Page 6 of Alien Mine

“It’s customary for the people sitting at the table to eat first while the cook finishes the meal.” She handed him a waffle-laden plate and jerked her chin at the bacon cooling on another. “Help yourself.”

“Thank you, Lady Rachel.”

She bit back a sigh. At least he was polite.

They all crowded around the table, Kelly on Rachel’s right, Fate and Tiny on her left, Dyuvad across from her. He ate in precise bites, sampling his food carefully. After the third time hemmmdover the bacon, her curiosity got the better of her.

“You act like you’ve never had bacon before,” she said.

He set his fork down on his plate and dabbed a paper napkin to his mouth. “I have not, Lady Rachel.”

Fate snickered, and Rachel kicked his shin under the table’s protective cover. “I can fix you something else, if you don’t like it.”

“That is unnecessary. The bacon is delicious. The melex as well.”

Kelly’s fork dropped out of her slack grip onto the sticky, syrup-covered waffle on her plate. “Not you, too.”

“Melex,” Dyuvad said, enunciating the syllables, “is a sweet cake, a specialty of…my home.”

Rachel gaped at him. “You understand Tiny.”

“I understand melex. It is very similar to this delicacy you have prepared.”

Fate fed Tiny a sliver of bacon. “You musta lived a hard life if waffles is a delicacy.”

“Not at all. My father is the…leader of the province I’m from, and my mother a former soldier. They provided a good life for me and my brothers.”

Fate leaned toward Rachel, his Carolina blue eyes twinkling, and lowered his tone to a conspiratorial whisper. “Israelite. Shoulda knowed, what with that foreign coloring of his.”

Rachel threw her napkin onto the table beside her plate. “For goodness’ sake, Fate. Dyuvad’s origins are his own business, you nosey ol’ coot.”

Dyuvad turned a slow smile on her, and heat shot from her warm cheeks straight down to her toes, hitting a couple of mighty interesting points along the way. “I am not from Israel,” he said, “though I am alien to this land.”

“And that’s all you need to know about him, Fate,” Rachel added firmly. “There’s plenty more batter if anybody wants another waffle.”

A chorus of pleases rang out, and Rachel pushed her chair back, away from her sexy renter’s relentless gaze. Lordy, she was in a bad way if a stranger could turn her on with a simple smile.

Chapter Three

After the morning meal was finished, Rachel stood and gathered dirty plates together. “I need to run to town in a little while. You need anything Fate?”

“Depends on where you’re going.”

Dyuvad rose and stacked Tiny and Fate’s plates on top of his, then carried them to the counter. If it violated Earth custom, tough. He wasn’t a guest to be waited on at his leisure. “Is your offer to allow my company still open?”

“Of course. Here.” She dumped the plates she held into the sink, then took the plates he held from him. She kept her eyes carefully averted, even when their fingers brushed. “Where do you need to go?”

“I am in need of additional clothing.”

Fate leaned back in his rail-backed chair, lifting the front two legs off the floor. “You’ll want the mall, then. Ain’t no decent place around here for clothes, ‘lessen you want Wal-Mart or them fancy digs the tourists lap up.”

“Serviceable clothing is preferable.”

Rachel shook her head in a sharp disagreement. “You’ll need Sunday go-to-church clothes, too.”

Fate’s thin features melted into a sorrowful plea. “Aw, Rach. Don’t corrupt the man with them ol’ biddies at church. It ain’t right to do a man that way, it just ain’t right.”

“I didn’t say he had to go to church, Fate, just that he needednice clothes.” She flipped shiny white levers, and water poured out of a metal faucet into the sink. “I promised the girls we could go to the lake this afternoon if we get all our chores done. Yasmin’s supposed to meet us there.”

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