The Marine's Queen (10 page)

Joe’s mouth tightened. His stare seared into hers. “We can’t return. We’ve been convicted of being traitors to the Galactic Alliance. We were on our way to the Nye Moon when we crashed here. We await no rescue.”

Callie couldn’t stop her gasp. The Nye Moon was the most brutal prison available and took only those considered extremely dangerous. Few men survived more than a year in its deep mine. “Why?”

Joe gathered up his knives without answering. A few went behind his belt and another in his boot. He slipped them away so quickly and smoothly, Callie wasn’t sure where they all were stowed.

“
Why doesn’t matter any longer,” Joe finally answered. “We’re all stuck here together. When you’ve figured out a future for your people, let me know. I promise we’ll help you as much as we can.”

* * * *

“
I assume all your people are updated on vaccines.” Webb said as he passed a platter of baked tubers across the makeshift table.

Joe cautiously took a bite of the seasoned flat bread one of the women had baked in the new oven.

Mak and Roz had been busy constructing all types of things under the direction of the women. Kam and Joe spent the daylight hours working on a new barracks, large and more comfortable than the current one. Webb helped the women cook.

“
We all had the proper meds before we started our journey,” Callie answered Webb.

Joe took another bite of the bread. The wild herbs added a distinct flavor. Until the women started cooking, he hadn’t known food ingredients could vary so much. Nobody wasted time making soldiers’ food interesting. Meals only needed to nourish.

The meat, scrub deer, melted on Joe’s tongue. The juices filled his mouth as he savored the treat. Did civilians always eat like this? The women didn’t act like the food was anything special, but the other marines were taking slow, careful bites the same as he was.

“
Do you like it?” Callie said from Joe’s right. She’d insisted he sit at the head of the table they’d constructed from newly felled trees cut with their laser saw.

“
It’s very … good. Different from what I’m used to eating.” Joe hadn’t spoken with Callie alone since they’d discussed the future two days ago.

“
What are you used to?”

Joe wondered how to describe the frugal conditions they’d always lived in. These barracks were the largest living area they’d ever called their own. “Our food was plain with no herbs added.” He floundered, inadequate to compare this delicious meal to his previous life.

“
Not anymore. From now on your food will all be like this. Acacia has discovered many edible grains and spices. She found a tasty root we can make tea with.”

Joe nodded, savoring more of the meat.

“
We baked that with nuts from those trees that resemble oak trees,” Callie continued. “The stone oven Mak built works wonderfully.”

Joe ate and listened, noticing the other women jabbered to his men much as Callie did to him. As soldiers, mealtimes were silent refueling stops. It should have been irritating to have the laughter and multiple conversations going on around him. It wasn’t.

He looked forward to the time spent around the table. Webb had told him that civilian families always ate in this chaotic fashion. Joe decided he would think of their group as a family. At least for a little while.

* * * *

He was bathing.

Callie stood in the shadows of one of the large trees that surrounded the pool of water. The sun heated the water to a comfortable temperature at this time of day.

Joe dove under again, staying down long enough to make her nervous. Callie stepped into the open just as he surfaced. His sharp gaze found her immediately.

The water came as high as his waist, though its crystal quality hid little from her view. “Did you need me?”

Callie forced her gaze to stay on his face while she considered his question. Did she need him? On a material level she did. Her people wouldn’t have survived without Joe’s help. Did she need him on an emotional level?

“
Can we talk?” Callie turned her back as Joe waded out of the water. She heard the soft whisper of clothing sliding over wet skin and waited another moment before turning back toward him.

Joe watched her with his familiar wary expression. His wet clothing clung to the muscles of his thighs and his groin.

Callie dragged her stare away from his body. “Can we sit in the shade?”

Joe followed her to a spot beneath a large tree. She sat on a log worn smooth by weather and time. He sat on the ground and pulled on his boots.

“
I’m worried about Roz and Grace,” Callie began.

“
Has Roz done something?” Joe snapped.

“
No!” Callie wondered at his unusually quick anger. “Why do you think that?”

Joe relaxed a bit. “He spends a lot of time with her and the child.”

“
That’s what worries me. I think the two of them are becoming very attached to Roz. You’ve already told me that if we leave you can’t come with us.”

“
It would be a death sentence for us and probably for anyone with us.”

“
They’re falling in love with Roz if they haven’t already. It will break their hearts to leave him.”

“
Do people die of broken hearts, Lady Callie?”

“
No, I guess not.” Callie wondered what convoluted path his thoughts were traveling.

“
Unless Roz has in some way insulted or injured the lady, I see no reason to interfere.”

“
But….”

“
We’ve given you haven and asked nothing of you, Lady Callie.” Joe rose to his feet, the action effortless and graceful. “If one of my men find a few stolen moments of happiness or feels a bit of human kindness, would you deny him even that?”

Callie shook her head, surprised at the passion and anger in Joe’s voice. “I’m sorry. I guess I sounded selfish and cruel.”

Joe sighed and his shoulders slumped. “You’ve all been cruel. None of us have been around real people before. We’ve met many other soldiers, but they never liked being with us. Now we bring you here and you cook us fine meals and let us see your children. You treat us like we’re normal.”

“
And that’s cruel?”

“
Vin and Tar are seeing if we can use parts from your ship to repair ours. If we can, you’ll be able to leave.”

“
By the Father.” Hope surged in Callie’s chest. She might be able to return to her people.

“
You’ll go, and we’ll remain. Let Roz have his moment of being loved and needed for something other than as a killing machine. You’ll return to your lives among your kind, and Roz will have only his memories. Better for him to have never met Grace and Glory.”

“
What about you, Joe? Would it be better for you if you’d never met us?” Callie drifted to him, placing her hand on his hard chest. “Better for you if you’d never met me?”

Joe’s dark blue eyes filled with heat. His gaze dropped to her lips, but he didn’t move.

Callie did. She stretched up on her toes and kissed his slightly parted lips.

Joe didn’t react either by returning the kiss or pulling away.

She slid her hands up his arms and around his neck. Making sure her chest pressed against his, Callie kissed him again.

A muffled curse answered her kiss, but then he joined her. His arms wrapped her close, and his lips twisted slightly on hers. She opened her mouth, and he accepted the invitation. His tongue stroked the roof of her mouth and across her tongue. She stroked back, and a deep moan vibrated his chest against hers.

Callie followed him when he started to pull back. He broke contact with her lips, but he kissed the sensitive corner of her mouth. Then her jawbone. Then the soft skin beneath her ear. Then a series of kisses down the side of her neck. His warm lips traced a delicate path along her collarbone.

She leaned back to give him access to the spot at the base of her neck. He lingered there.

Her nipples rubbed against the borrowed camouflage shirt she wore, so she wanted to remove it. She needed his lips to soothe the sensitive spot where no man had ever touched her before. Man!

Callie froze. What had she been thinking? Her earlier perceptions of the marines rose to haunt her. Lab creations. At the very least, he was a man she would leave behind as soon as an opportunity arose.

Joe’s arms loosened and then dropped away. He looked a bit dazed and certainly confused.

Guilt flooded Callie. She’d led him on, driven by her lust and loneliness. She was cruel, just as he’d accused her. And selfish. She knew herself as a woman plain in appearance with a figure too full and large for fashion. It flattered her to have a handsome man like Joe lusting for her. For her and not her throne or her special gifts.

“
I don’t know why you let me kiss you, Lady Callie.” Joe backed away. “Are you playing at some game for your own amusement? You may question my origins and my humanity, but I’m a man. I have a man’s desires and a man’s needs. Don’t offer to satisfy them unless you mean it.”

He stalked back to camp. Callie rubbed her arms against a chill caused by more than the setting of the sun. She didn’t fear Joe or his needs. She feared her own carnal urges. It wasn’t just his body or pretty face that drew her toward him. Was it gratitude? No.

In her duty as ruler of Giroux, she’d met many men in leadership positions. Some were labeled heroes, noble, honorable, or great statesmen for their people. For the first time in her thirty-three years, Callie felt she really understood the true meaning of nobility and honor. They were titles to be earned.

Honor was walking away from a woman who you believed would regret her actions if you took what she offered. Nobility was sharing the last drop of your water with a stranger in the desert.

Callie took a deep breath and let it out slow. She was a queen. It was time she started to act like one.

Chapter Six

“
Any chance for repairs?”

Vin shook his head. “Sorry, sir. Their fuel enhancer cells were damaged in the crash.”

“
Fash take it!” Joe seldom cursed, but the frustration he’d been living with had him short-tempered. And not a damned thing he could do about it. “Any problems?”

“
No. Yalo travels well. She’s very strong for a woman.”

Joe stared at his second-in-command. “Not you too.”

Vin met his gaze, but his face darkened. “Sir?”

“
Someone will eventually come looking for those women, and then they’ll leave. Isn’t Yalo the one who told them all we weren’t men on that first day?”

Vin’s lips curved into a small smile, an expression Joe had never seen on his face. “Sir, I think she knows I’m a man by now.”

“
Damn it, Vin. She’s not a hired woman.”

Vin’s expression darkened. “I know that, Joe.”

Callie’s approach prevented Joe from reprimanding Vin further. What was happening to his men? First Roz, now Vin and damn if Kam hadn’t volunteered to hold the infant the previous evening during dinner. And just where had Mak disappeared to with Acacia?

“
Well?” Callie asked, in that commanding tone she did so well.

Joe thought of it as her ‘queen’ voice. “We can’t use your ship to repair ours.”

“
We’re stuck here.” Callie’s tone gave nothing about her feelings away.

“
I’m sorry.” Joe tried to read her expression. “Your beacon may still bring help.”

“
More likely, pirates,” Vin muttered.

Joe gave him a curt signal of dismissal. Vin turned sharply and left them alone.

Callie inhaled deeply, held it, and then let her breath out in a long slow exhalation that pulled Joe’s gaze to her chest. A single tear slid down her cheek. “I’ve let down the people of Giroux. People who look to me for leadership and their livelihoods.”