Your Planet or Mine? Read Online Free PDF

trying to catch something that wasn’t there.”
    “Is it any different from what you’re doing right now with your love life? Trying to catch something that’s not there?”
    Was that what she was doing? Was that why it never worked out? Deflated, Jana sagged back in her chair. Sometimes, her grandfather’s insight sliced right to the heart.
    His blue eyes softened with love. “Don’t settle, punkin, but don’t pine for what never existed in the first place, either.”
    “I won’t settle. I promise you.” How can you say that when every man you’ve ever dated has been a compromise?
    She’d never stopped searching for the magic she felt with Peter, looking for it in every male she’d kissed since, comparing each and every one of them to an imaginary figure from her childhood. How sad was that? Jana pouted at the coffee grounds strewn across the bottom of her cup.
    “You’re all heart, my girl, but now it’s time to leave your heart out of it and give this manhunt some serious thought. Picking the right man will increase your odds of winning the White House.”
    “That’s years away.” Nothing could convince him she wouldn’t be the president someday.
    “No time like the present to prepare for the future.”
    Jana checked the time. “Speaking of which, I’ve got to go. I’m supposed to be at the fish farm by nine.”
    Vaguely unsettled by the conversation, she picked up her attaché bag and hooked the strap over her shoulder, smoothing a hand over the skirt of her butter-yellow suit. “Well, keep your eyes open for me,” she said with forced cheer, “because I trust your taste more than Mom’s.”
    Mom liked Alex Neiman, a cute restaurateur who co-owned the trendy new vodka and caviar bar Ice with cousin Viktor. Alex was making a concerted play to win Jana over, wooing her, wooing the family, but she still had to be convinced Alex wasn’t interested because of her family and their celebrity.
    Or maybe she was just tired of men. The search for The One had certainly been futile. She wasn’t ready to give up, but then she wasn’t motivated to keep searching, either. Maybe a little vacation from the dating game would do her some good.
    She came around the table and bent down to kiss her grandfather’s cheek before leaving him to his newspaper and coffee in the sprawling old ranch house that had framed their childhoods, generations apart.
     
    A N HOUR LATER , Jana felt more like prey than a politician as she stood on a narrow footbridge over seething tanks of already-huge, teenage sturgeon waiting to speak. A fish burst out of the water. Its white mouth wide-open in anticipation, it aimed for her feet. Jana sidestepped away and it dropped back into the pool. Ice-cold water sliced across her shins.
    She’d been on the bridge with her communications director, Steve, and the owners of the fish farm for all of five minutes, and she was the only one who was wet. Rivulets of water ran down her calves and into her shoes. Obviously canvas open-toed heels with raffia bows were the wrong fashion choice. Who knew coral-colored toenails would be a siren’s call for five thousand hormone-driven fish?
    “I was told they can’t see very well,” she said out of the corner of her mouth to her communications director as they watched the circling shadows. “They find their food by sense of smell. Yet, look at them. They want us.”
    “They want you, ” Steve whispered back. “You’re the only one getting wet.”
    Jana wiggled her toes. “Think it’s the nail polish?”
    A sturgeon leaped out of the water. The impact of its ugly whiskery head bouncing off the bottom of the bridge made a rubbery thunk. Water sliced across Jana’s skirt and hose. I’m on your side, little fishies. Your side . Protecting California’s wildlife had been a priority since she’d taken office. A thankless job, if the sturgeon had anything to say about it.
    The report she’d read before coming here had informed her that this