family was if he didn’t have any family of his own. But he had a large, close, happy family and, bless her heart, Valene didn’t want to hurt them by taking Wyatt away from them forever.
Dixie Lou would have to think of something else. She pondered and paced and thought and thought. Out of the blue, a long shot of an idea came to her in the form of the Lost Colony Legend. She hadn’t thought about it since Diesel’s wedding.
When Juliana Masters, Diesel’s wife, had first come to Alienn, she didn’t have anyone except Miss Penny looking out for her. At the time, although Dixie Lou had never voiced it, the thought occurred to her that if Juliana hadn’t been a distant ancestor of a previously failed Alpha-Prime colony project to live on Earth, maybe they could have faked her death and let her recreate herself as an Alpha. But that extreme idea hadn’t been needed and Dixie Lou tucked it away for possible use at a later date.
With Wyatt’s big family, faking his death was out of the question. She pondered, paced and thought some more. There had to be a way to make this romance work out.
All this information about the past teased her long-held interest in the Alpha-Prime Lost Colony project that had brought Miss Penny to Earth long ago and eventually Juliana and both of them to Alienn. Once upon a time, Dixie had sought out and clipped every newspaper article she could find that whispered anything about aliens living on Earth. She had several scrapbooks on Roswell, New Mexico alone.
But her favorite alien invading Earth stories were from less well-known places.
The knowledge that Wyatt’s family had moved here many years ago from Minnesota had piqued her memory. She had once clipped an article or two from a place in Minnesota that might have aliens or maybe mind readers or something. Anyway, Alpha-Prime had sent an agent to check it out and Dixie Lou was certain she’d clipped an article or two about it.
Dixie Lou went straight to the narrow stairwell leading up to her attic. She needed to look up some history in her scrapbooks. It had been a long time since she’d looked at them.
She opened the door at the top step and sneezed twice as dust swirled around her. Dixie vowed to bring her dust buster with her next time. Searching the hot, humid, close space, she spied an old wooden sea trunk she’d gotten for a steal at an estate sale fifty years ago and raised the unlocked lid.
Inside was a veritable treasure trove of history in the form of carefully preserved scrapbooks. They covered decades. When she’d been younger and after her own family had gone, she had come to Earth to start over.
Valene had been a baby then. Dixie Lou had a whole bunch of photo scrapbooks in her little den downstairs of the seven kids from when they were little to now.
Dixie Lou pulled the scrapbooks out one by one until she got to the very first few memory books, ones she’d created upon her arrival on Earth. She unsealed the second book labeled by dates and flipped through history as old memories of times gone by filled her mind, making her wistful for friends long gone.
