Dawn Autumn Read Online Free Page B

deep breath, and threw the door wide. Nothing but leftovers and a few drying carrots peeked back. She needed to go shopping.
    “Are you all right?” Fred said cautiously, hovering just out of arms reach. She ignored him. The rest of her neighbors watched with expressions of concern from just outside her door as she moved back to check the inside knob.
    It was clean, too.
    “I think I need to go to bed,” Jay said slowly, reaching up to feel the knot on the back of her head. Either she was losing her mind, or she was more tired than she thought, but something didn’t add up.
    She didn’t bother shutting the door, just headed for her room. In the doorway she paused, one hand on the frame. She half turned, not meeting anyone’s eye. “Do you know why I was in the hallway, Mrs. Fadious?”
    “Why, no, dear. Maybe it will come to you in the morning?”
    Nodding, Jay entered her room and shut the door.
    * * * *
    Cole stared at Fred, silently daring him to speak up.
    Fred looked away from Jay’s door and shoved his thumbs through his belt loops, avoiding the inevitable. Everyone was looking at him, waiting to see what he would do. Unfortunately, he’d already done everything he could.
    “You have to tell her,” Cole said evenly, staring him down.
    “Can’t. Regulations,” Fred said firmly. “I notified the transit department, chewed some butt, and hopefully the techies are scurrying around to fix the problem. They‘ll find the idiot who opened a door in unauthorized space and flush him.”
    Mr. Fadious snorted, glanced at his wife, and both of them left the scene before the manure got any deeper.
    Cole inclined his head and crossed his arms. “And if they don’t? Worse, what if it’s a hacker manipulating the system to slip in a few illegal aliens? Your little woman is going to be all alone in there.”
    Frustrated by the whole situation, Fred slipped off his annoying glasses and rubbed at his silver eyes. Sometimes he hated being a traffic cop. Falling for a civilian from a low tech world wasn’t making his life easier, especially when she had no concept of the reality of interstellar travel. If his irate superiors hadn’t transferred him to the back of beyond, he never would have met her, never would have been faced with the probability of rejection if she learned the truth about him and this house. “I’ll up the security sensitivity and try to spend more time with her.”
    “Or you could try to explain.” Cole had little patience with bureaucracy, and even less with Fred’s careful courtship. He was the type to throw a likely wench over his shoulder and carry her to his harem, overcoming obstacles as he went. Mulling the situation over, weighing the pros and cons, just wasn’t his style.
    Pushed too far, Fred leveled a cool stare on him. “Give it time. I want to make sure it can even work before bring up galactic issues. She doesn’t even like me yet.”
    “Take off your clown suit and show her your true—”
    “It’s the most effective disguise,” Fred interrupted. “You’re the one assigned the playboy role. I have to keep up the respectable front if we want to keep our cover as an unremarkable bunch of renters. You know what happens when I be myself.” In his youth, he’d enjoyed the feminine attention, but lately it had gotten old. These days he had just one woman on his mind, and the persistent pursuit of others had become annoying.
    He wanted her .
    Cole’s lips twitched. “Yeah, it’s a curse. Still, if you’re bright, you’ll put those babe magnets of yours to good use on our little chili pepper.” He pointed to his eyes with two fingers, and then dropped the argument to return to his room.
    Frowning with the concern he couldn’t display earlier, Fred turned and looked at Jay’s open door. She’d looked terribly bewildered, and he couldn’t blame her. They’d made quick work of cleaning up after her visitors, but the way she’d searched her apartment in a daze made him