by H. E. Trent
“The Tyneali.”
“I forgot just that quickly.” She gave her COM’s wristband a double-tap and said into the device, “Mother? I’m back.”
Owen couldn’t tell what Cet said in response as she still spoke mostly Jekhani, but whatever she said made Fastida roll her eyes.
“What’d she say?” he asked.
“She asked if I had fun driving her closer to her grave.”
“Gotta love that mama guilt,” Eileen said behind them. “I’ll start getting our passengers ready to disembark. I guess we’re early.”
Owen grunted and started walking toward the house. “Yeah, by a few hours, otherwise the welcoming committee would have been here to greet us.”
Ais would have been out there…or at least, he hoped. He didn’t know what all had happened since he last spoke to folks from the farm. He hadn’t been able to make a COM connection. He’d only been able to assume that all was well. Assuming otherwise would have been a path to destruction, and Luke steadily counseled him away from that place.
He picked up a bit of speed as he neared the barn. From there, the house was a short jog away. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so ready to be around people, and not just people, but people who knew him intimately and loved him anyway.
Love.
He stopped walking and threaded his fingers through the back of his uncombed hair.
The word had seemed to topple into his brain out of the blue, and he couldn’t quite digest it.
Of course he loved his family and would do anything for them. That was what families did—they formed a safety net. They kept each other from hitting the ground too hard when they fell and, sometimes, the people in them even liked each other.
But love wasn’t a word he casually bandied about in the same sentence with the names of women he wasn’t related to.
He’d never been in love before. He thought he would have known if he had, but he didn’t trust himself to recognize the sensation.
What’s that feel like?
What he felt was a lot like fear at the moment. He didn’t think love was supposed to feel like that.
He swallowed down the lump in his throat and kept walking. He’d rescued dozens of women from a dangerous slaver cabal and had barely sweated during the getaway, but the thought of one little red-eyed woman made his gut cramp.
Coward.
Coward or not, he put one foot in front of the other and his gaze fixed on the main door of the farmhouse. He was going to go right to her, kiss her, and tell her he was sorry for being such a shit early on. He was going to tell her that she deserved better than him, but he wanted to keep her anyway because he didn’t want anyone else. He was going to tell her that he needed her, and that was something he’d never admitted to anyone before.
He put his hand on the knob, turned it, pushed, and immediately had the barrel of a shotgun in his face.
Instinct had Owen standing perfectly still, but his brain was racing. He was making plans and examining possibilities. He was pondering worst-case scenarios.
If someone had tried to take over the farm, they could have hurt the people on it. His sisters could have been dead, and Ais. Owen needed to be calm so he could find out.
So he’d know how much hell to raise.
“Alex,” came Ais’s voice, followed by a frustrated sigh. “Stop that.”
The man with the gun shifted his narrowed green gaze toward Ais at his right.
She put her hand on the barrel and lowered the gun. “Don’t do that.”
“He’s going to marry you. He—”
“I know what he did,” she said quietly. “I let him. I’m an adult.”
The man growled.
“Ais?” Owen asked. He pulled her out and put her behind him.
The man with the gun—Alex—shifted his weight, but not nervously. He was staring Owen down.
“Ignore him,” Ais whispered against Owen’s back.
“Yeah? I should ignore a welcome from a stranger in the Beshni home that involves a shotgun?”
“He’s just protective.”
“Of what?”
“Of me. He’s…my brother.”
“Your brother? Are you kidding me?”
Her so-called brother propped the gun inside the doorway and folded his arms over his chest.
“You’re a Hauge, then,” Owen said sourly. The famed McGarry paranoia flared in him as he balled his hands into fists. The guy being Ais’s brother didn’t preclude him from being a shit stain. “What do you want? Why are you here?”
“I’m being run off the planet by Jekhans, but before I leave, I’m going to make sure you marry my sister.”
“Pardon me?”
“You got her pregnant.”
“Alex.” Ais groaned and rested her forehead against Owen’s back, but she didn’t get a chance to rest there long, because he turned and bent to meet her gaze.
“You’re pregnant?”
Alex moved around and leaned down, too, and sneered at him. “And you’re going to marry her. Did you catch that part, McGarry?”
Ais closed her eyes and sighed yet again.
“Ais,” Owen whispered. That was all he could say, her name. Too much had happened too quickly.
One moment, he’d been thinking about love and whether he’d recognize the emotion, the next he had a gun in his face, and after that, he was told he was going to have a child.
“It’s true,” she said, opening her eyes. “I didn’t want to say anything when you were gone. You would have worried, and I didn’t…” She shrugged. Swallowed.
He put his hands to her cheeks and skimmed his thumb across her lips. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
“You will?”
“I…I love you.”
He waited for lightening to strike him down for the lie, but there was no blinding flash. Just warmth. The warmth of certainty—of coming to a realization and having the truth of it settle into every cell of him.
Of course he loved her. That was why he’d tried so hard to sell her on his villainy.
Her eyes took on a comical roundness that had Owen scooping her up and whispering, “Tell me you love me, too, or I’m going to feel like an asshole. I’m not good at this. You need to tell me if I’m doing this right, because—”
“I thought you’d be mad at me.” She kissed the side of his face and then nuzzled hers against the crook of his neck.
“Why the hell for?”
“Fastida, well, she called it ‘entrapment,’ and I don’t think that’s a good word.”
Owen rolled his eyes and set her onto her feet, careful to avoid the pair of dogs that had suddenly bounded outside in search of their morning bushes, apparently.
He glanced over at the man in the doorway and found him rocking back on his heels. “I’m leaving, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to check on you. My father is going to be furious.”
“Well, tell him to direct his fury to other things, like the cause of the Jekhan women. This one’s fine.” And mine. Owen pulled Ais against his side and rubbed her waist.
A kid.
Luke’s probably going to laugh himself blue in the face.
Remembering Luke, Owen thought of something. “Wait.” Owen turned and spied the approaching mass of returnees coming from the ship. He’d need to help Court and Erin get them settled in, but something Alex said grated at him. “You said you have to leave? They’re making you?”
Alex nodded slowly. “Unofficial rule, but I imagine it’ll be law soon. Any non-native who doesn’t have approval to be on the planet has to leave.”
Owen’s stomach lurched.
Amy, who’d traveled ahead on one of the faster ships, stepped outside, rubbing her eyes and sighing. “A little more complicated than that. Hi, Owen. Holy crap, we’ve got to find someplace to let those women rest. We worked hard, but we aren’t quite ready.”
“What’s going on?”
She waved a dismissive hand at him and s
tepped outside into the dawn light, sleep lines still creasing the side of her pale face. She was wearing a nightshirt Owen was pretty sure had been Erin’s at some point. It was screen-printed with big block letters reading, “Not Tonight.”
“We’re still smoothing out the language,” she said, “but there’s generous grandfathering. Anyone with a Jekhan family obviously isn’t going to be punted off the planet. That would be self-defeating.”
Owen squeezed Ais a little tighter.
“Others may be able to stay if they get a certain number of signatures from Jekhan neighbors.”
“I can see how that would benefit Little Gitano,” he said.
“Yep. Not much would change there except for Jekhans being a little more out in the open. Allan hoped that meant he could give up running the meet-shop, but Doc quickly disabused him of that notion. Allan was so cute pouting over the video feed.”
“How do people plan on enforcing these new rules?”
Amy cringed and chafed her hands against her arms. “Okay, we’re bad at the law and order stuff. We’ve never had particularly strong police forces and militaries because the Tyneali never taught us to defend ourselves, but we’re hoping that people like Allan and Salehi can help us get defense strategies in place quickly. Obviously, folks like Salehi would get to stay if he wanted to since he’s done a lot of good for Jekhans. I made sure to slip in that exclusion.”
“You did?” Amy was the offspring of a very important politician lost during the Terran invasion. Jekhan children tended to follow their parents into their careers, but Amy had been rebelling against any participation on her part in politics, probably hoping people would forget her birthright. Apparently, she couldn’t run anymore.
She sighed and scratched her head. “I got spotted as Emania.”
“By whom?” Ais asked.
“The guy with the face.” She rolled her eyes.
Ais narrowed hers.
“You know. Colonel Cranky?”
“Oh,” Ais said, nodding.
Alex huffed, muttered something in his native tongue that was probably vulgar, and then retreated into the house.
“Who is this colonel?” Owen asked.
“Not really a colonel,” Amy said. “He’s part of the Jekhan Alliance—one of the guys who was shooting at the flyer. He and some of his compatriots are hunkering in down in your cottage right now, sleeping, and probably reading your Tyneali sensor data.”
“Where the hell am I going to sleep?”
Amy shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Ais was bunking with me and, sorry, guy, I’m not giving up my bed for a dude.”
“Naturally. So, about this guy?”
Sighing, she rubbed her eyes again and shifted her weight on her bare feet. “Yeah. If anyone would have recognized me, he would have. He used to be a teacher before all the crap happened. He knew who I was in barely a blink. Apparently, he’d been an aide to my sire when he was young.”
“Younger, you mean,” Ais said. “You’re not that old.”
Amy shrugged. “I feel like I am sometimes.”
“So, what’s the deal?” Eileen approached with a little boy perched on her forearms and a platoon of weary Jekhan women behind her.
The sisters Owen had “bought” moved hurriedly through the group and into the house. One called out, “Trigrian?” as she went.
There was suddenly a cacophony of squealing and laughter from deep within the house, and the sound seemed to make some of the downcast women remaining outside smile.
“Call Doc,” Ais said. “Then, we call the fosters?” To Owen, she said, “We will find people in town to help them until they can go home.”
“If they can go home.”
Amy grunted and got out of the way of the door. “Come on in, ladies and kiddos. We’ll get you all sorted, just be patient with us. We’ve got plenty of fruit for you to start with. There’s tea on the way, and bread should be done soon. Give Headron and his uncle a little time to get the trays out of the oven.”
“Did you say Headron?” a statuesque, dark-eyed woman asked, pausing in the doorway. “Headron Jiro?”
“Do you know him?” Ais asked.
The woman turned and nodded. “I’ve never met him, but he’s my cousin.” She turned and waved to someone at the back of the group. “Mother, Headron’s here.”
Someone in the back muttered something in Jekhani.
“I really need to learn the language,” Owen whispered.
“I would like to be more fluent,” Ais whispered back. “I’d like to speak Jehkani and English as well as I speak the Tyneali tongue. Could be useful?”
“Useful for sure. People are going to need your help understanding Tyneali.”
She put her hand to her chest as if in shock. “Me?”
He chuckled. “You have a really valuable skill. Don’t discount the value of knowledge.”
Her lips parted into a wide smile and her body vibrated a moment with enthusiasm.
He loved that she hadn’t become so jaded that small things no longer sparked thrill. He hoped her resiliency was infectious, because he wanted to be more like her…and more like Michael. Mike had been a chronic optimist. Owen would never be that, but he could at the very least finally let himself thaw.
The elder woman made her way forward, clutching a cloth bag against her belly. “My brother here?”
“If your brother is a baker who tells dirty jokes without cracking a smile, then yes,” Owen said. Then he remembered something. “Wait. Didn’t he try to get you off the planet years ago? With another sister?”
The woman closed her eyes and gripped the bag tighter.
Her daughter put her head against her shoulder and squeezed her waist. “Their ship got intercepted. My aunt didn’t survive.”
“I’m sorry,” Ais said softly.
The older woman shrugged. “We all lose.”
“We lose too much,” Amy said. “Come on in. Head through the gathering room and past the kitchen. Headron and Caler are baking in the annex.”
She guided the rest of the women in, too, still managing to appear somewhat authoritative in spite of her manner of dress and the fact her hair was sticking up in at least three places.
“Must be the flight attendant in her,” Owen muttered.
Ais looked up at him. “Hmm?”
“Ignore me.”
“No.” She threw both arms around him and just squeezed. “Missed you.”
“Did you really?” He took her hand, kissed it as though her soft flesh had been nourishment he’d been deprived, and led her into the house.
He’d been sleeping upright for the past two days and could crash anywhere, even if he had to do it between a couple of his brothers-in-law. “Not going anywhere else for a while. By the time I do leave again, you’ll be happy to see me go and you’ll wish Alex had taken you away.”
“Never.”
Courtney edged around the gathering room, waving at the ladies as she passed, and holding a small device against her belly. “Hey, O.”
She pushed up onto her tiptoes to receive the kiss he planted on her cheek, and then nudged him right back outside.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Don’t tell me something ha—”
“No, no! Nothing like that. It’s just loud in here.” Out on the doormat, she closed the door, in spite of the fact Salehi was approaching with Fastida some of the gear from the ship. “I’ll make this fast. Here.” She pressed a small, oval device into Owen’s palm. “That’s for you.”
“What?”
“It’s a calling card, and it’s for you. When we got back after that shit with Reg, we were cleaning up and found that in the hallway windowsill. You know, that window that Reg shot through?”
He turned the smooth black device over in his palm. The little pod was heavy for his size, and though lacking a screen of any sort, an input prompt flashed across one surface. It was some kind of small computer, he figured, or else a data storage device.
“One of the ladies from Little Gitano recognized the shape,” Court said.
“From Tyneali,” Ais said. “Here. Look.”
She took the device from Courtney and tapped the end against Courtney’s wrist COM.
The device flashed in English: ERROR. WRONG USER. MCGARRY, OWEN JASON, III.
“What the hell is that?” Owen muttered, taking the little pod back.
Court shrugged. “Kelta said that whenever the Tyneali have left them messages, they were generic. Anyone could have opened them. They only started using this particular kind of device in the past few visits.”
“What do they want with me?”
The door swung inward and Trigrian poked his head out. His hair was mussed and only half-pinned, but he was smiling. “Courtney, come back. My sisters would like to fawn over you.”
“What the hell for?”
“Because you’re pregnant.”
“They need to get their priorities straight.”
“What better priority than family?”
Courtney’s shoulders fell. “Ugh. You always make me feel like such a butt.”
“I’m sorry.” He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “I didn’t mean to.”
“My hang-up, babe. Don’t apologize.” Court bashfully averted her gaze and twirled some of her hair around her fingers. She’d never been good with receiving affection, but she was getting better at it.
As was Owen.
Court slipped into the house with Trigrian and shut the door behind her.
Owen rolled the little device in his palm and, tired though he was, was even more curious.
He pulled Ais to the bench near the path, sat her on his lap, and tapped the device against his wrist COM.
Some mechanism inside the device whirred, clicked, and a moment later, a small holo-projector beam drew images into the air. Maps.
“What is that?” Ais asked.
“Not sure.” The pictures kept changing, long view and then zoomed. The sequence seemed to be showing aerial footage of locations on Jekh and then ground-view images follow by inventory lists and coordinates.
“Wait,” he said, staring fixedly at the stream. “I think I’m understand. These are places on the planet they want us to know about. Tech they’ve left behind, I think, and…”