Chapter 5

Minerva wondered where her boldness had come from. Maybe it was because when the creature had stood there, Joshua had been willing to protect her. What woman wouldn’t respond to that sort of chivalry?

Wrapped so tight in his arms she could feel the way his heart thundered within the confines of his chest, and she felt treasured.

His chocolate eyes burned down into hers. “Ms. Wong, please take that back.” His mouth spoke the words, but his expression said something completely different.

She should. He was giving her the opportunity. Take it back and then they would draw away from each other, but the moment would pass.

She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck even as he bent his head.

“Minerva,” he groaned, a breath away from their mouths touching. Her first name on his lips sent a frisson of excitement down her spine.

A shrill alert pierced the air.

They jumped apart. Minerva’s heart thudded in her chest. “Oh no! The fire alarm!”

In a single motion they leapt off the bed and out of the room, Joshua leading the way despite his bigger size.

Smoke filled the hallway, the kitchen, and other parts of the apartment.

“Aw man, I left the sausages on the stove.” Joshua dashed over to the stove and turned off the element. Smoke billowed everywhere. Minerva coughed, the acrid taste coating the back of her throat while she tried to fan away the smoke from the detector.

It took a few minutes after they shut off the fire alarm to clear the room. Joshua opened the glass French doors that led out to the spacious balcony. Minerva shoved the blackened, inedible sausages into the gullet of the garbage disposal and then filled the skillet with water to let it soak. With a collective sigh she and Joshua collapsed onto the couch in the living room adjoining the kitchen.

They sat there for a few moments, not saying a word. Wisps of smoke drifted out onto the balcony like departing ghosts. Then, she glanced at Joshua and the same time he looked down at her.

Their mouths twitched and then his gruff chuckles met her peals of laughter.

“This has been the craziest twenty-four hours in my life!” She gasped.

“Ain’t been no picnic for me either.”

They fell onto each other as their mirth took a long while to settle down. A glow of warmth from the pit of her belly spread all over her body. Minerva knew then that Joshua was the kind of man she’d want to get to know better. The fact they could laugh together despite the strangest things happening...

How long had it been since she had a good belly laugh? She sobered up some as she traveled down memory lane. Nothing but work and training. Of course, she loved her work. Computers were simple things. You give them a set of instructions and they do what you tell them. But the last few years had been ... what? A long series of projects. Learning computer languages, developing them, coding for one company or another. Simulations, forecasts, retrospective analysis, projections.

Everything else to help people make decisions.

No program for fun.

No program for love.

Then, at the VEIL facility that should have been the highlight of all her hard work, where she and a few others would make world history, the experiment failed, some creature entered through the fissure, and she found herself falling in love within a day.

Take a step back, Minnie. You’re not falling in love with Joshua. You’re just getting to know him.

The cautious voice and its sound advice made her pull away from the big man and she stood. She couldn’t be falling in love that quickly. No one did. There was no such thing as love at first sight. Lust at first glance, yes. But it was impossible to develop an emotion for a person on first meeting.

This isn’t a first meeting, Minnie. You’ve known Joshua for a long while. Admit it, you were attracted to him well before now.

Minerva twirled a strand of hair around her finger and pulled. Had she a latent attraction for Joshua before this? Was it something that she’d suppressed because of her leeriness of getting involved with a man?

She tossed that thought aside. No. She’d never been attracted to Joshua, she argued with that insidious little voice. This had something to do with the experiment that went wrong. Maybe the creature they had seen had affected them on some level. The fissure had opened to another place. Remembering the fog that swept the decimated lab, Minerva wondered if maybe the fog contained a bio-agent wreaking havoc on their systems.

Yeah, that had to be it. The sooner they returned to VEIL and let the higher ups know about what happened last night, the sooner her life would return to the normal thing it was.

What is normal, Minnie? Coming home, night after night with no one to greet you?

Last night, she’d made dinner for someone other than herself for the first time in years. Joshua had gobbled up the meal like a starving man. He helped her wash the dishes, and he gave into her need to not be alone. If he had really wanted to leave her last night, she couldn’t have stopped him.

Yet, he stayed, and she was grateful he did.

“Ms. Wong?”

She started. “Sorry, my mind was on something.”

He gave a slight smile. “I can believe that.”

The sunlight caught the chocolate brown eyes, highlighting surprising flecks of gold. His ginger beard, full and well-maintained, made her want to run her hands down his face and feel its soft, wooly texture.

Minerva recalled the near kiss she’d shared with Joshua. She’d never done anything like that in her entire life. Invited a man to kiss her, dared him to, even.

She had to put some distance between them.

“Something the matter, Ms. Wong?”

Part of her wanted to tell him the truth. He was the kind of man to be honest about his feelings. Hadn’t he shared his fears of the creature, the stuffed animals? She thought no less of him for that. If she were honest about how all of this was affecting her—

No, she couldn’t. Joshua was an aberration in her ordered life. Aberrations happened in computer programming all the time. Why should she expect less in real life? Once she took him back to VEIL, the program would reset.

Having made that decision, she gave a forced smile, ignoring that little pang in her heart. “Well, since the lovely breakfast we were going to have is gone, let’s go out and eat. Okay?”

Why are you prolonging time with him?

Shut up, she told that little voice again.

Gosh, she was arguing with herself like a crazy woman.

Joshua nodded but he eyed her as if trying to peer inside of her brain. “I’m fine with that.”

“Great. I’m going to go take a shower and get dressed.”

“I guess I better do the same thing.” He rose from the couch.

“There’re some towels and the like in the bathroom. Help yourself.”

She backed away. Nip this in the bud, Minnie. No need to start something that wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place.

“Ms. Wong, what’s the problem?” His voice softened with concern. It nearly undid her.

“I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.” She spun around and walked away, putting more than the distance of the hallway between them. Joshua was a nice man, but she really wasn’t interested in trying to get to know him in any other way. Last night should not have happened. It was an anomaly, just like any other glitch in a program.

“You’re an idjiot, you know that?” He scowled at his reflection. “Why did you let yourself get carried away?”

He splashed freezing water onto his face. For some reason, Minerva, –no, Ms. Wong had withdrawn. Not just physically but he could tell she shut herself away from him like a locked door.

What happened? Had he said something or done something?

Sure, he almost kissed her, but she’d practically urged him to do it. The darn fire alarm had gone off which put paid to that. When they laughed on the couch, he’d thought he’d come home. It was the only way to describe it. Her light weight pressed into his, sharing the humor, it was as if he’d been doing this his entire life.

Then she shot off the couch as if she’d sat on a needle. Stood there staring at him while a bunch of emotions ran across her face. What was she thinking? Could he help her?

“Idjiot, you pushed too far, and now—”

Now what? They never had a relationship so he couldn’t say it was all over. Nothing was over because nothing had begun.

Joshua grumbled. He’d gone too fast in telling her what he had. He should have just shut his mouth and—

No, he wasn’t going to berate himself for being honest about his feelings. Dang it, it didn’t take Nostradamus to know Minerva Wong was one of a kind. A man had to be out of his mind to not take the opportunity to become more than a friend with a woman like that.

He set his jaw. No, he wasn’t going to regret saying how he felt. Life was too short for regrets. He took the chance, it backfired on him, now it was time to move on.