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  Other men took their places, ready to brace the tractor to keep it from falling back onto Hugh once it was lifted. Thomas took the backboard from the Jeep's rear seat and returned to his position beside Hugh. Reluctantly, he inclined his head at Shelly, now standing with both arms around the son who looked more like her younger brother.

  "Get over here, you two. Shelly, I need you to hold his head, just like this. Matthew, help her. Put your hands here and here. Don't let his neck twist at all. Okay?" The two took their positions, while Thomas tried once more to lower that iron wall. It seemed pretty shaky right now. He tried not to look at the stillness of Hugh Connor's face. Tried not to remember being six years old and feeling all grown up because Dad and Hugh had decided he was big enough to go trout fishing with them.

  A trickle of sweat ran from his brow and stung his eye. Thomas blinked it away, wriggled a neck brace beneath Hugh, fastened it tight. He steadied his control, distanced himself, then gave the signal. Men braced their shoulders and tractors growled with effort. The burden lifted. "Hold it there!" Thomas had to shout over the bellowing motors. He worked the backboard under Hugh, careful not to twist the man's body or move his spine. He had to be careful, take his time, do it right. Right out of the textbook. It was part of the job, and the fact that he knew old Hugh would rather be dead than paralyzed didn't even enter into it. The stubborn old goat. He still went fishing in the spring. Thomas had gone with him this year. Dad, too, Hugh had quietly insisted. If only in spirit.

  Fastening the straps, focusing on each move he made in order to block the human side of him from interfering, Thomas carefully pulled Hugh away from the tractor that hovered above him. By the time he'd done it, the chopper was settling noisily into the field.

  "Someone drive Shelly and the boys to the hospital. And go and get their pickup from my house," Thomas called over his shoulder as he helped move Hugh on board. He knew the neighbors would take care of things. Sumac, Iowa, was that kind of place. Hugh Connor's wheat would get harvested. His family would have plenty of support, a little too much company and probably a half dozen of Eugenia Overton's casseroles before tomorrow was out. They were a close-knit community, a family. A member of which Thomas steadfastly refused to become.

  It was midnight by the time he got back home. One of the neighbors—he didn't know which one—had driven his Jeep to the hospital and left the keys at the nurses' station. He wasn't sure why. Not out of friendly feelings for him, that much was certain. The residents of Sumac didn't much like Thomas these days. Oh, they'd liked him well enough before—before he'd gone away and served his time in hell. He supposed they'd expected the starry-eyed kid who'd left here, not the cold stranger who'd returned. But that was their problem, not his. And if they didn't like him, at least they had a healthy respect for him. Maybe even a little fear. The man they saw as unfriendly and intimidating was in fact only keeping true to the lessons of Karicau. How many of those sweet people had he let himself care about, only to see them die? Father Elton, the village priest, picked off by a sniper while helping to distribute the latest shipment from the Red Cross. Young, pregnant Maria, blown to unrecognizable bits after stepping on a land mine. Little Alena. He closed his eyes when he thought of her huge brown ones and her bright smile. She'd been the first baby Thomas had ever delivered solo. Alena lived to the ripe old age of eight before she was peppered with shrapnel by guerrillas intent on destroying supply trucks that had just rolled into the village.

  There had been more, many more Karicauans whom Thomas had become close to, hell, even loved, and who had died at the hands of the bloody revolt. And with every one who'd passed, he'd fought the despair, the sense of having failed in his mission, the horrible, gut-wrenching guilt that he—a doctor—had been unable to help them. Until, gradually, the truth had been driven into his brain like a fence post into the soft Iowa ground, being hammered down deep with a twenty-pound maul. You couldn't allow yourself to care.

  Here, though, it was different.

  Hugh had a cracked sternum, eight broken ribs, a punctured lung and quite a bit of internal bleeding, but he was stable. He was going to be all right. Thomas had been relieved and glad to let Dr. Monroe handle the surgery. He never operated anymore if he could help it. It was a little harder to be distant with a patient's vital organs literally in the palms of your hands. So he just bowed out of the OR, and so far, that seemed just fine with the staff at St. Luke's.

  Thomas was exhausted. Not just from the work, but from the effort of keeping his distance. It hadn't been an effort in a very long time. Closing himself off emotionally had not been a luxury on Karicau, it had been a damned necessity. Like breathing. You either learned to go cold as ice and stay that way, of you ended up in a rubber room somewhere, weaving baskets for a living. And doing it hadn't been easy. Hell, for a while he'd mourned every dead child, grieved every young mother's burial. But it hadn't gone on. He couldn't have let it go on.

  So why, if he'd been able to close off his emotions in the face of the most senseless mayhem imaginable, was it so difficult to do the same here now?

  Maybe because here was where the emotional side of him was born and raised. Hell, he sometimes thought the right half of his brain had stayed behind when he'd gone overseas. That part of him that had dreamed of castles and dragons, believed in Santa Claus, imagined beautiful princesses from distant galaxies. It was that same part of him that seemed to have been waiting in ambush when he'd returned six months ago. Every breath of Sumac air seemed to instigate a memory, a rush of feeling, nostalgia, something. He'd been fighting it ever since he'd come back here, and it was difficult.

  Difficult, not impossible. He'd just have to try harder.

  He slammed the door behind him, tossed the bag into its customary spot and eyed his latest missed meal with regret. The plate sat on the table where he'd left it, but it was devoid of any sign of tuna casserole. He crooked an eyebrow, lowering his gaze to the dog under the table. Humphrey just wagged his shaggy tail and tried to look innocent.

  "Didn't matter. I wasn't hungry anyway."

  Humphrey barked once and lowered his head to rest on his outstretched paws, pretending to close his eyes. Only he kept peering up as Thomas cleared the dishes from the table and stacked them in the dishwasher. The dog knew he could be in big trouble for eating from the table. Lucky for Humphrey, his master was too tired to worry about it.

  Thomas dragged himself upstairs for a quick shower and fell into bed. But even as tired as he was, sleep didn't come easily. The damned house was too big for one man and a dog. Too empty, too quiet. Especially at night, without a single sound other than the boisterous crickets outside. He told himself for the hundredth time that he ought to sell it, move into the vacant rooms above the clinic in town. Right between the John Deere dealer and the feed store. It wasn't as if he needed all this room or ever would. He had about as much intention of settling down with a woman and raising a family as he did of running for president. Of course, he'd change his mind in a hurry if the single ladies of Sumac had their way. It was a shame he had to disappoint them. But he had nothing inside him to give to a woman. He might have had once. But whatever there had been had died in the middle of a bloody revolution. It had died just a little bit with every small child, no matter how thoroughly he'd closed off his heart. It had died of starvation and disease and war. There was no resurrecting it.

  So he ought to sell. He didn't run the farm anymore. His practice kept him too busy for that, but he didn't let the land sit idle, either. He rented the fields to neighboring farmers, who grew bumper crops on it. One of them would be more than happy to own the whole place.

  It was that emotional part of him that kept him from going ahead and selling the farm. He might have managed to exorcise the boy inside him, to be rid of him the entire time he'd spent away from here in hell. But the kid still lived in this house. Everywhere on this damned farm. And he was the one who kept Thomas from selling out. To that boy, this place was magic. It spurred the
kinds of dreams and fantasies that seemed too real not to believe in. Made a kid feel like a hero, rescuing strange and beautiful damsels on Iowa summer nights.

  God, had he ever been that young? That naive and gullible? Believed in such utter nonsense? Had such crazy dreams? Didn't seem possible when he thought about it now. He closed his eyes, knowing good and well there'd be no dreams, no childish fantasies. He never dreamed anymore, with the exception of a few occasional nightmares.

  It was 5:45 when the odd buzzing sensation woke him up. His eyes opened, bleary and unfocused. But it grew louder, and he sat up in bed as his head cleared, reaching for the light. It was still there. Buzzing, like a hive of bees, only it was coming from inside. Inside him. He thought of tinnitus and smacked the side of his head with his palm, but the sound didn't go away. For just a moment, he remembered what that sensation had signified in his youth.

  "Ah, bull. That wasn't real...."

  But something drew him and he got up. He pulled on his jeans and went to the window.

  "This is stupid. This is utterly—" The buzzing grew louder. "Stupid." He pushed the window open and stood for a minute staring up at the sky, then shook his head at the insane urge to climb out, the way he used to do. He glanced down at the trellis, knowing damn well that such a ridiculous effort would probably be good for one big laugh and several broken bones.

  There was a simple explanation for the sound. And he would sure as hell find out what it was and put a stop to it so he could get a few hours' sleep. He glanced down, and realized that his hand was absently rubbing the oval-shaped charm he wore on a chain around his neck. He forced his hand down.

  But the buzzing sound grew still louder.

  He snapped his jeans, tugging the zipper up as he trotted down the stairs. Then he stopped at another sound, a growl. Humphrey stood poised as if for attack near the door. His upper lip curled away from his teeth; his tail pointed straight in the air, nearly vibrating.

  Thomas frowned. "What is it, boy? Somebody out there who shouldn't be?" Humphrey didn't change position until Thomas caught him by the collar and tugged him away from the door. Then Thomas opened it, slipped outside and closed it again before his wannabe-rottweiller could escape and do someone bodily harm.

  His bare feet hit the cool damp grass, and memories rushed over him. Running through the wheat fields, warm summer breezes in his hair, eager young eyes scanning the night sky for...

  Hell, he'd been a little kid with a big imagination. And the charm around his neck...well, he'd probably found it in the woods on one of his excursions. His mind had concocted a fantasy around it. Or his subconscious had woven a dream to explain its presence. He'd had a notoriously vivid dream life as a kid.

  So why have you been wearing it ever since, then? Huh?

  Thomas scowled at the childlike voice inside his head, forcibly ignoring its sarcastic question. Walking a little ways in the dewy grass, he looked around. The buzzing still sounded in his ears, but he saw no explanation for it. Maybe he was dreaming now. He couldn't be sure. And just because he'd stopped dreaming didn't mean his mind couldn't have decided to start up again. It didn't feel like a dream, though. The night breeze was real. The muscles in his shoulders and back ached from tension and his head throbbed a little. He wouldn't feel that in a dream, would he? His stomach growled and he remembered that he hadn't eaten.

  "Okay, maybe it’s not a dream. I'm out here like an idiot, in the middle of the night. Something is buzzing, and my dog doesn't like it any better than I do. So what the hell is going on?"

  A little thrill of excitement raced up the back of his neck, the way it used to when he was a kid. He caught it, balled it up in a mental fist and tossed it away. There was no reason for it. He wasn't a kid anymore. And this wasn't one of his childhood fantasies.

  He stood there a minute, staring up at the empty sky, wondering what sane man would be out here shirtless and shoeless in the middle of the night after the day he'd put in. Why the hell had he come outside, anyway? And why hadn't that buzzing in his head faded in the least now that the cool night air was slapping his face, bringing him more awake and alert than ever?

  A blinding green glow cut a swath through the sky. It arced from somewhere high and east, curving downward like a big green rainbow, only to disappear just beyond the tree line in the distance. Thomas felt the ground rock with a soundless impact.

  "Holy..." He stared for a second, shocked motionless.

  Something seemed to slam into him from behind, some invisible force, propelling him forward. Stupid to run like this! Stupid, foolish, utterly senseless. He hadn't seen anything. Not really. Maybe the stress from his time on Karicau had finally caught up to him. Maybe this was some sort of breakdown. He told himself all those things, but still his legs strained, air burned in and out of his lungs, his feet hammered the ground in rhythm with his pulse.

  It wasn't as far for a grown man as it had seemed to a ten-year-old boy. He crossed the field, the stubble of recently cut wheat stabbing at the soles of his feet. A grown man ought to know enough to wear shoes. How many times had Dad told him that? Thomas Allan, you're gonna lose a foot if you don't start wearing shoes when you go out.

  For a second he'd heard that deep, booming voice speaking close to his ears. But it hadn't been real. Just those damned memories sneaking up on him again, trying to claim him.

  The field behind him, he splashed across the stream, soaking his jeans up to his calves. He ran through the knee-high grass, up onto the little knoll and right on over. His heart pounding so hard he could hear it, he loped into the woods, over the uneven, damp ground, toward the clearing he remembered so well. That magical, secret meadow.

  He saw a silent explosion when he got there. The shape—that same glowing green spider shape he remembered—glowed bright white and vanished. Nothing remained. Nothing. He briefly imagined the headline in the tiny Sumac Daily Star. "Local Doctor Suffers Mental Breakdown In Woods."

  But something had been there. The ground was charred black, completely barren. Not a single blade of grass stood in the steaming circle of earth. And the buzzing in his head was gone.

  He heard a groan, and his spine went rigid. Turning very slowly, he walked without seeing, still blinded by that brilliant imaginary flash of light.

  She lay on the ground, her black hair covering her face. She wasn't moving. Thomas knelt beside her. Maybe "knelt" wasn't the right word. His knees sort of buckled under him, landing him on the ground. He reached out, touched her, as if to be sure she was real.

  And then the wall slammed down, saving his sanity yet again. His hands moved automatically, checking for broken bones, slipping under her to feel her spine, touching her neck, feeling the soft beat of her pulse beneath warm skin. He pushed the hair away from her face.

  Her huge, slanted eyes opened, and she stared at him, then blinked, one hand rising weakly, to touch the amulet he wore. Her lips parted. "Thom...us..." Those beautiful eyes closed again, and she lay still.

  He stared down at her, unable to believe what he was seeing as his vision slowly came back. Around her neck, suspended on a thin, silvery chain, hung a slingshot. He touched it, felt his initials carved into the handle. "Janella," he whispered. "My God, Janella."

  CHAPTER TWO

  She was light. Too light, maybe. Or maybe his imagination was kicking in.

  Oh, yeah, start worrying about your imagination, Doc. You're carrying a semiconscious alien woman away from the spot where her frigging mothership just vaporized. I'd say that's as good a time as any to worry about the old imagination. Maybe ought to give a thought to the sanity while you're at it, don't you think?

  It was too ridiculous even to contemplate. Impossible. Things like this happened in childhood fantasies, not in the real adult world. So it wasn't happening. It couldn't be. He'd probably wake up in bed and laugh about it.

  The silky material of her blouse rubbing against his bare chest was too real to be a dream, though. The heat of her body suffusing his. Th
at soft cheek resting on his shoulder. Hair like black satin, trailing down his arm. Her soft breath, whispering near his neck.

  Ah, hell, it was all real. He knew damned well it was, no matter how little sense it made. He figured if he was going to fantasize, he'd have had her awake and healthy, not suffering from God knows what kinds of injuries. He wasn't even sure he could help her.

  That thought brought him up short. He swore under his breath as he searched her face. Then he averted his gaze, but a little too late. That bronzed skin, bathed in moonlight, the turned-up nose, those long black lashes had already imbedded themselves in his mind. She was small, delicate, helpless, depending on him to get her through this. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to tug down that iron wall that kept him emotionally removed. But it wasn't easy. Always before he'd felt sure of himself, competent. He'd known he could do what needed doing, help any patient who wasn't beyond helping. But he didn't know how to help her. He couldn't check her vitals, because he didn't know what they ought to be. He couldn't administer medication without knowing what reactions it might cause in her. She looked human, but—if this wasn't a dream—she wasn't. Was she?

  This was beyond his area of expertise. He ought to call someone. Somewhere in the world there must be someone who'd know what to do for her.

  You can't tell anyone, and you know it.

  He opened his eyes and exhaled slowly. Damn, that was the voice of a little boy lecturing him, not one of reason. He ought to call someone.

  You promised!

  "I never promised anything." Great. Now he was whispering to himself as he carried her back through the woods toward home.

  You did so. In your mind, your heart, you swore you'd never tell.