by M. A. Grant
The sound of tired footsteps approaching had her rushing eagerly to the door, pulling it open wide and stepping out into the hall.
The large, exhausted man didn’t even look up at her. He just grunted his acknowledgement and went into his own apartment a few doors down. Emmaline sighed with disappointment and turned to go back inside.
Only to run into the door.
“Ouch,” she grumbled, rubbing her shoulder where she’d rammed against the metal. She looked down at the key pad.
“Oh, gods...no!”
It required a palm scan. And a code. And a retinal scan.
And Peirce wasn’t here for any of those.
Emmaline bit her lower lip, wishing she had thought ahead, hadn’t just rushed out into the open. Gods, hadn’t Peirce always complained about her inability to plan ahead for situations while he was living at the estate?
Watching the sunset from the library window: Miss Gregson, a sniper could have just taken you out through that window and your blood would ruin that first edition of Dust to Dust: A History of Lailian Burial Rites.
Yelling as she went to greet another dog abandoned thanks to the wars: Miss Gregson, did you ever think that an enemy combatant could have attached explosives to that mangy dog you just ran to pet?
Watching her as she tried to chop carrots to give to the horses: Miss Gregson, please put down the knife. If I wanted you to kill yourself, I’d just hand you my gun.
She could hear him in her head right now. Miss Gregson, did you ever think that trying a palm scan you already know will fail might set off one of the flags Mr. Stone has set?
Her hand hovered above the pad, but she didn’t put it down to touch the glass. There had to be another option. She could figure this out.
What if she left the apartment? She closed her eyes and tried to run through her mental map of the neighbourhood. She couldn’t remember everything—it had gone by too fast as they’d driven to Peirce’s—but she was pretty sure there was a restaurant of some kind just down the street.
If she got there, maybe she could wait until she saw Peirce coming back up to the apartment. And if he wasn’t coming back, she’d be away if her father sent his men to find her there.
“Okay, Emmaline,” she muttered, “prove you aren’t worthless.”
What had Peirce told her over and over all afternoon in the garage? You know this. Just breathe and choose.
A slow, deep breath. She was terrified she’d make a mistake, but she couldn’t let fear keep her down anymore. Too much was at stake now. Her freedom was within reach.
She headed toward the elevator.
Peirce ended the comm and stepped out of the booth. The fresh air was more than welcome and he tried to unwrinkle his nose, wishing he could scour the scent of days-old urine and sweat and other bodily fluids from his memory.
“What’d he say?” Douglass asked.
“He was scared shitless,” Peirce reported. “Said he’d meet me in a few days.”
“Didn’t think we’d survive the mercs? Too bad for him the price went up.” Kai grinned.
“Always read the fine print,” Peirce confirmed with a smirk.
Arthur Gregson, the arrogant prick, hadn’t read the contract when he’d hired them. He was greedy and short-sighted and—judging by the vein that had been jumping in his forehead during the conversation—short-tempered as well. The funny thing wasn’t that the insults launched at Peirce and his men hadn’t been upsetting, but it was the man’s absolute lack of concern about his daughter’s whereabouts or welfare which had riled Peirce unexpectedly.
“How long are you going to keep her at your place?”
Douglass looked a little concerned and, to Peirce’s surprise, Kai dropped his jokey act and waited with equal gravity for an answer.
“I’m not sure,” Peirce said slowly, not liking the change in his men. He counted on his ability to read them, both in battle and out, but they weren’t giving him any signs to go off of now.
“Why not?”
Peirce shrugged, wishing he wasn’t in civilian clothes. He felt naked, totally exposed with his armour off. Years of surviving bombings and guerrilla attacks had left him wary of having his back exposed and with the way Douglass and Kai were acting, if he answered wrong he wouldn’t have either of them around to watch his back.
“Look, Emma and I get along just fine. I taught her how to work on the cruiser today.”
Douglass was giving him a strange look. Kai was chortling.
“What?” Peirce asked, exasperated.
“Emma?” Douglass raised an eyebrow.
Shit. “Easier than saying Miss Gregson all the time,” Peirce mumbled.
“Sure.” Kai shrugged. “I prefer keeping the names to just a few syllables too. Easier to remember what to call them when I kick them out the next morning.”
It made no sense, but one second Peirce was standing there, talking with his men and the next, his knee was pushing down on Kai’s chest and his knife was out and to his throat. Fortunately, Douglass was already pulling him off.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kai coughed as he picked himself off the ground.
Peirce knew he was being irrational, but didn’t care. He pointed the knife at Kai with a steady hand. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Geez, sir, what crawled up your ass?” Douglass patted his shoulder and looked back at Kai. “He was just joking.”
Peirce shrugged off Douglass’s hand and turned. “I’ve got to go,” he said and split before they could ask him any more awkward questions.
The Berkwan order he’d put in would be ready to pick up any time. It was about time to head back to Emma—shit, Emmaline...FUCK! Miss Gregson—but on his way to the restaurant, a window display with a simple dress caught his attention. She’d said she’d need new clothes. Hell, he knew her size for the most part…
The store was small, but clean. Obviously new, since turnover in this section of town was high. Peirce wandered the display racks, not sure what he was searching for.
“Can I help you?”
A small woman beamed up at him from behind her glasses. Her hair was nearly silver and she was so bent and arthritic that Peirce knew he’d never live with himself if he didn’t buy something and justify her getting off her stool to help him.
“No thank you, ma’am. I can find it myself.”
Finding the right women’s clothes was more difficult than locating the scrap for most of the engines he’d ever rebuilt. He settled on two dresses, another pair of pants, some shirts, a pair of practical boots and finally deigned to let the old woman pick out appropriate undergarments. Bag in hand and realising how late he was running, he ducked quickly into the restaurant to pick up the food.
The crowds of people heading home from work were slowing as night crept closer, the twin moons climbing into the sky. Each step around another person left Peirce more and more anxious. He should have been home almost an hour ago. He knew that the apartment was secure and Emmaline would be safe there, but something just felt…off.
Skin crawling from unease, Peirce shouldered his way into the apartment building. He was nearly to the elevator. Soon he’d be upstairs, safe and eating decent food and watching Emmaline’s face when she got a load of her new clothes.
He heard the brush of fabric and dropped the bags to his sides, hitting a knee and steadying himself on it, drawing his knife in a fluid motion and pulling back for a swift throw, before he saw who it was.
“Peirce?” Emmaline squeaked from the darkened corner where she’d been sitting.
The air left his lungs in a whoosh and he immediately sheathed the weapon. He’d almost let go. Old habits were hard to break. Worse, he hadn’t hit her. A few years ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Kill first, ask questions later. Hesitation like that meant he was getting old, weak, less than capable.
He buried those thoughts and found himself focusing on Emmaline’s wan face. Fear and rage warred for superiority with
in him. Eventually, with tempered irritation, he was able to find his voice. “Miss Gregson, what the fuck are you doing down here? Didn’t you think Stone might have the ability to hack security feeds?”
She managed a tremulous smile at his statement, which confused the hell out of him.
“I knew you’d say something like that,” she finally said. “It’s why I was waiting over there instead of down at the restaurant. I didn’t see any cameras pointing that way.”
She’d found a blind spot. Smart girl. But it was no time for weakness.
“You didn’t listen to my orders.”
She looked up at him, mouth a tight line. “I got locked out of the apartment.”
Peirce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, already feeling a tension headache coming on, tightening his neck and shoulders, making his eyes throb. “Grab the food.”
She did so without argument, taking up the bag and checking that the containers were all still sealed. Peirce picked up the bag of clothes, not sure how he’d explain their purchase and punched the call button for the elevator.
At least she waited until they were safely inside the metal box before continuing, “You’re never late. I wasn’t sure if something had gone wrong. So when I heard steps in the hall, I went out because I thought it was you.”
“It wasn’t,” he deadpanned but a tiny part of him was flattered to know she had been worried.
She scowled. “I know that now. But once I got stuck outside I figured I shouldn’t try to use the scanner. I didn’t know if it would flag me.”
Begrudgingly, Peirce nodded. “At least you’re not stupid.”
She didn’t take it as a compliment, judging by the way she tilted her head and crossed her arms.
“What I mean is that you did good.” The headache was growing. He rubbed the back of his head, wishing it would loosen him up. “And so you know next time, I keep my security off the grid.”
“Oh.”
The elevator door opened with a ding and they stepped out into the hall. Peirce led the way, making sure to shield her as best he could until he was sure no one was around. After clearing his security measures, he ushered her inside, taking extra time to recheck the locks.
By the time he turned back, she’d already set out the Berkwan and had settled onto his couch, tucking her feet up underneath her and perching delicately. He shook his head. She looked a helluva lot younger that way and the way her fingers nervously fluttered over everything to double-check it was in the right place only solidified his observation.
“Thanks for getting it ready,” he said.
“Um…do you want me to get the dishes?”
He grabbed the container of dreelin noodles and one of the cheap forks thrown in with the take-out, picking out the vegetable chunks and throwing them onto the container’s lid. “Don’t bother with dishes. What’s the point of buying food if you’ve still got to wash a ton of crap?”
She contemplated that for a moment, then tentatively looked through the different boxes. “What’s good?” she finally asked.
“Want something sweet or something spicy?”
He could have sworn her eyes hadn’t been on the boxes, but if she’d run them down his body like he thought, it was too fast to catch. “Spicy,” she said.
He pointed at the container of carmak beef. She took it and looked at the food tentatively.
“What?” he asked. “Is the princess afraid of eating a commoner’s food?”
If looks could kill, he’d be rotting in the grave. She took out a piece of beef and took a tentative nibble. As surprise registered on her face, he couldn’t help chuckling.
“Yeah, even we poor idiots know what we’re doing occasionally.”
“I don’t think that,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot.”
He froze, fork mid-way to his mouth. She wouldn’t look at him, but continued, “And I don’t think that not having money makes a person less worthy than someone else.”
Shit. He’d offended her. Big time.
Now she looked up at him and, for some reason, meeting her gaze made him feel more than a little uncomfortable. “Why do you hate the aristocracy so much?”
I don’t want to answer this.
“I don’t give a shit about the aristocracy. Most of them are the reason I’m still in business.”
She continued to watch him as he ate the noodles. Damn things were like live worms going down now.
“I’m not stupid,” she said with quiet ferocity. “I know that’s not the reason.”
“Look…I don’t want to talk about it.”
He put the noodles down and collected the clothing bag while she continued to eat and watch him.
“Here.” He tossed the bag on the seat next to her, hoping it would distract her from her current line of questioning.
She put down her beef and he went back to eating his noodles and standing around like a lame-ass.
As soon as she pulled out the first dress, he knew he was forgiven for being late back home. And that she’d forgotten to grill him about his blatant dislike of all things blue-blood.
“Oh, Peirce,” she whispered, running a hand over the simple fabric. He’d worried that all the clothes would be too plain for her taste, but the moisture rising in her eyes said otherwise. “This is why you were late? You did this for me?”
“I didn’t want you going out on your own.” His embarrassment was a surprise.
“Thank you,” she said in that same low tone, but her voice was throatier.
“Sure.”
Tension broken, they finished dinner together in mutual silence. She helped him clean up—a misnomer, since all they had to do was throw the leftovers in the fridge and trash the empty containers. She stood awkwardly in the kitchen for a moment before Peirce realised she was waiting to ask him something.
“Need anything?”
“Do you have an extra blanket? A pillow?”
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t mind, I was going to sleep on the couch.”
“Well, that’s a problem.”
Her eyes widened. “It is?”
“Yeah. See, I was planning on sleeping on the couch.”
“I—”
“You get the bed tonight, honey.”
She didn’t seem quite sure how to respond to the courtesy, so he did the only thing he could think of to move the conversation along.
“It’s been a long day for me, so you should know now that tonight I need my beauty rest. It’ll break your heart, but I can’t be between the sheets with you until tomorrow.”
She rolled her eyes and went past him to the bedroom.
No reason for her to know that the thought of being under the sheets with her was making him hard. Again.
“Good night, Peirce,” she said.
“Right. Good luck.”
Good luck? With what? Crashing and getting a few hours of shut eye?
“And Peirce?”
He looked at her. She was undoing her hair and the soft tendrils falling around her face made her look like too damn much of a temptation.
“I’m sorry you can’t make it to bed tonight,” she said with a shy smile. The door closed softly behind her.
Dammit.
Chapter 6
Callie shook her head. “Don’t you trust me?” she challenged.
“Sure, I do. I just don’t trust those dumbasses to help you move the Crawler without doing more damage to it,” he shot back.
“Fine!” She threw up her hands, exasperated. “I’ll wait until you drag your sorry butt back here to help me.”
“Deal.”
Mock-argument over, Callie couldn’t help giving in to the smile that was tugging at the corner of her mouth. It was infectious and once it was there on her face, he couldn’t help grinning back.
“Good to know we still hate each other,” she joked.
“All brothers hate their little s
isters,” Peirce said. “Always getting in the way, messing with our shit.”
“Stopping you from hooking up with Sergeant Bailey?”
Peirce shrugged. “It didn’t work out.”
“You dumped her because she talked bad about me at mess.”
“She was a bitch.”
“She didn’t know you were related to me.”
He shrugged again. “No skin off my ass. She’d have been a lousy lay anyway.”
Callie grimaced. “There are some things I should never know about my brother. Your sex life is definitely on that list.”
He was really going to make her squeamish when the radio crackled to life. Two minutes later, he was avoiding the rotating blades of an Eagle and scrambling in beside the rest of his assault team and two medics.
“See you tonight!” he hollered to Callie over the downdraft of the propellers.
“Love you, brother!”
It always irked him how she’d call that to him every time he took off. Made him feel like he was seven or something and she was chasing after him on his way to school, stopping at the corner of the sidewalk that she wasn’t allowed to go beyond, a tiny blonde thing in mismatched clothes calling how much she loved him to the world.
He was on the battlefield, ignoring the bullets ricocheting off the metal as he worked to get the Stallions back up and running. The medics and he had their hands full; IEDs had stopped the convoy dead in its tracks. At least eight men down, one Stallion unfit for anything but parts.
He got the other two back in order, running back and forth from the dead vehicle with stripped parts, maps, data chips, anything that could be used by the enemy, while the medics loaded up the wounded in the Eagle and the backs of the other two Stallions. Finally, they took off back toward Cordova.
He could remember the conversation. Jacob Miller’s wisecrack about how long it took Peirce to get the Stallions back in order. His retort that most gods had days to do what he’d done in seven minutes. Jacob’s next joke was cut off by the rumble that shook the entire Stallion.
The fireball in the distance.
He could hear her screaming.