Kraft opened her eyes and applauded.
Bailey looked to the console. “Could you fly her?” Bailey took obvious pride in the fact that he was, for the moment, in full command of Mutiny.
“In a hard pinch I could manage.” Kraft stood, brushed her fanny off and looked down at the array of components. “Frankly, I know just enough to be dangerous.”
Bailey uttered a giddy, high-pitched schoolboy laugh that made Jace cringe. After dealing with Charissa’s crush, he wondered how Kraft would deal with Bailey’s.
“I don’t have the knack Shar did or you have,” Kraft said. “I hear tell you once outfoxed Berserkers.”
Jace doubted she’d heard that information. More likely, she’d read it off the ship. He wondered what else she’d read just from touching things on his ship.
“You heard that?” Bailey flushed with pride. “Yeah,” he said, trying to downplay it and be cool, “I made Mutiny fly.”
Kraft and Bailey looked out the window, and Jace followed.
Berserkers, Randoms, IWOG officers—any number of vicious brutes could descend at any moment. There was such a dangerous freedom on the Fringe.
“What brought you out into the Void?” Bailey asked.
Kraft looked out to the black. “Freedom. And I love the feel of a ship, the rumbling low bass of the engine. When I’m on-world, I feel constricted and claustrophobic. Out here I feel free.”
Bailey nodded. “Me too.”
Kraft looked down at Bailey’s young head with a fondness only a mother could bestow. She lifted her hand as if to smooth his hair, but thought better of it and lowered her hand to the back of the pilot chair.
“My space is limited by my ship, but I still feel like a bird in the sky. Like I can go anywhere the wind takes me.” Kraft shook her head, her twined hair dancing down her back. “Well, listen to me wax poetical. Give me a moment and I’m liable to burst into song.”
“Here,” Bailey said, ready to flip a switch, “we could pipe it over the com.”
“That’d be fun. Wake up Mutiny to a voice that’s a cross between a pernickety engine and a burning cat.” Kraft covered his hand on the com. “You got some beef with the crew I’m unaware of?”
Bailey flushed when she touched his hand then burst forth a nervous, delighted giggle. Kraft patted his hand the way one would pet a puppy then pulled her hand back.
Jace felt a surge of dismay that she didn’t flinch from Bailey’s touch the way she did from his. Apparently, Bailey wasn’t filled with a repulsing darkness. Again, Jace wanted to know as much as he didn’t.
“Your voice can’t be worse than mine,” Bailey said.
“Yes it can.” Kraft laughed. “Unless yours is more annoying than two alley cats going at it in the dark.”
Jace wondered if the cats were fighting or—his mouth dropped open at the very idea, but Bailey didn’t even blink.
“I’ve heard alley cats fight,” Bailey said, lifting his chin. “I’ve been around.”
Kraft barely suppressed a smile. “Tell you what, you still can’t sing worse than me.”
“Do you know Running the Line?” Bailey asked.
“I do, I do. You willing to sing it over the com?”
“No!” Bailey shook his head.
“Then why are you asking?”
“We could just sing it, you and me, for fun.” Bailey flashed her an engaging, child-like grin. He strummed out the simple beat for “Running the Line”.
Kraft sang in low alto, “Ain’t gonna fly with you today, ain’t gonna fly at all that way, I don’t care what they say, I be running the line.”
While playing the beat on his guitar, Bailey, in a clear high alto, sang the second verse, “Got my ship in the sky, love the view up so high, got no time to wonder why, I be running the line.”
Together, Kraft and Bailey sang the chorus as Jace mouthed the words. “Tales they tell don’t matter much, I know right from wrong and such, and when they tell their tales of me, everyone will finally see, I’ve been holding the line.”
They finished, high-fived each other and laughed. More than ever, Jace felt like a dirty thief for obsessively observing a moment that didn’t belong to him, but he needed to know more about Kraft. He thought watching her interact with his crew would reveal her true self. All he’d discovered so far was that he was powerfully attracted to her. Not only for her exceeding beauty, but her generous nature and infectious laughter. She was so open and honest that he worried she was too open and honest.
“I don’t think they’ll be booking our act anywhere soon,” Kraft said. “On that note, I’m going to get some shut-eye.” She turned to leave, and added, “There’s swassing in the kitchen.”
“Oh, hey, thanks.” Bailey settled into the pilot’s chair and began obsessively tuning his guitar.
Jace made a beeline down the hall.
Kraft walked away from the bridge.
“Hey,” Bailey said.
Kraft stopped and looked back.
Fumbling, shy, Bailey caught her gaze. “I don’t know what else you are, but you’re a really good cook.”
“Thank you kindly.” Kraft bowed her head. “You play one hell of a tale. And my understanding is you’re one hell of a pilot too.”
Bailey blushed. He seemed impossibly young yet tested beyond his years.
With a shy smile, he said, “You can’t sing worth a damn.”
“You either.” She offered him a gentle grin filled with sisterly camaraderie.
“So we’re even?”
“We’re even. Got no reason to be at odds.”
Turning away, she left the bridge. Poor Bailey, he was so enamored. Kraft shook her head. In many ways, the sweet and impressionable Bailey reminded her of Bavin, with her big brown eyes to Danna, who scarce took notice. Kraft noticed Bailey’s infatuation, but ignored it studiously. The best way to cure a crush was to refuse to feed it.
Bailey’s song echoed in her mind as she walked through the velvet dark of the main hallway. Rounding the corner, heading down the catwalk to her bunk aft, Kraft plowed right into Jace.
She hit him so hard and fast she knocked him right off the steps to the metal floor above the hold. The crash of their two bodies hitting the membrane of metal to a now empty hold shook the entire ship like a strike against a drum.
Mutiny reverberated then went still.
Gasping on the floor with the wind knocked clean out of her, Kraft lay panting in the dark. Two feet to her right, Jace lay just as beached fish as she.
Within seconds, lights flooded the bay.
Garrett and Heller leaned over the railing and pointed Sharp Shooter rifles at her.
Chapter Twelve
Jace shot to his feet with a mortified glance up to Garrett and Heller. “It was an accident.” Jace felt stripped-naked exposed when he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Payton and Charissa peered down, then Bailey joined them.
“You accidentally floored Kraft?” Garrett winked and pulled his gun up. When Heller didn’t, Garrett pushed Heller’s barrel to the sky. “What a happy accident.”
Jace felt a flush rush up his face and he gritted his teeth to force it down. “Go back to bed.” He ran an impatient hand through his hair. “Bailey? Get back on the bridge and do anything but sleep.”
Kraft dusted herself off. “I apologize, Captain Lawless. I didn’t see you.” She started to walk away.
Jace waited until his crew left. He grabbed her arm and spun her around.
“Hey! What are you—”
“So now you’ve taken up flirting with Bailey?” Fury filled him when he thought of her casually touching his pilot when she couldn’t bear to touch him.
“What?” Her eyes went wide.
“I heard you on the bridge, singing and laughing with him.” Jace knew he turned his embarrassment into anger then dumped it on Kraft, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“Oh, the horror!” She lifted her hands to the sky. “Would you rath
er I make the poor boy burst into tears?”
“Leave him alone,” Jace said with soft menace. “Isn’t it enough you’ve got Garrett wrapped around your little finger?”
Her jaw damn near hit the floor.
“Bailey’s young, and he’s got a crush on you something fierce. Don’t be jerking his heart around. Throw your favors at Heller. He’s the one you gotta warm up.” Jace couldn’t believe how cold his voice sounded. He had no idea where all his anger sprang from, or why he inflicted it on Kraft, but he also couldn’t seem to silence himself.
Kraft went from stunned silence to a furious whisper so fast it made his head spin.
“What kind of a person do you think—wait, don’t bother to answer, because it’s obvious what kind of a person you think I am. An any-way-the-wind-blows harlot with an itch so deep that apparently anything male can scratch it.”
“I never—”
“Said it?” Kraft cut him off. “No. But you don’t have to. You think it, and act accordingly. Is that why you were lurking around in the dark? So you could spy on me?”
Before he could respond, Kraft leaned close. “I’ve been doing so much cooking in your kitchen, I don’t have the energy to get cooking in the sack—with anybody—not even myself.”
Jace knew what she meant, and it took all his willpower not to blush. He’d done that more than once since she’d come aboard. At first, out of loyalty, he’d thought of Senna, but Kraft danced into his mind until—
“If you’re so worried about who’s diddling who, I’ll show you how to tap the com in everyone’s bedroom from the bridge. And if I scrounge up the energy to diddle anybody, even myself, you have my permission to stand right in the room and watch.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “As captain of Mutiny I have the right to be anywhere I want on my own ship. At anytime. Day or night. Your permission or not.”
Emotion drained from her face as she came to attention. “I apologize, Captain Lawless.”
“You’ve had military training.” Nothing else could account for the sudden shift from angry woman to subordinate crew member.
“Yes, Captain Lawless, five years.” Kraft stood with her shoulders back, head held high and her arms at her sides. Barefoot, still clad in his castoff clothes, she had a bearing nothing short of fiercely proud.
“You may call me Captain.”
Kraft nodded. “Thank you, Captain.”
“At ease.”
Kraft clasped her hands behind her back then took a half step to the left.
Jace felt instantly more comfortable in the role of captain to crew member, but being alone with her played havoc with his nerves. He found his gaze drawn to her wide, sensuous mouth. Repeatedly, he had to remind himself to look at her eyes. The fathomless depths were distracting, but less so than her lips.
“Is there a problem with me observing your behavior on my ship?”
“No, Captain.”
“As I understand it, our agreement is you cook and I keep you safe.”
Kraft frowned, but didn’t say a word.
“You may speak freely.”
She took a deep breath. “I cook and you don’t toss me out an airlock. I’ll tend to my own safety.” From her lowered face, she caught his gaze. “Allow me to venture forth on jobs. I seek not a wage, but a percentage.”
“I’m no Fairing,” Jace said with naked honesty. “A wage might well be higher than a percentage. That derelict Basic was a fluke for us. We’re fairly low budget.”
“I’m willing to accept that risk.”
“I’m not so sure I am.” Jace shook his head.
“Because I’m a woman?” Kraft kept her gaze on the floor.
He thought that was part of his reluctance, but not the whole. Kraft was not a fragile sprite like Senna. Kraft was six-three of dark and deadly Walkyrie. With two fingers, she’d dropped his most powerful fighter to his knees, but right after, she’d fled in tears when thoughts of her lost crew overwhelmed her. Kraft was strong yet vulnerable. The combination damn near devastated him. Ten years of resigning himself to lost dreams of what was seemed swept away by new dreams of what could be, with a woman who wasn’t anything like anyone he’d ever known. A woman all at once everything yet nothing like his dead wife.
Captain of a thief ship wasn’t the life Jace planned for himself, not even remotely the life he wanted, but Kraft seemed to suddenly make all of the scrambling, the fear, and the ever-present threat of the Void worthwhile.
“Captain?” Kraft asked expectantly. Her eyes, huge and dark, filled with unplumbed depths, peered up from her lowered face. A bare hand shorter than him, she managed to make him feel a foot taller by tilting her face like that.
“I think it best for now if you remain only a cook.”
Kraft scowled at the floor. “I’ve clearly shown proficiency in battle.”
Jace considered. In his heart, he knew Kraft could take him down, but she belonged to him in a way. Her safety was his utmost concern.
“You will cook and nothing more.” To his own ears, his voice sounded imperious. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t challenged him physically for control of the ship. Did her honor hold her back, or had she taken a shine to him as Garrett had suggested?
“Permission to speak freely?” Kraft almost burst at the seams like a child in dire need of the restroom.
He nodded.
“I’m a better fighter than a cook. If you use only one of my skills, let me fight.”
“I hired you to cook.”
“You bought me to cook.”
“I bought a cook-whore. Do you think I should hold you to the full of that?” His voice came out brutal and dark, surprising him but not her.
“Frankly, Captain, if you demanded it of me, I would honor that contract between us.”
Jace didn’t know what to say. By her honor she would submit herself to him? He didn’t blush at the thought of commanding her to his bunk. Instead, even worse, he got hard. Just the fleeting thought of her lovely body in his lonely bed…
“Now that you’ve got me, shouldn’t you actually use me for what I’m good at?” Kraft peered up at him from a lowered face. Again, she managed to make him feel a foot taller.
Did she mean fighting, cooking, or whoring? Deciding to play it safe, Jace put on his best captain voice. “You’re more than a good cook. You’re an excellent cook. And I think that’s where your true talent lies.”
“Can’t I have more than one true talent?”
Warrior, cook, whore. Jace wanted her so profoundly he shook. “I’m finished arguing this.”
Kraft nodded, resolute. “Fine. I’m your cook. Please inform your crew not to talk to me.”
“That isn’t—”
“Yes, it is.”
Finished being a submissive crew member, Kraft became an angry woman and lifted her face. All at once he lost a foot in height.
“I won’t be able to talk to your crew because I might laugh with them, which, for some insane reason, has a ring of sleaze in your pretty head.” She turned on her bare heel. “When I’m not cooking, I’ll stay in my quarters. If you want me to be your whore, let me know.”
Her dismissive attitude grated his nerves. “I think you’re forgetting who’s captain on this ship.” Jace couldn’t refrain from digging a bit further, just to see if he could goad a physical attack. He had a perverse need to see just how far he could push his authority over her.
“How could I forget you’re the captain?” Kraft spun and faced him. “You remind me every time I turn around. Lord on high! What do you want me to do? Genuflect every time I see you? Bow and mumble, ‘I’m not worthy’? Salute you? What?” Up her hands went. “You’ve made me your cook, rejected me as whore, yet seem furious at the very idea I might sleep with another man on your ship.”
Jace met her blazing gaze. “Bailey’s hardly a man.”
Kraft rolled her eyes and said something low and guttural in German. Before he could ask for a translation, she sai
d, “I would no more go to his bed than Heller’s. Or Garrett’s. I’ve got even less interest in Payton or Charissa. Guess that leaves you, Captain.” She lifted her brows and put her hands on her hips. “Until I’m released from my contract with you, I won’t take any man into my bed but you. Satisfied?”
Stunned by her forthright declaration, Jace said, “I want you to cook and keep your hands off my crew.”
“But I didn’t—”
“You touched Bailey’s hand.”
She took a deep breath to retort, but changed her mind. Instead, she saluted him. “You got it, Captain. I’m your cook and nothing more.” She tossed a smoldering look over her shoulder as she stalked off. “Tell you what, you’ll regret that a hell of a lot more than I will.”
Kraft created incredible meals, and Jace found himself looking more and more forward to mealtime. Before Kraft, the galley had been a place to avoid, but not any longer.
After she served everyone, Jace would step forward and she would have a plate waiting. Once she served him, she fixed up a plate for herself and went to her room. When everyone left the kitchen area, she returned, cleaned up and went right back to her room.
Phantom cook.
His crew assumed he punished her for the fiasco in the cargo bay, but they were too intimidated by his sullen mood to ask.
After three days, nine incredible meals, terse orders and tense silence, Garrett set aside his fork and boldly asked, “I’m apt to regret this, but what’s going on, Jace?”
“Nothing.” Jace glared at Garrett down the length of the kitchen table. “Just eat your lunch and get back to work.”
“You all bent at her because we caught you on the floor with her?” Garrett grinned. “Hell, Jace, not a one of us is teasing you about it. If you’ve got something with Kraft—”
“There’s nothing going on.” Jace turned his attention back to his meal.
“Your pissytude indicates something done crawled up your butt and died.” Garrett tossed his napkin aside. “Hell, we’d all like to know what it is before we hold you down and have Payton forcibly remove it.”
Payton gasped at the vulgarity.
Thief: Fringe, Book 1 Page 9
