“Then how is all this experimentin’ going to help you get a job as a fancy cook if you aren’t learning how to make particular things?”
“Well, it’s more about learning how fresh food works—the consistency, texture, and flavor of things, what heat setting and preparation method works best for various types of foods, that sort of thing. If I can figure out general principles and become familiar with how to work with fresh foods, then I should be able to get a job.”
It was too bad she had her heart set on New Dominica. He could get used to having this kind of food every day, topped off with fresh cookies served to him in bed. And somebody sweet and quiet, with long curling hair who made him laugh, and with a slow, warm smile that had to be coaxed, but when it appeared lit up the room, to share it with. That would be a hell of a life.
Too bad it wasn’t likely to happen. For one thing, the woman in question would have to want to spend time with him.
His fork scraped against the bottom of the bowl; he started and looked down. The bowl was empty. He’d eaten the entire meal already?
He cleared his throat, embarrassed to admit how much he’d liked it. “Uh, I don’t suppose there’s any more?”
That shy smile peeked out again. “There’s a bit more; I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry or not. I set some more aside in case you were.” She stood up and took the bowl from him. “Can I get you anything else? Do you need Vienna to bring you any pain meds or do want something to read?”
“A couple more of those cookies wouldn’t go amiss.”
She smiled again, more broadly, and blushed slightly. He didn’t think it was from embarrassment this time. Satisfaction spread through him, warming his insides.
“Anything else?” she asked.
He had a thought, but it wasn’t fit to share. He shook his head.
“I’ll be right back.”
As she left, he put his hands behind his head and leaned back on the pillows. Absently, his mind wandered to her wreath of soft, brown curls, and he wondered what it would be like to plunge his hands into them to pull her in for a long, slow kiss. Every part of him perked up at that thought. He was surprised by both the thought and his reaction to it. He’d liked the idea of Kyra staying on as an abstract; somewhere along the line, though, he’d apparently begun to think on it as a real possibility.
He frowned. He’d only just managed to get her to spend five minutes with him—and he’d had to get shot to do it—and suddenly he was thinking long-term. She was going to be leaving in a week, he reminded himself.
But there wasn’t a single part of him that cared to listen.
Kyra put the laden platter on the dining room table and then she slid onto the bench beside Ivy. She ducked her head, peeking around the table to see if anyone objected to her joining them. It felt strange to sit here among the boisterous group of diners, but Derrick’s admonition that it was suspicious she never shared the communal meal rang in her head. A bunch of fces swiveled in her direction, and she scrunched down, trying to sink into the floor.
“What’d you cook for us tonight, little lady?” one of the roughnecks asked, craning his head to get a better view of the platter.
“It sure smells good!” one of the techs said, tucking a napkin into her collar. Several other passengers murmured their agreement.
Ivy nudged her with a smile. “Go on, tell us what it is!”
“It’s a spicy rice dish with beans.”
“Yeehaw!” said Rigger, one of the roughnecks, holding up her plate so the person nearest the platter could dish some out to her. Rigger was boisterous and built like a freighter, but she had one of the kindest hearts Kyra had ever encountered. The woman had come on board at New Hispaniola four days ago and had bonded with everyone. She sat in the kitchen and listened to Harlan’s endless stories, freeing Kyra to focus on cooking, helped Ivy with various repairs, and entertained the roughnecks—which kept them from fighting—with tales of her various exploits across the territory. She also spent time playing cards with Derrick while he was stuck in the infirmary. Since Rigger was keeping him company, there wasn’t any reason for Kyra to visit. It wasn’t like she and Derrick were friends. And she doubted he’d even noticed her absence. However, every time she thought of Rigger and Derrick together in the infirmary, she couldn’t help but feel a stupid pang of jealousy. You’re an idiot, she told herself fiercely and repeatedly.
As if summoned by her thoughts, a familiar broad-chested figure appeared in the doorway. Kyra’s heart skipped a beat.
“Derrick!” Ivy crowed in surprise. “What are you doing up?”
“Apparently a man’s got to drag himself out here if he wants to eat,” he said grumpily, though now that Kyra knew him better, she could see he wasn’t actually angry. In fact, as he paused in the doorway, surveying the boisterous scene, he seemed almost amused.
“How are you feeling?” Vienna asked, nodding at his leg.
“I’m fine,” he said curtly. He was still limping, though not as badly as when he’d rescued her, and he looked less peaky than when Kyra had last seen him. He definitely seemed to be on the mend.
Derrick moved to the table; he stopped across from Kyra and squeezed himself into the narrow space on the bench between two techs, who were forced to move aside to make room. His eyes scanned the faces around the table and then locked onto Kyra. She felt herself flush all over as his dark, brooding gaze bore into her.
“Pass the bread,” was all he said.
Kyra swallowed hard not quite sure why he was staring at her so. He seemed very… serious, and she wondered if he were mad at her about something, though for the life of her, she couldn’t fathom what.
Silently, she complied, passing the bread, and then hastily busied herself with passing plates around the table so everyone could get some of the meal served to them.
Amidst the hubbub, Derrick said to her in a low voice, “You ain’t been by.”
Her heart flip-flopped. Derrick didn’t seem to expect an answer; he turned his attention to his plate and dug into his food. She realized she was trembling and kicked herself. One intense stare and a couple of words, and she was all worked up and his for the taking? What was wrong with her?
Things quieted down around the table as everyone dug in. For a moment, the only sound was forks clattering against plates and the sound of chewing.
“Damn, but this is good!” Rigger shouted. Everyone broke into laughter. She looked at Kyra. “Can I take you with me to my next job?”
There were murmurs of agreement. Kyra blushed. She snuck a glance at the faces gathered around the table feeling… odd. She didn’t quite know what to label this emotion. As she continued to listen to everyone talking and laughing and joking, it came to her that she’d never been in a gathering like this before—friendly, happy people enjoying each other’s company.
This must be what family feels like, she thought. She knew this moment in time was fleeting—it was rare for all of the crew and all of the passengers to be together like this, and soon these passengers would be gone, replaced with others. This “family” was fluid and ever-changing. And yet… Vienna, Ivy, Harlan—they were constants. Their presence, their personalities, would shape any gathering, making it a warm, jovial affair. Since she’d been on board, every single communal gathering had been fun and relaxed, despite the rotating roster of passengers.
“Girl, your talents will be wasted on New Dominica!” Rigger said. “Those fancy horse-behinds won’t appreciate you like we do. Out here, you’re one in a million!”
“I sure wish we could get you to stay, that’s for sure,” Ivy said. “The thought of going back to Harlan’s cooking makes me want to cry!”
“Me, too!” said Harlan, and everyone laughed.
Kyra laughed, too, gratified by the compliments. One of the techs asked for the bread, and as Kyra hefted the serving plate and passed it across the table to Derrick to pass it down his side, he caught the plate and held it for a moment, forcing her to mee
t his eyes.
“So, would you?” he asked softly.
“Would I what?”
“Stay. If there were a position here for you?”
Kyra’s mouth had gone dry again, and she swallowed hard. She didn’t have an answer for that question. She’d wanted to leave the frontier behind, but that was before she’d known that, even out here, there were places like this where people joked and laughed and looked after each other. Suddenly, the prospect of life on New Dominica seemed cold and empty and very, very lonely in comparison to the warmth and camaraderie of the Mercy.
She swallowed down the tears that threatened to rise at that thought.
“Well, there isn’t a position, so I guess it doesn’t much matter,” she said as calmly as she could.
“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” he replied.
Chapter Nine
“What are you doing?”
Derrick crossed his arms and stared at Kyra. She was bent over, pushing hard against a big packing crate—which wasn’t budging despite her straining efforts.
Kyra jumped and straightened up, obviously startled—which should be impossible. He was a big guy. It wasn’t really possible for him to sneak up on people. Why did she have to be so skittish around him?
Kyra looked sheepish as she dusted off her hands. “I told Ivy I’d clean up these crates so she could go into New Antigua Capital City with the others.”
Derrick frowned. Kyra was never going to shift those crates by herself. He sighed and dropped his arms.
“Move,” he said gruffly. He elbowed her out of the way. He shoved hard against the over-large crate to get it moving. In a few short strides, he’d slid it across the floor to the far wall. In short order, he’s dealt with the other two crates as well.
Kyra stared at him, her eyes wide. Her mouth was slightly open as well. Derrick grunted, but the awed expression on her face sent an unfamiliar tingle through him. He frowned, wondering just what the hell was wrong with him. He preferred his women tall, strapping, and knowing. Women who could drink as hard as he and then fuck as hard as well. Kyra was… well, sweet. And sweet—well, sweet didn’t do much for him.
At least, not usually.
“I’m going into town,” he said, turning for the door.
He took three strides and realized Kyra hadn’t followed. He paused and turned to her. “Well? You comin’?”
Kyra emitted a noise that sounded an awful lot like a squeak. “Me?”
“Well, your chores are done ain’t they?”
Mutely she nodded. Her face hadn’t lost that wide-eyed, over-awed expression, and it was starting to make him uncomfortable—not an easy feat. He couldn’t quite decide if he was flattered or exasperated. Why’d she have to be so jumpy around him? He hadn’t wanted her to spend time with him because she felt obligated; he didn’t want her to feel brow-beaten into it, either. He’d made the mistake of starting to think maybe she was warming up to him, but then she’d been awful quick to pass him off to Rigger when he’d been laid up in the infirmary. Every minute of waiting for her to visit had been agony, and after three days, he’d finally realized he’d have to go to her if he wanted to see her. Now, he wasn’t sure if her squeak had been from surprise at the invitation or horror at the thought of spending time with him.
He turned for the door again, leaving her to follow or not as she pleased. He suppressed a self-satisfied grin, though, when he heard her footsteps scamper across the metal floor.
She fell into step beside him, and together, they walked down the ramp and through the airlock into the docking bay. Through another door and then they stepped into a gleaming wide thoroughfare—the far end of New Antigua’s Capital City Main Street.
Derrick scanned the street to get his bearings. He turned to the left as Kyra turned to the right. He grabbed her arm above the elbow and turned her to the left. “This way.”
Kyra looked surprised, though, for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what exactly she had to be surprised about.
He kept his grip on her arm as they walked down the street. Knowing her, she’d trip and set off a chain reaction that would blow up the station if he didn’t. The street bustled with a thronging crowd of merchants and shoppers.
He strode down the street, ignoring all come-ons—he had a particular destination in mind.
He noticed that Kyra was no longer by his side. She’d stopped to look at some garments laid out across a stall’s counter. He sighed in aggravation and backtracked to her. She was rubbing the fabric between her fingers, and she looked up at him in wide-eyed wonder. “I’ve never seen colors like these—or felt material like this. It’s so soft!”
He grabbed her arm and steered her back on course. As soon as he released her, she got distracted again, this time drifting off to look at a display of hair styles outside a salon. She reached up and fingered her long curls.
“Your hair is fine the way it is,” he said impatiently, tugging her back to the middle of the street.
They came to a junction, and he turned right. The crowd thickened here—now it wasn’t just shoppers; station technicians, transport personnel, business people, tourists, roughnecks, and rowdies thronged the street, which was lined with entertainment amenities: brothels, casinos, dance clubs, and…
Kyra was no longer beside him. He glanced around. She was quite a ways behind, futilely trying to swim against the flow of traffic. She was so damn short, she was nearly lost in the crowd. He’d never really noticed how people just moved out of his way when he walked; he supposed it was a combination of his size and the perpetual annoyed scowl.
He sighed and backtracked. He slid an arm around Kyra’s shoulders, hugging her tight to his side, and continued forward. Now, when people moved out of his way, they moved out her way, too.
She peeped up at him with an awed expression. A tingle of warmth spread through him; it was starting to become a familiar feeling. It seemed to happen whenever she gave him that wide-eyed look or smiled at him.
He pushed open the swinging saloon-style doors and stepped into what passed for a dive bar in the tightly controlled environment of a capital city.
The interior was a cliché of every bad old-timey bar—poor lighting, a beat-up pool table, sticky floor, and all manner of shady looking characters. A couple of men at the pool table tried to be surreptitious in sizing them up as prospects.
Bingo!
Derrick steered Kyra to the bar and parked her on one of the stools. He leaned on the counter and motioned to the Minder. “Two beers,” he said. He leaned forward and breathed on the screen that served as the Minder’s face.
Blood alcohol 0.0 flashed on the screen. Derrick motioned for Kyra to copy his actions. With a mystified expression, she followed suit and got the same result. The Minder dispensed two glasses of frothy liquid. Derrick nudged one toward Kyra and then leaned back on the bar to take the measure of the room.
Mostly locals—broke down farmers by the look of them. A few rowdies—tourists off a transport on stop over, most likely. And the two roughnecks playing pool. They were trying to play it cool, not look too interested, futzing with their cues and the balls as if they were really playing instead of biding time.
A slow predatory grin spread across Derrick’s face. They thought he was a mark. This ought to be good. He nudged Kyra with an elbow and then ambled across the room to the table.
“You fellas up for a game?”
The small, rat-faced one answered a little too quick. “Sure!”
His partner tried to hide a twitch of annoyance. “Well, now… I dunno. You got a partner?”
Derrick had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as he gestured to Kyra. She was perched on the edge of her stool with a confused, anxious expression as if she weren’t quite sure what was going on. With her big, innocent eyes and wreath of soft curls, she looked like a rube right off the boat from some backwater settlement—which, he realized, was exactly what she was. She appeared to be the perfect mark. D
amn but she made a good partner for a hustle. He probably should have asked her if she even knew how to play, but it didn’t much matter. He was confident he played well enough for the both of them. The only person he’d ever lost pool to was Vienna. She was a God damn shark.
He hadn’t particularly intended this when they’d stepped off the Mercy, but this was actually perfect. He could show off a little in front of Kyra and earn a bit of cash, which he could then use to maybe treat her.
The roughnecks took the bait. The big fella couldn’t even hide his expression of unrestrained glee and avarice. Derrick wasn’t much for picking up on the unspoken, but even he couldn’t miss what this guy was thinking: big, strong roughneck like Derrick, not too shabbily dressed and with a pretty, delicate woman liked Kyra—must not be doing too bad for himself.
They’d expect him to bet recklessly—to be there to blow off steam and show off in front of his woman—and to keep betting when he started to lose in the hope of winning it all back and not lose face. They’d try to hook him in with one or two easy wins, then start milking him. Only, they were in for a surprise—he wasn’t the one who was going to get taken tonight.
“Rack ‘em up,” said the fat one to the rat-faced guy as he held out a meaty paw to Derrick. “Giles. Giles McLean.” Two names. The guy must be off a First World. Good. That meant he had money.
“Smith,” squeaked the other man. One name and a trade name at that—a settler or a roughneck. He wouldn’t have a pot to piss in. Not much to be made there.
“I’m Derrick. That’s Kyra.” Kyra was still perched on the edge of her stool, her eyebrows drawn so tight together they were almost touching. He jerked his head at her impatiently, indicating she should join him.
She squeaked in surprise, slid off the stool, and crossed to him. “Me?” she said, though for the life of him he wasn’t sure why else she thought he’d brought her if it wasn’t to play.
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