Thief: Fringe, Book 1

by Anitra Lynn McLeod

  “Jade.” Jace kept his back to her as he sat at the head of the table.

  “Ever been?” Garrett asked from the other end of the table, flashing her a horse-toothed grin.

  “I have, I have.” In between bites of breakfast, Kraft washed up the dishes. “How long will we be docked?”

  “A few hours,” Jace said, over his shoulder. “Why? You need something?”

  “Well, I’m running out of options in this pantry of yours.”

  Day by day, the food Kraft served grew less spectacular, but only because the pantry pickings became sparse.

  “I got no problem kicking in for more grub,” Garrett said, “provided you’ll be around to cook it.”

  Bailey, Payton and Charissa agreed by nodding vigorously since all their mouths were stuffed with food.

  “Who’s gonna pay her share?” Heller squawked. Food flew from his mouth to the table. He pointed a meaty hand at her. “Ain’t fair I gotta pay for freak-show.”

  “I’ll—” Garrett offered.

  “No, I’ll pay,” Jace cut Garrett off.

  Garrett grinned. “That’s right, she’s your cook, isn’t she?”

  Before Garrett could goad Jace further, Kraft said, “Actually, Captain Lawless, give me a thousand-”

  “A thousand!” Heller shot from the table. “That makes my share…” His brows lowered when he tried to divide a thousand by seven.

  “That seems a bit much,” Jace said.

  Heller’s face cleared and he grinned at her like he’d won.

  “You didn’t let me finish, Captain Lawless. Give me a thousand. I’ll get what we need and bring you back the thousand. I’m not asking to keep it, just to borrow it for a while.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to unpack that.” Jace left off his meal and turned on the little bench to face her. “Seems to me it’s not a good idea for you to be stealing.”

  Jace might be a thief, but he was an honorable thief. He didn’t condone stealing just because it was the easiest way to make a living on the Fringe. Kraft saw a lot of Fairing in Jace.

  “I’m not aiming to steal anything, but if you have a problem with gambling…”

  “Shit howdy!” Heller snarfed. “This gets better and better—your cook-whore has a gambling problem.”

  Jace caught her gaze. “Does she.”

  Giving him a slow smile, she shrugged and said, “Isn’t much of a problem if I win.”

  “A thousand is an awful lot to risk,” Garrett said, darting a suspicious glance between her and Jace.

  “Unless there is no risk.” Jace flashed her a knowing grin.

  She could see it in his eyes. Jace grasped instantly what she planned to do. “Only other thing I need is a pair of shoes.” Her gaze bounced to her bare feet then up. “Some of Jade’s gambling hells are pretty ratty, but shoes would be a real plus for getting in the door.”

  Jace nodded. He pulled a blackened leather wallet from his hip pocket and counted out battered script. When he came up short, Garrett, Payton, Bailey and Charissa helped him out.

  Heller kept his arms crossed and refused to pitch in so much as a five-flat note. “What’s to stop freak-show from taking your script and running?”

  “Her honor, Heller, and I’d appreciate it if you’d shut your big mouth.”

  Tsking and rolling his eyes, Heller made it clear he thought they were suckers for trusting her with any money, let alone a bundle like that.

  Jace stood and handed her the stack of multi-hued script. When the worn notes hit her hand, she felt fleeting emotions of what money meant to them—security, freedom, a future. They had so little, but had no problem sharing what they did have, and they trusted her because Jace did. She’d never touched such emotionally pure script in her life.

  “I have an old pair of boots that might fit you.” Bailey leapt up from the table and ran from the room.

  Charissa watched him with a sullen frown.

  In Jade, Heller followed Kraft into a hell called the Double Whammy. It didn’t take long for her to walk away with over two thousand in script. When she left, Heller had to run to keep up with her. She ducked around the corner of a shabby two-bit hotel and restaurant.

  Heller clomped his way round the corner to find her standing there with her hands on her hips.

  “Instead of following me, Heller, why don’t you walk with me? You’re acting awful suspicious, and we don’t want the IWOG to start sniffing around.”

  Kraft darted a gaze to the crowded streets of Jade. IWOG officers, with their swath of maroon-red against their royal-blue uniforms, stood out amongst the teeming masses.

  Turning on her heel, her feet tight in Bailey’s boots, she walked away, crunching down the side street.

  Heller fell into step beside her. “How’d you do that?”

  “Know you were following me?” Kraft pointed at his thick-soled black boots. “You got some mighty big feet, and you don’t walk so much as you stomp from place to place.”

  Heller took the subtle reprimand under consideration, then blurted, “No, how’d you win like that at the Double Whammy?”

  “Just got a knack, that’s all.” She shrugged. If Heller didn’t know about her reader ability, she wasn’t about to enlighten him. “Do you gamble?”

  “Not no more.” Heller spat on the ground.

  Not since Jace took you from the grunt and groan of street fighting in Kali, Kraft thought. Curious as to why Jace kept Heller around, she’d found the answers when she read the crazy quilt in her room.

  After the IWOG killed Heller’s parents, he joined one of the street gangs in Kali. He was ten. At nineteen, he started fighting in caged death matches. Jace took him away from all that, and Heller looked upon Jace as a combination of father, brother and captain.

  Softly, Kraft said, “You sure know how to make a mighty fine crazy quilt.”

  Heller stopped dead in the street. “Don’t know—”

  “Keep walking.”

  He kept pace with her only by sheer determination and outright indignant curiosity.

  “None of them know, do they?” Kraft asked.

  “If you tell—”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone.” If she were so inclined, she could probably blackmail Heller with the information he enjoyed quilting. “I won’t blow your manly cover.”

  “How’d you know?” Over the fading purple bruises on his face, Heller gazed at her with eyes that vacillated between fury and fear.

  Kraft shrugged and sighed. “Just got a knack, that’s all. But thank you for letting me use the crazy quilt. It’s a true masterpiece.”

  “Wasn’t my idea.” He snorted deeply and hawked a loogie to the street. “Charissa took it out of the rec room.”

  “Do you want it back?” Kraft turned down another street.

  “Didja mess it up?”

  “No.” Kraft walked with great strides. Even with his long legs, Heller had to shove hard-forward to keep up. Under the weight of his weapon-riddled body, he gasped at her pace.

  “Slow down,” Heller snarled. “It’s like you’ve got a Preston Protofuse drive strapped to your ass.”

  She laughed and eased her pace. “You are so determined to hate me, aren’t you?”

  “Something about you ain’t right.”

  A shifty-eyed huckster clad in a mishmash of old and new clothing from all ends of the Fringe turned his assessing gaze on them. He recognized Heller and dismissed him, turning his intent gaze on her.

  The huckster took one step toward her then stopped when she peered deep into his eyes. His dirty face filled with confusion as he backed away. It didn’t take long for him to find another target. The other street hustlers met similar fates. Heller didn’t notice and they continued to walk together without being bothered.

  “Is there anything I could do to build even the smallest bit of truce between us?” Kraft asked, eyeing the clothing stores with a wistful sigh.

  “No truce without trust.” He spat on t
he street. “Don’t trust you. Never will.”

  “I appreciate your honesty.” Kraft turned onto the chaotic market street. Scoots, small electric carts, darted around the stalls, shops and street carts as IWOG consumers, WAG citizens and Fringe players tended to their singularly important business.

  On a deep breath, Kraft tasted a slew of foods, spices, colognes—the wonderful depth and breadth of humanity. As a Fringe planet, Dahank, city of Jade, was a crossroads to all the human animal could aspire to. As much as she enjoyed being on-world, she still preferred being on-ship.

  Pulling herself from her thoughts, Kraft turned to Heller, and said, “Trust me or not, at the moment, you can help me shop.”

  “I ain’t here to help you,” Heller said, his gaze darting to the many offerings of female pulchritude. Market street offered the basics; food, clothing, and sex. Heller seemed well acquainted with the various whorehouses, and cat-calls from the ladies residing there made it clear Heller was not only known, but welcome.

  “You might want to rethink that. He who helps the cook oft finds his plate filled with that he likes best.”

  “What?” Heller’s face twisted up with confusion.

  Just like Danna, Kraft thought. Most of the time, Heller had no idea what she was talking about. She stopped to examine a pen of bright white chickens. “Best way to man’s heart is through his stomach.”

  “Only if you jam your hand in and make a sharp left.” Heller mouthed the quip sideways, out the corner of his lips, and then focused his leering gaze on the woman who tended the penned up chickens.

  Kraft laughed. “I think it best if I go through your mouth, don’t you?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What’s that?” Garrett peered at the thick brown soup Kraft boiled on the stove as Jace watched from the kitchen doorway.

  “Nectar of the gods.” Kraft stirred the pot and turned back to chopping large white onions. “Or it will be in a week.”

  Garrett sniffed the pot dubiously. “It smells like candy.”

  Kraft uttered her enveloping chuckle. “There’s a saying from Earth—candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” With a deft swipe of the broad knife down the cutting board, she dumped the chopped onions into a sizzling cast-iron pan.

  “Guess that depends on what you’re looking to get,” Garrett said, tipping his hat to Kraft. “Right pretty as you are, I don’t much fancy having Jace punch my ticket.” He flashed her a huge, buck-toothed grin.

  Kraft darted her gaze sideways to Jace and laughed. He thought no one had noticed him watching from the doorway, but she noticed, and perhaps even suspected why. Spying on his crew was not the norm for him, but having Kraft aboard wasn’t normal either.

  “It’s wort.” Kraft nodded to the pot of thick brown soup.

  “That helps me exactly—none.” Garrett lifted his hands palm open and up. “Can you frame that such an engineer like me can grasp?”

  After grooming his pale blond locks, Bailey came forward and sniffed the pot.

  “Wort is the precursor to beer.” Kraft gave the pot another stir.

  Garrett looked happy enough to hug her.

  “Hey!” Bailey almost sang. “I can’t think of the last time we had decent beer on board.”

  “You ain’t old enough to drink, pup.” Garrett wrapped an arm around Bailey and ruffled his hair with his free hand. “You best leave the beer to old timers like me who can show it the proper respect.”

  Bailey wriggled out of his grasp. “I’m old enough!” He put his hair in order as his gaze darted to Kraft. “I am.”

  “Barely.” Garrett tried to grab him again, but Bailey ducked.

  “Well, give me a week, and fine beer will be a staple around here.” She checked the stove-top timer, stirred the pot of wort, flipped the onions, then sprinkled a handful of green herbs into the pan. A pungently sweet scent of something like mint mixed with the strong odor of onions. Jace’s mouth watered when he took a deep breath. He had no idea what she was making for dinner, but he couldn’t wait to find out.

  He’d almost laughed when Kraft apologized to him for the weight the fresh food would put on his ship, but he’d dismissed her concern. Freeze-dried food took up far less room and weight, but it couldn’t compare to fresh food. Just the smell of raw vegetables took him back to his life on Tyaa.

  “And if you want to thank someone for the beer,” Kraft said, “thank Heller, it was his idea.”

  A bell pinged.

  “That’d be my bread. Excuse me.”

  After Bailey and Garrett stepped back, Kraft pulled four gleaming brown loaves from the oven. Jace found his gaze drawn to his old homespun pants drawn tight across the full of her hips as she bent over.

  Kraft popped the loaves from the pans onto a wire rack then stroked butter over the crust. If heaven had a smell, her cooking was it. He dropped his gaze and blushed when he found himself aroused by the sight of her bare feet against the decimated floor of his galley.

  He kept thinking of that Earth phrase about keeping a woman barefoot and pregnant. Sexist in the extreme, it also clashed horribly with Kraft’s true nature. Kraft was a warrior-cook. Taming a woman so elemental went far beyond his grasp, and how could he dare do so? Besides, even if he did somehow win the lottery and make his way to her bed, he’d just bet a sophisticated woman like Kraft had the latest and greatest B-chip. No way would Kraft allow herself to get pregnant.

  “I could so get used to this,” Garrett said.

  “Couldn’t we all,” Bailey agreed. His gaze fell on Kraft, and it didn’t take a reader to see the poor boy was almost sick with infatuation. Jace hoped his own lust wasn’t quite so apparent to everyone.

  “You seem very happy puttering about the kitchen,” Jace said from the doorway. He’d been covertly watching them, a bit envious of how easily Kraft managed to insinuate herself into life aboard Mutiny. In some ways, she made him sharply aware of how much he missed Senna. In other ways, Jace felt guilty because he was glad Senna was not here.

  He’d been diligent in his efforts to make sure he was never alone with Kraft. Not that he didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust himself. Avoiding her allure seemed to be the most prudent course of action.

  Kraft did exactly what she said she would. She’d taken the thousand script, outfitted the pantry and returned the script to him, plus two hundred extra.

  When their hands touched, she jerked back, and again he wondered what darkness in him pushed her away. Jace became even more determined to make sure they never spent time alone and that he never touched her.

  Jace knew every moment of her leave from Mutiny because Heller fairly documented it. He seemed furious that she’d done exactly what she said she would. Heller found conspiracy in that Kraft returned the script plus without buying anything for herself. Jace knew she’d used her psychic ability at the gambling hell, and he wondered why she worked as a thief when she could obviously make a living as a gambler, or a cook. He had a strong notion he would never understand her.

  “I am happy.” When Kraft flashed him that slow, lazy and sexy smile, he frowned. He’d thought that smile was just for him, but he’d watched her turn the power of it on both Garrett and Bailey.

  All at once, the smile fell from her face, and she turned back to the stove. She stirred the pot, flipped the onions and herbs and said, “I haven’t run a kitchen in a long time. I forgot how much I enjoyed it. It’s like rediscovering an old friend.”

  As Jace watched her from the doorway, he wondered how long her joy in being a cook would last. She shone as a cook and she took tremendous pride in it, but in her heart of hearts, she’d always be Captain Kraft. There may be honor among thieves, but there could never be two captains on the same ship.

  Jace watched his crew fall inevitably into her dance as he held himself back like a wallflower. Kraft, a dust devil, twirled ever faster on her way right out of their lives. He couldn’t bear to feel her wind in his hair only to watch her move inexorably on. Touching Kraft
would be like touching a fine glass figurine and dropping it with a clumsy hand.

  Late that night, finished cleaning the kitchen, Kraft made her way to the bridge. Silently, Jace followed behind her.

  Bailey fiddled with a guitar, obsessively tuning strings that sounded in perfect order to Jace’s untrained ear.

  “I didn’t know you played,” Kraft said, entering the bridge.

  Bailey fumbled the battered instrument. He looked up with big blue eyes. “I’m watching the Void too. I’m not slacking.”

  Kraft stepped back, lifting her hands palm up. “I didn’t say you were.” She plunked herself down, cross-legged, on the ratty neospring floor. “You got an ear and eye to the Void, but you got another for what’s in your hands. And I’d like to hear you play. Hell, you’ve been tuning her endlessly. Let me hear you wrest a song from her before you tune her to death.”

  Kraft relaxed against the lockers that lined the port side of the bridge. She closed her eyes. She looked exhausted but content.

  Bailey grinned impishly as he caressed the neck of the guitar then strummed softly. An impossibly sweet chord filled the bridge.

  “Do you play anything?” Bailey asked.

  Kraft popped open one eye. From the doorway, Jace watched her suppress a burst of laughter, then say, “I play no instruments, but I do dance.”

  Bailey fumbled his guitar again as he flushed bright red.

  Jace wondered if he looked that stupidly boyish when Kraft made him blush.

  “I do not dance in a literal sense, Bailey.” Kraft shook her head. “But play me a lively tune, and I will dance in my mind with it.”

  Eyes closed, Bailey played a mix of sweet and sour, fast and slow notes that told a story.

  In the hallway, spying, Jace allowed the music to embrace him. He tapped his toes as his body swayed, but he held his cover in the shadow of the doorway. He felt like a dirty thief for stealing a moment that didn’t belong to him.

  Bailey finished his musical tale.