by Jolie Mason
"We're finished," she said in a surly tone.
"No, we're not."
Ari poked him with one finger. "You are leaving. That's the same thing."
"I'm coming back. It's only school."
"Caden, you know that isn't going to satisfy your father."
"You're overreacting, Ari."
Arden winced in sympathy. "Oh, kid."
Ari's eyes narrowed. The fury squint. If they weren't breaking up before, they were now, he thought.
"I'm what?"
He watched with a certain level of amusement as the kid wriggled under the squint. "Overreacting. He agreed that if I...."
"If you leave me here alone and go off to school, he'd leave you alone for good, let you do what you want. Like hell."
Arden watched Ari closely. This was different. This wasn't the usual flare of temper. Ari was afraid and hurting. Arden felt his back go up.
He started to interrupt, but Ari glared his way and he stopped. She turned those big, teary eyes on Caden. "You know what? Go. I'm not gonna keep you."
"Ari," Caden's voice pleaded with her. She turned away and headed for her bedroom, walked in and locked the door. You could hear the lock in the silence. Caden went to the door. "Ari, please. Listen to me here...."
Arden looked at the kid’s back as he pressed one palm to the wood of the door, and he felt a little sorry for him. He was young and naive. Carnes was a vindictive son of a bitch, and that would never change. That boy would never get anywhere with his old man.
He dropped his bag in the hall, and watched a moment as Caden stood and begged at his sister's door. He worried a moment about what it would mean for them all.
Something about that scene and the last few weeks on board the Bolavon made him impatient to see Brinn. Night would drop in a few hours. He headed to the roof. Would she know he'd come home already?
A stiff breeze with a hint of autumn in it, or what passed for it on Taarken, blew in his face as he stepped out. He headed to their usual place, and he saw her before she noticed him. The wind caught at her long skirts, and she had her arms wrapped around herself, much as Ari had a moment ago. Her hair shone less red and more honey gold, as it glinted in the sunset shining in the distance. Sunset on Taarken went on for hours. He wondered what she might look like naked splayed out under the sunset. No one ever came up here but the two of them. Maybe he’d find out sometime.
Arden felt speechlessly happy to see her, all of her. She was home. He had the thought even as he noticed the tear shining on her cheek.
He picked up his pace. "Brinn," he said softly.
She turned to face him. His breath stopped for a moment. He'd never seen anything so beautiful as Brinn Lako in a sunset, another of those moments to remember. Then, she ran at him, and he smiled as he caught her to him.
So much taller than Brinn, he held her as she buried her face in his shirt, sobbing. "Brinn, baby." He crooned to her, whispered insignificant words as she cried, over him. He couldn't help it. He smiled like a kid with a new toy, felt like his face would crack with it. Had anyone ever cried over him?
"You're home," she repeated. “You're home."
"I'm home."
Then she hit him, hard on the arm. "Ow," he said.
"You scared me! The whole company knows about the pirate ship."
He watched the play of mock anger blend with fear on her face. He couldn't resist poking her button nose. "I'm sorry."
"What kind of excuse is that?"
He chuckled and folded her up tight, closing his eyes. He let himself just feel her there. He breathed in the scent of her hair before he heard himself whisper, "Marry me."
"What?"
He smiled as he said it again. "Marry me."
"Arden, are you crazy?"
"Probably. Let's do it, before Gathering."
"Gathering is next month. We couldn't possibly... Is this even something you would want or are you just losing your mind from a near death experience?"
"Can't it be both?" He pulled her back every time she tried to wriggle out of his arms. "I miss you when you aren't beside me. It's that simple. I told you men aren’t that complicated. I love you. I want to know you're here waiting for me if I fly off again."
"If you fly off? You've always wanted to fly." She rested both hands on his shoulders and stopped squirming.
"Now, I want other things." He ran his lips over the spot just beneath her ear. "I want to know what it is to sleep next to you. I want a boy and a girl with your button nose. I've been to space, Brinn. Nothing makes me fly like you do."
"Oh, Stars. You did not just say that." She rested her brow on his chest. "How am I supposed to say no to that kind of drivel?"
He laughed a full-throated laugh, feeling overwhelmingly relieved. He knew her. She was a done deal. She didn't even have to say yes. He pulled back to kiss her the way he'd wanted to since he'd left.
He wasn't lying though. He'd flown a couple of pretty fast ships, felt that pull after launch, known he was at the stick of something powerful and deadly. It still didn't give him the thrill he felt with his hand holding her head still as he took her breath, or the sense of peace and accomplishment that followed him around after he made her smile or laugh, or moan.
Speaking of that....
*
Ari slammed a pot onto the cook stove one more time. "Ari," their Da said with a sigh. "Those things aren't cheap."
"Sorry, Da."
Arden and his father shared a look. Caden had been gone for a couple weeks, and hell had rained down on them all. Nearly the moment Caden stepped on the transport, their Da had been informed his services were no longer required at the maintenance facility. They were currently rationing out the bonus pay Arden had earned from his last job. Ari was a wreck, a tearful, angry mess, and it was killing their Da that he didn't know what to do to help her.
Arden watched his father stand up from the table before saying, "I'm going out for a little while, Arden. Look after your sister, would you?" He looked toward the kitchen. "See she stays out of trouble."
"Where you going, Da?"
His Da grabbed up his battered old hat. "I'm gonna go see a guy about a job. Be back in a while."
Arden turned his head toward the sound of his father's footsteps as he left. He wondered sometimes how the old man stayed so optimistic when the whole planet was swimming in bad times and bad people.
CHAPTER FIVE
*
The call came in a few hours later from a fellow he knew over at the Carnes Security office. Arden clicked the comm, unable to process what he'd heard after the man had advised him to go off speaker.
He grabbed up his hat in the hallway just as Ari came out of the kitchen with a glass of mollic milk and her hair pulled up in a spiky, messy tail on top of her head. She looked like the little sister he had always known.
"Where you going? What is it? You're pale as a sheet."
"I'm going to find Da." It was a miscalculation on his part. She'd been worried since he'd told her he'd gone out.
"I'm coming." She put down the milk and went to the closet for a coat. He opened his mouth. She said, "Shut up. I'm coming."
He really didn't want her to, but he needed to get there fast, and, gods help him, he didn’t have the guts to tell her. Da was hurt bad, according to his buddy from academy.
Opening the apartment door, he ran down the stairs ahead of his sister. They'd have to rent a moto to get there.
*
He pulled up with a slight spin to the tail end of the two seater moto, and he and his sister took off the helmets and stood before the Carnes mansion.
What the hell had he been doing here? He thought it, but, down deep, he suspected he knew. There had been no guards on the front gate, so they ran up to cue the intercom which said politely in a robotic voice, "One moment please."
A formidable man wearing a marshal's star opened the door. "You're relatives of the deceased, I take it." His manner was cold, businesslike.
Ari
gasped behind him. "Deceased!"
She ran through both of them like a charging vilerbeast, a type of wild desert boar common around the wastes. Arden hurried after her.
Her anguished cry filled the corridor. Da lay on the expensive foyer tiling in a thick pool of blood. On the landing of the grand staircase above, he saw Alec Carnes and the local marshal deep in discussion as though there weren't a man dead at their feet, as if they were discussing the weather.
Arden looked from them to the body on the floor that had been their father. Something in his mind couldn't reconcile all the blood and the pale skin with his Da, the warm, lively man everyone loved.
Ari noticed Carnes, and let out an inhuman howl. He caught her small frame around the waist as she hurled herself toward the old man shouting epithets and barely aware of what she was saying.
"You murderous bastard," she shouted. "I'll see he knows just what you are! He'll know." Her own sobs cut her off as she fell onto her knees beside their father.
The marshal told Carnes he'd handle them, and gestured for the other man to go upstairs. Arden glared at him, stepping around in front of Ari, putting himself between her and the lawman. Crispin St. John was marshal in name only. He ran the town for Carnes, so anything he was about to say would be a lie.
"Arden, hate to be seeing you like this. As I understand it, your Da's been on some hard times lately." He rested his hands on his hips, near his side iron. Arden thought his own feelings might be shining through pretty clear, judging from St. John’s caution.
"It looks like your Da might have tried to break in on Mr. Carnes and steal a few valuables."
Arden growled, "That's a damn lie, and you know it. We all know you're Carnes' creature, Cris. You'll say just what he tells you to say."
In the oily way of corrupt officials everywhere and with a smug superiority only true moral decay could give a man, the marshal said, "Now, Arden, I understand this is difficult. I really do. There's no video feed. Camera malfunction. So, I have to go off the forensic evidence that I have. Everything seems to line up with his story."
"Because you make it line up." At his feet, Ari was beside herself. He heard the medic van pull up, sirens going. They'd be here for a body now.
He coaxed Ari into letting her Da go, and she broke his already cracked heart in two with her sobs and cries saying it was her fault. He held her to his chest as they bagged his father's body. Finally, he looked at St.John.
"Carnes is going to go too far one of these days, Crispin. Be careful you aren't standing too close when he does."
The lawman smiled at him. Smiled, then said, "I'll keep that in mind. You be careful you aren't too free with your words, now. God knows, words said in anger have put many a man on death row."
Still glaring at the two men, Marshal and deputy, he led Ari back out of the house and outside to watch their Da be taken away to the morgue. Cold, clear rage boiled in his heart.
*
Somehow, he got Ari home, and, somehow, he got her into bed and asleep. It was late by now. Dawn in a couple hours. He needed air. He'd changed his clothes and gotten the blood off his shirt where Ari had attached herself. He made his way to the roof restlessly. It was like his true North now. He always went to the roof, but it was Brinn he was drawn to.
Brinn sat on the end of the daybed waiting with silent tears tracking down her cheeks. He looked at her with what felt like desolate longing, a pain so deep yet tempered by the certainty that she was there.
The world had turned uglier in the last few hours than he could have imagined it could get. She was his saving grace, the place he wanted most to be. Maybe, she was the last truly good thing left for him in this ugly, greedy world. He walked stiffly to her. His footsteps ringing on the hard roof, causing her to look up at him and open her arms.
He fell into them, pressing his face into her soft belly. He curled onto his side, and she rocked him quietly. He hadn't even realized he was crying, until he heard her sobs as well.
Brinn was so perfect, he thought. She never said a word, just held him. She just let him be, until he could think again. In this one thing, he thought, I've been given a gift. And, no one was going to take her away. No one.
His mind had been lost the whole way back to town in that thought. The realization that the things we love could be gone in seconds, stolen from us by time, circumstances or evil men.
He wrapped his arms tighter around her and fell asleep with her hand brushing over his head softly. And, he held onto her like she was the only thing in the world to hold onto.
*
The weather turned colder as Gathering approached. Taarken never had anything like snow and ice, not where they were, but the temps dropped lower in the fall and winter.
It had been a few weeks since they'd buried their Da, and Ari was beside herself still, not leaving the house and crying all the time. He worried about her. So much that he had Brinn looking in on her too.
At Carnes Mining, Dante had changed his name on the company rolls and given him a low profile maintenance job on an out of the way clean up crew to ensure they had a means to live. Ari had nearly finished her at-home courses in navigation and management.
He'd been shocked when she said she wanted them at all. That she did meant she was planning on leaving. He watched her sadly as the last of his family felt like it was slipping away from him. They had breakfast together every morning, but then he never saw her after that. She stayed in her room.
Brinn happened to be with them this morning. She offered him juice, and he took it, automatically saying thank you distractedly. Ari sat across from him at the small round table, pale and depressed. She'd lost a lot over the last cycle.
Ari put her fork down with a clink. "I think you two should get married."
A stunned silence fell in the room. Brinn looked surprised and uncomfortable.
"Honey, we don't have to do that now with your Da... I wouldn't feel right."
"No," she insisted. "You need to get married. I've thought this over and it's the only way."
"We can get married anytime." Brinn began to argue.
Ari interrupted, " I'm pregnant."
Arden stared at her. "You're what?"
"I'm pregnant, Arden, and I need you and Brinn to raise the baby."
CHAPTER SIX
*
Arden continued to stare at his sister. His baby sister who was pregnant with Carnes' baby. "What do you mean you're pregnant?"
Waspishly, she answered, "It means just what it means. I'm pregnant. You were going to get married anyway. If I come up pregnant with an heir for Caden, what do you think that monster will do?"
Arden thought about it, really thought about it. He knew Carnes was all about his empire and his legacy. He was mad with it. If Ari had a child that was part of that legacy.... "Oh, shit," he said.
"Right, oh shit. I have to do something. We don't have the credits to run away, so I have to think camouflage."
She pinned her gaze to Brinn. "You'd do this for me, wouldn't you? I know it’s a lot to ask."
Brinn turned toward Ari in the motherly, kind way she had that soothed everyone. "Of course, I'd do anything for you, Ari. You're family to me." She bit her bottom lip. "But, honey, are you sure? Your baby? Can you do that?"
"I would do anything for my child," she echoed back Brinn's words. Brinn took her hand across the table. “I will do it.”
Arden finally found his voice, clearing his throat, he asked her, "How do you propose that we hide this from our neighbors?"
"I can hide it, but you have to get married just as you planned." Arden raised a brow skeptically. He didn't see how this would work. But, it was happening, he guessed, whether they wanted it or not. They had to come up with something in a hurry.
Ari fidgeted in her seat. "I’ve been working this out for a while. Anne Marie works in the clinic. She's agreed to help me have the baby here. We'll just pass it off as Brinn's child."
It wasn't unheard of, he though
t. Women on Taarken did sometimes opt to deliver at home, to avoid the expense of the medical facility. He ran a hand down his tired face. "You know this means Brinn has to play at being pregnant. Why don't you ask her first how she feels about lying to everyone she knows?"
Brinn cleared her throat and looked at him sternly. " I can speak for myself. Arden, she's not wrong. If Carnes thought this was his child, even a little suspicion, he'd come after her. We know just what he's capable of."
They all let their minds wander to their recent loss. Arden knew that according to local lore Alec Carnes' father had done something similar once, taking a child from one of the local whores because he believed it to be his son's. It wasn't unlikely that the son took after the father, nor was it a stretch that he could steal a child from a mother or kill for an heir. The man was obsessed and unstable.
Brinn pleaded with him. "We have to do something, Arden. If we could come up with money for a colony position...?"
He nodded, wondering just what he was letting himself in for at this point. Before it was done, Ari had made her case that there would never be enough money to run far enough or fast enough, so he and Brinn would have to prepare to live with the biggest lie he’d ever told.
*
Arden watched his sister dancing at his wedding with a bemused expression. Now that they had a plan in place, she was getting better, a little less withdrawn. It seemed to have been worry on her mind that caused the most of her anxiety. Worry and memories.
He'd grown a light beard over the last few weeks because Brinn said she liked it. He smiled as he tugged again at his facial hair, freshly trimmed for his wedding. He'd even put on a dark blue suit with one of the bow ties on it he detested. He felt like someone's pet wearing a collar and leash in show. There were about thirty people at the rooftop party they were having for their wedding. They'd fixed up the roof with strings of lights and canopies over a buffet. There was even a small raised dance floor of banyan wood and a string band made up of his old friends. He smiled at the twinkling lights as the sky dimmed to a beautiful rose red in the distance.
Her soft voice went straight to his gut as she approached from behind him, laying her hand on his shoulder. "Red sky at night, Sailor's delight."