Page 32 of Alien Mine

Tiny scrambled into Fate’s lap and promptly began recounting a tale in her made up language about someone named Degar, absorbing her uncle’s rapt attention.

Dyuvad’s mouth lifted in a slow, sensual grin as his gaze slid down her body and landed on the open-toed, gray slingbacks she wore. He crossed his arms over that broad, bare chest of his, and darned if his tattoo didn’t lighten from coal black to midnight blue right on into spring leaf green.

Hunh. Maybe dressing to the nines really did work on a man. Who would’ve thought?

Rachel scooted around Tiny and Fate and opened the refrigerator, rooting through it as much to cool her heated skin as to get out the lemonade. By the time she turned around, Dyuvad had set five glasses on the counter, and that tattoo had transformed into a colorful array of yellows and oranges.

She thumped the lemonade jug onto the counter, thankful for the lid holding the sloshing liquid inside, and patted a handover the butterflies dancing in her stomach. Lordy, nothing made a woman feel beautiful like knowing a man wanted her, nor did anything rattle her more.

Dyuvad twisted the lid around and poured lemonade into a glass. “You should eat before you go.”

Rachel nearly snorted. Eating was the last thing she needed to do. Besides, between the butterflies and the nerves, her stomach was full. “Maybe later. Thanks for helping Fate watch the girls.”

“I enjoy them.” He handed her a glass full of lemonade, trapped her hand and it between both of his, and his smile softened. “Beauty.”

“I’m not,” she murmured.

“You are.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingering there. He leaned toward her, and the butterflies in her tummy leapt and twisted. This was it. He was gonna kiss her again, and she wanted it so much, wanted to feel his mouth on hers, just for a moment. Was it wrong to want him that way? Was it wrong to be attracted to a man like Dyuvad, strong and kind and wickedly sensual?

The screen door slammed, startling her, and she jerked back reflexively. Dyuvad grinned and let her go as Kelly bounced up to them and tugged on the pocket of his shorts, and the moment was broken as quickly as it had come upon them.

Rachel busied her hands with the lemonade, all too aware of Dyuvad’s heated gaze lingering on her skin and the promise filling those deep blue eyes of his. Once upon a time, she would’ve given anything to have a man look at her like that, back in the days when she’d believed Juan was her one and only. And now, here she was on the receiving end of a near stranger’s desire without a clue what to do.

She grinned as she stuck the lemonade back into the fridge. That wasn’t right a’tall. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with Dyuvad, from the top of his close-shorn head to the tips of his bare toes and everywhere in between. Just the thought of all that doing heated her blood as surely as his touch.

But was she ready to fall into bed with him?

She nudged the fridge door shut with her hip and studied him where he stood leaning against the counter, listening with a half smile to Kelly’s chatter about something she’d read. Dyuvad had blown in on a breeze. Maybe he’d blow out of their lives just as quickly, but while he was here, what harm would it do to practice flirting on him? Lord knew, he was willing enough.

Maybe the next time he put the moves on her, she’d do a little moving of her own, and then she could figure out what was what where her renter was concerned.

Jude Earl’s office was located on a side street in downtown Clayton, a twenty-five minute drive from Rachel’s home. She squeezed her goat-topped van into a free parking spot, checked her makeup in the rearview mirror, fidgeted with her purse. Questions raced through her mind, a tumultuous whirl of indecision. Was she doing the right thing by terminating Juan’s parental rights? Would it really make a difference for the girls? Or was it futile to hope that breaking all ties to him would stop the trouble heading their way again?

What if the girls resented having their father cut out of their lives?

It could happen, especially with Kelly. Tiny had never met her father. Juan had been captured and imprisoned before her birth, and Rachel had never taken the girls to visit him there.

Kelly was a different story. She was old enough to remember him before the bad had overridden the good, and still young enough for those memories and the pure love held in her little girl’s heart to sway her wants. She was the one who’d yearn for her father. She was the one who just might come to hate Rachel for keeping them apart, whether it was for everybody’s good or not.

How could she not?

Rachel nipped her thoughts off before they could spiral out of control. She would deal with any problems the girls had the way she always did, one day at a time. Worrying about the what ifs was only begging trouble. Didn’t they already have enough of that?

She sucked in a huge, fortifying breath, shouldered the finicky driver’s side door open, and got out. Humid heat slapped at her, wilting the crisp crease in her blouse before she’d made it halfway across the postage stamp parking lot. Heavy, black-lined clouds crowded the sky, threatening to burst. Rain later, likely a bad thunderstorm, but maybe she’d have time to finish her meeting and get home before then.

The law office’s earth-toned interior was crisper cool and a welcome relief. Rachel gave her name to the receptionist, a perfectly coifed twenty-something blonde, then sagged into a leather waiting chair parked between two curtained windows.

Jude stepped out of his office two shakes later, a welcoming grin stretching his homely face plum in two. He was a raw-boned man, gaunt and lanky, and one of the few friends Rachel had kept in touch with after graduating high school. He’d also been about the only person who’d stuck by her after Juan’s mistakes piled too high for him to climb over, or her either, for that matter.

“Hey, Rach,” Jude said. “What’s this I hear about a new boyfriend?”

Heat pricked Rachel’s skin, ending in a blush, and she hunched her shoulders. “Dyuvad is renting the mother-in-law room and helping out with the chores.”

Jude’s bushy eyebrows shot toward the unruly black curls topping his head. “Is that so?”

Rachel twisted her mouth into a frown. “Isn’t it unethical to tease a client?”

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