Diesel rolled his eyes behind Wyatt’s back and moved toward her. Time was up. She was about to pay the piper for her foolish field trip.
“Let’s not take up any more of the sheriff’s time, Valene. We need to let the man get back to work.”
“Right,” she said as Diesel took her arm and pulled her a couple of steps toward the door. Cam grabbed her other arm and pushed her toward the door, too.
“Nice to meet you,” Wyatt said.
“Likewise,” Valene said, her eyes foolishly filling with unshed tears. They’d be falling just as soon as she got out of Wyatt’s presence.
Her brothers pushed and pulled her toward the front door. Wyatt stepped closer, looked deeply into her eyes and said in a low tone, “Hope to see you again soon, Vee.”
Valene stiffened, resisting the manhandling by her brothers. Wyatt snapped his mouth shut as if he suddenly realized he’d just made a horrible gaffe, but wasn’t certain what he’d said that was so awful.
“Did you just call her Vee? Why would you do that?” Cam asked. He stopped pulling on Valene’s arm. Diesel stopped pushing.
The receptionist walked back into the room, but no one said another word.
Wyatt glanced over one shoulder as the receptionist seated herself at her desk. He gave the three Grey siblings a rather sheepish look that said he remembered everything. How was that possible?
“Let me walk you outside,” Wyatt said.
Diesel and Cam released Valene, but spun her around to head out the door frontward facing instead of being dragged out backward.
Out in the humid heat, Valene turned to face Wyatt. “You remember,” she accused.
“Does a bear poop in the woods?” Valene giggled and leapt into his arms. He caught her and pushed his face into her throat, smelling her hair, kissing her cheek. “I’ve missed you so much, Vee.”
“This is bad,” Cam said. “This is really bad.”
Diesel didn’t say anything. He just cleared his throat several times until Valene let Wyatt go.
Wyatt put a finger up, opened the door and told his receptionist, “I’m going to go on patrol. I’ll be back in a couple of hours or so.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff.”
He closed the door and turned to Diesel, putting his arm around Valene. “I assume Cam will be riding shotgun as usual, on the way to the basement of the Big Bang Truck Stop.”
“You got that right.” Cam looked like his mind had been blown. Maybe he was trying to figure out how Wyatt had gone through his invasive memory wipe program, but still had his memories. She wanted to know that, too. She also wanted to know what this meant for them. Would Wyatt be sent to Alpha-Prime? Would they experiment on him to discover why he was resistant to the memory wipe?
Gage was already trying to figure out why Wyatt had suffered such a terrible headache from the treatment.
Diesel didn’t say anything as he climbed into the driver’s seat. When everyone else was inside, he drove all the way to Alienn without speaking a word. Cam asked a couple of questions, but Diesel remained silent.
Valene held hands with Wyatt all the way there, wondering what would happen next.
Once they were ensconced in the basement conference room behind locked doors, Diesel said, “Okay. Let’s hear it. How do you remember?”
“I’m not sure how I remember.” Wyatt shrugged. “When I woke up at my folks’ house after being found unconscious, I remembered almost everything I’d learned about your Big Bang Truck Stop operation in the basement, but my head hurt so much that I spent a few days in the hospital. As the pain lessened, I remembered more. Now, I think I remember everything.”
“Why didn’t you contact us?” Cam asked.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d do to me if the memory erase didn’t work. I don’t think you understand the gut-clenching pain of that headache. I pretended it was all a dream and didn’t speak about it. By the time I was back home from the hospital, I remembered the whole year that was supposed to have been erased, not just the alien parts.”
Diesel’s phone buzzed. Aunt Dixie, with another urgent message, complete with lots of exclamation marks, demanding that he hurry his butt up and meet her in Gage’s lab in the truck stop’s basement.Right now, Diesel! I mean it!!What was that woman up to?
Wyatt fidgeted like he was uneasy about his declaration. He eyed Valene more than once, making Diesel think about Juliana, his wife. She’d ultimately been immune to the Defender after a while because she had a touch of Alpha blood in her system.
His phone buzzed again. Aunt Dixie…again.Are you on your way? Why not?
