Fools Rush In (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 3)

by Donna S. Frelick

  “I’ll order you some food.” He was looking at her again, eyes full of another kind of hunger.

  “No, you don’t have to.” At the mention of food, though, her stomach immediately set up a clamor of need.

  “You need to eat. Save some for me. I’ll eat when I get back.”

  He was on the comm before she could stop him. Making assumptions—about what she wanted, about whether she’d be here when he got back. She frowned. Damn him anyway. Was she really so tired that she couldn’t bring herself to care?

  She glanced around. His cabin was clean and tidy, the harsh ship’s metal softened with splashes of color from his travels throughout the galaxy: fabrics in red and ochre from Taxos, artwork from Terrene, pottery from Illis. Rayna had visited those places, too, had lived in them. But she had come away with nothing but what she could carry in a bag across her shoulders.

  Sam cleared his throat. “You can, uh, you can use the shower if you want.” He nodded at a bank of drawers in the wall. “Tee-shirts there should be big enough to cover you, um, all the way.”

  Rayna glanced down at her clothes. Yeah, they needed to be tossed in the recycler. She just hated to use the replicator. The sizes almost never came out right.

  “Thanks. I’ll be fine.” She didn’t want to tell him she wouldn’t be here when he got back. She didn’t want to get into it. “Don’t you have an assassin to chase?”

  He smiled, making her want to change her mind about being here when he got back. “Yeah. A female assassin, apparently. The deadliest kind.” He took a step closer and reached out to touch her hair. “Sleep well.”

  Damn it, she wanted to kiss him so badly.

  But he was gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  What the hell are you thinking, Murphy?

  As the lift took him back to Engineering, Sam tried to remember the last time he’d had a woman in his cabin. He came up blank. No surprise, there; he’d had a rule against bringing a woman to his cabin since he’d taken command of the Shadowhawk, seven years ago. Before that, he’d been sleeping with the Shadowhawk’s captain, so it was a moot point. Gods’ eyes, he was in trouble.

  It was only a matter of time. He knew it. The way she looked at him made him think she knew it, too. Rayna Carver might act like she thought he was lower than deck plating, but her heart beat fast under his hands, her mouth opened hungrily for his, her hips stroked him until he nearly came. She would be his—soon. The only question was, what came after? That he even thought to ask meant . . .

  Trouble! It means trouble! Sam cursed and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it in angry spikes. He vowed to send her back down to Level Five as soon as he got back from his shift. It was the only safe move.

  The resolution left him feeling better as he left the lift and headed for the access tube to rejoin the search in hull space. Security Chief Chen and her search team intercepted him before he reached the tube entrance.

  Chen gave him a weary nod. “Cap.” She handed him a pad.

  The screen showed a schematic of the hull space, Sections 3 and 4. Several small surfaces on the recycling tanks, the hull walls and the access hatches were marked in red.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “DNA traces, very faint, not very definitive.”

  “Can you make a guess?”

  Chen glanced at one of her techs, who nodded. “It’s Thrane.” She looked back at the captain. “Mostly. Whoever it was tried to be very careful. But our equipment is sensitive.”

  “Dozens of people have been through here,” Sam protested. “We even have a few Thranes in the crew—Bant, and the engine room tech, Agar.”

  Chen shook her head. “No match. And no match with any of the LO’s on board.”

  “You sampled all the LO’s?” Sam grinned at his Security Chief. “Chen, you obsessive little creature!”

  “I will admit to a tendency to obsessive-compulsive disorder, sir.” Her smile was nearly imperceptible.

  “But it’s such a useful trait in a Security Chief.” Sam handed the pad back to Chen. “This is it? That’s all we came up with—just the DNA? No clothing, no trash, nothing else.”

  Chen shook her head. “Like I said. Careful.”

  “Okay. The ship’s manifest from the Fleeflek should have the marker we’re looking for, wouldn’t you think, Chief?”

  “The Grays get the pertinent info from every slave and list it in the manifest for the ship’s captain, yes, sir. I’ll get on that right away.”

  “So what do you think of the theory that our assassin is a woman?”

  Chen exchanged a look with her tech, then turned dark eyes on him. “What makes your witness think so?”

  “Ray says it was something about the way the person moved. She said the assassin might have been Thrane—looks like she got that right.”

  Chen stood for a long moment, no expression on her face at all. Sam thought maybe he’d revealed more about himself than about the assassin, and Chen didn’t like what she saw. But at last his Security Chief looked up at him and nodded.

  “It’s possible. The attacks on the two men in Sickbay used finesse, not strength. Thranes are generally taller and more muscular than humans at any rate. There’s no reason to believe it’s not a woman. Of course, the DNA will confirm.”

  He exhaled. “Okay, we’re done here. Let me know when you have something. I need to see Kwan.”

  Chen nodded in acknowledgment and stepped off to do what had to be done. Sam turned in the other direction, toward the heart of Engineering and the Chief Engineer’s office. He could have taken the lift down two levels and over three sections, but he preferred to see his ship up close, to feel her engines thrumming and her ventilation system pumping, to know she was running happily. And the thought that a smart, sabotaging killer with an unknown agenda had free run of his ship made him even more anxious to see to the Shadowhawk’s well-being personally. He stalked the narrow maintenance bays on his way to Main Engineering with his ears open and his fists clenched, hoping his enemy would make one little mistake. A bit of hand-to-hand would go a long way toward easing the tension in his body and mind right now.

  But it wasn’t to be. The Engineering sections remained quiet and undisturbed as Captain Murphy strode through them, and he arrived at Chief Kwan’s office just as tense as when he’d started out.

  The Chief Engineer saw him coming and shook his head. “That matrix is not going to grow any faster by you watching it, you know.”

  Sam smiled without humor. “Matrix? What matrix?”

  Kwan came out from behind his desk in the transwall-enclosed office and joined his captain on the engine room deck. “You’d think the little nano-darlings were your children or something.”

  “No, I acknowledge they call you Daddy. But surely you’re starving them.”

  Kwan’s jaw dropped in mock offense. “Take that back.”

  The two men pulled to a stop beside the frame housing the incomplete nano-matrix. The liquid rare earth-silica bath fell from a spigot at the top and washed over the frame in a constant stream, feeding the hungry microscopic machines hard at work on reconstructing the crucial piece of equipment.

  Sam’s chest tightened as he noted how much of the matrix still remained to be filled. “Steve, we make the C4 jump node in less than 36 hours. We can’t afford to have to hang out there while this thing rebuilds. For all I know we could have a Gray warbird on our tail now, just waiting to take us.”

  Kwan looked like he’d swallowed a phase blaster. “If I enrich the RES bath, they’ll grow faster, but the matrix will be brittle. We might only get a couple of uses out of it before I’ll have to grow it all over again.”

  “Do it.” The extra RES fluid would cost him three months’ profit, but better to spend the credits than wind up dead. “We need a working matrix in 36 hours, you get me?”

  “Aye, Cap.” Kwan met his gaze. “You’ll have it.”

  Rayna held the piece of soft fabric to her nose and inhaled. Th
e tee-shirt was clean, but somehow it still smelled like him, like fresh air and warm earth. Some primal, human part of her responded to that scent as if she were conditioned to it, muscles relaxing, skin warming, breath deepening. But the part of her born and raised in the artificial environment of Terrene found that sensual reminder of open spaces disturbing. Or maybe it was just Sam Murphy himself that put her on edge.

  She frowned and slipped the shirt over her head. He’d been right; his shirt covered her to the knees. But its worn fabric caressed her skin, his scent filled her senses. As tired as she was, she couldn’t help a little shiver of pleasure.

  Rayna was contemplating the bunk, wondering if Sam’s scent would make her dream of open grassland, when a knock came at the cabin door. Before she had a chance to answer, the door banged open and a huge, dark Pataran male entered carrying a tray of food. When he saw her he drew to a halt and stared with eyes so pale a blue they seemed to glow in the low light of the cabin.

  From a defensive crouch behind a desk chair, Rayna challenged the invader. “Aren’t you Murphy’s XO? What the hell are you doing here?”

  The Pataran gestured at the piece of pottery in her hand. “I don’t think you’ll need that, and the captain would be very unhappy if you busted it over my, uh, knee.”

  She glanced at the item in question and put it back where it belonged. “Well, it was meant for your head, where it would have done more good, but you do have a point. Couldn’t reach you even if I jumped off this desk.”

  “And the captain—”

  “Would be pissed, yeah, I get it. So, uh, Commander?”

  “Just Mo.”

  “Mo. Since the XO doesn’t usually deliver dinner, I assume you’re looking for the Captain. He’s not here.”

  “So I see. What are you doing here?”

  Rayna felt the blood rush to her face. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  Mo allowed a small smile while he put the tray on the desk. “I would hope not. Cap called down for food less than twenty minutes ago. He’s already gone. And I happen to know he was in hull space conducting a search before that.” He tsked.

  “Really.” Her answering smile was wry. “I wouldn’t have been impressed either, not that the occasional quickie doesn’t have its place.”

  Mo straightened to his full, very intimidating height, crossed his arms across his chest and waited for an explanation.

  “Oh. Captain Murphy found me working out in hull space. My first time doing anything physical since. . .” She couldn’t find the words. She stumbled over the concept. For the first time it really came to her: She hadn’t just lost a fight; in another time and place, the beating she had taken could have killed her.

  Mo waited some more while Rayna swallowed the hard lump that had formed in her throat. “. . . the fight. Since the fight. I guess I overdid the workout a little. I was exhausted, and I couldn’t go back to my assigned space for few hours. He offered his cabin to let me rest. I’ll be gone before he gets back.”

  The XO raised an eyebrow. Then he sat in one of the chairs near the desk and waved her to the other one.

  “He ordered the food for you, then. Sit and eat.”

  The smell of the food had been wafting up from the tray and driving her mad since he’d placed it on the desk. Rayna didn’t hesitate. She sat and lifted the cover from the closest dish—some sort of stew—and dug in.

  After a while she began to get self-conscious. “Are you hungry?” She gestured at the other bowl. “You want some?”

  “No. And, no.” The Pataran continued to watch her, his expression unreadable.

  She cleaned up the stew with a crust of bread and settled back into her chair with the second of four paks of flavored water that had come with the tray. “Are you afraid I’ll hack into Murphy’s comp and steal all your ship’s secrets while he’s out? Is that why you’re still here?”

  Mo pulled back his lips to show white teeth in a feral grin. “I’d like to see you try.”

  “Oh, so you’re responsible for net security?” When he said nothing, she went on. “You probably think I’d like to slap a pair of sensor-cuffs on your boss; claim that bounty I keep hearing about.”

  The grin turned into a laugh. “This is his ship, his crew. You’re just a lone female. Don’t think you’d have much of a chance. Unless he gave himself up.”

  Her heart tripped, stopped, started beating at a different pace. “So that’s what you’re worried about. Doesn’t matter who I’m working for. If I’m working for anyone at all.” She leaned forward to stare at the XO. “You’re afraid I’ll seduce him, then betray him somehow.”

  “It’s an old story. Wouldn’t be the first time a good man was brought low by a bad woman.”

  “Why would it be your business if he was?”

  Mo’s pale eyes glittered with warning. “Cap is always my business.”

  “And if the seduction was mutual and betrayal wasn’t part of the equation?”

  “Doesn’t mean pain isn’t part of the equation. Maybe on both sides.”

  Rayna flinched like she’d been slapped. She got up and moved to the other side of the cabin, spent a long, silent moment staring at some pottery lined up on a shelf.

  She didn’t look at him as she spoke. “You always this cheerful?”

  “I’ve known Sam Murphy since I found him stowed away in a vegetable stasis container we stole off an ag freighter. He was a skinny, 17-year-old growling targa cub. We’ve been together on this ship ever since. In all those years I’ve found Sam to be resourceful, courageous, determined, compassionate, even kind. But rarely has he given me any reason to be cheerful.”

  Rayna turned to stare at the Pataran with mouth hanging agape. If she had plied the man with liquor and questioned him for a week, she couldn’t have learned more about Sam Murphy than she had just heard in one sentence.

  “He was a stowaway? On a pirate ship?” What could he have been running from?

  Mo raised that eyebrow again. “Not originally. It wasn’t in his plan for the ag freighter to get waylaid by the Shadowhawk. Just as it wasn’t in yours.”

  She allowed a short laugh. “Right. He just got lucky.” Oh, hell! He got lucky! “Sam Murphy was an escaped slave.”

  Mo’s expression closed up. “I didn’t come here to talk about the captain.”

  Didn’t you? “Why did you come here, Mo?”

  The XO stood and moved to the hatch. “I came to deliver the food.”

  Rayna grinned. “Oh? Not to assess the threat to your captain from a lone female?”

  The Pataran inclined his head. “All right then. I’ve made my assessment. You may be tiny, Ms. Carver, but you are extremely dangerous. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”

  Rayna watched the hatch close behind Mo’s broad back and stood wondering what to do. “He thinks I’m dangerous?” She paced two steps in the cramped space. “What about his ‘kind and courageous and determined and compassionate’ boss? Think that’s not dangerous?” She paced three steps in the other direction. “Man looks like some kind of sex holo actor or something, tastes like bourbon and cherry candy and . . . and . . . shit!” She couldn’t say out loud what she was thinking about the way he felt holding her, his body hard against hers, the proof of his arousal pressed hot and heavy into her hip.

  “I should go. I should definitely go.” If she stayed she wouldn’t be able to resist taking that hard length deep inside, letting Sam Murphy get through the walls she’d spent a lifetime building. And then, as Mo had so perceptively put it, pain would be inevitable.

  She looked with longing at Sam’s bunk. God, she was so tired. Her ribs ached. If she left now, she still wouldn’t have access to her own bunk for two hours or more. She took a deep breath, drawing all that open-air-and-deep-earth into her lungs. She longed to wrap herself in that scent, if only for while.

  She pulled back the covers and slipped into the bunk. She stretched out with a sigh, letting the soft, soft sheets and feather
-light blanket drift down, bringing Sam with them. Just for an hour, she told herself. She could dream just for an hour. Then she would go back to the real world.

  He was sprawled in the chair across from the bunk, his eyes closed as if in sleep, and for a moment, Rayna thought she was still dreaming. His hair was tousled and wet—he must have just come from the shower—and he was wearing nothing but a pair of loose, black workout pants. For the first time she got a good look at his bare shoulders and chest—the sharply-defined muscles, the fine spray of dark hair across the broad span of chest, the scars that broke the smooth perfection of his lightly-tanned skin. She wanted to trace each one with a fingertip, to tease the story of each wound from him with kisses and licks. She didn’t know if it was the mystery of this man or simply his presence that drew her, like a comet to the sun.

  “You’re awake.”

  She was mildly startled to hear him speak, and said the first thing that came to mind. “I meant to be gone before you came back.”

  Eyes the color of sea-gems flashed below dark brows. “I meant to stay gone until you had left.”

  “I’ll go.” She sat up in the bunk, started to swing her legs down to the floor.

  He stood up. “No.” He came closer, pulled her up until she was standing on the mattress. They were face-to-face now; she didn’t have to look up to see his need. “Stay. Please.”

  Rayna didn’t know, she couldn’t remember, when she had decided to take a chance on Sam Murphy. Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she just had to have him. Just once. She slipped her arms around his neck and drew his mouth to hers. She opened her lips to let him in, and his kiss was hot, sweet, stealing her breath as his tongue tangled with hers.

  He broke the kiss for the seconds it would take to slip his tee-shirt off over her head. He exhaled as he stared at her.