Gray's Requiem

CHAPTER ONE-3

“Welcome home.”

“Everyone in town must be here!”

Chaps started introducing her to people she didn’t know or had forgotten.

“Nina!” Maggie cried at the site of her second-best friend from high school. “Chaps didn’t tell me you moved back home.” Maggie hugged Nina. “The last I heard you were in California with a husband.”

“I left California and the husband.” Nina smiled as she held Maggie at arm’s length.

“The three-musketeer’s ride again.” Chaps stepped in and put his arm around each of them.

A large man wearing a plaid shirt and jeans approached.

“That sounds like trouble to me.” He gave the trio a lopsided grin.

Maggie was immediately enchanted.

“Maggie, this is Sheriff Tom Bridger.”

Maggie disengaged from Chaps and Nina to shake Sheriff Bridger’s hand.

Nina and Chaps gave each other secret glances.

Tom Bridger was built like a mountain with dark shoulder length hair swept back; a five o’clock shadow and serious gray eyes.

“Hello.”

Maggie gave him a small smile.

“Sheriff, this is Maggie Gray.”

“A pleasure to meet you Ms. Gray.”

“Uh, just Maggie.” Tom Bridger had a magnetic effect on her that made her forget about everyone else in the room.

He nodded and walked away.

Nina reached over and pinched Maggie.

“What the hell was that for?”

“To bring you back to reality.”

“Why?” Maggie’s eyes followed Tom Bridger. “This town is full of good looking men.”

Maggie was practically drooling over Tom Bridger.

“Like who?” Chaps and Nina asked in unison.

“Well, you for starters.”

Maggie hugged Chaps.

“That’s better.”

“Chaps is taken.”

“What?”

“Yeah, let me introduce you to Annie.” Chaps scanned the room until he found a pretty, little blond woman talking to a couple of ladies in the corner.

Chaps led Maggie over.

“Annie, this is Maggie.”

“Hi.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.”

Maggie held out her hand. Annie had soft delicate hands like an artist or a musician.

“Annie teaches second grade.”

“That must be very rewarding.”

“And exhausting,” Annie added.

“I bet.” Maggie couldn’t even imagine spending more than five minutes with a child much less twenty of them all day.

“Chaps has told me a lot about you.” Annie slipped her arm around Chaps’ waist.

“Well I’m sure half of it wasn’t even close to the truth.”

The trio chatted for a few more minutes before Maggie decided she needed a break.

“Excuse me, I’m going to get a beer.” Her patience for crowds was running low.

“Over there in the kitchen.” Chaps pointed.

“Chaps don’t be rude, go with her.”

“No, no. I’m fine. I’m confident I can find it. You two stay here.”

Maggie was feeling hemmed in, she needed something to drink and fresh air.

It took her some time to get to the kitchen with all the people stopping her to say hello along the way. She tried to remember their names, but there were just too many faces.

She grabbed a six pack of beer and slipped out the back door. A deck with stairs leading to a second level was to her left. She tip-toed up and breathed a sigh of relief. She walked to the rail and gazed longingly up at the stars.

Why the hell hadn’t she gone off world to Siria instead? She loved Chaps and she appreciated the welcome home party, but there were just so many people. All she could do was scan the room for threats and check the number of exits she could reasonably access. This new life was going to take getting used to. She smelled BBQ and craned her neck to see a pit on the side of the house, and someone was turning over some meat. She rolled her eyes to the heavens again. This party was going to last all-night she could feel it.

“Not a fan of parties?”

A deep voice came at her from the dark. As Maggie spun around, she almost reached for the Beretta she kept tucked in her waistband.

“Sorry didn’t mean to startle you.”

Tom Bridger was standing in the shadows. She hadn’t heard him come up, so Maggie assumed he had been there first.

“No worries.” Maggie took a deep breath she pulled two beers from the six pack. You either, apparently.” She handed one of the beers to Tom.

“Parties aren’t my thing.” He stepped out into the low light to accept the beer. They both stood at the rail staring up at the stars.

“Chaps has a good heart.” Maggie glancing over at Tom’s profile.

“That he does. So how long you been gone?” Tom asked turning to face her. He knew it had to be at least ten years because he had been the Sheriff that long and had never met her.

“About fifteen years.” Maggie took pull from her beer. “I went to the Federation Territory for school and then into the military in exchange for my tuition.” She didn’t see any reason not to be at least somewhat honest about it, although she did leave off the part about working for the intelligence service.

“Travel much?”

“Yeah, quite a bit. Got to see a lot of interesting places, too.” She tried to keep a positive spin on the conversation. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, how long were you in the military?” Maggie gave him a knowing stare. She hoped he wasn’t trying to hide the fact that he had been in the military because he was doing a really bad job of it.

“What makes you think I was in the military?”

“Sheriff, please.” Despite his shoulder length hair and five o’clock shadow, Maggie noticed how the Sherriff carried himself. The way his eyes scanned the room, the same way she had.

“A life-time,” Tom stared out into the darkness, “or at least it feels that way.”

“I know what you mean.”

They stood in companionable silence for some time. Only breaking the silence to make small talk or retrieve more beer.

Things started to get quiet downstairs and Maggie peeked over the rail.

“Maggie? Maggie, where are you?” Chaps was calling. He stepped out onto the lower deck.

“Are you trying to wake the dead?”

“Nina! Found her!” Chaps called out.

Maggie turned to Tom and gave him an apologetic look.

Nina, Chaps, and Steve came up the stairs.

“There you are. I thought you might have left.” Nina hugged her.

“That would have been rude, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but that wouldn’t have stopped you.”

“Also, damn near impossible since Chaps drove me over here.”

“Good point.”

Maggie turned to Chaps.

“Is everyone else gone?”

“Yeah. Did you get anything to eat?”

“No, I was just enjoying the view”

Chaps glanced furtively over at the Sheriff and then back to Maggie. “Well come on down stairs both of you, there’s plenty left over, and we have so much to talk about.”

“Where’s Annie?” Maggie wanted to know.

“She has to work in the morning, so she went home.” Chaps answered over his shoulder.

They all reassembled in the kitchen and Nina started feeding everyone.

“I should probably go,” Tom announced before Nina could give him a plate.

“Please stay Sheriff, Maggie is going to tell us about her off-world trips.”

Chaps gave Maggie an encouraging smile.

“Chaps, I doubt anyone wants to hear all that stuff.”

Maggie wanted to rescue her friends from what she was sure would be boring stories about places they couldn’t imagine.

“Yes, we do,” they all said, except for Tom who simply sat down.

“Maggie sent me notes from all these places that she went,” Chaps reminded everyone, in case he had forgotten to tell anyone over the past fifteen years.

“Did you meet any aliens?” Nina asked between bites of BBQ.

“Well yes, a few.”

“Are they like us?” Steve wasn’t shy about joining the lightening round of questioning despite their encounter earlier in the day.

“Many of them look very similar and some are not even close.” Maggie had to laugh.

“Tell us.” Nina and Chaps pleaded.

She shot a look over at Tom who was giving her his undivided attention. Maggie had no intention of telling them about the Rilix, a reptilian like species and their leader Dogo she encountered while on a mission to stop the aliens from forming an alliance to traffic in human females with a Federation Colonel. She definitely wasn’t going to tell them about the Super Soldiers from Alpha Ten that were created using her own DNA from her father’s research. Which didn’t leave her with many options for topics of conversation.

“Okay, well there is a planet called Siria, pronounced Si-re-a.”

Maggie spent the next thirty minutes explaining the aquatic culture of the planet and the amazing moonrise each night with Siria’s three moons. She did gloss over the attentive nature of the Sirian’s when it came to the opposite s*x.

After she finished her story, her friends tried to fill Maggie in on all the local gossip, until Chaps started to fall asleep.

“We’d better be going.” Nina took Steve’s hand and turned to Maggie. “Can we give you a ride?”

“Sure.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Tom” said Maggie, hoping she would be seeing the Sheriff again soon.

“I’m sure we will meet again.” Tom smiled and shook Maggie’s hand. He thought he wouldn’t mind seeing Maggie Gray again.