by C. L. Stone
Clay brought me slowly to the back of the shuttle. The room was spacious but not fancy. The bed would fit just the two of us. Whoever designed it—Thomas, I corrected my thinking—hadn’t been thinking about needing room for more than two in it.
“Come here.” Clay hugged me tightly. “Quinn isn’t the only one who wants to make you warm. Tommy hurt your feelings. He challenges. He blows hard. He can’t help it. He was born to fight, and our father’s chosen heir. He was so damned good at it. I’m not making excuses. You two are going to be okay. I’m here for you. For both of you.”
“Do you want me to be Mrs. McQueen?”
He rubbed the side of my face with his knuckles. “From the second I followed you out of the Sisterhood. You saved my life. You were mine. Done. End of story. I’ll share with my brothers. They’re the best men I know. Make no mistake, you’re mine in my heart.”
“Then you’re going to have to ask me and let me say yes. I’m not married yet. Not in my heart. I think I could be. Well, at least to those of you who want it. I’m not ready yet.”
Clay nodded, his blond tips falling in his eyes. “Fair enough. How will we know when you’re ready?”
My cheeks heated up. “Clay, I think that is one of those questions men always have to figure out. I think you’ll just know. Asking is always a risk, even when you’re pretty sure you know the answer.”
“I’m going to hold to the idea you will want to be Mrs. McQueen. So weird to say that name. I like how it feels on my tongue. We feel like McQueens now. Not Sandlers.”
We undressed each other down to our underwear. He made no moves to take mine off, and I left his alone too. The blankets were itchy but warm. Clay tugged me into his arms.
“What kind of law do you practice? Were you lying when you said you set up companies on Earth?” I had to question everything I’d been told. Or did I? This situation had no guidebook.
He sighed. “I didn’t lie. Not the kind I’d like to be practicing, but you can’t be a trial attorney taking on unfair law practices on Earth, saving the little guy, when you can’t be caught out in public. I move a lot of paperwork around for people who don’t want the governments in their business. The clients don’t ask me too many questions. It works well.”
I placed my hand over his heart. “Just not where your heart is.”
“Yep.” Clay moved his legs around until he got comfortable, which basically involved pinning me against him. “You okay like this?”
“Yes. I have dreams, too. I want to open a restaurant where I know all the clients and they know me too.”
He sighed deeply. “I like that one. I can come and sit. The sun will set. I’ll watch you work, not bother you, but you’ll know I’m there. At the end of the night, I’ll take you home. Everyone will know you’re ours. I’ll be so proud of all you’re doing.”
I kissed his chest. “You say the sweetest things.”
“I mean them. I’m not sweet to everyone. To you, I’ll always be.”
“Good night, Clay.”
He smiled against my forehead. “Good night, Paloma.”
I fell asleep but woke up some time later. I wasn’t settled. My mind didn’t want to turn off completely. Next to me, Clay slept deeply. Sometimes he even said little words. He didn’t seem upset or like he had bad dreams, so I left him alone. At one point, he even laughed lightly. I tried to snuggle against him to go back to sleep, and I couldn’t.
Eventually, I snuck out of the bed and put my clothes back on. The shuttle moved against my feet, the gentle sway of space a comfort after so long planet-bound. I’d grown up on a station. I hated being landlocked.
I walked quietly through the shuttle. It was silent, save for the noises of spaceflight. The control room was dimly lit. Thomas sat in his seat, staring out at the view screen, which showed nothing but blackness ahead. What did he think about?
On as quiet feet as I could manage, I walked until I was next to him. He only looked up when I stopped. “You okay?”
I sunk to my knees like I had with Quinn earlier. The guys would never know what it cost me to do so, but it meant something to me. Five years had trained me to kneel whether I liked it or not. The knees were a spot for truth.
“You gave up your whole life for them. You were already out of the house. I don’t know what you were doing, but the little you’ve said and the little they’ve mentioned, it sounds like it was a good life. You threw it away and rescued your brothers. Even before I knew this about you, I liked you. I liked how direct you were at the Sisterhood. I liked your sense of humor later on. I’ve appreciated how you’ve tried to help me.” I took a deep breath. “I find you extremely handsome, to the point of sometimes not being able to look at you. I want you to like me.”
“I told you I do.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to kneel. We can talk on equal footing.”
I touched his hand. “Let me finish.” I almost said please and stopped myself. I didn’t feel weak this way. I always fought back from panic when they made me kneel. I was strong.
“Go on.” His gaze forced me to hold his eye contact.
“You don’t know enough about me. So I’m going to fill you in. I’m not merely the woman who takes things the wrong way or harder than you intended them. I’m not just the girl who got abused in that place her family stuck her. Before that, I ruled a space station with my smile. I was the daughter of the richest people on the station. They had political aspirations, and I helped them meet them. I had the right friends. I knew the right people. I would have been an asset to someone. My parents had made me a match—or a potential one. I was going to be important. I know how to be that person. I can call her up if I need to. I don’t require your constant care. I’m a more capable version of the girl I was raised to be.”
I stood then. I’d said my piece. He could do with it what he would.
“I couldn’t leave them there, Keith and Quinn. They were mine to protect. When our mother died, I took them on. I let them down. I won’t again. If you stay with us, you’ll be mine too. I fight for what’s mine. Sometimes I fight with those who are mine. This is how I’m built.”
I hugged him tightly, which I thought surprised him. He flinched at first and then stopped, letting me hold him, even wrapping his arms around my waist. I wasn’t good at affection and neither was Thomas.
I kissed the top of his head. “I’ll take care of you, too.”
“Okay.” His response was so simple it surprised me. I let myself breathe in the scent of cloves off him. It was fresh and completely him.
“Can I call you Tommy now?”
“You always could. I think I prefer it.”
“Me too.”
We stood like that for a while, and I finally pulled back. “I left Clay asleep. I don’t want him waking up panicked.”
“He won’t. He sleeps like a log. Talks in his sleep. When he was younger, he used to sleepwalk. Scared the crap out of me more than once. Thanks for coming here, Paloma. I feel better that you did. None of the things I said earlier are different. I’m scared shitless that I can’t protect you and we won’t make you happy. But let’s try. Let’s say we did. If we fail, at least we tried.”
I wasn’t used to initiating real kisses, but I threw caution to the wind and kissed him lightly on the mouth. I felt his gasp move through me. I pulled back before he could respond. “Good night, Tommy.”
“Good night.” His voice was low.
I walked as quietly as I could back to Clay’s room. Tommy was right. Clay hadn’t moved. I snuggled back into him. This time I slept through the night.
The next morning I managed to hydrate some food for the guys and myself. I hadn’t eaten anything like it sine my last shuttle ride. I hadn’t cared for it then and I didn’t now, but it made do. Things were strewn all over the shuttle, reminding me of Tommy’s office. How did he know where anything was?
I walked into the control room to bring him his breakfast. He looked up and grinned at me. Tommy patte
d his knee, and I went over to sit on it. He held me close, taking the food from my hand and setting it on a table next to him.
“Thanks.” He squeezed me tightly. “Sleep okay?”
I nodded. “Ever take a break?”
“Probably today. I want my nighttime turn with you. We’re going to make a schedule. Tonight’s my night. Clay can fly. Keith and Quinn can too, but they never got their war training. I trust Clay to handle things if it all went to hell.” He pressed his forehead to my shoulder. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I slept a little bit in the chair. You smell good. What is that? Vanilla?”
I wasn’t really sure. “Whatever is in the shower.”
“Hmm. I don’t even remember what I bought.”
Keith strolled into the control room and then raised his eyebrows. “What’s going on? You two make up?”
He walked over and kissed me lightly on the mouth. “Morning.”
So this was happiness. My mind stuttered at the thought, but as Clay and Quinn joined us, the feeling didn’t pass. I grinned and leaned back on Tommy. A woman could get used to this.
We were a month from Mars Station, and Tommy thought it might take slightly longer since he had to avoid ships.
Keith raised his hand, and Tommy groaned. “Yes, Keith.”
“Why are we still going to Mars Station? Baby, I don’t want to leave you there. I want you to stay with us. I think you want that, too. Why bother going?”
That was a good question. “Wouldn’t it make sense to tell them what’s going to happen? Unlike the Sisters, I bet they would listen.”
Clay shook his head, and Quinn looked down at the floor. “Ari’s been trying to make headway there for three years. Melissa Alexander and her family run that place—despite other people thinking they have a say on the council. Ari’s fixed her son Colin’s arm three times; apparently the kid likes to live on the wild side. Dane runs the medical bay. They keep him at arm’s length. Let’s face it, people talk to Ari. If he can’t get close, they’ll never talk to me.”
I could see what they meant. My father had found them frustrating. They didn’t like him. But they had adored me. I was best friends with Diana Mallory, Melissa’s oldest daughter. I loved Diana. We were like two peas in a pod for years.
“They’ll talk to me. Diana Mallory is my best friend. I haven’t heard from her in a while, but I’m sure Melissa will speak to me.” And then maybe I could find out what had happened to Diana.
Quinn made a small sound in his throat. “She’s not dead.”
Clay nodded. “Not that we know of. Um, in his original list, Quinn had Diana down as one of the people who could be targeted. Take out Diana, Melissa crumbles. Don’t panic. Diana managed to get away from my father’s ship. She went in the black hole. Ari says she vanished inside, and her father and some of her uncles went after her. They believe she’s alive on the other side of the galaxy.”
“I was twelve when I added her. I’m sorry, Paloma. She wasn’t real to me. Like a chess piece. I know. I’m sick.”
I got off Tommy’s lap and hugged Quinn. “I know you’re sorry. You don’t have to keep saying it. She’s okay. We’re going to go with that.”
“I was thinking about what you said last night, about beating myself.” He held up his tablet. “Maybe I could. I’m working on it. A counterplan. I stayed up all night. I can do this.”
“Really? I was just talking. I wasn’t telling you what to do. You don’t need to …”
He rose. “Yes I do. I’m going to get back to it. See you all in a bit.”
I turned to Keith as Quinn left. “Did I do something bad?”
He shook his head. “I think it’s brilliant. It even might work. Wish I’d thought of it. We’ve all been really focused on keeping him from thinking on it at all. Maybe he needs to beat himself. Well done. I’ve got something, too. I know you’ve dismissed me on this before, Tommy. But listen, I worked on it. The deflector array would make us invisible.”
Tommy held out his hand. “Let me look again. I can’t install it in space. Maybe when we stop. I like the idea more now. I thought we were pretty golden. We obviously weren’t.”
“What did you do?” I took the chair Quinn had vacated.
“I like to make the impossible possible.”
“He has, what, two PhDs in physics? Which basically means he has all kinds of ideas on how we can do things we can’t actually do.”
Keith swung his chair in a circle. He held up three fingers. “Three, dipshit. I have three PhDs. This time I drew you a diagram. You can do this. Deflector and cloaking. It’s not theoretical. It’s possible. Expand your mind, war boy. Expand your mind.”
“Well I can’t install anything new in space. We’re going to have to dock. Mars Station will be as good as anyplace. They actually have a nice workshop area. We’ll figure out if we can make the impossible possible.” Tommy rubbed his eyes. “Did any of you show Paloma where she’s to go in the event of an attack?”
Clay shook his head. “Didn’t give it any thought, actually. I’ll do it now.”
“Great. Then come back and take back over for me. I need a shower.”
Keith snorted. “That’s right. You stink.”
I didn’t think so. Tommy smelled just right. I smiled at him, and he reached out to touch my arm gently as I followed Clay from the control room. We ended up by the galley, a room I was familiar with thanks to my hydrating the food. There wasn’t much to the design of the space. It was all white and contained cabinets, a hydrator, a stove and a table with six chairs. I wondered if Tommy changed the design based on whoever ordered the shuttle. Maybe some people wanted a fancier space.
“So, when or if we are under attack,” Clay caught my attention. “The safest part of the ship is not in there with Tommy. You don’t want to be with him in battle anyway. It’s not pretty. The safest place is here.”
He touched a panel on a wall, and a space opened with six pods. I took a deep breath. “I’ve seen them before. I get in one. If he thinks the shuttle is about to kaboom, he sends the pods off.”
Clay nodded. “Yep, that’s pretty much it. Don’t feel bad. He’ll shove Quinn in one too if he’s in one of his moods. Quinn had the same training as the rest of us but none of the natural ability for it that those of us born into our bloodline seem to have. I personally think that’s why he tried so hard to make Dad happy in the first place. He used to call Quinn the little girlie-boy. Not that calling a boy a girl should be an insult—it’s not—but tell that to any kid who already knows his father thinks little to nothing of women except as baby-makers. Yeah … anyway. Great. You understand the pod system.”
I stepped toward him and wrapped my arms around him. Out of all of them, Clay seemed the most gentle. I was glad he hadn’t faced his father’s ire for it. “He didn’t break your soul.”
He kissed the top of my head and took a deep breath. “Before Tommy called and told me I had to get home, I was well on my way to being a very different man, honey.”
“What do you mean?” What kind of man had he been on his way to become?
“When firepower doesn’t get my father what he wants, he relies very strongly on the legal system. Stopping others from building. Taking over home sites that have belonged to families since humans fled earth after the bombs went off. Challenging ownership. I … I was well on my way to being the most successful lawyer on his team.” He shook his head before he pulled back a little. “Quinn isn’t the only one with something to atone for.”
I made him meet my gaze. “I spent a lot of time with women who claimed to be better than me; they hurt me all the time, and they never asked for forgiveness. Maybe what you’re doing now, trying to make things better, it’ll help things. Maybe that could be forgiveness.”
He kissed me gently. “Maybe it could. Who knows? I never thought to find you and nearly have you as my own. Maybe anything is possible.”
7
You Stole a Trinket
Tommy lay next t
o me in the bed. To be in his bed was both awkward and somehow totally normal at the same time. It helped that we’d no sooner gotten under the covers than he’d kissed me and then promptly fallen asleep flat on his back. I lay close, not touching him. We’d really not discussed sleeping together, and I didn’t know exactly what to do. The others had made it easier. They’d held on, and we’d all fallen asleep together.
He breathed deeply, and I didn’t blame his exhaustion. Tommy moved on full cylinders all of the time without a break. He held himself responsible for everyone’s safety and happiness. It had to wear on him. I rolled to my side. It was going to be a long night if I couldn’t get comfortable. I closed my eyes, hearing the ship noises. Clay was at the helm. He’d joked he would fly us into a bunch of space junk and bang up Tommy’s ship.
The twins were both hard at work at the table in the galley. Quinn muttered to himself while he worked, and Keith kept headphones on. I’d remembered to take my anxiety medication before bed, so there was no reason I was still awake.
I did finally fall asleep, which meant, unfortunately that evening, I dreamed.
I was on my knees in front of Sister Superior. “You can’t possibly want her, Mr. McQueen.”
I looked up from where I stared at the floor. One of the guys was here? When I glanced left, I jolted; it was all four of them. Finally, it was Tommy who spoke, but they all held disdain in their eyes. “You’re right. Now that we see her, she’ll never be good enough. What does she know about anything? She’s spoiled, she couldn’t make it work here, and she’ll never survive in the universe. She can cook? So what? If we wanted a cook, we’d hire one.”
Keith laughed. “What were we thinking?”
Clay sighed. “Put her out the airlock.”
“With the space junk,” Quinn finished.
I sat up panting. The clock told me hours had passed. It wasn’t that long of a dream, but then dreams were funny like that. Sometimes quick ones took up the whole night while long, intensive dramas were over in seconds.
