The Law of Nines

62

ALEX MADE HIS WAY ALONE through the forests that were now his. He was in a daze.

Tears running down his face mixed with the gentle rain that felt as if the sky were reaching out to gently touch him in sympathy.

It all seemed surreal.

He was in love with a woman from another world. He had just fought a battle between worlds. He had just saved his world from killers who would have murdered people in the thousands.

He wondered if he really was nuts.

He wiped his nose on the back of his hand as he looked up at a patch of sky he could see through an opening in the trees. He imagined Jax’s world out there somewhere.

She was out there, somewhere.

He didn’t even know where “somewhere” was.

He walked on without seeing anything. His mind saw only her. He thought only of her. He wanted only her.

His world was empty without her.

Alex sighed. Life would have been so much simpler had he fallen in love with an Earth girl.

He smiled, then, thinking that she must be thinking something rather similar.

After she had gone, he’d spent the night alone in the place of the gateway. He hated to leave the last spot he had seen her. They both wished she could have stayed for a while, stayed longer, stayed the night, stayed the week, the month, the year.

Forever.

But she couldn’t. She had to strike while they had the chance to end it. She had to press that advantage now if her people were to live, to have the chance to be free of the sorrow Radell Cain had set loose on them and her world.

Alex was proud of her. She was strong. It would have been easy to stay. But she was strong. Her people needed her.

At least for a while.

Along the way back, Alex had come across the bodies of the men he had killed on the way to get to Jax and the gateway. He didn’t want their bodies lying about in his woods. He activated their lifelines and sent them back.

Near the end of the day Alex finally reached his Cherokee, parked beside the stream. He was tired from the long hike back from Castle Mountain.

There was a white pickup parked there as well. On the door it said “Daggett Trust.”

He was somehow not surprised that Hal Halverson would be there waiting for him. The man was sitting on a rock nearby. He rose up when he saw Alex coming, stretching to look back up the trail. His face was a picture of ferocity colored with alarm.

“Where’s Jax? Is she all right?”

“She’s fine.”

Hal let out a sigh. “You had me worried for a second.” He looked back up the trail. “So where is she?”

Alex swallowed, steeling himself. “She had to go back.”

Hal’s face turned distraught. “She’s gone?”

Alex nodded. “For now. For a while.”

“But why?”

“What she came here to do isn’t finished. She has to tie up the loose ends.”

“Oh.” Hal scratched his chin as he squinted suspiciously at Alex. “But she’s coming back.”

Alex smiled. “Yes.”

Hal smiled at last as he let out another sigh. “Good.”

“What did you find out with the background checks?”

Hal tossed a small stone into the woods. “Tyler was dirty. Before I got to him he killed himself.”

Alex took pause at that news. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I know. We all were. The good news is that everyone else checks out.” He gestured vaguely. “So what happened? How did things go up there?”

“Well,” Alex said, “it’s a long story.”

Hal shrugged. “I’ve got the time if you do. I’d like to hear all about it — if you don’t mind telling it.”

“No, I’d like to tell you about it, as a matter of fact.” They both sat down on the broad, smooth boulder. “It would be good to get it all out, share it with someone.”

Hal squinted skeptically. “But she’s coming back, right?”

Alex smiled. “She is. She said yes when I asked her to marry me.”

Hal blinked in surprise. “Marry you?”

Alex nodded. “I can’t go to that world. She’s going to give up her world to come here and be with me, so I had to let her go back and settle things there. She has to know that it’s going to be all right for her people, that they will be safe. For now she had to return, but she’s coming back.”

Hal considered it a moment. “That makes sense. But it will be a relief to have her back.” He cast Alex a sidelong glance. “Married, eh?”

“We want to have a ceremony with just the members of the Daggett Society,” Alex said. “Get married with the people who have done so much for both our worlds and not even known it.”

Hal smiled. “We’d all like that, Alex.” He put an arm around Alex’s shoulders. “We’d all like that a lot. We’re going to be here for you. I know you’ve lost everyone you had, but know that you have us now. And we’ll be here for Jax as well when she comes back. She won’t be lonely here with just you to be her friend, I promise.”

Alex grinned at the generosity of the man. “Thanks, Hal. That means a lot to me right now.”

Hal let out a satisfied sigh. “So what about this story you were going to tell me?”

Alex let out a long sigh of his own. “Well, I guess it all started when this beautiful woman popped into my world.”

Hal chuckled. “Isn’t that how it always starts?”