Rebels and Lovers (35 page)

He couldn’t lose her.

He punched the palm pad next to the door, then charged into the corridor. A few steps brought him to the lift, and he almost hesitated, but, no, if she was upset she wouldn’t be in the galley. He moved doggedly for the bridge.

The hatchlock was open; the bridge was in semi-darkness. She was in the pilot’s chair,
her
chair, angled partway toward the nav console on her right. Only the green-tinged glow from various console screens and the paler glow from the docupad in her lap served as sources of light. Her shoulders stiffened as he strode in, but she didn’t turn her chair, didn’t take her gaze from whatever was on the pad.

He stopped when less than three feet separated them. His throat felt tight. He wasn’t sure if the pain he felt radiated from her or from deep within himself. “Makaiden.”

“Request denied.” Her voice was flat.

He raked both hands through his hair. They came back down to his sides, fisted. “I can explain. It’s not
what you think.” He inhaled slowly, trying to calm his stuttering heart. He exhaled. Silence.

Then she shifted, chin raised, and regarded him from over one shoulder. “You’re absolutely right. It’s not
what I think.”
She said the last three words forcefully. “I think you’re a friend. I think you respect me. And I think that I have value in your life. So you’re right. It’s not what I think at all. It’s what you are: owner of this ship. But you don’t own me. I’m not part of the package. Now get off my bridge.”

She turned abruptly back to her pad.

He grasped for something to say, but the phrases he needed refused to come. Emotions he kept tamped down for so many years coursed through him, almost paralyzing him. He felt mute, stupid.
You’re wrong!
kept surfacing. But that wouldn’t make things right.

“I don’t love Tavia. I never have.” He blurted out the words. It was a bare-bones confession and less than skillful. But it was the truth.

Then, as she stared at him, he realized it also made him look callous, shallow. “What I mean is—”

“You have so little regard for her feelings that you’d damn her to a loveless marriage?” She gave a short, harsh laugh. “You’re a real prince.”

“She doesn’t love me either.” And he never intended for there to be a marriage, just the engagement he and Tavia agreed would keep both sets of parents pacified.

“Then you deserve each other.” She went back to her pad.

The truth in her statement jarred him. “Makaiden—”

“It’s Captain Griggs, Mr. Guthrie.” She continued tapping at the pad. “I’m working out the figures for piloting your ship from Dock Five to Talgarrath, based on the current fees as posted by the CFTC. It’s a standard rate. I think you can afford it. I’ll have an
invoice for you when we dock at Lufty’s.” She glanced over at him. “Sexual services rendered this trip are on the house. But don’t expect that to happen again.”

Her words hit him like a slap in the face. He would have preferred a slap. He almost wished she’d come at him, screaming and punching, because that anger, that pain was something he not only felt he deserved but it was something he could understand. It would get it out of her system. She would cry and he would hold her, apologize, and this would be behind them. A mistake made, rectified, forgiven. But she’d gone cold, detached. This was services rendered in a business relationship, and there was no place for forgiveness in that.

He understood that only too well. He’d lived his life that way for a long time. But something had shifted in him when he found Makaiden, when she was no longer just an unattainable fantasy but a very real, warm, intelligent woman he’d long admired and who now could be his.

Kiler’s dead
. If someone had asked him what words had the capability of changing his entire life, he would never have guessed they’d be
Kiler’s dead
. But they were. And they had.

And this is what he got for breaking J.M.’s rules. Hell to pay. This was hell.

“But—”

“Your rules. When I want you off the bridge, I tell you, and you comply. I’m telling you for the last time: get off my bridge.”

He had told her that. And if he broke that rule now, he knew she’d believe he had no honor at all. There would be a time when he would, somehow, make her understand. This was not the time. He nodded mutely and turned away.

An hour later, Barty found him in the galley dining area, clutching a mug of tea—his ineffective attempt at breakfast—long gone cold. The older man still walked slowly and his breathing still wheezed. His eyesight and acumen were as sharp as ever.

“Why do I get the feeling that you’ve done something abysmally stupid?” He eased down into the chair across from Devin’s.

Devin sighed and scrubbed at his face with his hands. He needed a shave. “Where’s Trip?”

“Sprawled on a bunk in the crew quarters, engrossed in
Elementary Piloting Procedures for In-System Freighters
. Evidently Captain Griggs found some of her old academy vidtexts and uploaded them to his bookpad.”

“Captain Griggs found my engagement announcement to Tavia in the last data feed.”

“Ah.” Barty leaned back, drumming his fingers on the table. “I saw your mother working on it. Can I assume you neglected to inform our dear captain of that situation?”

“It honestly slipped my mind.”

“Slipped? Or avoiding confrontation?”

He couldn’t deny that. But when would have been the right time in the past two, three days to tell Makaiden that,
oh, by the way, I have an engagement party waiting for me when I get back home?
When he was dancing with her, trailing kisses down her neck? Or when he was tangled in the bedsheets with her after one of her “crazy lessons”? He nodded slowly. “You’ve known me a long time. I’m not comfortable with conflict.”

Barty shoved himself to his feet, then patted Devin on the shoulder on his way to the galley. “That may be true. But then, some women are worth fighting for.”

——————

Kaidee put the half-eaten cheese toast back on the plate and pushed the tray away. Not much of a dinner but, as with her soup-in-a-mug lunch, she’d eaten only to have something to do. She turned back to her ship’s data, scrolling, blinking, and occasionally beeping across her console on the bridge. There was really nothing to watch, no reason she should still be here other than she wasn’t yet ready to face her quarters, and she had again braved the galley only long enough to grab the toast and flee back up to her pilot’s chair.

She needed sleep. She was bone-tired and, worse than that, emotionally exhausted. How could things go so well—discounting being threatened and shot at—and then go so horribly wrong?

And in only three or four days?

It was only three or four days
, a little voice chided her. A brief fling, an affair.
Get a grip, Kaid. Grow up. Women your age have flings all the time
. Hell, Pops’s daughter back on Dock Five was younger than Kaidee, and she had a new lover every few weeks. She probably assigned them numbers.

If Devin had been a number, it wouldn’t have bothered her. Trouble was, Devin was Devin. She knew him—
had
known him—for years.

As she’d known Kiler for years. Obviously, both her long-range and short-range personal scanners sucked miserably when it came to finding trustworthy men.

So? It’s not as if this Tavia will find out about what happened. It’s not as if you’re going to be invited to the wedding. Plus, it’s already history. And he is just a number: an invoice number. By end of tomorrow you can file him away under
PAID
and forget about it
.

There was one slight hitch in that plan: he owned the ship. That meant end of tomorrow she was likely
out of a job and out of a place to stay. She’d have to hire on wherever she could at Lufty’s, or even maybe through the cargo docks at Port Chalo. Who knew? Starways might have an opening for a former employee. She was not, she told herself firmly, without options.

Just without hope.

The whine of the lift doors and then boot steps started her heart pounding. She didn’t want his explanations. She didn’t even want to see him. She was still reconstructing her emotional armor, and if he—

“Hey, Captain Makaiden? Sorry to bother you.”

“Trip.” She kept the relief out of her voice as she turned. “You’re not a bother.”

“I finished those two training manuals. Do you have any more?”

“We’re going to be hitting the gate exit fairly early tomorrow. You might want to get some sleep.”

He shrugged with an elegance uncommon in someone his age. It reminded her of—

“I was just going to my cabin.” She got up from her chair, pushing those unwanted thoughts to the back of her mind. She could turn systems over to autoguidance just as easily from the console in her main room. “Let me see what else I can find to challenge your brain.”

He tagged along behind her to her cabin, fiddling with his bookpad while she brought up the ship’s library database and searched it for another basic-level text. She actually might be doing his uncle Philip and the Alliance a disservice by returning him to the Guthrie household. He was a quick study, a natural. She hoped he had the guts to stand up to his father and grandfather and follow his dream.

She found something that might interest him and uploaded a copy to his bookpad.

“Do they have a flight-training program at your school?” she asked as he closed his pad.

“Yeah, but …” Another shrug.

“Your father thinks it isn’t a good idea.”

His mouth quirked wryly. “I don’t think my father will think anything I want to do is a good idea, once I get home.”

“Not right away, no. You’re going to have to take responsibility for your actions. But the time will come when you can make your own decisions. Don’t …” She hesitated, not sure what to say to this man–child who was heir to a fortune beyond her comprehension.

“Don’t let your family’s expectations dictate your heart’s desire,” said a low male voice from her open doorway.

She tensed, then turned stiffly toward Devin, who was leaning against the bulkhead jamb, arms crossed loosely over his chest. He was still in the same shirt from this morning, though now it was tucked in and no longer crooked. Dark patches on his jaw told her he hadn’t shaved.

The air in the room suddenly felt thick, heavy, and she wasn’t the only one who noticed it.

Trip stepped for the doorway. “You both, um, probably want to talk. Or something.” He nodded to Kaidee. “Thanks for the manuals, Captain.”

Devin shifted to his right. “Actually, Trip, I need your help. Barty’s already asleep and my med-patches need changing. I can’t reach the one in back.”

“Oh, sure, Uncle Devin. No problem.”

He sidled past Devin and disappeared into the corridor.

Devin didn’t move. Kaidee felt trapped by his gaze like a ship in a tow field.

“It was never my intention to hurt you,” he said quietly.

A lump formed in her throat. She wanted so badly to hate him. She shrugged, swallowing hard. “It’s better this way.” Her words came out haltingly. Damned lump. “It would never have worked out. Not really.” She tore her gaze from his and stared at the datascreen with its library listing, seeing nothing.

“It would; it still could work—”

“Uncle Devin?” Trip’s voice echoed slightly in the corridor, then boot steps sounded, returning.

Devin swore something unintelligible under his breath.

When Kaidee finally found the courage to look at the doorway, Devin was gone.

Ping! Ping!

Kaidee hated when morning came early. She hated it even more when shipmorning came early. Her body clock, usually so well tuned to her ship, was reset by the weeks spent on Dock Five, which functioned more under planetary rhythms—albeit artificial—than ship routines. With nowhere to go and nothing to do—other than check the CFTC offices to see when the embargo would end—she’d fallen into the habit of sleeping through the night.

The past few shipdays had shot that to hell.

Well, that and Devin Guthrie.

Ping! Ping!

With a groan, she rolled over on her side and slapped at the alarm. But silencing it didn’t help. Her bedroom was now at daylight brightness.

Gate exit in one hour. Then a good four hours at max sublight to the Lufty’s beacon. After that, it was
anyone’s guess. Lufty’s could clear her in a half hour or make her wait for days. It depended on whether the Luftowskis still ran it. And whether the Milo name still held some clout.

She showered the lethargy out of her pores, dressed, and then chanced a quick trip belowdecks to the galley for some of Trip’s newly invented fruit. The pain, her anger at Devin, hadn’t faded, but what she’d been through with Kiler taught her how to compartmentalize things.

Thank you, Kiler Griggs
.

If she ran into Devin, she’d deal with it. But the galley was empty, belowdecks quiet except for the usual ship noises and, now that she concentrated, the sound of a shower running in the crew lav. Then she remembered there was a more-than-decent slurp-and-snack in Devin’s cabin. It was the original captain’s quarters. He had everything he needed right there.

She wondered briefly if he’d keep the
Rider
and, if he did, if he’d use the original captain’s quarters for himself.

It was none of her business.

She trotted up the stairs with her bowl of sliced apples and a mug of coffee, then settled in to recheck all systems and go over course options. Just in case there were unfriendlies or questionables in the lanes after they cleared the gate.

The thump of the lift doors sounded from the corridor behind, then the harder, quicker boot steps she recognized as Trip’s. Devin had more of an athlete’s fluid movement. Still, she could be wrong—

“Captain Makaiden?”

She wasn’t, and let out the breath she’d been holding as she swiveled around.

Trip, hair damp, with the sleeves of his blue round-necked thermal shirt pushed up to his elbows, strode all loose-limbed and grinning onto the bridge. “Would you mind if I—”

“You’re late, Master Guthrie.” She put the stern tone in her voice that her flight instructors had used. “Your assignment is second pilot.”