Buch lesen: «Are Men From Mars?»

1

“I’M SERIOUS, MADDIE. I’m giving you one more hour to find your mysterious bug, and then I’m heading right back to the hotel.”

Dr. Madeline Morgan, devoted entomologist, didn’t bother looking at her older sister. Instead she kept her eyes trained to a pair of high-powered binoculars as she scanned the barren desert terrain. She was on a mission. A mission that had brought her from Georgia to Roswell, New Mexico, and the desert wasteland they were driving through.

“It’s not a bug, it’s a butterfly, Mary Beth,” Maddie corrected. “We’re looking for a Deva Skipper. Or if you prefer, Atryonopsis deva, to be exact.”

Mary Beth sent her sister a sideways glance. “Well, if you ask me, the only divas in this desert happen to be sitting right here in this Jeep.” When Maddie laughed, Mary Beth said, “Well, at least one of us could qualify as a diva, I suppose. In that costume you’re wearing, you look more like…”

“Someone prepared to spend a hot August day in the desert, perhaps?” Maddie lowered her binoculars and leaned back in her seat. “Only you, Mary Beth, would consider wearing a tube top and thong for this type of outing.”

“These are short-shorts, sister dear,” Mary Beth said, continuing their usual sisterly repartee. “Something you would know if you stopped playing professor long enough to get in touch with your feminine side.”

Maddie looked down at her own clothing. She had thoroughly researched what was considered proper attire for the time they would spend in the desert. Like her sturdy long-sleeved shirt that wouldn’t allow desert sun access to tender skin, and her khaki straight-leg pants that tucked quite easily into her sturdy new high-top hiking boots.

“Of course, it’s that pith helmet that really makes the outfit,” Mary Beth said on a giggle. “Yep, nothing turns a man on quite like a stylish pith helmet. It reels them in every time.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, it isn’t male attention we’re looking for,” said Maddie.

Mary Beth tossed her long, pale hair back from her face and dropped her sunglasses down on her tanned nose. “Speak for yourself. I’m always looking for male attention.” She held Maddie’s gaze for a moment with challenging blue eyes.

It was like looking in a mirror, Maddie always thought. They were identical twins, with Mary Beth being all of two minutes older. Yet, Maddie had always thought of them as the opposite sides of a coin.

Even as children, Mary Beth had loved the frilly dresses, the white tights and the patent leather shoes their mother had dressed them in. Maddie, on the other hand, had usually soiled her dress, torn the knees of her tights, and scuffed the toes of her shoes crawling around on her hands and knees observing insects of every size and description.

As they grew older, Mary Beth had been the social one, while Maddie kept her nose buried in the encyclopedia learning everything possible about the winged invertebrate population. Mary Beth had been the cheerleader and homecoming queen in high school, Maddie the valedictorian of their senior class. And while Maddie had plunged into college for a Ph.D. in entomology, Mary Beth had chosen an acting career.

We’re identical, all right. Identical opposites, Maddie thought, but offering a truce to the sister she dearly loved, she said, “I’ll make you a deal. I won’t say anything else about your short-shorts, if you’ll stop making fun of my pith helmet.”

“It’s a deal. But I wasn’t kidding about heading back to the hotel within the hour,” Mary Beth threw in as she gave their immediate surroundings another nervous scan. “This place totally creeps me out and you know it.”

“Do-do-do-do—do-do-do-do.” Maddie chanted the Twilight Zone theme in fun.

“Very funny,” Mary Beth grumbled. “But more than one eyewitness claimed a space ship landed in Roswell in l947. Some people even claim to have seen the bodies of those poor space creatures our government dissected for its own amusement.”

“And after fifty years of extensive investigation, the government concluded all those people saw was a weather balloon,” Maddie insisted.

Mary Beth sent her a shocked look. “You mean you really don’t believe other intelligent life is out there somewhere?”

Maddie grinned mischievously. “Maybe the surest sign other intelligent life does exist, is the fact they’ve never tried to contact us.”

Both sisters shared a good laugh before Maddie reached out and patted her twin’s shoulder. “You know, I really am glad you came with me on this trip. We never get to see each other now that you’re out in L.A.”

“If you want to be in pictures, you’ve gotta go where the action is,” Mary Beth answered with her standard reply.

“I know,” Maddie said with a sigh. “But we really do miss you, me and Mom and Pop. Though I have to admit they haven’t seen much of me, either, these days. I’ve been so caught up trying to map out the migration of the Deva Skipper, I’ve barely had time to eat and sleep.”

“And what happens if we do find this bug?”

“Butterfly,” Maddie corrected again. “It’s a rare species. There have been reported sightings in the southeastern part of New Mexico, but none have been confirmed. If I could find one, it could help pave the way to preserving future colonies.”

“And also advance your career a little, maybe?” Mary Beth accused with a grin. “Like that research team you’re so eager to be chosen for?”

Maddie didn’t deny it. “I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t kill to make my boss’s research team on…”

“On why an old bore like him can’t find a date?”

For the first time, Maddie sent her sister a stern look.

“Okay. Don’t get all huffy,” Mary Beth said as she downshifted and picked up speed. “We’ll look a little longer, but I mean it, Maddie. There’s no way we’re staying out here in UFO utopia after dark.”

“Afraid we might get probed?” Maddie chided.

“No,” Mary Beth said with a laugh. “I’m more afraid you’ll never get probed if this is your idea of how to spend your summer vacation.”

Maddie’s eyes cut to the left. “That wasn’t an invitation for another lecture about my love life.”

“What love life? Or have you finally determined celibacy is too grim a fate even for a workaholic like you?”

Maddie took up her binoculars again and refused to answer.

“I hope you know you’re fooling yourself. You think you’re safely hidden behind those saintly college walls playing professor, but one day some guy is going to come along and knock your feet right out from under you.”

“I’ll be sure to let you know the second anything like that happens.”

“But he won’t be some mental wizard like those stuffy professors you hang around with now,” Mary Beth predicted. “He’ll be all man. Total brawn from head to toe. And you’ll be so hot for this guy, even you would be willing to dance naked on CNN just to get his attention.”

Maddie laughed in spite of herself.

“Besides,” Mary Beth added with a sigh, “we aren’t getting any younger, you know. The big Three-O is just around the corner, and…”

“Age isn’t a subject I care to discuss, either.”

“Nor do I,” Mary Beth agreed. “I just hate seeing you waste your life away like your revered Dr. Fielding has done. And what has being devoted to his career really gotten your boss? When he’s ready to retire I doubt there’ll be any life left in his old caterpillar, if you know what I mean.”

“Mary Beth!” Maddie scolded.

“Well, I’m sorry, but that man gives me the creeps. Any man who would devote his entire life studying the sex life of the tsetse fly has to have a major mental problem. And what scares me most,” Mary Beth added, “is that your only goal in life seems to be to follow in the old coot’s footsteps. Don’t you want a family some day, Maddie? Don’t you want…”

“Stop!” Maddie grabbed Mary Beth’s arm and pointed up ahead. “Ease the Jeep up that hill. Near those thistles. I saw something. Get closer.”

As instructed, Mary Beth eased the Jeep forward and up a small rise that took them even farther away from the main road and deeper into the desert.

“Don’t get too close,” Maddie warned, still using her binoculars to search a patch of brush growing by a chain-link fence that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

“Is that a fence?” Mary Beth whispered, reaching for the binoculars when Maddie took the strap from around her neck.

Maddie ignored the question and substituted the strap of her faithful Nikon camera around her neck. Grabbing a small net from the knapsack sitting on the floorboard, she started to ease herself out of the Jeep when Mary Beth grabbed her hand and pointed to a sign fastened to the fence. Forcing Maddie to take back her binoculars, Mary Beth said, “Take another look. I told you we never should have left the main road. This is government property. I think we should get the hell out of here. Fast.”

Maddie looked through the binoculars again at the weather-worn sign that was faded, yet still official looking enough to cause some concern. Government Property—Absolutely No Trespassing—Violators Will Be Prosecuted—didn’t leave much room for any misunderstanding about the warning. However, Maddie made her decision when she checked the bush again and saw another flutter of movement.

“I’m not going over the fence,” she argued, prying Mary Beth’s fingers from around her wrist. “It’ll only take me a minute to get a specimen.”

“A specimen?” Mary Beth cried out. “I thought you said these butterflies were rare? And now you’re going to capture one? Cut its tiny life short? Isn’t that defeating the whole cause?”

Maddie drew her fingers to her lips in a quick sush. “The Deva Skipper only has a life span of a few weeks,” she whispered. “That’s why finding one is almost impossible. I have no intention of harming it, but how can I possibly save other colonies if I can’t prove the Deva was here to begin with?”

Mary Beth frowned. “All of you scientists are alike, aren’t you? Always hell-bent on getting a specimen. I bet that’s the last words those little green men heard, too. ‘Sorry we have to sacrifice your lives, you poor little green bastards, but we have to get that specimen.’”

“Save the drama for the silver screen,” Maddie said as she eased herself out of the Jeep. “I’ll be back in a flash.”

Taking her time, Maddie crept up the hill and along the fence line, butterfly net in hand. She was literally shaking with anticipation as she eased closer, marveling at the sheer beauty of one of nature’s most delicate creatures.

And it was a Deva Skipper, no doubt about it.

The fringe on its forewing was brown, its hind wing a whitish color, and the upper side wing a reddish-brown. And though she couldn’t see the underside of the hind wing from where she was standing, Maddie already knew it would be brown with a gray overscaling and a faint dark bar across its middle. In a single word, the little Deva was breathtaking.

And it was almost within her grasp.

Inching closer, Maddie adjusted the zoom lenses on her camera and snapped a few pictures as she carefully picked her steps over the dusty desert floor. She was trained, ready and skilled to take her captive easily and without doing the tiny creature harm. Holding her breath, she could almost taste the sweetest of success on her tongue. She was only one swoop away from capturing the find of her life when the flirtatious little Deva lifted itself upward and came to a perfect landing on the wrong side of the forbidding chain-link fence that now stood between them.

Without a second thought, Maddie stuck the butterfly net in the back pocket of her khakis and forced the toe of her hiking boot into one of the diamond-shaped holes in the rusted fence. She could hear Mary Beth yelling from behind her, but Maddie scaled the fence like a veteran climber and dropped nimbly to the other side.

“Maddie! Get back here! I mean it, Maddie. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you. You’ve been trying to boss me around our entire lives,” Maddie mumbled under her breath, “but this is one time I’m not leaving until I get what I came for.”

Easing forward, trusty butterfly net again in hand, Maddie was even ready to sprout wings herself if that’s what it took to complete her mission. “Come to me, little Deva,” she cooed, but when Mary Beth’s screaming grew even louder, Maddie glanced back over her shoulder in time to see the panicked look on her sister’s lovely face.

In fact, Mary Beth was literally jumping up and down on the front seat of the Jeep now, waving her arms wildly above her head like a crazy person. Maddie waved back impatiently, motioning for Mary Beth to pipe down, but a large shadow suddenly fell across Maddie’s path, blocking out the sun.

Startled, she looked up and immediately felt her breath catch in her throat. A huge metal object was hovering directly above her, yet the strange-looking aircraft was as silent in its flight as the tiny Deva Skipper that had lured her to the wrong side of the fence.

More curious than she was frightened, Maddie immediately grabbed for her camera. She was still snapping the shutter frantically when the aircraft swooped downward, instantly blinding her with a cloud of sand and dust. Maddie held tightly to her pith helmet, trying to shield her face from the caustic dust storm that was now choking off her airway and stinging her eyes.

She let out a strangled scream when something snaked around her waist and lifted her upward and into the air.

In less time than it took to worry about her twin sister’s safety, Maddie heard the loud clang of a door slamming shut. She soon found herself face-down on a cold metal floor, coughing up the dust as she tried to catch her breath. With her eyes still watering from the dirt and sand, Maddie couldn’t yet make out who or what was holding her captive. All she could hear was the definite whir of the unidentified flying object as it whisked her away to some unknown destination.

“Let me up this minute! I demand it!” Maddie started yelling, and she began struggling with such fervor the elastic strap on her pith helmet broke free, unleashing the long, pale hair stuffed under her helmet.

“Holy hell, Captain,” a shocked voice called out. “It looks like our spy is a she.”

Angrier than she’d ever been in her life, Maddie pulled herself up when the force holding her face down on the floor suddenly set her free. And it only took a split second to confirm that she really had been captured by mysterious green men, after all.

U.S. military camouflage green to be exact.

And World War Maddie was about to do battle with everyone responsible for making her lose what could have possibly been the biggest entomological find of her career.

AIR FORCE CAPTAIN Brad Hawkins jerked his head around in time to see a finger waving ninety miles a minute while their definitely female prisoner delivered a good tongue-lashing to his copilot.

Did she look like your typical spy?

Of course, she didn’t.

She looked, Brad decided, like an angry little girl with her cheeks blazing, her tangled blond hair in a windblown mess, and her chin jutted forward in defiance as if she’d just taken a nasty spill from her bike. Classic facial features. Haunting blue eyes. A curvaceous figure that even her “Dr. Livingstone” outfit, complete with a pith helmet couldn’t quite hide.

She was stunning.

And though he told himself it was only the shock of finding a woman on isolated government property that had left him so addled, it took several seconds before Brad could force himself to look away.

Turning his attention back to maneuvering the multimillion-dollar prototype helicopter he was flying, Brad aimed the large craft back toward the old air base on the outskirts of Roswell that the Air Force was using as a testing facility. She was still kicking up quite a fuss behind him in the belly of the chopper, ranting and raving about what? Butterflies? Had he heard that right? And something about a terrified sister? Was that who had blazed off in a cloud of dust so fast Brad had only caught a mere glimpse of a bright red Jeep?

Groaning inwardly, Brad picked up the microphone to his radio and mumbled, “There’s a suspicious tourist in a red Jeep along the south perimeter. Apprehend the driver. Do it quickly and quietly.” He signed off with, “I’ll meet you back at the base.”

Crap! He’d assumed they’d run across some nosey reporter. Some guy acting on a tip that the Air Force was conducting more than routine maneuvers at the old base. And that’s when Brad had made the decision to apprehend their trespasser. He’d planned to take the guy back to base, destroy the film and then threaten the reporter with serious charges.

But who would have thought that within just three weeks short of completing testing on the most advanced helicopter known to modern man, a woman, wearing of all things a pith helmet, and her runaway sister would stumble upon their operation and threaten to blow the cover on their highly guarded mission straight to hell and back again?

“And another thing. If you think for one minute I’m going to overlook the senseless, barbaric way you’ve treated me, you’re sadly mistaken. My name is Dr. Madeline Morgan. And for your information, I’m an entomologist, not a spy. I was doing nothing more than conducting necessary research on an endangered species of butterfly when you so rudely, crudely and unfairly abducted me!”

Entomologist?

He never would have pegged his lovely passenger for a lady with a bug fetish. Especially not with that sexy, Southern accent of hers. Yet, her unusual career choice made her even more intriguing.

Unfortunately her identity would only add another nail in his coffin. Apprehending a nosey reporter with a camera trained on a top secret aircraft was one thing. But hijacking a reputable entomologist? Doing nothing more than conducting important research on an endangered species of butterfly? Brad gripped the controls, just thinking about the consequences.

Not that being rudely, crudely and unfairly abducted, as she put it, wasn’t her own doing. Trespassing on restricted government property might have been overlooked, but it had been that damn camera of hers that had sealed her fate. Had she treated their accidental encounter like most people would have done and run for cover like her sister, he would have had no reason to bother her in the least.

In fact, the whole point of conducting testing at the old air base in Roswell had been Roswell’s tie to the UFO phenomena. Around Roswell people expected to see strange objects flying through the air. And it didn’t matter if those sightings were real or if they were only imagined. Roswell depended on UFO sightings as the main tourist attraction that supported most of the city’s livelihood.

A civilian actually having pictures of the current most top-secret aircraft in the United States military, however, couldn’t be tolerated. Especially when those pictures had the potential to fall into the wrong hands.

I made the right decision, Brad told himself with confidence, then skillfully landed what had aptly been nicknamed the Black Ghost on the helipad that was protected from view by the fifteen-foot concrete barrier walls that surrounded them.

Unbuckling his seat belt, Brad pulled himself out of the cockpit. He walked to the back of the chopper and stood with his hands at his waist, looking down at his disgruntled prisoner. She was still sitting where she’d landed on the floor, but she had managed to push some of her hair out of those dark blue eyes that were now as big around as saucers. Unfortunately those full, enticing lips he’d noticed earlier were now pressed together in a line so thin they almost disappeared.

“Captain Brad Hawkins. United States Air Force,” Brad said with as much authority as he could muster, and then he extended a willing hand to help his frowning passenger back to her feet.

MADDIE HESITATED FOR A moment, staring up at the imposing figure who was now towering above her. Oh, he was cute, all right. She’d noticed he was cute the second he turned around and looked at her. Yet looking at him now, Maddie realized referring to this man as cute was the equivalent of calling the brilliant Monarch butterfly a rather colorful moth. No, it was more like referring to Mt. Everest as a hill in the Himalayas. His dark hair was cut in that crisp, military fashion that commanded respect. The hint of a five-o’clock shadow crept up the full length of his jaw. A tight-fitting T-shirt and his camouflage fatigues only emphasized a fine-honed body that was lean, mean and nothing in between. And those arms—God, those arms. His biceps were literally bulging. Exactly the type of arms that would have the power to crush a woman to him and….

In a flash, Mary Beth’s total brawn from head to toe comment came rushing back to haunt her.

Maddie shuddered at the thought.

She reluctantly accepted his offer and pulled herself up to a height that barely reached his shoulder, ignoring a jolt of a different nature that colored her cheeks from the mere touch of his hand.

What’s wrong with me? Maddie worried. So, maybe he did have a hunkability factor of about a zillion. So what? He was also someone she should have been ready to throttle. She should have kicked both his shins and sucker-punched him soundly in the stomach. Hadn’t he literally kidnapped her? Terrified her poor sister? Possibly destroyed her chances of finding the Deva Skipper again? Maybe even ruined her chances for the biggest opportunity of her career?

Yet, here she was acting like a silly schoolgirl experiencing her first legitimate crush!

Shame on you! Maddie told herself, then purposely squared her shoulders and found the courage to say, “I’m Dr. Madeline Morgan, Captain Hawkins. And I’m certain the colonel or the general, or whomever is in charge will be absolutely appalled when he learns how badly you’ve treated a defenseless law-abiding citizen.”

His eyebrow raised slightly. “Law-abiding?” he repeated in a mocking tone. “I doubt my wing commander will call trespassing on private government property something a law-abiding citizen would do.”

He was toying with her and Maddie knew it, she could see the hint of amusement in his dark brown eyes. Dreamy eyes, she might add. Eyes that were currently staring at her so intensely Maddie felt her cheeks flame a second time. He’s openly flirting with me, Maddie suddenly realized. And though his flirting flattered her in one respect, it irritated Maddie in another.

“I prefer that your wing commander, not you, Captain Hawkins, make that type of decision for himself,” Maddie was quick to tell him before she added with another lift of her chin, “and if you’ll kindly escort me to his office, I’ll be happy to take the matter up with him myself.”

He stalled for a moment, seemingly amused that she would question his authority. “First, I’ll need to verify that you are who you say you are. Can you provide me with any type of identification?”

Maddie let him know exactly what she thought of such a stupid question. “Well, of course, I don’t have any identification on me,” she sputtered. “My purse was in the Jeep with my sister. And I’m sure you scared her to death when you had G.I. Joe reach out and grab me and then body-slam me to the floor of your stupid—” she glanced around her surroundings before she added “—your stupid whatever this flying contraption is.”

He glanced at his copilot, who had suddenly found something rather interesting on the toe of his boot.

“And what is all this spy nonsense?” Maddie’s hands were on her hips now. “Take a good look at me, Captain Hawkins. Do I look like a spy to you?”

When he purposely looked her up and down, Maddie wished she could snatch back the invitation to do so. She was sure he was thinking that she didn’t look like a professor, either. And she didn’t. She looked like hell is what she looked like, thanks to him and his partner.

Angry all over again, Maddie glanced briefly at the metal door to her left and made her move. She wasn’t quick enough. Captain Hawkins had the door blocked before she could reach for the door handle. And the scowl on his face told her trying to reach around him probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

Now what? Maddie wondered, worried for the first time that her impressive credentials might not be enough to get her out of her current predicament.