Luther, that was it. Luther Boudreaux. Even his name was sexy. There was no way to say it without a throaty purr.
His face had lived in her memories, since she hadn’t managed to get his picture. Yet.
She thought fleetingly of the cell phone in her pocket, wondered if there was a discreet way to pull it out and snap some frames, maybe a few dozen. With just the two of them in a mostly empty parking lot at midnight, that could be a challenge. Still, she was up for it. Once she released him—if she ever did—she’d snag her phone and get a quick selfie with him.
“Thank you,” she managed, forcing her eyes from his face. There was a very real risk she’d just keep staring until drool escaped her lips. She didn’t move her hands—they gripped his upper arms like her life depended on it—because he felt so good. Solid. Muscular. Nice.
The scolding voice inside her amped up the volume, demanding that she get a grip on her hormones. Francine Hayward Duvall had some pride. She’d learned her lesson about good-looking men and their machinations.
A disastrous breakup had made her much more practical about love and relationships, to the point she’d agreed to the arranged marriage demanded by her parents. She’d narrowly averted disaster in that case, too. Was it any wonder she didn’t date much? Okay, at all.
Her mind flashed to the first time she saw Luther Boudreaux. She and her sister, Lucy, were shopping at some of the intriguing extraterrestrial shops under the Big Bang Truck Stop. Luther stood out in the group of Grey brothers and other men because he was the only one wearing sunglasses indoors. More, they seemed so natural on him that it didn’t look like an affectation. Seeing them propped on his dark-haired head now made her recall that the people of Ichor-Delta were used to dimmer natural light than Earth’s sun. The dark of midnight must be a welcome relief to him.
Although Ichor-Delta was in the same solar system as Alpha-Prime and a similar orbit, relatively speaking, its atmosphere heavily diffused the sunlight that reached the planet’s surface.
It seemed her brain cells had started firing again, because Francine abruptly realized that the “attractive alien from Ichor-Delta” Lucy mentioned earlier tonight in passing was, in fact, her own Mr. Gorgeous with the hip sunglasses.
And their sister, Prudence, was about to marry someone from Ichor-Delta in the final arranged marriage their parents had contracted for their daughters, the famous Duvall Five. There had been five, but no longer. Francine’s wedding—if she ever married—would never be celebrated by their parents. Even if they were invited to some mythical future wedding, they wouldn’t condescend to attend it.
She’d been banished. Erased from her family’s official record. No one was allowed to even speak her name in her parents’ presence. She didn’t exist in their world anymore.
So be it.
But that didn’t mean she’d erased her family from her life, or stopped caring for them. Francine wished she could attend Prudence’s wedding. That wasn’t going to happen, not after the mortification of her attendance at Drucilla’s nuptials.
Her parents—rather, her former parents, as they insisted on being called—had rained down holy hell on anyone who would listen when she showed up at her sister’s nuptials with Lucy and Axel, Francine’s brother-in-law and former betrothed. She’d hoped to escape notice by sitting at the servants’ table, eating quietly, watching intently.
She’d restyled her hair to a much shorter shoulder length and changed it from her signature blond to a stunningly different red hue called rusted cinnamon. Even so, her parents spotted her.
At least they hadn’t realized she’d attended the wedding and subsequent reception of her eldest sister, Ardelia. The extravagance of that event had lent itself to anonymity. She dressed down in simple clothing, sat with the servants and no one, not even Ardelia, noticed her.
That successful endeavor led her to try it again for Drucilla’s wedding. She didn’t see why her disgrace and what the family considered an unforgivable mistake should prevent her from seeing her siblings start their new lives. Theywereher sisters, after all.
However, the scene at Drucilla’s wedding had been humiliating. Lucy had tried to shield Francine as best she could, but their mother was relentless. Francine had been thrown out of the reception—well, escorted forcefully by the Guardsmen who’d been called—and placed on the next available interstellar ship headed for the Earth colony. A week later, she’d received a bill from her parents for the cost of that expensive flight home.
If she wanted to crash Prudence’s wedding, she’d have to wear a better disguise—like turn into a completely different person. Maybe she could schedule a visit to Nocturne Falls, Georgia, where a friendly supernatural being could help change her into someone else.
She battled back a resurgence of sadness at the thought of missing Prudence’s celebration. At least she had Lucy and Axel and the friends she’d made here. The Alphas who lived in Alienn didn’t care who she used to be, only who she was. Who she was becoming.
As much as she’d learned to take pride in her growing self-reliance, Francine thought it might be nice to have someone to lean on sometimes.
Francine stared into her savior’s eyes and wondered if he did other jobs beyond bounty hunting. For example, could she hire him to be her bodyguard at Prudence’s wedding? Would he do it? Would he throw himself in front of her to thwart her parents if they tried to kick her out? Would she have the nerve to even ask him? Maybe. Likely not.
Once the escaped criminals were back in custody and on their way to the gulag, perhaps he’d decided to stay on Earth, make it his base. She hadn’t seen him since the party, yet he’d just saved her from a painful tumble.
The kitten, unaware or unconcerned about its near-death experience, just sat there, looking cute. “Mew. Mew. Mew.”
The little cries drew Luther’s eyes to their feet. “What is that?”
She didn’t feel the need to point out how he continued to hold her. “A kitten.”
“Kitten, huh? It’s very tiny. Kinda cute, though.”
“Definitely cute and very lucky, too. I almost smushed him. Or her.” She squeezed his arms. As if just realizing he still held her, he let go. Reluctantly, she stepped back a few steps.
He held out one hand. “I’m Luther Boudreaux. We met at Wyatt’s home, I believe. You’re Lucy Grey’s sister?”
She nodded and quickly grasped his outstretched hand. “Yes. I remember. I’m Francine Duvall.” An odd thought circled her mind.Boudreaux is a royal name in some circles, isn’t it? Is he Ichor-Delta royalty? As a bounty hunter? Probably just lucky to have an important name.
