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necessarily,” Brynne-E’ea pointed out. “Many humans procreate without an official bonding ceremony.”
    Gray winced. When she put it like that, it sounded like his kid would be merely the unintended result of a casual hookup—likely a broken condom, because he always suited up. His mind flashed over some of the women he’d enjoyed sex with, and then tried to imagine any of them with a baby—his baby in their arms.
    The picture didn’t come … although he did find himself wondering what Brynne would look like, round with pregnancy. Well, she’d look beautiful. But that didn’t mean she’d be a good mother. And he was sure he’d be a lousy father. Unless he made some changes in his life … which he didn’t want to.
    “Well, let’s say you’re right—and it sounds pretty far-fetched to me—I have no plans to procreate,” he said. “I like my life just the way it is.”
    He stopped short, suddenly aware of exactly how stupid that sounded, when he was hiding out from faceless criminals, and his dead girlfriend and/or an alien composed of light was here with plans to guard him from a supposed ‘inter-galactic’ assassin.
    “Okay, I liked my life the way it was —before all this happened.”
    Brynne-E’ea cocked her head, her brown eyes searching. “Even with Brynne gone?”
    Gray winced. He opened his mouth, then closed it, not sure how to put into words the mix of grief, guilt, anger and remorse he’d lived with since Brynne died.
    Grief at her death, guilt that the last words she heard from him were ugly, anger at her for not listening to him, and remorse that he hadn’t tried harder to show her she didn’t need to twist herself into knots to try and please him … and then another layer of guilt that he just wasn’t sure it was in him to make that extra effort. He was a selfish bastard who lived the way he lived, and other people could take him the way he was, or move on.
    “Brynne’s a beautiful woman,” he said. “But she needs to learn to put herself first, and not try so hard to please m—I mean, whatever man she ends up with.” Which wasn’t gonna be him.
    So he’d been lonely after she was gone, and maybe started to turn to her and share a private joke or comment at times, and maybe reached for her in the night. Didn’t mean he wanted to put up with her brand of crazy.
    Enough of this. He drained his coffee and set his cup in the sink. “Let’s find you something to wear, and we’ll go get groceries.” He had a pair of Lycra running shorts that might stay on her.
    “It won’t be necessary for you to procure clothing for me. Your neighbor, Topper, left a bag of female clothing and sundries on the back step. I will utilize them.”
    Great. His neighbor couldn’t call the sheriff for him, but she could make up a care package for his visitor.
    This town was so weird.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Gray leaned his forearms on the grocery cart and sighed again—he seemed to be doing a lot of that today—and the day was only half over.
    It had been a long morning on the road to and around the famed town of Roswell. Had Gray thought ahead, he would’ve realized his passenger was going to react to the local obsession with aliens. Hell, they drove into town on the ‘Extraterrestrial Highway’, also known as State Route 375.
    The first thing they saw as they hit the city limits was a huge, lime-green statue of an alien with a big head and slanted eyes. Brynne-E’ea nearly fell out of the car window, levitating off her seat to view it.
    He'd grabbed her by the waistband of her shorts and hauled her back in, reminding her other humans could see her.
    She merely started in with her weird snorting laugh. Which he had to admit, made him chuckle every time he thought of it. Hard not to, when a gorgeous blonde was making noises like a horse in the throes of hilarity.
    “This is what you humans believe other races look like?” she asked him. “Nowhere in our galaxy have I ever seen a being who