Thief: Fringe, Book 1

by Anitra Lynn McLeod

Charissa and Bailey giggled.

  “Did that bitch do something to the ship?” Heller asked.

  “Stop calling her a bitch.” Bailey spoke to Heller, but kept his eyes on his plate.

  “Shut up, boy, or I’ll rip out your tongue.” Heller lunged at Bailey from across the table. Bailey flinched, splattering half his food to his lap. “I owe you two for flinching.”

  “If Jace refuses to let anyone speak, could we also refrain from bickering during meals?” Payton asked.

  “I’m all for not fighting, but we got us some serious jawing to do,” Garrett said. “Kraft is a bought woman, Jace. Your bought woman.” He passed his napkin along to Bailey, who cleaned up while Heller grinned at him. “She’s cooking up a storm, yet she’s being shunned. If you’re going the way of the WAG Amish, that’s fine, but at least give a heads up on why we’re gobbling up her victuals, but eschewing her company.”

  “It does seem unfair,” Payton said.

  Charissa nodded.

  Bailey nodded and took a wary bite while he kept his gaze on his plate.

  “Did Kraft do something wrong, Captain Jace?” Charissa asked. “If she did, shouldn’t you—”

  Payton shook her head at her daughter, forbidding her from interfering.

  “I’m just asking, Mom!”

  Bailey looked at Jace. “You said to treat her honorably, but you—”

  “Shut up, boy.” Heller lunged at Bailey.

  Bailey didn’t flinch this time, but he did drop his gaze.

  “Heller,” Garrett said, “you lunge at him one more time, and I promise you, I’ll—”

  “Everyone, stop.” Jace slapped his hand to the table, rattling the plates. “Kraft didn’t do a damn thing wrong. Neither did anyone else. I did.”

  Resolved, he left the galley and walked directly to Kraft’s room. Using his knuckle, he tapped softly against the wall com on the outside of her door.

  “What?” Her voice sounded tinny over the speaker, but bellowed through the metal door.

  “We need to talk.” Jace pressed the com and her bedroom door pocketed to the side with a dull thud.

  “Are you sure you’re willing to risk it? I might make you laugh.” Kraft ate while sitting cross-legged on her bed, reading the paperback Garrett had taken from the derelict Basic.

  Jace wondered if the western was any good. “I don’t feel much like laughing.” He closed the door by slapping the wall com inside her bunk door.

  “Really? I’m stunned.” Kraft glanced at him, and then turned her attention back to the book. “You’re usually such a bundle of giggles.”

  “Could we not fight, please?”

  “Of course.” She set the book aside, crossed her arms and glared at him. “I can’t flirt, can’t fight, you don’t want me to do the other big F, fornicate, so, forgive my confusion, but what do you want me to do, Captain Lawless? I mean, besides be your cook. I got that part of my indentured servitude down.”

  Her tone and the look in her eyes could freeze the fires of hell. Jace turned to go. He thought he might try again later when she was less angry, but he realized she had a right to be upset, and walking away now would only make matters worse.

  He faced her and softly said, “I want things to go back to the way they were.”

  She smiled sickly sweet and snidely asked, “You mean when I was throwing myself at everyone on your crew?”

  Jace took a deep breath and sat on her bunk. “Kraft, I’m really trying here.”

  “Aw, hell. I know.” She sighed and pushed her plate aside. “I’m just bitchy from looking at four walls for three days. I’m willing to give right in.” She leaned forward. “Look, Captain, I like your crew, and I think they like me, well, except for Heller. Singing and talking and laughing is not flirting. Most people call it fun.”

  “I know.” Jace looked at the cover of the paperback western and wished himself that man with his gleaming white hat tipped back off his brow, riding a midnight-black horse through an untouched prairie of pale grasses. That painted-picture man stood forever in a position where he could still triumph. Jace envied him that, since he had already lost his battle to protect all he loved.

  “Then why did you think I was flirting with Bailey? Because I sang a song with him? Because I laughed with him?”

  Jace shrugged. How could he explain his actions to her when he didn’t understand them himself? Looking up, he caught her gaze.

  Sudden understanding flashed across her face. “You were jealous.”

  When he tried to stand, she touched his arm, and he stopped. He sat down but wouldn’t look at her. After a long stretch of silence, he asked, “Are you reading me?”

  “Like a fifty foot plasboard.” Kraft pulled her hand back to her lap. “If you mean do I have my psychic hat on, then no, but right now, I don’t need it. You were jealous, weren’t you?”

  Reluctantly, he nodded. He saw no point in lying to her when she could read the truth anyway. “I don’t even understand why. I know you’re not interested in Bailey, you were just being nice to him.” He kept his gaze on that captivating painting of a man with so much to fight for. “I guess, what made me jealous, was how fast you became a part of the crew. How quickly everyone accepted you, like you’ve always been here.”

  He finally braved a look at her. Sadness cast hunger deep in her fathomless eyes.

  “And you’re afraid I’m going to break their hearts when I go,” Kraft said softly.

  Jace nodded.

  She looked at the paperback book. “I’d like to be that man too.”

  “Dammit, you are reading me.” Jace stood from her tightly made bunk, turning his back on her.

  She laughed gently. “You think because I told you I can read objects, I fudged a bit and can really read people.”

  He nodded without looking at her.

  “Well, in a way, you’re right. Sometimes, when I look at someone, I just know what they’re thinking.”

  “I knew it.” He felt so utterly exposed he wanted to double-check that his pants were still buttoned.

  “It’s nothing magical, Captain. I can read you just by watching what you do and listening to what you say. You broadcast your feelings more clearly than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  Her comment didn’t surprise him. He’d never been very good at hiding his emotions, and it caused him more trouble than not. But he also felt Kraft wasn’t being completely honest with him.

  “I know you can read people better than that.” He glanced at her closed door and thought he should have left it open. Just being alone with her made him feel jittery. “That’s what you did at the gambling hell, isn’t it?”

  “No. Contrary to what you’re thinking, I can’t read people the way I can read objects. At the hell, I read the table and the cards, not the people.” She sighed. “Look, it’s complicated, and I really don’t feel like telling you the details about my super powers.”

  He turned to face her. She looked suddenly small and vulnerable while sitting on the narrow bunk. When she lifted her gaze to him, he saw a deep pain, almost shame, on her face, but it vanished when she shook her head.

  “Captain, the thing is, you have a tendency to make your feelings perfectly clear, then totally obscure.” She shrugged. “It’s like you’re dancing a very tight one step forward, one step back with me.”

  “Why do you call it that? Dancing, I mean.” That she chose that particular metaphor spoke volumes to him. Night after night, he locked himself to his room to dance in his mind with his wife. He’d stopped of late, because he no longer imagined Senna in his arms, but Kraft.

  “Because life is like a dance with daggers drawn. You can make it stylized or you can make it deadly. Just depends who you’re dancing with and why.” Kraft stroked her hand over the paperback. “I don’t want our dance to be deadly.”

  Jace considered her for a very long time. “Neither do I.”

  She looked up and offered a tentative smile. “I think, if we both try a little ha
rder, we can make this work. But you have to stop thinking that I’m some kind of walking freak-show.”

  “I don’t think that,” he blurted, surprised that she would accuse him of agreeing with Heller’s assessment of her.

  With a grim frown, she said, “Yes, you do. You think I know everything about everyone all the time, but I don’t. I’m a reader, Captain, but my skill is not remotely on the level you think it is. I’m not omniscient.”

  “If I said something that offended you, then I apologize.”

  “Okay.” She smiled up at him. “Permission to leave my quarters, sir?”

  “Permission granted.” He nodded. “Grab your plate and come back to the kitchen.”

  “Yes sir!” She stood, saluted him sharply, and picked up her plate.

  He slapped the wall com and opened the door.

  “So, can I grab your butt on the way too?”

  He spun around.

  “You said you wanted things back the way they were.” Kraft winked at him. “I assumed that meant I could flirt with you again.”

  “Beware what you ask for.” He turned away before she could see his smile.

  “Captain?” Her low voice held no trace of joking.

  He turned and looked her right in the eye.

  “If you really hate my flirting with you, I’ll stop.”

  “I don’t hate it, annyae.”

  The endearment surprised her. In Universal, an annyae was a tiny gold trinket worth not for its weight in gold, but its fierce sentimental value.

  When Kraft blushed, he was more than a little pleased with himself for turning the tables on her.

  She glanced away, then back. “That’s good, because I don’t think I could. Stop flirting with you, that is. You’re just way too pretty.”

  He grinned and she echoed with that slow, lazy, sexy smile that touched him to his toes. It didn’t bother him so much anymore that she kept calling him pretty, because he understood she meant it as a compliment. He felt an overwhelming urge to reach out and stroke her flushed cheek, but held himself back. He didn’t want to watch her flinch away from the darkness of his touch.

  After a decade in the Void, he’d never met a woman who attracted him like Kraft. To splash vinegar to the salt-filled wound, the object of his desire was now a part of his crew, which made her totally off limits to him. No matter how enticing, it would be inappropriate to make her his lover. No matter how badly he wanted to.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When they returned to the kitchen, Jace took his place at the head of the table. Kraft stood by the stove, looking at his broad back and thinking of how much she wanted to embrace him—the hell with all these stupid rules of honor.

  His gentle honesty touched her deeply, and his clear love for his crew, that he worried about her breaking their hearts when she left, almost brought tears to her eyes. Behind that simple truth lurked the fact that his heart would be broken too.

  She wanted to allay his fears about her psychic abilities by disclosing the full of her powers, but she couldn’t. They were both safer with him not knowing.

  Very soon, they would have to talk about the length of her contract. She couldn’t be his cook forever, yet she couldn’t leave until he released her.

  She should have confronted him long before now and set limits to the fuzzy contract, but she honestly didn’t want to. For the moment, she wanted to stay. She felt safe and had no responsibility other than to cook. Once they agreed to a definitive time limit, they would both have to stick to it. With everything unspoken, they could take advantage of the wiggle room and keep dancing.

  “Were there any romances on your ship?” Charissa cast a wistful look at Bailey.

  When Bailey cast a wistful glance at Kraft, she realized she might be better off staying in her room.

  “I thought your crew was all female,” Payton said with an odd hesitancy. Just the thought of same-sex love made Payton distinctly uncomfortable, and it showed on her pinched face.

  Payton’s attitude didn’t surprise Kraft in the least. Payton lived most of her life on the IWOG worlds where homosexuality was forbidden by law and punishable by death. As a doctor, Payton had been forced to report any questionable relationship to the IWOG officers stationed within her hospital.

  “Yeah,” Heller grunted. “Tell us all about it.”

  Dismissing Heller with a roll of her eyes, Kraft looked to Charissa. “There was romance on my ship.” She thought of Danna and Jinj, and how they’d snuck around for months even though everyone knew what was going on.

  “Did anyone fall in love?” Charissa lifted her innocent green eyes to Bailey, but he didn’t notice because he was too busy taming his wayward locks as he looked at Kraft.

  After a brief hesitation, Kraft reluctantly said, “Yes.”

  “You make love sound like it’s not a good thing.” Charissa frowned in her pretty, puzzled way.

  “Well, love isn’t bad, such as it is.” Kraft really didn’t want to have this conversation now, but after what she and Jace had discussed, now might be the time to remind him not to fall in love with her. “But love can sometimes make folks do all kinds of strange things.”

  Charissa looked confused and everyone else got a lot more interested about eavesdropping. Even Jace perked up his ears.

  “Surely, love is better than hate on a ship?” Payton cast a fond gaze to her daughter and then a quick sidelong glance to Garrett.

  Payton just proved her point. In a desperate situation, Payton would choose her daughter over anyone else on the ship, no matter what orders Jace gave. That’s what made love so dangerous. It muddied the waters and made the chain of authority fuzzy.

  “Love can cause more problems on a ship than hate ever could.” Kraft scrubbed the dishes clean and stacked them on the sideboard.

  “But if two people love each other…” Charissa trailed off with a wistful voice as she looked at Bailey. Everyone noticed but Bailey, who kept his pale blue eyes riveted on every move Kraft made.

  “Love can far outweigh a captain’s orders and make life more—fudgy. Not bad, just more complicated around the edges.”

  Heller snarfed. “Who gives a rat’s about love. Just tell us the juicy parts.” He laughed like a grunting pig. Heller, like most Fringe men, embraced female homosexuality with a leering salaciousness. If Kraft attempted to tell him about the men she’d known who were in love, he’d snarl and curse his way out of the room.

  Charissa frowned at Heller then turned her big green eyes to Kraft. “You forbid it?”

  Appalled at the very idea, Kraft shook her head. “No. A captain can’t dictate matters of the heart.” Finished with the dishes, she methodically wiped down the stove and countertops. “I just made it clear that their allegiance to the crew always came first. Not to me, mind you, but to the whole of our ship.”

  “Yeah, bet you had all kinds of fun with your allegiant crew.” Heller flashed her a nasty smirk.

  It took all her willpower not to force Heller down on his knees and make him apologize for being such an ignoramus. Lord on high, Heller had all the appeal of a festering anal fissure.

  “You never fell in love?” Charissa asked.

  “I fell in love with each and every member of my crew.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you ‘loved’ them.” Heller slashed quote marks in the air and his implication was unmistakable.

  “There is love without sex, Heller, just as there is sex without love. I’m not surprised you don’t understand the difference.”

  Her gaze settled on Charissa. “I loved my crew. Much like your mother loves you.” Kraft nodded to Payton, and understanding filled Payton’s eyes.

  Kraft dried and stowed the dishes. “It’s funny that our Universal language knows only one word for love when there are many kinds of love, and all are special. But all can cross a captain. Love is a dangerous thing on a ship.”

  Kraft knew Jace listened intently, but he never turned around. In a way, she felt she spoke direct
ly to him, warning him not to fall in love with her. And perhaps reminding herself that such an emotional entanglement between them could only end badly. More than anything, she didn’t want to repay his kindness by hurting him.

  “Bet that didn’t stop you from getting a little thrust and wiggle.” Heller made a rude hand gesture as he flashed her a perverted grin.

  Coldly, Kraft said, “I never touched a member of my crew in such a manner.” But she thought of the times she’d held them as they cried over a real or imagined loss. She’d been like a protective mother. Her embrace had been the only place Bavin could find peace within her last hours on the Random Trifecta. Kraft had not been able to soothe Bavin’s shock and pain, and a feeling of failure crept over her again.

  “They ain’t around to deny it, are they?” Heller’s eyes glittered.

  Wanting to bash him in the nose like Jace had done, Kraft instead looked Heller in the eye. “Ugly fits you like a tailored suit.”

  Heller sat stock still as he digested her comment.

  When she turned around, she found Jace watching her speculatively.

  “Tell you what, I like men in my bed, notably pretty ones.” She winked at Jace, who blushed just a bit. She found his blushing sexy. Maybe because it made her feel like she seduced a man about three steps from the priesthood, especially since he had a decade of celibacy under his belt. She still couldn’t believe he was thirty-five and knew only his wife. She hoped her open and blatant flirting made it clear she didn’t take anything too seriously, and that he shouldn’t either.

  “What man would want a ball-buster like you?” Heller asked.

  “A man with a hefty set?” Kraft dipped her gaze to Heller’s crotch. “Guess that leaves you out.”

  Heller puffed himself up, but backed off when she pressed her index finger to her thumb.

  “As charming as this conversation is,” Jace said, “we’ve got a job to do.”

  After washing their dishes and stowing them, Payton and Charissa left the kitchen.

  Garrett, Heller, Bailey and Jace sat around the table while Kraft dawdled near the stove.

  Jace cleared his throat. “You’re excused, Kraft.”