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The driver heaved a sigh, then said reluctantly, “I’m Edward. My friends call me Eddie.”
Gray nodded. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eddie.”
Eddie nodded, and managed to turn the key and start the car. As he pulled the sedan out onto the road, Sienna leaned her head back against the seat with a weary sigh and closed her eyes, letting Gray direct the driver back to his house on the hill.
She didn’t object when Gray slipped an arm around her then coaxed her head on his shoulder. It was beyond comforting now she’d accepted his part in her life. Though she had strong feelings for him, she wasn’t about to believe in them and blurt out something she might later regret. They’d been through a lot in the last three days, hence the depth of emotion they shared.
She couldn’t trust anything or anyone at the moment, and that included her own thoughts and behavior. It would be all too easy to fall into a pattern of needing Gray and then imagining that meant she couldn’t live without him.
It didn’t mean she loved him. She couldn’t afford to even entertain that possibility. There was no room in her life for that. At this point in time the only room she had in her life was for survival.
Chapter Eighteen
Sienna moved freelythrough the house. She was no longer a prisoner, she was a welcome guest. Gray had already cooked them an early dinner after scrabbling through what was left in the refrigerator and pantry. He’d made them bacon and egg rolls, adding whatever salad ingredients he had: lettuce, tomato and onion.
The sun was beginning to set when Gray poured them each a wine and she followed him to the back of the house to a balcony, with its views of the treed mountain behind it. The sky blazed with orange and red and she couldn’t help but be awed by the outlook as she stood at the railing with Gray standing close beside her. She’d gotten used to her world, which was ninety-five percent water, red plants and trees covering those dry patches of land.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it,” he said.
She nodded. “I can see why you chose this house. It’s private while still being close to New Faxian.”
He nodded. “It’s a stone’s throw to the town center.”
She grinned. “Stone’s throw?You’ve really picked up on the local’s sayings.”
He shrugged. “Unfortunately, I don’t have one of your talk-stones. I had English downloaded to my brain via a language transmitter.”
She sobered a little. “I can see why your people’s technology scares the Dronians.”
“And yet the technology you had on your world was primitive in many ways.”
She nodded. “Besides developing our space crafts and perfecting our talk-stones, our people preferred a simple life and mostly stuck to the old ways.”
“The Dronians were clearly more fearful of the capabilities and powers of theraresthan they were of the tech your people wielded.”
She gulped down some of her fruity wine with its floral notes. It was a little too sweet for her taste but she didn’t much care. She needed its fortification. “I have no doubt of that now. We were a peaceful world, with no interest in warfare and with very little effort put into researching the latest technologies. Perhaps if we had we’d still be alive today.”
