Maria woke stiff. Her entire body hurt, including her head. She was resting against a solid body and she stretched, trying to work out the stiffness. Opening her eyes she was shocked to be looking straight into his whiskey-brown golden eyes. His regard was open and wounded. She could feel him as she could feel herself. Shocked, she just gazed at him, watched him, and saw more into him. Her pain and her nightmare flooded back in a barrage of images, none that had clear form. It was as if she was observing them through a filmy glass.

“I give up.” Michael said softly.

Before Maria could say a word his mouth found hers and his hand moved down the side of her hip to stroke her naked leg, molding it to his body. Her eyes closed and her breath panted in her lungs, but she easily rid him of his t-shirt. Her hands ran down the length of his body to slide under the waistband of his boxers and grip his ass, pushing his boxers off.

He looked down at their bodies as he tossed his shirt off her and over his head. His skin was different than hers. Rougher in texture and darker in color. Next to each other they looked so different, but her hands on his body moved like a blind person's, memorizing every dip and curve, every hard surface and every edge. She could see more in the flow of her fingertips than most could see in a lifetime of looking. She could see him in a brilliant flash of color and the honesty of it hit her hard. It reverberated back to him and then gained momentum. He gave her flashes, letting her in, because in their shared nightmare there were no walls.

When she had slept, she dreamed of things that terrorized her waking mind into silence, so that when she woke, she could see an evilness in every dark corner of the room. Feeling defeated by her lack of memory she finally gave in to the emotions that threatened her and she painted the despair. Michael was her anchor, her lifeline. He gave her substance when she would otherwise have none. Like a light, she was drawn to him. Wanted him. Needed him.

As she lay there with her fears gripping her she felt a hand touch her shoulder lightly. She had woken from a dream, and he was there. She knew him by the gentle way he touched her. It wasn’t intended to harm her but she still jumped at the touch. He felt like raw energy, a lightning bolt of awareness forging a circuit between them. The hand withdrew for a moment and his body came around hers to engulf her pain and make it subside. He quietly wrapped a hand around her, and she absently pulled it to envelope her tighter, loving the protective feeling he gave her.

He found himself whispering, "Ssshhhhh..." in her ear and she turned from his neck to face him. He looked into those green eyes, full of unshed tears, still living some unnamed nightmare, and he discovered they had changed to a dazzling blue-green color. He wiped a gentle thumb across her cheekbone, mesmerized by her eyes.

She placed her hands around his neck and smiled faintly, "Thank you for giving in." She found herself leaning in and their lips touched for a moment that she could only describe as pure connection. He felt so familiar to her, so much a part of her that it should have scared her, but instead it gave her a sense of balance.

As the kiss deepened he moved his hand to her bare hip. He found where her skin changed and softened, and made his way over it. He marveled at how soft her skin felt. It was like touching the most delicate of flowers. The silkiness of rose pedals.

His mind was racing with emotion. He wanted to feel her body, comfort her, and just touch her knowing she was alive. But he feared the consequences. The gorgeous woman lying beside him had tugged at his insides almost from the moment he saw her. Michael had told himself to "quit acting like an idiot in the thralls of his first real crush." But this was no crush, and "enthralled" didn’t even cover it.

He knew it wouldn't be worth it to get involved with her. He told himself that this wasn’t allowed, and that it was simply a set-up for pain, both for her and for him. Neither of them seemed able to handle much more in the way of anguish. He would never love her. He didn’t get intense. He didn’t know love, understand it, or even believe in it. Love was the one thing he never had in his life and consequently it was all he ever wanted. Instead, all he got was the back of a hand. Every slap left a new wound on his soul. He was damaged. She saw that, and recognized something that lived in her as well.

But it had been so long since he felt anything that wasn’t rage, anger and shame. Indifference was the only outer wall he could find that remained impenetrable. It was the one thing he couldn’t show her, or keep up. There was no way for him to be indifferent. He lost all sense of why he would want to protest something happening and just gave in to the heat he felt, the ache to not be alone. He had sat next to her as he wrote for hours practically in his own blood, and when she woke he saw so much of himself in her eyes.

She pulled his face to meet hers, and what he saw there, he understood. It was bigger than anything and it had no name. Their eyes refused to break the connection again and Michael noticed that hers had once again changed color. Now, they were a deep vibrant green circled in a dark purple. This thing with her eyes changing color turned him on even more, and he engulfed her with his lips, pushing his tongue deep down into her mouth.

Maria pushed him down onto his back and got on her knees beside him. She ran her hands down his chest and started to move the muscles under his skin, testing them for firmness and give. She smiled at the gasp he let escape. She pushed his hands out of the way as he kept trying to reach for her, control her. Taking him in her hands, she touched the larger vein that ran along his penis, running her fingers along the sides, loving the feel of him in her hands. The very hands he gave her. The ones he saved.

She leaned over and licked the tip, then took it into her mouth and began to slowly suckle, working tongue around it as she moved it in and out of her mouth. He began to twitch under her touch and he found himself reaching for her. She slowly withdrew him from her lips and sat up fully.

She smiled at him again as he watched her pull his hands off her body. She was restraining him lightly by the wrists.  She was savoring him, cataloging his every inch, not just his penis, but the entire length of his body. She closed her eyes, and like a blind man, she mapped him in her broken mind. He stared at her naked body before him and reached out, pulling her to him and kissing her again. He flipped her over onto her back and started to work on mapping her as well, still kissing her.

Michael stopped and took in her shape. He smiled as he ran his hands slowly down her side and memorized her every curve and line. He slowly leaned over and took one of her aching breasts into his mouth. He suckled one as he caressed the other and he could feel her breathing getting heavier. Turned on. Her breasts. He could tell by her reaction, by the increased movement of her lower body that he could bring her to orgasm this way alone. Of that he was sure.

"Oh, dammit, Michael....." she whispered. Michael laughed as the robust stream of obscenities left her mouth. She was very earthy in her reactions, and he liked it.

His body grew even hotter at hearing his name said in such a way. He kissed his way up her neck and back to her face. Her eyes were now such a dark green they bordered on black, and the fire and heat in them didn’t look nice, didn’t look sweet. Whatever the hell she was, or who she was, she had been correct, she was no little Miss Sunshine. He instinctively knew what this meant and he kissed her hard as he entered her.

She gasped as his body penetrated her. He waited for her to breathe, then he began to move slowly. He knew he wasn't going to be able to control himself long before he would break and the way she moaned with every stroke was making it even harder. Control. Gentleness wasn’t an easy trait for him, but he gave way to her delicate condition. Until her nails scored his back, and the blackness of her eyes echoed her very soul. A blackness, a heat, and a violence, and it kissed his inner nature. In a flood of overwhelming connection a part of him joined with her, and he felt a release almost like a flood of delight. Richness. Tightness.

She pulled her legs up around him and pushed him in further. She pulled herself up to his neck and bit it. Hard. Michael gave a grunt of pain, and a shout of orgasmic rush. Then she moved to his ear and began to nibble on it. She paused and whispered, "Harder, harder, harder......"

He gave her what she wanted and began to thrust harder, and he watched as she began to lose her battle and go over the edge. He followed her there and they collapsed into each other, her body made slick by the combination of his sweat and her own. Michael looked down at her heaving body under his, pink with exertion and still joined to him. He could feel the orgasm rushing along his spine, and he felt boneless and exhausted, but his body was still hard, still part of hers. Her inner muscles were riding the wave of the orgasm, tightening and gripping him hard triggering an even larger response. And when the wave moved back into her, she screamed his name.

Michael lost track of time. He moved to pull her on top of him, and she was still orgasming, as she moved on him. Groaning, his hands encouraged her to keep it going, resisting the desire to let his own eyes just roll back in his head and let blissful unconsciousness take him away. He could feel the bite she had left on him, and he liked it. A lot.

“What the hell was that?” Maria asked breathlessly.

“An orgasm?” Michael knew what she was asking, and he tried to forestall yet another freakish part of his nature become exposed to her.

“Can you do it again?”

Michael nodded.

“Every time?”

“Every time.”

Maria stared at him, taking in his matter-of-fact response and the sincerity of his gaze. Smiling wickedly she moved over him, making him moan as she started pushing down harder and harder on him taking more of his body into hers.

“You are going to be so filthy tired, Mr. Guerin ,” she promised breathlessly.

“Oh baby…” Michael whispered more to himself as he put back his head and placed his hands on her hips to help her keep the fast-paced rhythm. They were far from over.

A long time later, she finally flipped them and ended on top again. Straddling him, her mouth moved up his neck, and she sat up and looked down at him intensely. Her eyes were unreadable and searing. Suddenly the canvass called to her. In all those hours of rolling around on the floor in front of it, she had finally become aware of its presence. Turning, her eyes darkened and dilated as she took in the canvass. He could feel the energy. A storm well. Living in the vortex of her passion, his eyes narrowed and darkened as well, watching through slits he waited for her reaction.

She placed her hand on his chest firmly holding him down as her nude upper body twisted to get a better look at it. Her lower body slid down to take him back inside her again and her knees pulled in to hold him tight as she squeezed him hard. Michael groaned. Licking his lips he could hardly breathe, the wave of the last orgasm was still moving across him and she was exciting him beyond anything he could name or understand.

Turning back to him, her eyes were heavy and drugged. She moved one of his hands over his head and pinned it to the floor. Leaning down into him he actually smiled up at the darkness in her, the intensity. It unleashed something inside him, something hot and primitive. Raw. They mated as if in a battle, hard and bordering on painful. The more they searched for release the more powerful the release became until, in an explosion of pain and violence coupled in an intense pleasure too austere to be felt as it pushed on the edge of death, they morphed into a gentleness that actually hurt more than any of the previous touches. It was the taste that lived on etched in their bodies. The touch that became a thirst, an addiction, and a sense of dreams realized.

~~~

He lay behind her, holding her firmly to his body and wrapping her tight in his arms. They were on their sides gazing at the canvass. They were nude and the floor was hard, but he couldn’t move away from her. He was caught in her web and he didn’t care. Not now. Maybe later. She was like him. Ugly. Accepting.

“I painted that?” She asked in a soft horrified voice.

“Yes.”

“You watched?”

“Yes.” His hand moved over her front and cupped her breast as his mouth found the back of her neck, but his eyes never left the canvass.

“I hate people watching me paint.” Maria said with some certainty.

“I called to you. You didn’t seem to hear. So I stayed and watched.”

Maria noticed the yellow pad of paper under the canvass. “You wrote.” She turned in his arms and studied him. So much in his eyes, so much said and so much unsaid. Her hand reached up his face to touch his mouth, to cup his cheek, and leaning in she licked his lips. “You’re so incredibly beautiful.”

Michael's heart stopped in his chest at her words, and he looked into the honesty of her eyes. He felt something inside him open a little more, with the squeaky sound of a dungeon door. No one had ever said that to him. She seemed to see something deep inside him, something that resided in the places he knew were dark, alien and scary. She seemed to not see them that way. And he knew she did see them. He could tell from her eyes that he had exposed everything about himself to her. And still she thought he was beautiful. She didn’t ask for explanations or threaten him with exposure. She just saw his walls, his doors, the floor and ceiling. She saw his prison and his truth, and she let him be. But she left the door ajar behind her, and all it took was the courage to follow.

“Maria…”

“Shhh. It’s okay. I know.” Moving a hand down his body to rest on his hip, her fingertips drew swirls on his skin. Her body felt disjointed, floating and free.

“Thank you.” She smiled and kissed him at his simple words. He wasn’t a man who used many of those. In the speaking world he was mostly silent, but in the freedom of the written form he found a voice. His own.

“You’ll let me go?” She asked in a hushed voice.

“Yes.” It would hurt. He tried to build the walls to keep from it happening, but he couldn’t. She had already wormed her way in, and the painting. It opened all the doors. No hiding. No more running.

“I won’t drive you to your knees. Not if I can help it. I won’t leave until I know you need me to, and that you’re okay.”

Michael pressed his forehead against hers. “I thought I was saving you.”

“You think?”

He didn’t know what he thought. Just how he felt. He felt many things, but the most accurate descriptions were 'opened' and 'exposed'. His hand wandered down her body to finger her, to slide inside. He watched her eyes close as a hiss of encouragement passed her clenched teeth. She was overly sensitive. Michael took his hand away against her protest, but she watched through half-closed eyes as he put his fingers into his mouth and sucked.

“God, Michael.” Could he get any more sexual and sensual?

It tasted like them. Both of them. Together. And salty. No condom. He had used nothing. If she was on the pill it didn’t matter because she definitely hadn’t taken it for at least four days. Pregnant. He could have impregnated her! He looked down sharply at her flat stomach. His hand moved back down to touch her there in wonder. His child.

“We were a little reckless,” she observed, understanding what he was finally realizing.

“A little?” His eyebrow raised at the understatement. “Felt like more than a little, Maria.”

“Are you worried?”

His eyes met hers and her heart raced in her chest when it hit her. Desire. Want. Need. No. It didn’t bother him. It should have, but it didn’t.

Michael moved so quickly that it took a few moments, a few heartbeats and a few breaths to realize he was surging inside her again. His body was intent and driven. God damn....so perfect.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

~~~

Isabel sat on the doorbell. She could hear it ringing, and she knew he was home. His car was in the garage, as was the bike. He had three minutes to answer the damn door, or she was barging in with or without his invitation. She had powers too, you know.

Michael rushed to the door and quickly opened it. Snarling, he pulled back his retort when he saw it was Isabel. He held a laundry basket in his hand. She had interrupted him downstairs on his way up. Michael discreetly darted a look upstairs hoping the ringing hadn’t woken Maria. She had taken a shower and laid down for a nap on his bed while he did some more laundry.

Maria was on the stairs, halfway down, but still hidden. He watched as she slowly made her way back up the stairs, unseen by Isabel. Michael decided to make enough noise to hide any sounds from upstairs that would give them away.

“What are you doing here, Iz? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“It’s my lunch hour.” Isabel breezed by him when he didn’t invite her inside. “I came for the pictures.”

“What pictures?”

Isabel looked at him suspiciously. Something was wrong. He was even more unreachable and distracted than usual. In his normal Guerin form he was just bitingly rude and pissy, but today it actually seemed like his mind was elsewhere.

“The pictures for Max. Remember? You promised to give me some old pictures of us, of you and him when we were younger for a special wedding present.” Isabel crossed her arms in anger. “Don’t even try to get out of it, Michael. Or I swear, I’ll…”

“Put a sock in it, Iz. I’ve got them.” Michael tossed the laundry in a chair next to the door. “Why you needed to make a special trip for them is beyond me. I’d have brought them to town.”

“No problem. And I wanted them sooner rather than later.”

Michael scowled at her. “Whatever. I’ll go get them.” He looked at his sister and pointed a finger at her. “Stay right there. Don’t move. And don’t…”

“Touch any of your things. Yeah. I know. Now just go!”

Isabel looked around the room. She could just see down the few steps from the entryway landing into the living room, and there was a nice smell coming from the kitchen. He was cooking. But before she could go snoop into the kitchen, her eyes noticed his laundry. Something of color caught her eye. Michael tended to wear black, black, and oh yeah...black. Reaching down into the basket, she noticed a slip of green. Picking it up, she held a very skimpy pair of light green panties and matching bra in her hands.

A woman. He had said he was involved, but then he covered it up. That damn sneak! After she just conned Jennifer into a date with him, and she wasted her entire lunch break coming out here to work on him. He had a woman in his life, someone he didn’t bother to introduce to her or to Max. Isabel’s heart pained her. Someone he could let into his life a little, and…

Isabel stopped suddenly as she took in the living room. On the tiled floor next to the windows was a painting easel. Ignoring his instructions to not move, Isabel entered the room, her eyes never leaving the painting. It was…oh god! Her hand went to her mouth. The darkness, it breathed! And the feeling of overwhelming despair hit her hard in the stomach like a sharp knife cutting to the bone. The painting was still wet.

When did he start painting? Isabel couldn't remember him ever painting before, but this was incredible. Violent. Powerful. Raw. It touched. It burned. It was a waking nightmare. Oh, Michael! Her hand reached for it like she was trying to connect to her distant brother.

“What the hell are you doing?” Michael had rushed to find the damn pictures, but after having his office ransacked, they weren’t where he had left them. Of course she would move. Of course she’d invade his privacy. Of course she would touch his things. Unless he was there to stop her. It seemed to be the goal of every man, woman and child in Roswell. They all wanted nothing more than to piss him off and bug him.

She was touching the painting. Her hand was extended, but his voice moved her back.

“Don’t. Touch it.” Michael hurried over and shoved the pictures in her hands, pulling her back. Sorry for being gruff and unyielding, he sighed. “It’s still wet.”

“Michael, it’s incredible. It’s…” She couldn’t finish. It hurt too much. “I didn't realize you were so talented. I mean, I know you can write, and you’re good, but this… this I didn’t even suspect.”

“It’s not mine.” Michael almost bit his tongue off. Dammit. He didn’t know why he admitted that and thus expose Maria, but it was too raw, too open, and it spoke of things inside him. Ugly horrible things. He didn’t want anyone to view it, view him, and see what lurked deep in his psyche. “A friend’s.”

“It’s ugly. So incredible how something so ugly can be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” What Michael said filtered in finally. “Does these belong to your friend?”

Michael saw the green panties and bra and swallowed a swear word. Yeah. But Isabel wouldn’t back down.

“They belong to an acquaintance.” Michael snatched them out of Isabel’s hands and tossed them back into the basket as he escorted her from his home. “She left them in my car.”

Isabel’s eyebrow went up over that. “So have you been seeing her long? Does she have a name?”

“Just met her. She has a name, and I’m just washing the articles before I return them to her.”

“So are you going to see her again?” Isabel asked ignoring his attempts to prevaricate and elude her inquiries.

Michael pushed her out the door. “I have to, don’t you think?  To return her property? Goodbye, Iz.” He slammed the door before she could utter another word.

He watched her car drive away and then turned to see Maria standing at the foot of the stairs. “Girlfriend?”

“Worse. Twin sister.”

~~~

Kyle was working the front desk at the Roswell PD. The desk sergeant was out to lunch when a beautiful vibrant woman whisked through the doors in a whirlwind of activity, blowing centuries of dust from Roswell’s sleepy city attitude. Every eye turned to her, and all men in the immediate area were bowled over by her mere existence. It wasn’t beauty in the classical sense, though she was very much so in a way that was undefined, but rather she breathed in life, a vitality. She felt like quicksilver rushing in the veins. Some people’s auras were dull and uninteresting, but this woman’s spoke of passion and so much more.

“Ma’am, can I help you?”

“You better, young man or I’ll want to know why not!” Kyle didn’t know what to say.

“Your complaint? Perhaps I can help?”

The woman lifted herself to her full five foot five inch height and somehow was able to appear to be looking down at Kyle. He was trapped in the hazel-green life of her eyes and the vivid color of her face.

“Ok, I need to speak to someone with some kind of authority, because this situation is unacceptable. I demand to know what's going on here. Not tomorrow, not the next day, right now! I want to know who in the hell in this one horse town I need to kick for losing my daughter!”

~~~

Liz laughed as Max tried to grill a burger and eat at the same time. It was a very busy lunch hour at the Crashdown, and when he stopped for lunch, he was roped into working the grill as Luis went to the butcher’s shop to pick up another order of beef. She watched him for a second, her youthful laugh was loud and playful. He looked back at her over his shoulder and smiled.

Beauty. In his eyes, she was an untold beauty. Loving to hear her carefree laugh he cut it up at the grill a little longer, flipping burgers in the air with skill and grace.

Liz couldn’t help but watch him, although she needed to get back to the cash register. Turning too quickly the room became dark with a bright light at a seemingly long tunnel, as her vision wavered and narrowed. Catching herself against the jamb of the door she helped herself through to the breakroom to sit on the sofa. Stupid. She had skipped breakfast and lunch, and between the running around waiting on tables and the workload, the heat of the kitchen was knocking her off her ass. Just what she needed. To faint in front of the customers, making them worry the food was poisoned. At that thought Liz barely made it to the bathroom in the staff breakroom before she lost her stomach.

Luis came through the door as she was weakly finding her feet again and heading to sit back down. The paleness of her skin was only made more arresting by the dark rich brownness of her brunette hair. Her dark brown eyes seemed too big in her drawn face, and a small trickle of sweat beaded her upper lip. Luis quickly caught her and helped her sit down.

“Liz! You okay, boss?”

“I’m fine. I think it was the heat. I really need to get that fan fixed for the exhaust and get some better ventilation in there.”

“It’s not that. Liz, have you gone to the doctor?”

She looked up at the kitchen door for Max and quickly shook her head. “No time. I’m making an appointment immediately. I promise.”

“Tell me, when was the last time you ate?”

“Last night, and before you lecture, I had no appetite. You know the weather just changed yesterday, and now it’s so hot that I just don’t think my body has adjusted from the cool spring to a coming hot summer.”

“Liz, don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You know that half the town is down with the damn stomach flu. You’ve been off your feed for almost a week. Why don’t you stop fooling yourself and get to the doctor for some medicine, a lecture of taking it easy, and put your feet up for a couple of days to recover.”

“I swear Luis, you snitch me out to Max and I’ll let your oldest daughter wait tables here.” Liz laughed at Luis’s expression. His fifteen year old daughter was the biggest klutz in all of Roswell. A walking peril. She’d drop every other order her father cooked. “Your shift only.”

Luis cussed a nice long string of Spanish expressions that had Liz laughing. “You’re a mean woman, Liz Parker.”

Liz laughed harder. That was a nice change from her usual, ‘Oh Liz is so nice’ routine.

“So why you not going, boss?”

Liz checked the door once again for Max. “I can’t. I know it’s the stomach thing, and the cramps are bearable, but I can’t afford the time away from the café. I’ve got all of you running on full shifts heading into the summer, and we start shift rotations to cover everyone during the summer so you all get your vacations, and…”

“Liz, hire a manager.”

Liz smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Luis was a friend. For years. He had cooked in the restaurant since her dad’s time. It wasn’t a career, but it was a job, and one he worked to raise his family all these years.

“I can’t afford it. Mom’s basic hospital care bill almost doubled this year. I’m barely keeping on top of it. Between sinking everything back into this place, and covering the restaurant during the winter when business isn’t as brisk as summer I’m barely making it.”

“Tell Max. He can help. He wouldn’t want you risking your health. Maybe this isn’t the stomach thing? It sounds more like an ulcer to me. You worry too much, have too much stress.”

Well that was pretty well a bull’s eye. The stress started in her sophomore year of high school and instead of getting better, it just kept getting worse. The business was doing good, but just as fast as they would turn a nice profit something came up to wipe it away. If it was a major expense, then it was a minor catastrophe. It never ended.

Liz was struggling to get everything in order, running smoothly so she could go on her honeymoon, but every day she sat in fear that even that much time from the place would be too much. She’d tell Max, because he loved her and she knew he would share the burden, but a part of her couldn’t. He was just as trapped in Roswell as she was, and it would kill him to see her unhappy and unable to help her. She couldn’t do it, not to him.

“Don’t worry, Luis. I’ll figure it out. I always do.” Liz smiled and because she felt better, and even if she didn’t, there was always work. She went back into the main restaurant.

Luis’s dark eyes watched her go and he felt bad. Real bad. She never got a break. Not since that day so many years ago. Responsibility. It stole her youth. She was forced to be responsible long before her years, and the weight of it was killing her, aging her before her time. All those years she should have spent giggling like a young girl with her best friend, Liz did not. She couldn’t. At sixteen she was forced to put away childish things, and the one time she reached for her own dreams, her mother attempted suicide. It was like the weight of the world rested on Liz Parker’s shoulder, and unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for her, the world for her was no bigger than Roswell, New Mexico.

~~~

“Amy DeLuca.”

The woman who was terrorizing one Kyle Valenti turned and smiled a not so pleasant smile at a man that one time was the bane of her existence. Sheriff Jim Valenti. Oh jeez. Great.

“Jim Valenti.”

“You’re not causing problems are you? Staying out of the slammer?” Jim looked over at his sweating son who had been trying to reassure the irate woman that everything humanly possible that could be done to find her daughter was being done. “Don’t even tell me that you're here badgering my son.”

Amy’s eyes darted back to the young man she had been talking to before. “Kyle? This is Kyle?” Jim nodded. “Hmm, so being a Pig runs in the family?”

Jim just laughed. She still hated cops. Still had a disdain for authority, and yes, being a cop seemed to be a family thing. Jim took her arm and led her away. “It does seem to be a family thing. I’m sorry about Maria. You know, being a single parent myself, I know how difficult that can be.”

“Really? Well, it looks like we finally have something in common.”

“Will wonders never cease?”

“Yeah,” said Amy somewhat bemused.

“Come with me. I’ll help you personally.”

Amy pulled back as he led her out of the Roswell PD protesting the manhandling. Looking back she caught a flash of amusement passing over Kyle Valenti’s face. Jim looked back at his son.

“Kyle, mind the store. I’ll be over at the Crashdown buying Ms. DeLuca a piece of pie.”

Amy wasn’t that much of a pushover. Not anymore, or so she thought. She was a business woman now. She had raised her lovely daughter on her own and owned her own successful business. She wasn’t a seventeen year old girl being arrested by Deputy Valenti anymore.

“Maybe I don’t want pie?”

Jim opened the door and let her enter before him. “Just settle down, Amy. It’s been years. I promise not to arrest you this time, and maybe tell you everything I can about your daughter.”

“I don’t want excuses or explanations, Jim Valenti, I want my daughter back.”

“I know. And I will find your daughter, Amy. That is a promise.” Jim smiled at the young woman. “Hey, Liz. Can we get a booth.”

“Sure, Sheriff.” Liz led them over to a booth and handed them menus. “Can I get you anything right away?”

“A cup of coffee, and what is your pie specialty of the day?”

“The Men in Blackberry pie is good, but my favorite is a Key Lime, the Alien Autopsy pie.”

“I’ll have that. And my guest will…”

“Order for herself.” Amy looked at the man crossly. “You buying?” Jim nodded. “Good, then I’ll have a nice cold drink. A Cherry Coke. Large. The UFO burger with extra cheese, extra pickles, hold the onions.”

“You want fries with that?”

“No. The Saturn Rings, extra large with extra salt.” Amy finally stopped glaring at Jim Valenti long enough to look up at the girl and smile.

“I’ll put the order in immediately and be right back with your drinks.”

Amy watched the young woman walk away. Tears burned behind her eyes. She was the same age as Maria, a little more worn with lines around her eyes, but still the same age.

“A hamburger. Things do change. I remember a younger Amy DeLuca protesting the cattle industry for the inhumane penning of livestock, use of antibiotics, and cruel methods of increasing meat production.”

“I still protest it. Penning up a poor animal and making it so weak that a little exercise or stress can give it a heart attack is cruel and inhumane. That’s why I am basically a vegetarian.”

“A burger is meat, Amy.” Jim pointed out nicely.

“I’m under a lot of stress, as you might notice, and it’s either meat or immersing myself in a bath full of bubbles and aromatherapy.” Jim squirmed over the mental picture that created for him. “Something I don’t have time for at this moment. It already took me over a day to get everything covered in Tucson to get out here and look for my daughter!”

“We’re looking, Amy. I’ve got Feds here looking as well.” Jim refrained from mentioning that the Fed was currently residing in his lockup. He went about trying to tell her as much of the situation as he could.

“So basically she just disappeared from the hospital?”

“Basically. Special Agent Burns was there creating a disturbance, and when medical personnel reentered her room, she was gone.”

Amy clutched her napkin. “You said she was wounded. How bad?”

Jim sighed. “Bad. The intern said her hands were cut to shreds, she couldn’t walk, a head injury, and she was out of her mind in fear and missing any recognition of who or where she was.”

Amy could barely breath. Her hands? She lost her hands? Oh god, Maria. “Amnesia? You’re telling me that my child is lost out there with amnesia and she doesn’t even know enough to call me or come home?”

“Sorry, Amy. If I’d gotten to her sooner…”

Amy shut her eyes and mumbled her own personal mantra to remain calm. Her poor baby. “This man, the one that found her and brought her in…”

“Michael Guerin .”

“He had nothing else to tell you?”

Jim shook his head no. “I talked to him personally. His story checked out. He basically found her, tended her wounds, and then took her to the emergency room. They told him she’d be taken care of and he left. He came straight here to inform us he found our missing girl, and by the time we got there, she was gone.”

Amy nodded. “That was a kind thing he did, taking care of her and informing you.”

“Nice isn’t how I’d describe Michael Guerin . He spent a large amount of his youth in my station, and some of his adult years too. Granted not so much on the wrong side now, as much as a pain in the ass. He doesn’t like people interrupting his solitude.”

“Well, I don’t care. He was kind to my child, and that’s all that really matters to me. His motivations are beyond my ability to care. And, just because he was a troubled youth who spent time in your ‘slammer’ is hardly anything to judge him by. I remember spending time there myself, unjustly I might add.”

“Um...Amy...listen, about what happened. It's just, uh...I realize it was a long time ago, and I just want to make sure that you know that...I was just doing my job.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, I appreciate the sentiment, Sheriff, but it did scar me for life and all, so...” Amy hid a smile. Damn it was getting hot. She picked up a napkin and blotted her neck to remove the moisture.

“You were breaking the law. You were stopping honest, hard-working people from doing their jobs.”

Amy snorted. “Those honest hard-working people were destroying a 200-year-old piece of Native American architecture...raping our town of its history.”

Jim shook his head and tried to make his voice reasonable. “Amy, the Native Americans wanted that thing torn down more than anybody.”

“That's not the point.”

“Well, it is kinda the point...”

Amy’s eyes narrowed remembering what she termed a huge miscarriage of justice. “There were more than 20 of us out there that day. I was 18. Naive. Clueless. Why did you pick on me?”

“Cuz you were cute.” Jim said in a rush of honesty and then wished he could bite off his tongue.

“Cute?”

Jim groaned under his breath and dug his grave a little deeper. “You were wearing those cowboy boots and a little skirt.” See her mouth open in outrage he quickly added, “Well, I had to arrest somebody, so...”

Amy laughed nervously. This was the man looking for her lost child? “Well, I don't know what to say. I'm outraged. I am now...outraged! You are looking at an outraged woman.” Amy blotted away more moisture. “Sorry. It must be the heat.” She couldn’t care, not after all these years. But it bothered her that she did.

Jim had the grace to look a little sheepish. “I just, uh...I just wanted to apologize. It's good to see you again, Amy. It’s been a long time, so many years.”

Amy gave a small laughed. Roswell, New Mexico. She swore once that she’d never step foot in this town again, but here she was. “Well...” Amy was suddenly nervous and not just a little shy. “What now?”

Jim was confused, too busy looking in her eyes. God she looked incredible. Barely over thirty, but he knew she was more. Her early forties. But she still looked…wow!

“Sheriff?”

“Pardon me. What?”

Amy just smiled and lifted an eyebrow. “My daughter, Maria. The missing woman with amnesia? What do you do now?”

“Well, we keep looking. Someone has to see her soon.”

“Okay, tell me again, what did you find in her car, and who the hell is shooting at my child?”

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