Woman From Another Planet (audiobook) | Part One | Episode 2

The sudden, loud knocking startled him even more. It came from the short entrance hall just outside the room—three sharp knocks followed by a pause and a knock so loud that it hinted at more than just impatience. He knew that it had to be Janice, for her knocking—when she did knock—

followed a pre-arranged pattern. A fourth knock was part of the pattern.

But not a thump that rattled the door chain.

He sprang out of bed and seized the first garment that came to hand. It was a terry-cloth bathrobe which Janice had urged him to have laundered. But

he just hadn't gotten around to it, and now it contributed nothing to his

male aplomb and early morning dash. He hoped she wouldn't mind too much when he took her in his arms and brought his lips down hard on hers. And smoothed her red-gold hair and ran his rough artist's hands up and down her back until she began to shiver a little and purr like a kitten.

He hoped she wouldn't think about the robe and how untidy he looked in it.

Making women forget little disharmonies like that could be tougher than

painting a picture that would put Utrillo in the shade. Well ... what the

heck? He was an artist, wasn't he? Not all women went for artists, but

when they did they usually liked them a bit on the unkempt, disorganized side.

You just had to keep the disorganization from getting out of control. If you allowed it to spread to the romance department you were sunk. But that couldn't happen with Janice—not when he took her in his arms and told her how beautiful she was.

As he strode toward the door a tiny muscle in his jaw started twitching.

Something was seriously wrong. He was sure of it. Self-containment was

Janice's specialty. Her self-control was phenomenal and no matter how

eager she might be to see him it just wasn't in character for her to try to

break the door down.

Something extraordinary must have come up to make her act that way. It

was hard to imagine what it could be, to bring about such a change in the

way she ordinarily behaved. Fright? Hysteria? But Janice didn't have a

baker's pinch of hysteria in her make-up. His alarm increased as he

reached the door, and started fumbling with the chain. His fingers were all thumbs and the knocking was so loud and continuous now that it further unnerved him, so that it took him nearly a minute to get the door open.

She came in with a sobbing gasp,