Star Bright (Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides #22)

Chapter 1

Pet-sitting the world’s ugliest dog in a half-mothballed New Age convention center hadn’t been the way Darcy imagined spending her Christmas holiday. She was supposed to be lounging in a cute bikini on a pristine Caribbean beach, sipping something fruity, smiling inanely as her boyfriend’s friends pledged to love each other forever.

As ridiculous as it was to make promises no one could keep—forever was a very long time, after all—it would’ve been easy to smile with as many something-fruities as she’d imagined. And who needed forever when there were palm trees and warm blue water right now?

Instead, here in Sunset Falls, Montana, the water all around her was frozen white, from the waterfall itself to the drifting flurries. And the pine trees that ringed the empty retreat headquarters were stark, dark shadows beyond the scattered patio lights, basically the opposite of festive tropical beauty.

And it was quiet, so very quiet.

She’d wanted quiet, of course, after everything went sideways, so when her friend Brin had mentioned needing a pet-sitter while her work team took an all-expense-paid winter break, Darcy had jumped on the chance to escape. She just hadn’t considered how depressing an empty conference center would be. The world’s ugliest dog didn’t even bark, which somehow made it more unsettling. Darcy tried to smile at it when she fed it and let it out to do its business, but smiling was harder in Montana than the Caribbean.

Harder without Christopher.

She squelched that thought like a wet wool sock. Speaking of wet wool, it was time to let Ugly out for a last yard patrol of the evening.

When Brin told her the dog’s name, Darcy had protested. “I mean, I know it’s true, but it’s cruel.”

“That’s his name,” Brin had countered. “Sometimes the truth is hard to hear, but a pretty lie is worse.”

Okay, but what if that truth was “I think we should take some time off to see if we actually miss each other”? Or maybe worse yet, was if that was a lie, and the truth was more like, “What if you start the new year alone and just end up being alone every year thereafter?”

That thought was like wet wool underwear.

Since Darcy had sold Brin most of the equipment for her hoax-busting podcast and done some of her post-production work, she knew her friend had strong feelings about not letting wishful thinking get in the way of cold, hard reality. Even so, when she summoned the dog, she shortened his name a bit. “C’mon, Ug. Last stop.”

She got up from the little fort she’d made from extra furniture in the lobby and a couple white sheets with throw pillows. Most of the facilities were locked up while the center was closed for the holidays, but the three-story central lobby had floor-to-ceiling windows that curved overhead, framing the dark sky. Unlike the rest of the place, it felt wide open.

But lonely. Maybe that was why she was spending most of her hours here, hunkered down with a bunch of books instead of fruity alcoholic beverages.

Ug rose with a muffled grunt. His paws were too big for his lanky body, like grizzly feet on an oversized greyhound. The undershot jaw was worse than anything she’d seen on even the most inbred bulldog, leaving a row of snaggle teeth jutting straight up. At least whatever skin condition had left him with more scales than patchy fur wasn’t something she had to treat while she was watching the place, because she wouldn’t want to chance those teeth.

It was the dog’s eyes, though, that bothered her most. Rather than the pale blue of a husky or the wild amber of a wolf, Ug had pink eyes except for crossed black slits in the center, the pupils shaped like Xs. Maybe he was partly blind, though he seemed to move around confidently enough, patrolling like a guard dog.

When she opened the lobby door, he lumbered past her. Brin had said the dog had free range of the property and not to worry about him running off, but Darcy still didn’t feel right about letting him roam unattended. Slipping her huge fuzzy socks into even bigger clogs, she followed him out onto the patio.

“Watch out for bears,” she reminded him, as she’d done every night, pulling her slouchy fleece cardigan so tight around her that the cartoon cats looked like they were stretching. “And cougars. And ticks. And whatever else is out there.”

Not that she’d seen anyone or anything since Brin had walked her through the place. Just quiet and lonely, while it seemed like everyone else in the world was busy with friends and family for the holidays.

“At least we have each other, right, Ug?”

Not surprisingly, the dog didn’t answer. Instead, his oversized head was tilted upward in a strange stance for a dog. He pivoted, tracking something above the roofline that she couldn’t see from her angle. She stepped toward him, turning to follow his focus.

Nothing.

Her skittering heartbeat didn’t ease. Ug was too big to get grabbed from above by an owl, but no point in risking…whatever else was out there.

“Maybe we should just call it a night, hmm?” She made a little shooing gesture. “C’mon now—”

A howling roar drowned her out—had Ug finally found his voice?—just as the tops of the pine trees shattered. A huge, metallic gray shape smashed toward them, and she could only stand there gaping.

Ug reared up, taller than her, and rammed those big paws into her shoulders, knocking her back toward the protection of the lobby awning while branches and needles rained around them. Ah, the irony of being impaled by Christmas tree debris…

She landed on her ass, and the impact finally jolted a breath from her, but her “what the f—” was drowned out by the cacophony of the mass that slammed into the manicured lawn just beyond the patio. She threw her hands around her head, recoiling. The gray bulk—big as a bus, but a bus with wings?—groaned louder than Ug as it settled back from its nose-in position, thudding hard in the torn-up dirt.

After what seemed like forever, the night was quiet again, except for Darcy’s muttered, “Fuuuuck…”

It was a spaceship.

A spaceship had just crash-landed at her holiday housesitting.

No way, this was impossible. Her brain spun like the sawdust drifting down from the broken trees. It had to be an experimental aircraft or a Hollywood special effect or… A hoax, had to be. Instead of busting hoaxes, Brin had decided to start staging pranks, and Darcy was her victim. Any moment now, someone would jump out and yell, “Got ya!” She would smile…

No one jumped out, but smoke wafted toward her, tinted with the scent of firewood and something else—something hot and dangerous, like nothing in her experience.

It was a for-real spaceship.

She swallowed hard. Ug stood between her and the spaceship, his scanty fur bristling around the scales.

He wasn’t a dog, was he?

Before she could work through what that meant exactly, a knee-high door opened in the lobby wall near where she was huddled. And a slightly less than knee-high robot emerged.

Looking like a single-serve coffee maker with a shiny silver dome where the coffee would go, it rolled on a single gimbal past her, chirping. “Welcome, honored guest! We’re sorry we don’t have our regular greeters available. We have scanned your ship’s ident and seem to have no record of your scheduled arrival, but fret not! Here at the Big Sky Intergalactic Dating Agency, we pride ourselves on connecting interstellar citizens with eager Earther brides. Please stand by while we determine your bioelechemical compatibility with an uncontracted mate.” The little robot whirred again. “Welcome, honored guest!” Then it switched into gibberish—another language?—as it rolled toward the spaceship.

Which was still smoking, silvery curls unspooling into the dark sky.

Darcy scrubbed both hands over her face. Yup, she was awake. Dreaming was the last possible explanation that wasn’t a crash-landed spaceship. This was all so impossible…

Wait. What had the mini robot just said? Eager Earther brides? Uncontracted mate?

Intergalactic Dating Agency?