Alien in the House

starred in
The Avengers
would be acceptable. Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Nathan Fillion, pick a hot leading man of choice.”
    “Sorry. You already live with the best looking people on Earth. You’re stuck with us. See you next time, Ambassador.”
    “Can’t wait.”
    The senator in charge nodded. “Tomorrow night will come soon enough.”
    “As near as I can tell, only if I keep on killing bad guys.”
    •   •   •
    My eyes opened and I looked around. I wasn’t in a big room with a lot of important people looking at me while I incriminated myself and everyone else I knew. I was lying in bed.
    I’d had a version of this dream pretty much every night since Jeff had become the Appointed Representative for New Mexico’s 2nd District, starting right after Operation Sherlock had concluded.
    Sure, people being murdered left and right and my somehow becoming the “adopted niece” of the two best assassins in the business could give anyone nightmares. But those situations never came up in my dreams. No, I got the nightly reminder of what I was really stressed over—my husband was now in a very public position and we had a hell of a lot of skeletons in our big walk-in closet.
    Rolled over. Sure enough, Jeff was in bed next to me. Mr. Clock said it was five in the morning. Heaved a sigh of relief and snuggled next to Jeff.
    He made the low growl that sounded like a purr in his sleep and pulled me closer to him. Buried my face in between his awesome pecs, rubbed against the hair on his chest, and let his double heartbeats lull me back to sleep. Thankfully, this time, dreamless.
    The smooth sounds of Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” woke me up. Jeff wasn’t in bed with me. Not so unusual—he usually heard the alarm before I did.
    Got up and trotted into the bathroom. No Jeff. Checked in the closet. No Jeff. Went to the nursery. No Jeff and no Jamie. No animals, either from Earth or Alpha Four, were in evidence, either. Wondered if I was, in fact, having another nightmare. Decided to check. “Com on!”
    “Yes, Ambassador?” The voice wasn’t Walter’s. And Walter always called me Chief, because I was now the sole Chief of Mission. But the voice was familiar.
    “Who is this?”
    “It’s William, Chief.” Walter’s older brother.
    “What is one of our top Imageers doing handling Embassy Security? Or, to put it another way, what’s the point of this weird dream?”
    “Ahhh, you’re not asleep, at least as far as I know, Ambassador.”
    “Well, if you were in my dream you’d say that.”
    “Are you feeling alright, Ambassador? Do I need to have Doctor Hernandez or Nurse Carter go up and check you out?”
    Contemplated if I felt awake as the music changed to The Pretender’s version of “I Got You Babe.” One more song and I could confirm if this was the music mix Jeff had made for our anniversary or not. He’d put a lot of thought into it and I’d been using it as our wakeup music for the past two months.
    “If I’m really awake, where are Jeff and Jamie?”
    “Representative Martini took your daughter to daycare already, Ambassador. He asked me to tell you that she’d woken up early and he didn’t want to wake you.”
    “Why not?”
    “He said you’ve been sleeping poorly.”
    True enough. “Okay, so why are you here instead of Walter?”
    “Walter’s at a Security training session at Dulce.”
    “Why is he at the Science Center for training?”
    “Because there’s a big dust storm around Home Base and the training session needs to be held both indoors and outdoors.”
    “Gotcha. And you’re here because . . . ?”
    “Because someone needed to cover Embassy Security, and it was decided that I was the most trustworthy option.”
    “Cannot argue with that logic. Other than to mention that I wasn’t informed of any training sessions or temporary personnel switches.”
    William cleared his throat. “Ah, you don’t need to be informed, Ambassador. Gladys handles all of that, and if she says it’s time for training, it’s time for training, and if she says I’m covering during Walter’s training session, then I’m covering.”
    “Gotcha.” Couldn’t argue. Gladys was the Head of Security for all A-C operations worldwide. She was considered scary formidable and I concurred on the scary. Three-plus years in and I’d never seen her in person, or seen a picture of her. I was okay with this, mostly because Gladys was one of the few people around who could