Married To The Cowboy (Love In Collin's Ranch 3) Page 8

  "That's right, sweetheart," Thomas said, putting an arm around her shoulder. "Now let's just find a table and have something to eat."

  At the moment, Danielle found the prospect of a meal positively seductive. Food may put pounds on a girl, but it would never sneak from her plate onto that of some other girl. And the cuisine was not standing at the end of a receiving line, looking utterly gorgeous but completely out of reach.

  At length, the receiving line ebbed away and Dagin and his attendants took their places at the table of honor in a raised area of the ballroom where they, the lady President and First Gentleman of Earth, and the other highest-ranking dignitaries, sat a step higher than the rest of the partygoers. Dagin's attention was half on his meal and half on the throng of humans and extraterrestrials seated before him. With eyes trained to pick out targets both human and animal from the deserts, fields, forests, and cliffs of his home planet, he scanned the party for one particular figure in one particular dress. He found her at once, with her mother and father, near the middle of the area of tables arranged around the dance floor, dining away and seeming to enjoy herself.

  Again came the thought of how different this Danielle Dryden was from any of the women with whom he had shared beds and bodies back home. Was it only her physical difference that fascinated him, or was there some quality about the young Earth woman herself that made him so curious? He had left Sarma for a variety of reasons, but one was to know what it was in the galaxy that was not like himself. And there, sitting with her parents and taking pleasure in her repast, sat something thoroughly different from him or any other Sarmian. Watching her, he actually felt his zazansa grow stiff in his trousers. How could such a woman intrigue him so? All across the ballroom were women of Earth and a few from his own planet, with bodies of the type to which he was accustomed; figures and forms of the kind he had enjoyed mounting since his Rite of Transition from boy to adolescent. Why did none of them capture his imagination as much as this plump but pretty human?

  After much dining and conversation, a globular device came floating in across the ballroom and hovered at the president's table. It emitted a pinging sound that reverberated through the room, not sharp enough to be offensive but loud enough to get everyone’s attention. The voices in the room ebbed to whispers and the president stood up, smiling, and spoke into the floating microphone. Her voice carried across the dance floor and the expanse of tables: "Friends and dignitaries, on behalf of the government of the Republic of Earth, I'm pleased and honored to have you all here tonight. This has been a most momentous year for Earth, as momentous as our First Contact so many years ago. This is the year we've found kinship not only with another intelligence in the galaxy, but with those whom we truly believe to be our long-lost kin. Among us here tonight is a member of their ruling family, whom we are proud to welcome into the human family. Fellow beings, I give you Prince Dagin of the planet Sarma."

  Various forms applause welled up in the room, from the clapping of hands to the snapping of claws, the whistling of speech and breath organs, the thumping of appendages on tables, and the flashing of bodily luminescence. With a smile of nobility, Dagin stood up from the table he shared with his attending diplomats and bowed to the corners of the ballroom, accepting the welcome and well wishing. He remained standing for the next part of the president's address.

  The president went on, "Now, for those whose custom is to dance, Prince Dagin will invite one member of the party to join him in the first dance of the evening." She turned graciously to the prince: "Your Highness...?"

  Even as the sound system brought up classic waltz from the days before humanity first reached into space, a hush of anticipation fell over the tables. Every female human and quite a number of the males anxiously watched Dagin step out from behind his table and down onto the dance floor. His smile did not so much waver as it narrowed into an almost mischievous crease of his lips. He strode across the empty space between the raised area and the rest of the party, his eyes moving from side to side. Everywhere that humans sat, people grinned and signed and squirmed. They suppressed laughs and giggles and squeals. Step by step, glance by glance, Dagin made his way to one particular area of the party where a dark-haired, tan-skinned beauty in a black dress sat smiling softly and surely at him.

  Danielle had noticed the dark woman when she first sat down. She was slim and tall and her curves were sleek and delicate, not broad and wide. She was exactly the type that Danielle knew a man like Dagin or Braden most desired. It came as no surprise to Danielle that such a woman would find the prince's favor.

  It did surprise both Danielle and the dark woman when the smiling Prince stepped past with a polite nod at the dark woman and proceeded to the tables beyond her. Danielle blinked in amazement. If the prince did not mean to dance with that black swan, then who...?

  The breath all but froze in Danielle's lungs when Dagin stopped at the table where she and her parents were sitting. She glanced over at her mother and realized what must be about to happen. Sylvia looked up, wide-eyed and trembling, at the Prince. It all made perfect sense to Danielle. Her mother was older than Dagin, but of course she had gone under the adipose lasers to reshape the contours of her body from round, full maturity back to slender youth. If Dagin fancied older women, of course Sylvia would catch his attention. What will Daddy say? Danielle silently wondered.

  Prince Dagin held out his hand and cordially asked, "May I have the honor of this dance?" It was only after he had spoken the words that Danielle realized in whose direction his arm was extended—and it was not at her mother.

  It was an utterly surreal moment that made Danielle wonder if some of the potted flowers in the ballroom were actually Denebian dream blooms and she had accidentally inhaled some of their pollen. Surely only the hallucinogenic pollen of the Denebian dream plant could make her think that the excruciatingly gorgeous prince of the planet Sarma was inviting her onto the dance floor. Girls with bodies like Danielle's did not dance with men with bodies like Dagin's.

  But, impossibly, Dagin repeated: "Please, Ms. Dryden...will you join me in this dance?"

  The moment hung suspended in Danielle's mind. The image of Dagin smiling at her, offering his hand, was joined by that of her parents watching it happen, flabbergasted. She next became aware of every set of eyes in the room, human and alien, resting on her, and of hundreds of bulging pupils, gaping mouths, whispering voices and wagging tongues. And then it was her mother again, grinning like a schoolgirl and nodding at her. She gazed back up at Dagin. There was not a hint of insincerity and mockery about him. This was real. "You do dance, do you not?" he asked.

  Danielle did not know how, but she heard herself say, "Yes...I do."

  "I believe your people call it a waltz," Dagin said. "Please do me the honor."

  Danielle felt Sylvia nudge her under the table, and the next thing she know she was standing up—and accepting Dagin's hand.

  The moments that followed remained as surreal as those preceding them. Danielle felt as though she were floating—an unlikely thing for a girl like her—as she went hand-in-hand onto the dance floor with an actual prince who was the embodiment of everything sexy. She could not feel an expression on her face. She could only hope that she was smiling as Dagin kept her hand in his and wrapped his other arm around her body. She reflexively wrapped her other arm around him, and off they went.

  They swung and circled round the floor like spinning galaxies locked by their gravity. Moving with the music, they spun fast and then slowly, Dagin keeping her close. Danielle's mind became a whirl of unbelievable things: that she was dancing with an incredibly sexy prince, that he was smiling at her as if she were the prettiest girl in the room, that she was moving with him and the music with what felt like an effortless grace. And somehow, it did not seem as if he were just doing a favor for the round girl who had eschewed having her body altered. She could swear that he actually seemed to like her.

  Other couples, including Thomas and Sylvia, joined them
on the floor. Danielle was only marginally aware of them. She was fixated on the face of Prince Dagin, on the sparkle in his dark eyes and the power that she sensed in the muscles that swayed so smoothly with her. She sensed a kindness in Dagin that both surprised and pleased her. Even if they parted after this dance, had no other business with each other, and never saw each other again after tonight, Danielle would be happy to take the memory of this experience back with her to Mars. She would lock it up in her heart and carry it with her forever.

  The tune ended. Dagin released Danielle and bowed to her. Danielle gave a curtsy in return. The other couples on the floor were by now just shapes at the edge of Danielle's awareness. She was prepared to go back to her table and bask in the memory of the amazing thing that had just happened. But just as she was set to turn and leave the dance floor, the next amazing thing happened.

  Dagin said, "I should very much like the pleasure of your company for the evening, Ms. Dryden—if you would not mind entertaining a stranger from far away."

  Suddenly back in a place of incredulity, Danielle blinked at him. "Me?"

  "Yes, if you please," Dagin said. "I know that I am merely a prince of a foreign planet, that I am more familiar with battlefields than ballrooms and new to the ways of your people. But I am here to learn that which I do not know of other worlds. I think it is true that you have never known a man such as me, even as I have never known such a woman as you. Will you not let us know one another this night?"

  Danielle could have sworn she heard something in Dagin's voice and saw something in his eyes that was not usually present in men like him when addressing women like her, but she dismissed it. This could not be anything but curiosity on his part—a kind, sincere, but altogether non-physical curiosity. Tentatively, she asked, "You're...asking me back to your table?"

  "No, not there," he replied. “There are observation decks on board here that look out upon your planet of Saturn, whose colors so beautifully match your gown. Join me on one of them. We shall speak alone, you and I, and learn more of one another. Would this not be pleasant?"

  The moment hung suspended in time for Danielle once again. This was not at all what she had expected when she left Mars. This whole evening had suddenly become a different thing than she had ever imagined. Perhaps it was the difference that made her say, "Yes... yes, it would be... very nice."

  A broad smile like the glow of a star cluster lit Dagin's face. "Excellent!" he said. He motioned to a serving man with a tray of drinks. He took a flute of champagne for himself and handed one to Danielle, offering her his arm.

  She was unable to do anything now but let this absolute dream of a night carry her onward, though reminding herself that this meant nothing but curiosity and company on his part. Danielle put her arm through his and let him lead her out of the ballroom. Behind them, Sylvia watched her daughter go off with the prince. A smile as big as Jupiter spread across her face while she squeezed the bicep of her astonished, slack-jawed husband as she had squeezed Danielle's bicep a thousand times before. All around the Drydens was a sea of faces as astonished as that of Thomas, all of them fixed on the round figure in the Saturn-colored gown exiting the ballroom on the arm of the tall, dark, fantastic prince.

  _______________

  On an observation deck right above the ballroom, where they could hear the muted strains of the music rising from below, a semicircle of plush seats and a table were arrayed before a long, tall row of viewports looking out onto a broad arc of the rings of Saturn, with Titan itself visible off the port side. Titan and Titan II thus orbited the jewel of the solar system together. Dagin led Danielle to one of the seats and they settled down there together, clinking glasses.

  They emptied their wine flutes in a silence punctuated by exchanges of smiles and moments when they looked away together out the viewports at the shimmering arc of Saturn's rings. When the empty glasses rested on the table, Dagin broke the silence. "Never have I known a night such as this," he said.

  Danielle replied, "You must have been off your planet before."

  "I have. But only on diplomatic missions to seal treaties with other planets, before we made contact with Earth. The life forms of other planets and their ways are not like yours or ours. The human race is, in truth, a revelation to us."

  She understood. "Sarma has been a revelation to us too. You're so much like us—but not like us. Meeting you, it's been like meeting ourselves, but seeing ourselves for the first time."

  He grinned and sparkled his eyes at her. "You see? We are different—yet not so different."

  "For someone who's not used to being around Earth people," she said, "you don't seem to have any trouble dancing like us. You waltz better than a lot of Earth men."

  His grin widened. "May I tell you a secret which only we will know?"

  "What?"

  "Before I left Sarma, I consulted with some of the diplomatic corps that was sent to our planet to establish Earth's embassy there. I had them teach me things of the graces and niceties of your people. One thing that I learned was how to dance with an Earth woman."

  Danielle arched her eyebrows at hearing this. "You had an Earth dance instructor?"

  "Yes."

  "A woman?"

  "Of course."

  She looked off, and Dagin saw an expression come over her face as if she were looking at something far beyond the far side of Saturn. "You are quiet again," he said. "Why?"

  "It's nothing," Danielle answered softly.

  "Nothing does not make a woman lose her voice and take her eyes from the man in her company. It is something."

  Still averting her eyes from his, she asked, "What was she like—the woman who taught you to dance?"

  "She was pleasant, charming. She was very patient. She had to be patient, as I had much to learn about moving with a partner instead of an opponent."

  At this, Danielle was quiet again. Dagin began to grow mildly vexed, still not grasping the reason. It seemed as if she were retreating far away from him and withdrawing into herself at once. He ventured, "Is there something else you wish to ask?"

  Danielle shook her head. "No, it's really nothing." But in her mind was an image of a beautiful woman diplomat, not very different from the dark woman Dagin had so unexpectedly passed in the ballroom to get to Danielle. In her imagination the woman who taught Dagin to dance was tall and willowy, like a long-stemmed flower. And Dagin danced her around the royal throne room of the planet Sarma—and off to his princely bedchamber, where their clothes floated to the floor and Dagin spread her across his bed, lay his perfect princely body atop her, and passionately penetrated her long into the night. Danielle's heart sighed at what her mind saw.

  She could not go on sitting with him, with that image whirling around in her head. Making herself face him again, Danielle asked, "Why did you decide to leave Sarma? Just to travel?"

  Dagin sensed that there was still something that Danielle was not asking, but he addressed the question at hand. "Partly. Earth and its people have presented me with an opportunity. You see, I am a Prince of Sarma, but I am not the Crown Prince. The line of succession from my father passes not to me, but to my elder brother Dantar. 'Tis Dantar who now ascends to the throne. As his brother, I am still prince, but I shall never be king save that something should befall him. Remaining on Sarma, I would be a member of the Royal Court, and I would have duties and obligations—but as this is now a time of peace on our planet, there would be little for me to do but drill our warriors and act royally. The tedium of it all would be more than I could bear. Therefore did I choose instead to take my leave of the home planet and explore the greater galaxy and the things that it has to offer, to experience other worlds and other beings that I would never know if I were simply to remain in the Royal Court. Do you not agree that life is not meant to be allowed to pass without living it?"

  Danielle answered wistfully, "Yes... I guess I do."

  Now he just had to know: "Why do you seem so sad when you say that?"

&
nbsp; "I guess it's because before I let my parents talk me into coming here, that's pretty much what I was doing—letting life go by."

  "It is because of him, is it not? The one who accosted you on the receiving line, the one who upset you—he was your lover. He did not treat you well."

  At this, Danielle gave a rueful little laugh. "Oh, he treated me just fine. He was kind and sweet and passionate and... and he treated me like you would treat a princess. And I guess that's what I was to him, a princess who could give him what he wanted. Braden treated me like he wanted me, but... he really wanted something from me."

  "He did not truly love you."

  "He loved what he thought I could give him. What he really wanted in a lover... he couldn't get from me."

  "There was another," Dagin said knowingly.

  Danielle almost snapped at him, "Yes, there was another! And she... she wasn't like me."

  Now they were getting somewhere. "What was she like?" Dagin asked.

  A sour expression came over Danielle. "You really want to know? Really?"

  "I would not ask if I did not wish to know," he said.

  She fixed him with a look as if her eyes were two red-hot branding irons. An edge came into her voice, an edge of hurt and sorrow and despair—and anger, long denied but long and keenly felt. "She was like the women that you must be used to! She was thin. She wasn't built like some kind of... of... moon! She was what men like you always want! The women on Sarma—they're warriors, aren't they? They must all be these gladiator women, built for battle, all muscle! Not like me! I let myself believe I was what Braden really wanted because for someone like me, a man like Braden comes around one time or never! I talked myself into thinking he really wanted me because I didn't want it to be never. I wanted someone like him—and I got what was coming to me."

  Stung by her words and the way she spoke them, Dagin sighed and frowned and sat back in his seat. This was something for which he was not prepared. He asked, "If men such as me never desire women such as you, why then did I ask you to dance? And why then did I ask you for your company after the dance?"