Or, Even Badass Airplane Thieves Need Love Too

Apologies for the wait. Between a heavily reduced ability to internet from work, an upswing in personal responsibilities, and an impending interview, I’ve been a bit strapped for review time.

Basically, I’ve started writing a story, getting ready for the North American Discworld Convention in a week or so, continued to work on Deconstructing Moya (which has been getting really good you guys), recorded our third anniversary episode for Made of Fail… I’ve been busy.

This book has been interesting so far. The characters are defined, the plot immediately presents itself without a false start, and what’s even more impressive is that the author knows how to use adjectives, and more importantly, how to stop. Color me impressed.

However, I’ve only read the first chapter. So away we go!

After all the craziness of the previous night, Lucas awakes in his apartment, surprised to find that he’d been thinking of that woman all night. This is totally out of character for him; he’s never been even the slightest amount of interested in anything before!

He consciously willed himself not to get interested in any woman. He had his work and his sister and that’s all he’d ever really needed.

Because what’s love when compared to the thrill of repossessing airplanes? I mean, I love my fiancée and all, but if I had the choice between marrying her and stealing airplanes for a living? Trekkiegirl would understand.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that…”

While Lucas meanders about, waxing expositional about his sex life (lack thereof) and the strange reaction to the bloody and bruised pregnant woman (hubba hubba, apparently), he tries to figure out what to do about the Jane Doe down the hall in his sister’s apartment.

Of course, Jane herself isn’t much help in that regard. What with having The Pregnesia and all, she’s been a tearful wreck. The soft vulnerability and tears continue to undermine Lucas’s gruff facade, dredging up feelings of protectiveness and maternal favor that were hitherto unrealized within our Badass Airplane Thief, feelings which of course he isn’t having, how could anyone think he was feeling this, what the hell.

Tears welled up in her eyes once again. “I can’t believe how kind you’re being to me.”

He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t him, that his sister was the kind one. He was the cynical one who still didn’t know whether to believe her or not.

But for the moment he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. If she was lying, then sooner or later he would know. If she was telling the truth, then he sure as hell didn’t want to be responsible for tossing a pregnant woman out on the streets all alone with no money and no memory.

While he gruffly makes her breakfast (scrambled eggs, this is not a metaphor for anything whatsoever) and struggles with his attraction to her (“She obviously had a man in her life. And in any case, Lucas didn’t do relationships.”), she carefully posits that she has a possible feeling that she might in fact be in a tiny spot of trouble. Maybe. Just a bit.

Lucas responds with his still-percolating theory that Jane had gotten into a fight with her husband/boyfriend/whatever and is hiding until she can go back to him to “kiss and make up”. They banter back and forth a bit between the basics: She says she wouldn’t stay with someone abusive and maybe she fell down some stairs, he says that if that was the case she’d have scrapes on her hands and knees and also blunt objects were involved.

In any case, it’s time to Go To Wal-Mart And Get Some Clothes, since she’s going to be staying with Loretta for at least a few days longer. What is it with romance novels and going to Wal-Mart? I mean sure, there’s a bunch of them in this country, and it’s probably a quick and easy fallback for a store name so you don’t really have to really do much research to see where people would actually ohhhhhhh never mind.

They get to Wal-Mart, with Lucas asking general questions about Jane’s life that she’s surprised to find she knows the answers to – her favorite TV show, her favorite restaurant, etc. – when her Extremely Vague Threat sense starts going off. Disguising it as cramps and nerves, she waves Lucas off.

Lucas is so upset about the fact that she’s brushing him off and not telling him the whole story that he gets completely distracted by her beauty and starts grabbing extra clothes for her. Yeah, you show her, Lucas. He even heads her off when she tries to get just a couple of things from the clearance section – thoughtful of her, since she doesn’t want to spend much of her money – by chauvinistically insulting her.

She returned to where he stood with the cart, carrying an ugly gray T-shirt that had probably been the cheapest on the rack.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “She looked at him in surprise. “If I’m going to be looking at you for the next day or two, I don’t want you wearing something ugly.”

To which she immediately starts tearing up and calling him a great man.

(I’ll be honest, it’s actually not as bad as I’m making it look. She needs clothes, he has the money to get them, so he’s trying to get her to accept his generosity. But still, Lucas, you could be a lot less of a dick about it.)

While an old woman conspicuously watches the two of them and runs off while dialing a cell phone, Lucas continues to be sidetracked by the niggling suspicion that he might be becoming domesticated, the horror. They check out, but a van pulls up and two men start trying to manhandle her into it, gee that wasn’t foreshadowed at all.

Chaos Theories: (Or, Strange Attractors and the Terminology They Use)

• “Again he was struck by her prettiness. She wasn’t screamingly drop-dead gorgeous, but rather she had a quiet, simmering beauty.”