Runner: The Fringe, Book 3

by Anitra Lynn McLeod

  “She’s sitting in that cell waiting for me to come and get her and confirm that everything is okay.” Everything that could go wrong had. But in his hindbrain, he’d known it would. The last time he’d trusted, Laura took him for everything that wasn’t nailed down. This time, Jynx didn’t steal a thing. He tossed her his heart, and she didn’t even know she had it.

  Jynx started to read the pleasure book for the third time when Foster entered the cell room. Much longer than two hours, it’d been more like six. He approached her cell like he walked toward an organ-transplant harvest. To her horror, she realized his right hand was bloody. Mostly his right-hand knuckles.

  “Are you okay?” She shot to her feet and pressed herself to the bars. “Is there someone else on the ship?” It looked to her like he’d been in a fight, but at least he’d ended up on the winning end. Whoever he’d pounded, that poor bastard probably didn’t have a face left, let alone a head. His knuckles dripped blood around crusty scabs.

  Dazed, he looked at her as if she’d just spoken in a language he could not comprehend.

  “What?”

  “Your hand.” She pointed.

  He looked at his fist as if seeing it for the first time ever.

  “Foster?”

  “Don’t talk. You talk so nice, and I can’t—just don’t talk to me.” He shook his head and looked at her with a madman’s emptiness. “I came to bring you this.” He looked down and suddenly seemed to realize his hands were empty.

  “Mr. Nash?” Adrenaline-charged fear made her whole body quiver uncontrollably.

  Shaking his head, he left the cell room, then returned with a tray. He slid it under the thick iron door between them.

  Food and a stack of books. She picked it up, setting the tray on the table, idly noting that the books had fallen into the cold food.

  “Six books? Just how long were you planning to keep me in here?” Keeping her voice light, she swallowed down nauseating fear.

  He dropped his gaze to the floor, and her heart seemed to sink with it. Something had gone horribly wrong. That light on the kitchen com had turned out to be something very bad indeed.

  “Foster, please, tell me. Are you in danger?”

  Her voice seemed to penetrate the shadow of fog around him. He looked up, really seeing her for the first time, like he’d just woken up from a nightmare.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.” The word tumbled automatically from her mouth. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

  Turning sharply on his heel, he left the room.

  She picked at her food, then washed her tray, slid it away, then settled into her bunk to read. It took all her will not to burst into tears. For the life of her, she thought perhaps she had done something to upset him but couldn’t fathom what. One blinking light on the kitchen com changed everything.

  “Roberts.” She said the name with a gut-twisting fear. Roberts had said something to Foster. Something that changed his mind about her. “What horrible lie have you told about me now?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Washing his hands off, carefully applying the salve and gauze like he’d seen Jynx do, Foster ministered to his injuries, then left the infirmary. He tried to shake the slow creeping terror that had washed down her face from his mind. He wanted to take her into his arms and tell her everything would be okay, but he couldn’t lie to her again. Vowing to protect her when he knew damn good and well he probably couldn’t. He just wanted to so much, he thought if he said it out loud, he could make it true.

  “Macho shithead, you shouldn’t have told her she was safe in the first place.” He worried that she would only think he’d said that to get her in the sack. Worse, there was some truth to that. He’d wanted her in his bed so badly, he might have said anything.

  “And now I’m forced to do something to her that I don’t want to do.” Desire to pound his fists into something filled him, but he gritted his teeth and pushed the anger down. He’d break his hands if he kept it up. Instead, he went back to the weight room and pumped iron until his body shook and he couldn’t lift anything. Lying on his back, he glared at the ceiling.

  Rotten Roberts really had it all figured out. Good old Vic nailed him to the wall by his short and curlies and took a vicious delight in doing so. Foster should have seen it coming, but he’d needed the money so badly he hadn’t looked too deeply. The job was supposed to be short and sweet. The easiest Mil he’d ever made. It didn’t matter about all those particulars in the contract, because the failsafe wrapped an instant noose around his neck.

  He rolled off the weight bench to the red pleather-clad pads and let out a groan of fury. He couldn’t abuse his body anymore. Exhaustion left him a pathetic used tissue on the floor. One deck below him, Jynx was waiting in her cell. Even if she managed to fall asleep, she was still waiting for him.

  Lifting himself up by the very last bits of energy, he stumbled to his feet and left the weight room. He made his way to the cells and turned the lights on low. Jynx didn’t stir as he let himself into her cell.

  She looked so tiny in the small bunk. Her blonde hair peeked over the blanket wrapped around her voluptuous body. Falling to his knees, he stroked her lips, her hair, the entire contour of her face before he finally woke her.

  “Foster.” She scooted over, lifting the edge of the blanket to let him in.

  He went to her with a heavy heart. “You don’t have to—”

  With a slender finger to his lips, she shushed him as she pressed close and whispered, “Go to sleep.”

  He wrapped himself to her. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m a very bad man.”

  “So I’ve heard. Tales they tell.” Her sleepy voice faded away.

  Once he was certain she was asleep, he whispered, “I will hurt you very badly, lovely lady Jynx.”

  The confession eased some of his pain and allowed him to slide into slumber. On the verge of falling asleep, he heard her whisper, “I know.”

  She had no idea what time it was since time had no real meaning out in space, but she woke and Foster was no longer beside her on the narrow bunk. Pressed to the pillow, she could still smell traces of his sweat. He’d been soaked with it when he came to her last night. Male and strong, not unpleasant, his essence aroused her. She took a deep breath of the alluring scent before she rolled out of bed.

  On the table, she found a stack of clean clothes, a clean towel, another robe and cold food. She ate a few bites. Her stomach clenched, and she barely made her way to the toilet before she brought it all right back up. Nerves, she decided. Dread sat in her belly like a lump of ice.

  Bits and pieces of Foster coming to her in the dark rushed back. She’d spoken to him in sleepy whispers but couldn’t remember what they’d actually said. All she knew was that his coming to her, curling himself beside her, had made her feel safe, and she’d finally drifted into sleep.

  Her belly rebelled again. She dry heaved over the toilet then stood straight with horror when she realized why she kept throwing up even when she had nothing left in her stomach.

  Peering up at the com unit in the center of the hallway between the cages, she said, “Foster? Can you hear me? Please answer me. I need to talk to you.”

  She had to swallow down a sudden gut-wrenching sob as she waited for his reply.

  Foster sat on the bridge. He could hear her plaintive and terrified voice over the audvid, but he didn’t answer.

  “Just what the hell am I going to say? Oops, sorry, pardon my screw up, I guess I can’t protect you after all. Thanks for playing the trust game. Sorry but I don’t even have a consolation prize for you. Yes, well, I did bed you, but that’s not much of a consolation, now, is it?”

  He turned away from her tear filled eyes over the audvid.

  “Foster, please. I just want to talk to you.”

  He wanted to smash his fist into the console, but he flipped on some music.

  “Just talk to me.” Her
voice trailed off after a while.

  Ignoring her broke his heart, but he just couldn’t bring himself to lie to her again.

  Damn it all to hell. He needed money. Money was power, and without it he was powerless. After a while he wouldn’t even be able to run the ship. He had fuel, water, food and enough credits and script to last three short months. If he couldn’t keep himself safe, he couldn’t offer Jynx any more than a comfortable place to hide until someone showed up to kill them both.

  He heard a strange sound over the com and turned his attention to the audvid. Jynx was throwing up for the third time.

  “Oh, great, she’s sick.” That’s all he needed. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he wanted to slap himself for being so self-absorbed. Like she got sick just to inconvenience him. Sometimes he amazed himself with what a massive asshole he could really be.

  Jynx washed her face, brushed her teeth, then looked up at the com. “You said if I was afraid, with the game or anything else, I could say stop and you would. I’m saying stop. I’m afraid. Even if you won’t talk to me, at least come down here so I can see you.”

  Resolved, he left the bridge and made his way to the cells, putting on his cold, emotionless, ruthless-bastard face.

  As soon as he entered, she leapt to her feet. Her eyes went wide, trying to literally drink him in. “Are you okay?”

  He didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what to say, and he realized he couldn’t lie if he refused to say anything at all.

  Biting her lip, her eyes watered. “Are you angry with me?”

  The cracking confusion of her voice destroyed his resolve. “You said I didn’t have to talk to you. You said you just wanted to look at me. So, help yourself.” Posturing, swaggering his hips, he displayed his body like a prized stallion. He sounded like an even bigger prick than he felt like.

  Hurt and confused but clearly enamored of him, she eyed him fully from his toes to the top of his shaggy blond head. He could literally feel desire in her gaze.

  “Whatever Roberts told you, it’s a lie. Just ask me for the truth. You know I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  After a deliberately long pause, he asked, “Why don’t you tell me about your husband.”

  “My what?” Jynx sat down hard on her bunk.

  He didn’t actually believe the latest, but he wanted to make sure. Just reading about the rumor had pissed him off. He didn’t like thinking of any man having that contract with her but himself.

  “You mentioned Brandt to me in passing. You said you slept with him even though you didn’t love him, but you made him your husband?” If she thought he was upset about this, he wouldn’t have to tell her the real reason he was acting like a ruthless bastard.

  “I told you the truth. I slept with him and could have come to love him, but I didn’t marry him.” She paused and looked down at the floor. “Although at the moment, I’m wishing I had.”

  Stung, he demanded, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Lifting her face, she looked directly to his eyes. “It means I’m pregnant with his child, Mr. Nash. If I had married him, at least this child would be legitimate. Not that I think I’m going to live long enough to actually give birth to him or her.”

  Foster felt like someone had just snuck up behind him and gave him a swift boot to the head. “Pregnant?” His blood ran cold.

  “Yes. That’s why I keep throwing up.”

  “It could be something else.” Heaven help him, let it be almost anything else. He swore he could handle anything but that. A child. Her child.

  “My period is late,” she said with a matter-of-fact grimace. “Even though I don’t know what day it is, I know it’s been at least five weeks since the last one if not six. At first I thought stress was catching up with me, playing havoc with my body, but I know it’s not.”

  “But you’re a doctor,” he pointed out.

  “And that means what?” she asked with lifted hands. “That I can’t get pregnant? What am I? Some kind of holy creature?”

  “It means you should know how not to get in that condition.”

  “I do.” Jynx rolled her eyes. “I can site chapter and verse on the topic, but at the time, I didn’t think about it. Just as I told you, we were rather drunk and full of ourselves, and birth control was the last thing on my mind.”

  “You don’t have an implant?”

  “No.” Shaking her head, she laughed. “What irony. I’ve put thousands of them in but never took the time to get one myself. I guess Brandt didn’t have one either. Do you have one?”

  Foster tapped the tiny tell-tale lump under his arm. “My B-chip is good for at least another year.”

  “Good for you,” she said sarcastically. “I guess there aren’t any little Nashes running about the Void.”

  “Not without a miracle.” He determined long ago never to get himself stuck in such a horrific dilemma. Just his luck to get stuck in it anyway. “And you might be wrong. It could be like you said, stress and stuff, and—” He cut off his own babbling. Talking it to death wouldn’t change the truth. If any woman should know if she were pregnant or not, it was a doctor like Jynx.

  “Why don’t you go to the infirmary, check your selection of urine dipsticks, and see if you might have one for pregnancy. It’s fairly common medical fare. Oh, I’ll wait here.” She sat down on her bunk.

  No doubt about it. The stick turned blue almost instantly. Blotting it dry, Jynx placed it on the tray and shoved it under the cell door.

  Looking up at the com, she said, “You can come and take a look, Mr. Nash. I was right. I am most definitely pregnant.”

  Joy and sadness swirled around her as she settled herself on her bunk. Such joy because she loved children. She always thought she’d have one someday when her life settled down and she met a man she really loved. Sadness washed her happiness away because she couldn’t have picked a worse time to actually get pregnant. Not that she’d chosen it. And she knew better than to take chances, but birth control really had been the last thing on her mind that night.

  Shamefully, she realized she’d taken the same risk with Foster. She’d been so caught up in the moment, she didn’t think about the consequences. Exercising rigid self-control her entire life then, to fall so rapidly, one man to another, made her wonder what kind of woman she really was. Tawdry wench sprang instantly to mind, causing her to laugh against tears. She’d kissed only four men once upon a time. Five now. And she took all of them to her bed, but none so firmly as she took Mr. Nash. Not just to her bed but to the limits of her heart and soul.

  Gripping horror suddenly clutched her belly, and she almost swooned. Brandt’s child. Brandt blessed with the same ability to project. If Roberts found out…

  Foster entered, strode to the tray, looked at it, then kicked it across the room. Swearing the most vulgar stream of foul words, he proceeded to kick the tray and the test stick all the way to the cell room door.

  She’d never seen such a display of physical fury, and she was thankful for the thick bars between them.

  “You needed not concern yourself, Mr. Nash. It isn’t your child.”

  Red-faced, he spun and pinned her with blazing azure eyes. “You think it matters? You think I give a shit who’s kid—” He cut himself off by picking up the tray and the stick. He stomped out of the cell room.

  She didn’t understand why he was so upset. It wasn’t his child. Her heart surged when she thought maybe he wanted it to be. But he seemed proud of the fact that he always took precautions. He took them with her, and she didn’t even know it. Had she been looking, she would have felt the B-chip under his arm, but she hadn’t bothered.

  Pondering his fury, turning it in her mind with an almost scientific detachment, she felt her eyes go wide when she understood.

  “No.” She shot to her feet. “No.” Such fury and anger were because he’d decided to take her to Roberts. He’d changed his mind since yesterday. That was wh
y he was livid. It was one thing to take her to Roberts, but to take her, now even more vulnerable because she was pregnant—that was what infuriated him. Foster didn’t want to turn her over, but he was going to do it anyway.

  Glaring up at the com, she said, “You changed your mind, didn’t you? You are taking me to Roberts.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Foster avoided talking to her for three days. No matter how much she yelled and screamed, he refused to say a word. He just left her food and skedaddled away like a coward. Where once she didn’t react the way he thought she should, she more than made up for it now that she had something to live for.

  Digging her verbal heels into his back, she called him a baby killer, and he’d finally exploded, “Don’t you dare! That’s your fault, not mine!”

  Her eyes lit up when she’d finally forced him to speak. “That’s right. It is my fault, and I’m not blaming you. Are you going to finally admit the truth that you’re taking me to Roberts, or are you going to run away again like a cowardly little boy?” Blazing, sultry amethyst eyes pinned him. “Just tell me the truth, Foster. That’s all I’m after.”

  He couldn’t believe he was going to put a dangerous and potentially deadly plan into action, knowing it could go horribly wrong in a million ways. Even if he succeeded, he knew he would hurt her so badly that she’d never speak to him again. He cared deeply about that, but he’d be happy if he could just keep her alive, willingly giving her up so some other man could love her the way he did, and give her child a father and a safe place to call home. All the arrangements were made. He just had to get her to Juno.

  Swallowing down all his trepidation, he put on his ugliest face. “I’m not going to run away. You’re too valuable for that. Know what the bounty on your head is, Sweets?”

  Her lovely eyes went as round as her shocked mouth. “You’re doing this for the money?”