Moving until her mouth was next to John’s ear, Lia whispered, the feel of her breath against his flesh sending a shiver along his spine.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” John replied while forcing the erotic response from his mind. “I think I see someone standing by the ship.”

“Is it one of them?”

Again, the shiver traced John’s nervous system. His hands tightened on the gun in response. Lia was his wife’s sister; at least he had thought she was. No matter, now was not the time to find he had an attraction to the woman.

“I don’t know,” he said again, knowing the answer was far from satisfactory. “I’m going to have to crawl out there and look.”

“Why? They do not know we are here.” Lia tried to persuade with gentle reason. “We can hide until they go away.”

“We can’t get away that easily.” John faced Lia. She was so close and her eye’s so large. He blinked. “I have killed a few of them. I think they will try to hunt us down and kill us.”

Rather than get angry or degrade the logic of fighting the aliens, Lia simply thought for a few seconds then agreed with John’s appraisal. “I’m coming with you.”

In a way, John preferred the idea of Lia throwing a fit.

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“No.”

“Forget the macho stand.” Lia checked her gun expertly. “You need me to watch your back.”

“Is now the time to tell you I don’t agree with women’s liberation?”

Leaning forward quickly, she kissed John lightly and pulled away with a smile. “It won’t work.”

Cursing under his breath, John returned his attention to the ship and crawled out of the brush, taking care to avoid the long thorns of the sumac.

The figure was still indistinct when he had crawled a good ten feet. He searched the surrounding woods as John tried to decide on a better way to observe the ship. He could stand, but he had endured enough of the life of a target. That left crawling to the edge of the gully and hiding behind foliage.

Gritting his teeth, he crawled, his hands digging into the loam of the forest with pine needles pricking his skin.

A tree sat conveniently near the gully. Moved his observation point to one side of the tree where a small bush would add to his cover.

Reaching the tree, John looked back to see what Lia was doing. If she kept a distance, he felt comfortable. He had heard of people getting turned on by the proximity of danger; he had never thought he would be a victim of that foolishness.

She lay a few yards away, doing her best to watch the forest and keep her gun in a position to defend against a sudden attack.

Reassured, John pushed his head into the bush and looked at the ship.

Weeds, in the shape of a man, stood on the ramp of the spacecraft as if deciding if it was going to enter the ship. It was much larger than the aliens were in height and bulk.

The image clicked in his mind and John realized he was looking at a man dressed in camouflage. He almost called to the man, then held his tongue. For all John knew, the man might be under the control of the aliens.

That would be good. John could see himself calling then the stranger emptying a gun in his direction.

It was better to be safe and see what the man did before announcing his presence.