Catching Stardust Read online

  Copyright © 2013 Heather Thurmeier

  KINDLE EDITION

  All rights reserved.

  Catching Stardust

  Falling Stars: Book 1

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Falling Stars: Book 1

  Maia’s been banished to Earth from her place among the stars as the eldest sister of Pleiades… and all because Orion won’t stop chasing her around the universe. Now Maia has to find her way back to the stars with only the help of hunky astronautics scientist Zander while staying hidden from Orion.

  Zander never expected the discovery of his lifetime to fall into his lap, but when Maia also falls into his bed, he knows there’s no way he can turn the goddess who has stolen his heart into a science project. With his best friend ready to sell him out for fame, her wannabe lover Orion chasing after her on Earth, and time running out fast, Zander must fight to keep Maia safe long enough to get her home.

  If going home means losing Zander, is Maia ready to go back to the stars?

  Dedication

  To my sisters,

  I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without both of you in my life—teaching me, supporting me, and most of all loving me for who I am without question.

  Without you both I also wouldn’t:

  1. Be terrified of spiders. Thanks for that.

  2. Know not to mix grape drink mix directly into the bottle of vodka… I mean water.

  (Mum, I swear I meant water.)

  3. Know how to ride a horse bareback.

  4. Know how to buy a properly fitting bra.

  5. Know how to take out a zombie at 20 yards with a kickass bow and arrow.

  For these things and many more, I say thank you.

  This book is for you, Leslie and Tricia.

  ~XOXO, Your Baby Sister.

  Acknowledgement

  I want to say a special thank you to Shoshanna Evers. You have always been one of my biggest supporters and I wouldn’t be nearly as knowledgeable in this industry without your help, guidance, friendship, and brutally honest feedback.

  Chapter One

  Maia’s star was missing.

  Well, it probably wasn’t missing. Stars don’t usually just fall out of the sky, now do they?

  She studied the darkness above her. Millions of stars speckled the night, shining down on her. As she scanned the sky looking for her favorite one, she squinted her eyes as if doing so would somehow make sense out of what she saw.

  Maia squirmed, trying to get comfortable on the hard surface beneath her back. Now that she thought about it, why was she laying on something hard, damp and cold when her bed was warm and cozy with luxuriously soft sheets made of the finest cotton-silk blend stardust could buy?

  She definitely wasn’t lying in her bed. Had she fallen asleep in the park again?

  Sometimes that happened after a particularly delicious dinner or a party with too much wine—she’d wander into the park near her home to dip her toes into the coolness of Calliope Springs and she’d fall asleep on the damp grasses with her feet still dangling in the water. The feel of cold water washing over her calves and between her toes was incredibly soothing and would almost always lull her into a restful sleep.

  She wiggled her toes. No cool water slipped between them. Instead, her feet were bound in strappy sandals.

  I’m so not at the springs.

  She focused on the stars once more. Actually, now that she really studied them, the stars themselves seemed unusually far away tonight. And why were the twins staring back at her? She didn’t fall asleep to Gemini—she fell asleep and woke to Aries. Always Aries. For as long as she’d been one of the sisters of Pleiades, she’d always fallen into her dreams wondering how Aries could be so darn stubborn every single day of his eternity. Seems he made it his mission to live up to his hardheaded ‘ram’ reputation.

  Maia’s gaze darted around quickly scanning her area. Bed? Missing. Curtains? Nada. Waterfall just beyond her balcony? Neg-a-tive. No balcony either.

  Odd.

  A crystal clear view of the Pleiades constellation in the sky? Impossible. If she were on Pleiades how could she be looking at Pleiades?

  One, two, three, four, five, six… Damn it to Hades. She counted the dots of her constellation again. Only six stars were visible where there were supposed to be seven.

  Maybe stars do fall from the sky.

  But they shouldn’t. At the very least, there should be a marker-star put in her place. Of course that was usually planned in advance when people knew they’d be doing some intergalactic travel, and since she hadn’t planned for this trip to—where the hell was she anyways?

  She should be on the planet of Pleiades, surrounded by the constellation of seven stars that represented herself and her six sisters. And yet here she was, apparently in a completely different part of the galaxy.

  She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow. She was in a small field, on top of a low hill, surrounded on all sides by tall, leafy trees. Oh yeah, and the unmistakable New York City skyline beyond the trees loomed over her like a villain in a cliché movie. She could almost hear the evil laughter echoing in her head. Mwahahaha.

  Well, that would explain the smell of sweat and car exhaust.

  “I’m on Earth. Why in Hades am I on Earth?”

  Maia thought back to the last thing she could remember doing, which certainly hadn’t been teleporting to Earth. She remembered having dinner with her sisters, Electra and Merope. Merope had cried on her shoulder about fighting with Scorpius. Another lover’s quarrel. Seemed they happened on a regular basis with those two. I mean really, what did that girl expect when she dated someone like him? Maia always got the distinct impression Scorpius crept around in the background waiting for the right moment to strike and stab you in the back when you least expected it.

  She couldn’t worry about Merope right now. Merope was probably already over whatever their fight had been about and moved on to the make-up sex part. Sadly, Maia often had to listen to that tale the following day over breakfast.

  Maia needed to focus on her own problems for a change—mysterious, unplanned teleportation currently topping her list.

  After dinner and probably a few too many glasses of wine, she’d said goodbye to her sisters for the night and went for a walk in the park near her house. The stress of comforting Merope left Maia longing for the cool water of the spring and soothing sounds of the waterfall, so she’d planned on taking a quick dip before heading to bed.

  At that point her mind went fuzzy, as if a memory hid just beyond her reach. She sensed it was important, but yet she couldn’t grasp it.

  She stared up at the sky. Orion—the hunter’s constellation—seemed to twinkle the brightest as it did every time he got r
eally angry or was immensely thrilled with himself.

  Show off.

  Suddenly she remembered standing with Orion in the park near Calliope Springs. She’d been about to pull off her clothes for a quick skinny-dip when Orion wandered out of the bushes, startling her. Orion pleaded with her to give him a chance. He’d advanced on her, pulling her against him and kissing her.

  She’d clipped him one in the jaw instead.

  Then what?

  She fought the haze clouding her memories, trying to grasp a hint of what had happened next. It didn’t make sense. Why was she here? How was she here?

  “He cursed and whined about his sore jaw and I turned to leave then…” She rubbed her hand across her forehead as if doing so might help her conjure up the memories she needed. “Think.”

  He’d kissed her. She’d punched him…then…

  She’d been thrown over his shoulder like a carcass from one of his hunting excursions. But she wasn’t a carcass. She’d fought, squirming and punching his back as he’d carried her into the woods.

  “You’ve left me no other choice,” he’d said.

  Then everything went blank as the memory ended abruptly.

  “I should’ve known,” she seethed. “This is because of Orion. I’m going to kill him when I get my hands on him.”

  It was always because of Orion. She’d made it perfectly clear about a million times over the course of eternity that she would never be interested in him and yet Orion couldn’t seem to get that tidbit of information through his thick scull.

  This still didn’t explain how she’d gone from Orion’s shoulder in the woods on Pleiades to flat on her back in Central Park on Earth.

  The shock of waking up on Earth settled into the pit of her stomach like one of Electra’s paperweight-like biscuits. Her sister couldn’t bake to save her life, yet she insisted on hosting dinner parties. Maia would happily eat her sister’s cooking right now if it meant she was still on Pleiades instead of Earth. She wasn’t happy about this situation, but hanging around pouting in the middle of Central Park wasn’t going to help her get back home so she could give Orion a piece of her mind.

  And she’d probably give him a strategically placed kick with her pointy-toed boots too.

  A lump of bright pink and zebra stripes shimmered under the light cast by one of the nearby street lamps lining the walking paths through the park. The colorful heap of material lay a few feet from her, halfway tucked under the cover of a bush.

  She crawled across the grass on her knees. As she got closer, she could see her worse fears confirmed. The lump of tacky material was a bag. There was only one way she could think of that she’d ended up on Earth with a hideous bag like that beside her.

  Zeus had sent her here.

  Zeus—no-fashion-sense-even-if-a-design-climbed-up-his-body-and-sent-him-down-a-runway, Zeus.

  Now it made sense. Zeus had sent her here. Of course he had. He was the only one with the ability to teleport people, with or without their permission. She couldn’t even count the times he’d thrown that little factoid back at her through eternity.

  “I sent you to these stars and I can take you right back out of them, missy,” Zeus’s voice echoed in her brain. She should have known he was behind this. But why? Why send her here?

  Why send me here with such an ugly bag?

  “Zeus, you couldn’t conjure up something cute, huh? In the entire universe, there wasn’t one stylish bag you could have thrown my stuff into.”

  She pawed through the bag—A single change of clothes, a couple of small toiletries, and a wallet. She flipped open the wallet and found a few bills and her credit card.

  Well, at least he didn’t drop me here with absolutely nothing.

  Maia stood and brushed the loose grass off her dress. She glanced around her at the few buildings she could make out in the darkness and made an educated guess at which direction she’d find Fifth Avenue. Now that she knew she had some money and a credit card, she could catch a taxi and find a hotel to call home.

  Surely, once she spoke to Zeus and her father they could sort out whatever problem had made Zeus send her here and then they could teleport her back home. This was all just some kind of silly overreaction about something. It had to be.

  She would go home, back to Pleiades. And then she would find Orion and beat him with his own club until he promised never to cause problems for her again. Starting with keeping his hands to himself.

  ***

  Zander fiddled with the tiny knobs on the side of the telescope. He wasn’t sure what the kids had done exactly, but somehow they’d managed to completely throw the device out of focus. It wasn’t even aimed at the sky anymore.

  He twisted a few more dials then looked through the lens to find the Pleiades constellation and finished focusing the telescope. The Stargazers Astronomy Club was currently learning about the seven sisters constellation and they weren’t going to learn much of anything if they couldn’t even look at the real thing—that was the whole point for bringing the kids and telescope all the way to Central Park.

  As he gazed through the lens and adjusted the last dial, the telescope finally came into focus—on a woman. Somehow, he’d missed the stars completely. Hell, he’d missed the sky completely. Some astronomer he was.

  The woman strode toward him from somewhere on the other side of the park. He couldn’t tell exactly where she was in relation to them since the telescope was zoomed in so close.

  She must have been moving fairly quickly judging by how her long auburn hair flowed out behind her in the breeze. It rippled in the air like it had a mind of its own. The long tresses mesmerized him even through the telescope.

  He focused the lens tighter on her face. She looked beautiful and—annoyed. Yes, deeply annoyed. Her eyes were narrowed as if concentrating hard on something in the distance. Her mouth moved as if she was speaking to someone, but she looked to be alone. Sad.

  Perhaps this woman—as beautiful as she appeared—was suffering from some mental illness. It wasn’t unusual to see people roaming New York City talking to invisible friends, or enemies, in many cases. But it was always a little heartbreaking. Especially when the person was so young…and gorgeous.

  Just then she stopped walking, looked up to the sky and yelled into the night while shaking her fist at the air.

  He chuckled quietly to himself. Oh yes, definitely lost her grip on reality.

  Reluctantly, he pulled the telescope from the woman and turned it toward the sky. It only took a moment to find the right patch of universe and focus the telescope onto the tiny cluster of seven stars known as Pleiades.

  “Come on Mr. Arius. Is it ready yet?” one of the children asked, tapping his arm with obvious impatience.

  “Okay, kids. Who’s first?” A surge of middle-schoolers barreled up to the telescope. “One at a time. Form a line.” He laughed at their excitement. He loved the kids’ enthusiasm.

  Tommy, one of the more enthusiastic young astronomers, put his eye to the telescope. “Can you see the seven sisters, Tommy?” Zander asked.

  “I can see the six sisters,” Tommy answered, not removing his face from the telescope.

  “I think you’ve missed one. Count again and then it’s Sasha’s turn.”

  Zander smiled at the other kids as they all fidgeted in line, waiting their turns. Tommy needed to hurry up or they would all get even more restless.

  Missing a star, he laughed under his breath.

  Tommy stepped back from the telescope and scrunched up his face at Zander. “Six, sir. Only six. I counted three times. Maybe you got it wrong and there’s only supposed to be six of ‘em.”

  Sasha pushed past Tommy to take her place at the telescope. “Yep, six,” she confirmed after a moment of looking.

  “Let me take a look,” Zander said, peering through the lens and counting the twinkling stars of Pleiades in his head. Damn it. They were right. Only six stars twinkled in the sky tonight. There was some gasses and dust in the c
onstellation too, but not enough to obscure their vision of the seventh star.

  Zander stepped back from the telescope, making more room for the kids as he contemplated what made no sense. Stars didn’t just disappear from the sky. That was absurd. So where the hell was that star then?

  The familiar stirrings of curiosity and excitement swirled to life in his brain. This could be huge. Gigantic. A missing star could be a discovery of epic proportions—he just had to figure out where the hell it went. And collect the data. And factor in the possible causes.

  No. Don’t do this again. It’s dust or a dense gas cloud or something. That’s all. Walk away and leave it be.

  He needed to distance himself from this. Stop thinking about what a missing star could possibly mean. He couldn’t let another non-discovery ruin his life, like it almost had last time. Zander took another step away from the kids now trying to crowd around the telescope so he could clear his head, but was knocked to the side as something slammed into him. “Ouch,” he yelped, looking to the side to see what he’d been hit by. Turns out it was a “who,” not a “what.”

  “Hi,” he stammered, staring face to face with the woman he’d spotted through the telescope only moments ago. Apparently she hadn’t been on the other side of the park as he’d originally thought.

  She was even more stunning up close—her long hair a mess of auburn waves and curls falling down to the middle of her back. Small twigs and little flecks of grass sprouted from her head as if she’d barrel-rolled down a tall hill on her way to him. She wore a long, flowing sundress and sandals that looked like she should be on the beaches of Maui instead of in the middle of Central Park.

  “Sorry,” she said. Her gaze met his and he could tell instantly her eyes were most likely her best feature, even if he couldn’t make out the color. His gaze flickered down the rest of her quickly, drinking her in before settling on the patch of skin peeking out at him from the deep, scooped neckline of her dress. Well, maybe her eyes were her second best feature.