by Jolie Mason
Table of Contents
Title Page
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. | This work is not to be reproduced in any manner without the express permission of the author in any way beyond quotation in legitimate reviews.
Copyright © 2016 Jolie Mason | All rights reserved.
Chapter One
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
Further Reading: Home from the Sea
Also By Jolie Mason
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This work is not to be reproduced in any manner without the express permission of the author in any way beyond quotation in legitimate reviews.
Copyright © 2016 Jolie Mason
All rights reserved.
Chapter One
She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. From top to bottom, a machine built for a man to hold onto. Curves in all the right places. He dropped the heavy bag on the ramp decking as he stared at her a moment.
The Aurora stood tall and beckoning to him from the space dock about a click away. Long, sexy, sleek lines. Thrusters now dormant, but, when she'd take off, dear gods, she was beautiful; raining down her own kind of harmless fire and lighting up a night sky, or a day one, in a deep red halo, the likes of which could only be seen in a sunset off the plateau. Her nose angled up to glint in the sun. She was lovely, he thought for about the hundredth time.
He looked back over his shoulder at the beat up transport he'd come home on and gave a wry grimace when he returned his gaze to the sensuous space liner. He dreamed of flying one day, and he wanted to fly that, or something like it.
The noise of the space dock was like the sound of home; clattering, chattering and crowded. The small tenement housing unit his family occupied was large enough for the three of them, his mother having passed years before. The mining colony of Taarken Prime circled, in its own sweet time, a larger star. It created a very hostile environment on Taarken. There was one ocean, and a significant portion of arid, rugged landscape. Dust blew everywhere. Without the terraformers, he doubted Taarken would support life.
Arden hefted his large bag on his shoulder and pointed his steps toward home. It wasn't far. He turned on one of the side streets only to be slapped in the face with a swirl of dust blowing through between squat buildings that had never seen better days. They’d begun as they continued, worn and well used.
Wiping the dust from now tearing eyes, he spat sand out of his mouth and cursed a little at the reminder of how dirty it was here on Taarken. He rounded a corner and found himself suddenly facing the building that he'd grown up in. To his surprise, he saw his sister.
She'd spent all of her sixteen summers running barefoot through the streets and chasing the dust devils that swirled through periodically. Today, however, she leaned against the light exterior of the wall, her body covered by a man's taller, slim form. The whole scene was entirely too intimate for an overprotective big brother.
Arden stared as the man turned his face to nuzzle closer to her neck. She wore a long, flowing skirt in an off white shade and wrapped up sandals, that he could clearly now see wrapped high around her calves, because the man in question had twisted his hand in that skirt and was sliding it up in a bunch to her hip, in broad daylight in the middle of the street. “Oh, my gods,” he whispered.
"Ari!"
What in Hell was going on? His sister jumped guiltily, then stared at him in surprise. "When did you get home?"
"Not soon enough apparently. Who is this character?"
Shamefaced, the other man had the grace to look like he'd been caught in the cookie jar. He pushed his near black hair back off his forehead and then stuck out a hand to Arden.
"Caden Carnes," he answered. Arden stared in disbelief.
"Caden Carnes? You're joking."
The younger man looked uncomfortable, as they stood there in the beating sun. Arden pinned a pink faced Ari with his glare. "Does Da know what you're up to?"
Ari put her hands on her hips, her long braided hair spun in swirls as the wind grabbed it again. "Just what am I up to, Arden Badu?" Her temper was in full glory. Uh oh, he thought.
"I love Caden. He loves me. That's no crime, nor do you believe in something so archaic as sin."
"You are entirely too young to be running around with someone like this." He gestured at the other man. "Carnes. I suppose your Daddy runs this planet? Never heard of a Carnes didn't try to own everything he touched. That apply to my sister?"
That got his back up. "What are you, Carnes? Eighteen? Nineteen? Aren't you off to fulfill your destiny soon? Take over the family business of sticking it to the miners?" He said it all so bitingly. Arden could taste the fear. His little sister was way in over her head.
"I can do what I want," Carnes finally said, with the brashness of youth and a blush of guilt on his face.
Arden scoffed. "Please, you're no more free to do anything than any of Alecsar's slaves. It's just hard to see it from your gilded cage."
Ari's gasp as she moved close to Caden was clear in a pause of the breeze blowing over the trio. She stood with her hands on his chest and young, innocent eyes wide and looking up at the other man with such trust that Arden almost relented. Almost.
"Caden," she said to him. "Look at me. Remember? It doesn't matter."
With hooded eyes, Caden Carnes clutched one of Aricka's hands on his chest. "It's okay, Ari. Arden just got home. He's gonna have to wait and see. Right, Badu? You haven't seen what I'll do. I might surprise you."
Arden would give the kid points for sincerity. He truly believed his Alec Carnes wasn't wholly capable of wiping the floor with his own son. "I've been watching men like you all my life, Carnes. You won't be any different. Now, you need to stay away from my sister." He put the hint of menace in his voice.
Carnes nodded, kissed his sister sweetly on her mouth and squeezed her hand before walking away down one of the dirtiest, poorest streets in Taarken City. He watched the boy go thoughtfully, until something whacked his arm, hard.
"Why would you do that, you idiot? He's got enough to deal with. He didn't need that from you."
"What's the little prince got to deal with?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "How would you like Alec Carnes for a father?"
Arden shrugged a shoulder. "Point taken. But, you gotta leave that one alone, Ari. He will take you to a place of pain you didn't think existed."
"Caden is a good man!" With that, she whirled and slammed her way into the tenement behind them and up the stairs. Arden sighed.
"Welcome home," he grumbled beneath his breath, adjusting his pack again before opening the building door himself.
*
Brinn stared at the data pad all the way down the stairs. She stared at the reports from the office in a kind of terrified shock. It was proof that the missing inventory of the Bolavon was being sold off by someone. Crew was selling percentages of their inventory and pocketing the funds, and she was holding the proof, a bill of sale carelessly left in with the others. This was just the tip of the mountain, she suspected.
She didn't want to be the one holding it. That was her last thought before she ran face first into a mountain of her own, a solid, hefty male who dropped his travel bag on the stairs, so he could stop her fall.
She watched the, thankfully, indestructible pad tumble to the bottom of the stairway. "Watch where you're going." She growled at whoever she'd walked straight into as she scowled, her foul mood growing foul
er.
"Brinn?"
Oh, dear stars. It couldn't be. She closed her eyes tightly, then peeked up. It was. The hands on her arms holding her upright, stopping her fall, belonged to Arden Badu.
"Arden, I'm sorry," she whispered. "When did you get back?"
He smiled that smile that made her knees wobble like she’d gotten caught in a sandstorm. "I'm not, and just now."
Oh, none of that now. She wasn't falling for that again. "Flirt all you want, Badu. It's not going to help. I don't have a thing to do with the hiring."
She watched his face tighten, and her stomach dropped a bit like she was riding in the lift that never worked anymore. But, maybe she'd made her point. Women like her couldn’t trust men like Arden Badu. He was a good looking, tough talking son of a miner and far too charming for her own good.
She'd wondered why Arden Badu had suddenly shown an interest in her all those months ago, and then she'd learned that he was off to the Carnes pilot program, and the pieces fell into place.
Brinn was a mousy, spinster type, and she knew it. She liked children, liked to knit, took care of her mother and stayed at home. She wasn't the type to attract the burly, muscular, handsome as sin flyboys of T.C. Her eyes were brown, her hair brown, her face nondescript, her figure was all right, not exactly vid star slim. She had generous breasts, so it wasn't uncommon for most men she encountered to talk to them and not her, but, all in all, she wasn't Arden's type. She'd known that from the day he’d started chasing girls on the playground.
When he'd started paying her a ridiculous amount of attention before he left for academy, she'd quickly realized he erroneously thought she handled piloting assignments. In fact, she only handled payroll for the pilots, and the occasional inventory settlement claim.
He leaned closer. "I don't recall asking you for anything."
"Well, don't. It won't help. I'm payroll, not personnel acquisition. It's a waste of your charms to make eyes at me."
"You think I have charms?" He grinned and leaned cockily into her space. She pushed him back and tried to maneuver around him. He pulled her closer to his warmth. She could still feel the heat of the day on his body. Brinn licked her lips at the thought.
When she looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, she saw he was staring down at her in the most discomfiting way. "Can't a man proposition a beautiful woman anymore?"
"Maybe, you let me know when one shows up."
"Ouch."
She'd meant the beautiful woman part, but it was clear from his mock pain he'd taken it as an insult to his manhood.
"That hurt. You have to have dinner with me now."
She rolled her eyes. "Your logic is faulty. And, nothing hurts you, Arden. I have to go to work."
Standing this close to him, she felt her body responding, mainly to the memory of that kiss right before he left. She'd dreamed of that kiss since. The idea that it might have been fake had cut into her every day, because it had been one of the most beautiful moments of her life.
He put his lips, those full, sexy lips, close to her ear and whispered, "Please." The way he said it, by the stars. He might as well have whispered kiss me in her ear. Her whole body responded.
"No," she said hoarsely. "Stop this." She pushed him off and stood back. "I know what I am Arden Badu. I'm not one of your pilot groupies. I'm plain old me. Maybe, you want something, or maybe you're having fun at my expense, I don't know. And, I don't care. Whatever it is you want, I'm not your woman."
Brinn had been at the bottom of everyone’s list since the day she was born. Her mother was a hard, critical woman, and her father had drunk himself into an early grave. Brinn had her place in their small community, as she was constantly reminded by everyone around her. Everyone but this strange man who did the opposite of what he was supposed to do all the time.
With those final, harshly hissed words, she ran to the bottom of the stairs, gathered up her datapad and scurried away quickly. As she ran toward the space dock offices where she worked for Carnes Enterprises, she did her best to wipe the memory of that moment on the stairs from her mind. It would be fine now. He'd lose interest, and she could go back to her uneventful life of knitting. Why didn't that make her happier?
CHAPTER TWO
*
"Da, she doesn't need to be seeing this boy." Arden glared hard at his father who was being blind to it all. "He's a Carnes, as if that weren't reason enough. Beyond that, he's going to completely destroy her future. You should have seen them, Da. In plain view on the street!"
His Da sat at the table carving a shape into a large piece of Banyan wood. "She's got to learn to make her own choices, Arden. And, I don't get that impression of the boy. He is a good kid."
"He's a spoiled brat," he said pushing up suddenly from the table. "I need some air."
Leaving the apartment, he used the nearby exit stairs to the roof, his favorite place to think or cool off when the world made him crazy, like his Da was doing right now.
The hydroponics he’d been working on for a month weren't running yet, so the night was silent but for the whooshing of ships taking off from the space dock. It was becoming the family joke. His Da wanted a community garden for the residents, but he'd yet to figure out what was wrong with the hydro unit.
Arden could have told him it was too out of date, but his Da was stubborn and idealistic, just like he was being over this Carnes boy. Da was a dreamer who expected the best out of everyone.
Arden sighed and leaned on the rail looking out across the lights of Taarken City and beyond into the desert. As they always did, his eyes tracked up, to the stars.
He found himself distracted by a small squeak in the night, and turned to see another of the exit doors open and shut. He almost cursed. He'd needed to be alone, to think. Then, he saw who it was, and he smiled in the darkness.
Brinn emerged on the other side of the roof, never looking his way. He let himself have the luxury of time to study her, puzzle her out. He'd been completely confused by the encounter on the stairs.
She wore her hair back, as she always did, pulled back at the top into a clip and the rest hanging soft and wavy to her shoulders and just past. It was the brilliant orange of the sunset just before dark. Her skin had a pink tone, and he'd seen that she burned easily a time or two. Brinn wore one of her simple house dresses.
God, he loved those things. They were demure and wholesome, usually covered in flowers, and he had this fantasy of slipping his hands beneath the bell of the skirt and pulling it up to bunch around her hips. He adjusted himself at the thought. How could could something so innocent in appearance cause such fevered imaginings on his part?
He'd had more dreams about those dresses than he'd care to admit. She might not meet the usual standard of beauty, being rounder than the vids thought was proper, but she had made Arden change his own standard for years now. These days, he had a thing for broad hips, belled skirts and aprons, and button noses.
He slid a hand over the metal safety railing as he strolled the distance toward her quietly in the dark, trying not to startle her. "Brinn.”
She jumped anyway, putting a hand to her chest. "Arden. What are you doing out here?"
"Getting some air," he rumbled. She looked... rumpled and windblown and worried, if he didn’t miss his guess. Her hair flew in loose tendrils, escaping from the clip. He leaned on his elbow propped on the rail. "You look beautiful."
It was an impulse. One he would pay for, he saw, when she got mad and did that little right foot stomp that made him want to smile, but he knew, when she did it, he shouldn't smile. That’s the last thing he should ever do. She was so serious, his Brinn.
"Would you stop?"
"Why is it you're so convinced I'm lying to you? What did I ever do to make you think I'm a liar?"
"You are a heart breaker, Arden Badu, and well you know it."
She started to leave in a huff. Arden reached for her elbow and pulled her in close, enjoying the lift of her pink and white floral d
ress as he did so. "Is yours in any danger, Brinn? I find that hard to believe."
She opened her mouth like a fish and closed it again, making him smile in spite of himself. She was soft and warm, and entirely too tempting.
"I'm not the kind of girl you like, so it must be that you're exaggerating, or bored. Or, maybe you want something. I don't know."
He tucked her body in close, smelling the sweet scent of baking on her, above the scent that was hers alone. "What kind of girls do I like, Brinn?"
Arden knew he had her at a disadvantage, and he didn't care. She was in his arms. He knew this would be one of the moments he remembered all his life, the first time he held Brinn Lako in his arms under the stars. The time he'd kissed her didn't count because she'd believed he thought she was someone else in the dark of a moonlit garden at a party, but he relived it enough that it should count.
"What kind of...? How about the Sal Winters kind?"
He curled his nose up. "She's snotty and spoiled, and way too skinny."
Brinn started to pull away in earnest. "Hey, what did I say?" He asked her in the gentling tone of a man trying to steady a mount.
"She's ridiculously attractive, and you know it!"
He stared, flummoxed, but he continued to hold on to her. Women confused him mightily. "If you like her so much, you kiss her."
Barely keeping her temper, she replied, "Look, men who have access to women like Sal do not notice women like me. She’s been after you for years, and she’s not through with you yet, my friend. Weren’t you waiting for her in the dark at the Solstice Ball, and then, when you couldn’t find her, you settled for me?”
Realization dawned, and he was again completely baffled. She thought she was his second choice. It didn't compute very well in his brain because Sal Winters was a woman he seldom thought about at all. She was brash. He didn’t like brash women.
"You don't think I find you attractive?"
She pulled away with a blush on her cheeks, and the saddest expression he'd ever seen her wear. "Of course not."