@ Roswelllostcause: Thank you!
@ Sara:
No, me either! Just imagine, my mother-in-law in our bedroom. Brrr! But somehow it fitted Amy, don’t you think?
Ah, Max & Liz: they started on another rhythm in this story. After knowing each other for years – annoying each other because Max had denied the attraction between them – they are more open now to enjoy life. After ten years of loneliness, of not finding anything about his origins or having problems with the FBI, Max feels he has to catch up lost times.
@ Carolyn:
It really was, wasn’t it! I surely wouldn’t have wanted to meet my mother-in-law like that.
Max & Liz didn’t date but they still have history together. Although Max denied it stone-hard, they were attracted towards each other. Yeah, the BMW surely is an upgrade towards the jeep.
Well, brace yourself! The gang is coming together today!
@ Eve:
Yeah but you know the best with all these things you do, it is never boring in life! And I know bc myself, I always have thausend things to do, especially caring for my 20 or so orchids, which need a lot of attention, every week! and all the rest, Roswell Fanatics or Heaven........ and I can go and go... with no end
I can second that completely!
Yeah, this was a very typical Amy & Maria reaction. And it was fun to watch! Your idea is great, by the way. But I think it will be Michael who will be using it, otherwise he will never be at ease while making out.
True about Max & Liz! You really nailed what is going on between them!
Chapter twenty-seven
With steady hands Max drove his cabriolet through the gate up to the main house. Smoothly he turned the wheel so he could park next to an old yellow VW Beetle. The car clearly had a lot of miles under the hood and the back window was decorated with a bunch of different stickers, most of them with alien or protest themes.
With an open mouth Max stared at the exuberantly decorated car.
“It’s Amy’s car. She’s Maria’s mom.” Liz clarified when she saw his astonishment. “You know the little shop with organic products and alien souvenirs?”
He nodded in affirmation.
Liz pointed to the energetically gesturing woman with short brown hair standing next to an even more active Maria and Emily. They were a stark contrast to the stoic Michael next to them. “That’s her.”
“Ok,” he murmured out loud when it became clear to him.
His dry response made her snicker. “It looks like you’re as enthusiastic as Michael seems to be. Come on, let’s rescue him.”
They both clicked their seat belts open and got out of the car.
“Auntie Liz!” With a cheerful smile Emily launched herself at the newcomers.
Liz opened her arms and lifted the girl with a swung into the air. “Hi, Emily! Whoa, you’re very good-tempered!”
“We just ate all together! And do you know what Michael made? Pancakes!” little Emily jabbered along, just like any other four-year-old would do. “And now, me and Gran Amy are going to the playground! And tonight we’re having a sleepover. Gran Amy makes hot chocolate then. Cool, huh!”
Holding her loosely against her right hip, Liz smiled and let the child talk while she walked further to greet the others.
“Hello, everybody. We’re not interrupting, are we?”
Liz tried to hold her smiling poker face when she heard Michael’s muttered “Hell, no!” and Amy’s fake, “No, dear, Emily and I were just saying goodbye after a wonderful breakfast.”
“This is Max Evans, Mom.” Maria introduced. “He’s Michael’s brother.”
Amy inspected him from head to toe before shaking his hand. “Aren’t you the son of Phil Evans, the lawyer?”
Max smiled politely. “Phil Evans is indeed my father. Mom and he adopted me when I was little.” And before Amy could interrogate him further, he directly added. “Liz is my colleague at the hospital.”
“Oh, you’re a doctor!”
Maria rolled her eyes at her mom’s overexcited squeal. For the hippie and rebellious woman she always had been, she could be so presumptuous too. “So, Mom, didn’t you need to start going if you want to pick up Jim before going to the park?”
Confused, Amy looked at her daughter before realizing what she had said. “Jim. The park. Yes, of course.” She immediately turned to her grandchild, fussing over her collar. “Emily, have you got everything with you?”
The girl took her little bright colored backpack and kissed everybody goodbye, starting with her mom. Several minutes later she climbed into her grandmother’s car while Maria fastened her seatbelt.
“And she’s off,” Michael mumbled when Amy started her engine and drove away.
His dry comment made Liz and Max explode with laughter while Maria slapped his side. “She wasn’t that bad!”
The way Michael pulled faces amused everybody.
“Hey, tell me if you would be so happy if somebody walked in your room when you’re lying there naked,” he stated.
Liz’s eyes bulged. “No, she didn’t.”
“She did.” Maria affirmed, smiling while nodding her head. “My mom is unique.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
It made them all chuckle again. Even Michael got affected and smirked, although it was still on the wrong side of his mouth.
A horn made them all look up. Kyle’s white van drove up to the main house, directly followed by a beige Fiat 500.
Skillfully Kyle navigated his van next to Max’s car, the Fiat maneuvered on the other side.
Watched by curious spectators, Isabel got out of her car. While she grabbed her sky blue purse from the front seat, Kyle opened the door for his passenger. A young blonde woman with shoulder length hair with bouncing curls stepped out of the vehicle with a smile.
Michael immediately observed that her smile didn’t reach her eyes. This lady was nervous. But why? And why did she feel so familiar? Skeptical, he gazed at her while she stepped up the borders together with Kyle and Isabel.
Kyle kissed his sister and Liz on the cheek and nodded vaguely towards the others. He still didn’t trust any of them, especially Michael. The fact that the guy had found his way too easily into Maria’s home and didn’t have any intention of leaving soon, bothered him more than he could say. Ok, the guy had saved his little niece but there were still too many questions unanswered for his sake.
Normally he would’ve made a harsh remark towards Michael but Tess had asked to meet him and Maria because she wanted to query some details. So he behaved. For now.
“Maria, this is Tess Harding. She’s Cliff’s sister and works as a P.I. for their family business. Tess, this is my sister Maria.” Kyle introduced the women to each other.
Alarmed, Max and Michael looked briefly at each other.
Fuck, a private investigator!
The gesture was missed by Kyle who just continued his introductions. “Liz is Maria’s best friend. And that’s,” he nodded towards Michael, “Michael Guerin with his friends Max and Isabel Evans.”
Tess tried to hide her surprise. Seeing the resemblance between Isabel and Michael and the way they all stood protectively around each other made it pretty clear that she had found them. The rest of the Royals Nacedo always had talked about. Her family.
The way her eyes had lit up didn’t go unnoticed by Michael’s scanning eyes though. He narrowed his eyes and unconsciously pulled his shield up even more. After living a week with Maria now, he knew his escape routes around her house. He had mapped them out and had left survive kits at certain points. The minute it became dangerous, he would drag Isabel and Max along. Sitting on the fence he waited.
It dawned on Tess that he was the only one who hadn’t greeted her.
Oh boy, this wouldn’t go easily.
With a smile plastered on her face, she shook Maria’s hand and offered one to Michael too. Unwillingly he accepted. “Hello, Kyle asked me to investigate last week’s accident. At the moment I’m following several leads and I was wondering if I could check some of my ideas against your memories. Is that possible?”
“Of course,” Maria agreed willingly.
After a glance at Max, Michael just nodded.
Tess noticed that they all remained standing. This wasn’t the way she thought it would go. “Is it possible to talk privately?” she asked Maria in a friendly tone.
“Don’t see the need to do that,” Michael shrugged his shoulders while he crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t think I’ve got any secrets left.”
Max furrowed his brows in alert and gave a gentle sign towards Isabel with his head, hoping that Michael would get the warning to keep his big mouth shut.
“I can understand that,” Tess replied. “But this investigation requires tactfulness and caution.”
Her remark didn’t get things rolling either. Michael’s refusal made everything complicated, certainly with all the others around. Tess knew she had to reveal a bit in order to make them understand how delicate the matter was.
“Look, it’s very important that we speak alone. I wasn’t planning on revealing this on the doorstep but my questions and remarks have a lot to do with who we are.” The plea in her voice and attitude couldn’t be missed.
“We?” Max demanded firmly.
Instead of moving, they were all even more on guard.
“Ok,” Tess mused out loud. “Here I go. I was born,” She emphasised the last word while making quotation marks with her hands, “in the desert, more than twenty years ago. When I came out of my pod I had the body of a five-year-old. So again, shouldn’t we talk about this alone?”
Michael was the first to react. “No!” He couldn’t have been anymore clear.
Isabel and Tess stared at him, the incomprehension clear in their expressions.
“There isn’t a thing she doesn’t know already.” He pointed towards Maria.
“Same here.” Max’ guilty face said it all.
“What?” Isabel bristled, “I had to keep my mouth shut to the only people who ever cared a damn about us. Our parents. And then, all of the sudden, you both start thinking with your penises?”
“Liz found it out on her own.”
The venom in Isabel’s words was tangible. “And her too, huh?”
“Actually, yes.” Michael responded with a smug face.
“Ha! Who do you take me for? A silly goose? What did she do? A lap dance? Did she strip her clothes off?”
Michael took a deep breath. It took everything in him not to react harshly at her attack. “Did you ever wonder why I could break our connection? Why you couldn’t dreamwalk me anymore?” he countered.
Furious, she looked at him. “What has that got to do with…?”
“I’m not proud of the choices I made but I couldn’t cope anymore. I just couldn’t take anymore after – you know. So I started drinking.”
“Drinking? We can’t…”
“Yeah, we can. If we drink long enough, we get numb. Just like anyone else.”
He had her and everybody’s attention now. For a second he didn’t know how to proceed, until he felt Maria’s hand settle reassuringly on his back.
“Anyway, I kept drinking. Not as much as a human, but you know, still enough to stay as I was.” He scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. “That’s the way I was when I stumbled on Emily and Maria. In one bright moment I saw the danger they were in. I couldn’t save Hannah and Court. For them I wasn’t there. But maybe I could save this little girl.”
They all hung on every word he said but he didn’t notice. In his head he was reliving the moment.
“And I could. I saved her, Iz.” His hand went through his brown messy hair. “The car got me though.”
“What?!” Isabel’s scream startled everybody. Her built-up anger and anxiety made her snap. Offended, she attacked Max. “You told me he was alright! That he was ok. Being hit by a car doesn’t sound alright!”
“Yeah, as if I could tell you what a mess he was when I found him.” Max snorted in defence.
Her purse hit him on the arm and his voice rose within a second. “Hey, stop it and listen! I needed to think quickly. Posting you wasn’t an option. With all respect, sis, I know you. You would’ve gone bananas and lectured him even more. He didn’t need that. On the contrary. That’s why I asked Maria to let him stay after I had checked his injuries.”
“You healed him.” Isabel’s remark sounded like a statement.
“What would you have done?” Max threw back at her. “Would you have let him suffer with internal injuries? Or would you have given him away to Liz to the hospital?” He shook his head now. “I don’t think so.”
All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place for Isabel. “So, that’s how she found out, huh?” she sighed at Liz. “But that doesn’t explain why Maria had to know.”
Michael hadn’t interfered in the discussion. Every word he would say would’ve made it worse. But now he gave her a look. “Think, Isabel, think. How was I when Max and I accidently sipped from the punch at prom?”
Isabel’s eyes widened in recognition.
Affirmatively he smirked at her. “Yeah, well, my powers went on overload. There wasn’t much to hide after I rebuilt her house twice. Am I proud of that? Hell, no. Am I angry because she knows what a freak I am? At first, yes. But now I’m not sure anymore.”
Maria searched his hand with hers and tucked them closer. Letting him know she didn’t agree with the way he saw himself. Her gesture caused many brows to frown but before they could react, Kyle’s monotone and stern voice broke the silence.
“Can somebody please explain this to me?”