"That's always been the worst of it. You've never been aware of how s.e.xy you are. Like the way you eat strawberries."

"What's wrong with the way I eat strawberries?"

He opened his mouth, and then thought better of explaining. "Nothing. Just forget it."

"Come on; tell me."

"You don't eat them; you make love to them. It's such a turn-on, I need a cold shower afterward."

"You get off watching me eat?"

"See!" He shook a finger at her. "You're innocent. You don't understand. And I do. I'm older, and-"

"If you say wiser, I'm going to smack you."

He held up his hands to ward off any blow. "Hey, when it comes to brains, you're clearly way ahead of me. I've never minded. This isn't about you; it's about me. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I thought I was taking advantage of a kid."

"So? I'm a legal adult now."

"h.e.l.l, you just turned eighteen and never been kissed. And you still look young enough to be sixteen. I'm twenty-eight."

Tinker studied him, trying to reevaluate the last three years. How had she missed his obsession? Certainly he spent an inordinate amount of time with her and Oilcan-but he'd also had two or three girlfriends that she could remember. "Yeah, you're twenty-eight and definitely more experienced than me. That doesn't seem fair. You get to screw around while I stay a virgin."

He kicked at a weed growing up in a crack in the parking lot's cement. "I thought if I found someone else, I'd stop having a thing for you. It really hasn't been fun, wanting you and feeling like a filthy old man at the same time."

"You know, you are always going to be ten years older than me. There's nothing I can do about it."

"I figured that when you hit nineteen, if I was still hooked on you, that was old enough."

Was he serious about this? It was weird to think he had waited three years already for her to grow up, and planned to wait another year. Certainly at fifteen she could have cared less about men, but in the last three years she had developed definite interest. Most guys she knew were like Jonnie, too slimy to consider. But Nathan Czernowski? She trusted him.

Everything inside her went suddenly, nervously aquiver. She looked at his mouth and wondered what it would be like to kiss him. "What am I supposed to do for the next eleven months? Sit and twiddle my thumbs until you feel righteous?"

He glanced at her, squinting in speculation. "You'll probably hit me if I say that would be nice."

"Yes," she growled. Eleven months of wondering would kill her. She was too used to satisfying her curiosity to wait that long. "Why don't we compromise? It would be stupid to spend the next eleven months, waiting, only to find out we can't stand each other in more than a good-friend way. We should try a date."

"A date?"

"You know. Go out to eat. See a movie. Go to the Faire. Date. That is, if your ego can stand being seen with me, and whatever people might think of you."

"Ouch."

"That's really it, isn't it? You're afraid that people will think you're as nasty as the guys you bust for molesting little kids."

"Okay, yes. You look younger than you are, and anyone who doesn't know how much you've got going on upstairs will see me as some kind of pervert. And that bugs me."

"I can can look older. If I put some makeup on and some nice clothes, I can look twenty." Or at least Lain said so. "Especially in a dark restaurant." look older. If I put some makeup on and some nice clothes, I can look twenty." Or at least Lain said so. "Especially in a dark restaurant."

A pleased grin spread across his face. "You really want to go out to eat with me?"

"I've watched you eat. What I actually want is to find out what it's like to kiss you, but I figured I'd scare you off if I told you that."

The smile vanished to a look of such intensity it seemed to solidify the air between them, making it impossible to breathe.

Oh my, he's totally serious about being gaga about me.

With infinite slowness, he leaned down and kissed her. His big hands caught her hips, pulled her to him, and then held her tightly. Her hands were momentarily pinned between them, and then they slid up, searching for someplace to go. She'd never realized how tall he was, or imagined how solid he would feel.

He nuzzled down her neck and kissed her where her shirt gaped open, exposing the top curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She clung to him, feeling suddenly small in his embrace, unsure if she wanted him to stop or go on.

He stopped, though, kissing her more chastely on the cheek, and then just held her. "I think anyplace we go," he whispered huskily, "should be brightly lit, with very little privacy."

"Possibly, that would be a good idea."

"Possibly." He sighed. "I need to work tomorrow night. Want to say Friday? We could do the Faire."

"Friday at the Faire would be good."

They kissed again, and she discovered that by knowing what to expect, the experience was even more enjoyable.

She waved as he drove away, feeling slightly silly doing so. Kids waved. What she really wanted was to pull him back and explore further-only more slowly. After he was out of sight, she pressed her hand to her mouth, capturing again the warmth and pressure.

Nathan Czernowski is in love with me!

Would wonders never end?

4: Beware Elves Bearing Gifts

Wargs, Windwolf, Maynard, interdimensional smugglers, and Nathan Czernowski were all pushed out of her mind at the sight of the loaded picnic tables. The compet.i.tive spirit of the scientists had produced amazing culinary feats. On the slim excuse of alerting people to possible food allergies each dish had the maker's name and the list of ingredients. The most elaborate dishes had the name first. The very simple donations had the makers listed last.

Even Lain was not immune to the compet.i.tive nature of the cookout. Her dish of fresh strawberries, spinach, walnuts, and homemade vinaigrette managed to be simple yet elegant.

Tinker loaded her plate with Lain's salad, dill potato salad, German coleslaw, three-bean salad, a linguine salad, a tortellini salad, baked beans, a sweet bean bun, a brownie, something made with pine nuts, and a cream cheese pineapple Jell-O salad.

She found Oilcan playing grill master, trying to smoke out his forming harem. Something about being stranded on a strange world combined with Oilcan's spry, puckish good looks seemed to make her cousin irresistible as a safe elf subst.i.tute to Earth women wanting to experience Elfhome to the fullest. Oilcan dodged the more aggressive attention, especially from the married women; he tended to be very moral in that regard. Still, Oilcan liked people, clever conversation, and playful flirting, so he went through something close to juggling fire sticks to attend any party at the Observatory. Already two women hung at the edge of the smoke, laughing at his witty remarks.

"Hey." Tinker braved the smoke to eye the meat on the grill.

"Hey!" Oilcan hugged her soundly. What had happened that suddenly everyone was hugging her? The harem eyed her with slight dismay. Oilcan chose not to introduce her, probably as a tactic to get rid of the women. He edged some of the food threatening to topple over the edge back onto her plate. "Think you got enough food?"

"I haven't had food since dinner yesterday." Tinker pointed out the largest hamburger on the grill. "Can I have that one cooked to medium?"

"Okeydokey." Oilcan patted it with a spatula. Red juices welled up in the slots. "It will be done in a couple of minutes. I came back to get you, and they said you'd left with Maynard. I tried calling you. Is everything okay?"

"I left my headset in the trailer." She balanced her plate in her left hand and ate with her fingers. "Where's the forks? Have you tried Lain's salad? Boy, is it good!"

"Here you are, little savage." Oilcan handed her a dormitory fork, unknowingly echoing Windwolf. "Try the stuff with the corn, if there's any left."

"I don't think I have room for more." Still, Tinker turned to scan the picnic table for the "stuff with the corn." "What about you? I couldn't get through to you."

Oilcan looked embarra.s.sed. "I busted my headset on Shutdown. I had taken it off after it started to rain and put it on the seat next to me."

"We sat on it?" she guessed.

"No!" He laughed. "That would have been too simple. It fell out onto the ground at the yard sometime, and it got run over. I found it pressed into the mud, but in a thousand little pieces."

"Oh, c.r.a.p, Oilcan, do you know how hard it is to get those things in Pittsburgh?"

"I know. I know. I knew you would be p.i.s.sed, so I tracked down another one. You'll need to integrate it into my system for me."

"What? Where'd you find it?"

He glanced to the women still hovering on the edge of their conversation and dropped into Elvish. "It was probably stolen merchandise. Someone was selling headsets out of the trunk of their car down in the Strip District. The box was beat up, like it had been dropkicked. I do not even know if the thing will work, but I only paid ten dollars for it."

Tinker pondered the possibility that the headset was part of Maynard's mystery shipment, wondering whether she was obliged to tell the EIA or not.

One of the harem women took advantage of Tinker's silence and pointed out that Tinker's burger needed to be flipped. Having recaptured Oilcan's attention, the women laughed with him as he flipped the burger and pressed it down onto the blackened grill, the dripping grease making flame leap up. Tinker ate and thought.

The Veterans Bridge crossed over the top of the Strip District; a box dropped over the edge of the bridge would land on a rooftop or street. Depending on the packing, the box and contents could survive fairly intact. Oilcan had seen all of the men dressed as EIA guards, so he would have recognized any of them; thus the person who'd sold Oilcan the headset most likely found the box. Telling Maynard would probably result in having the headsets seized and the unlucky finder questioned and possibly jailed.

The important piece of information was that the smugglers had brought a box of headsets to Elfhome. Headsets themselves were useless without some kind of service plan, but once you had air connection they could tie together anything from a home/work/user tri-base to a multiuser network like the police ran to link together their officers.

Tinker heard her name spoken and looked up.

Oilcan had lost one of his harem girls and was finally introducing her to the remaining woman. "I told you about my cousin, the mad scientist."

"I am not a mad scientist."

"Yes, you are. You like to make big machines that make lots of noise, move real fast, or reduce other objects down to little pieces."

"You're only saying that because you know I can't hit you at the moment." Tinker considered throwing food instead, and then decided it was a waste of good food.

Oilcan grinned smugly at her as if he had guessed that she would decide against throwing food.

Recognition of Tinker's matching nut-brown coloring and slight frame dawned in the woman's eyes. She put a hand over her mouth to catch a laugh. "Oh, I'm sorry, I was expecting someone-"

"Older," Tinker guessed.

"Male." The woman winced. "I, of all people, should know better." She gave an honest smile. Not only was her left ring finger unadorned, there wasn't even a slight band of pale skin-honestly single then. "Hi, I'm Ryan MacDonald. Glad to meet you."

"Glad to meet you." Tinker bobbed a slight bow over her full plate. "Sorry for b.u.t.ting in earlier, but life has been a little insane for the last few days."

"Speaking of which," Oilcan said, "we really left the yard wide open. I bolted two metal plates over the workshop doorway, locked up, and padlocked the gate as we went out, but we took took the whole security system with us. Someone broke in during Shutdown." the whole security system with us. Someone broke in during Shutdown."

"Oh, s.h.i.t." Tinker tried not to think of everything scattered haphazardly through the offices. At least her most expensive equipment was in her workshop trailer. "Were we robbed?"

"No. Whoever it was broke all the way in, and then walked back out without taking anything. They might have been looking for Windwolf." Was that supposed to make her feel better? "I went over to Roach's and picked up Bruno and Pete to keep an eye on the place until you get the security system back online."

Bruno and Pete were two elfhounds, on par in size with the Foo dog wargs, bred for intelligence, courage, and loyalty.

"Oh, that's horrible," Ryan said. "They said that Pittsburgh was safe."

The cousins looked at her and after a moment of silence said in unison, "If you don't count the man-eating animals, yes."

Ryan looked startled. "Are there a lot of those?"

"The elves patrol the woods around here." Oilcan waved his spatula at the Earth scrub trees slowly being overrun by elfin forest. "But you shouldn't go into the woods without a weapon."

Tinker ate a mouthful of the Jell-O salad before adding, "And if you hear an animal moving around outside, don't leave the building you're in, even during the day. Call nine-one-one, and they'll send someone to make sure it isn't a dangerous animal."

"Don't leave doors ajar," Oilcan said. "Always shut them firmly."

Tinker considered which of the other common safety practices Ryan should know as she polished off the Jell-O salad. "Stay out of the swampy areas unless you have a xen.o.biologist with you who can spot the black willows and the other flesh-eating plants."

"Oh!" Oilcan waved his spatula at Ryan. "And the rivers aren't safe for swimming. The water is clean enough, but some big river sharks come up the Ohio."

"River sharks? Flesh-eating plants? You two are teasing me, right?"

"No," the cousins both said.

"There's a list of safety procedures that they usually hand out," Tinker said. "If you didn't get one, it's posted on the dorm's bulletin board. You really should read it; this isn't Earth."

Ryan glanced about the picnic grove with the red-checkered tablecloths on the picnic tables, the teams of scientists playing volleyball, and a portable stereo playing neon rock music. "Actually, things don't seem any different."

"Give it time." Oilcan cut Tinker's hamburger, peered at the center, and lifted it off the grill. "Here you go. Medium cooked."

"Are there buns?"

"Picky, picky, picky." Oilcan went off in search of a bun for her.

Ryan watched him go with a look that made Tinker view her cousin with a new eye. One had to admit he had mighty fine a.s.sets.

"Can I ask you," Ryan said hesitantly, her eyes still following Oilcan, "if your cousin has a girlfriend?"

"Look, you seem nice, but you're not staying. It might seem fun to you, to go to Elfhome and date a cute local, but it's not fair to Oilcan. Thirty days is just long enough to break his heart."

Ryan turned to consider her. "You've given this speech before."

"Every thirty days."

"Sorry," Ryan said. "They said that the elves don't socialize much with humans; I suppose it would seem like the same thing to them-here today and gone tomorrow."