“You don’t know how,” Bailey said. A honey-sweet chord made a trip down the hall.
“I know,” Kraft returned, her voice clear in the dark hallway. “I’ll march up to the bridge, open the ship-wide com, play her and sing. Now that would be just be ugly all the way around. If you’re going to help me build this False, you best play her and not tune her to death.”
Jace heard Bailey laugh as he plucked against the strings, making the battered guitar play like gold struck with a careless god’s hand. In the year Bailey had been pilot, Jace had no idea that he could make music better than he flew Mutiny.
Kraft knew.
Jace wanted to walk right back into the kitchen and demand to know what else she knew of his crew. What stopped him was the truth in his own heart. If she knew all the secrets of his crew, what must she know of him?
Waiting had been the hardest part. Kraft had almost two hours of air in the suit and it took almost an hour for the Dungslurper to finish and pull away.
Jace practically felt his black hair turning grey.
The twenty minutes it took Kraft to make her way from the sewage line to the control center seemed more like twenty years.
“She’s fine, Captain,” Garrett said as they all clustered on the blacked-out bridge of Mutiny. “Lady knows her stuff.”
“She’s a freak-show, but she’s our freak-show,” Heller said. It was as close to an endorsement of Kraft that Heller had ever gotten near.
“See? Even Heller gives her the nod.” Garrett slapped Heller’s wide back. “As a betting man, I’m all for this being the first time it’s gonna run easy.”
Kraft had been inside for ten minutes, halfway through the sewage recyc line. She had a com unit in the suit but she’d disabled it. They couldn’t utter a peep or they’d alert the IWOG crew.
Mutiny hung just out of range, ten minutes off, hiding in the disturbance caused by the wake of the Dungslurper.
Jace waited for her screams. He shook his head. He wouldn’t even get that. Kraft was incommunicado for at least five more minutes. His breath came in pained gasps as he waited. He wished he’d had the guts to kiss her before she left. He’d thought about it, come close, but pulled back at the last second because of that deal he’d made with her. One night of kissing that might never be.
“She placed the False,” Bailey said.
On a com pan, Jace read what the two IWOG guards in the secondary security cell thought they were doing. They banged out commands that the False answered in perfect IWOG code. The guards locked down their room. The False kept them occupied as Kraft made her way up the main hall.
Bailey turned his attention to the console. “Everything looks good.”
“Too good to be true.” Jace shook his head. He couldn’t help but expect this job to go horribly wrong. He gripped the back of the pilot chair so hard he left permanent dents in the worn pleather.
“Relax.” Garrett pulled Jace’s hand off the back of the chair. “Everything’s fine.”
“It’s been too long—”
“This is IWOG transport station Delta Alpha Two Three Fifty-nine,” Kraft said, in a clear, delighted voice over the main com. “Mutiny may dock at the cargo bay.” She uttered that rolling chuckle of hers and his whole body sagged with relief. “The crew may sing, dance, or howl like banshees if they are so inclined.”
As Mutiny came to life and surged forward, Jace could well imagine her dancing around the main security cell of the IWOG transport. He wished himself beside her so he could sweep her into his arms and dance with her.
Bailey docked and locked the ships together. When the airlocks opened, Kraft stood in the jam-packed cargo bay. She stepped to a forklift filled with goods and drove it forward.
“Cakewalk,” she said, as she went past him and deposited a load of goods into Mutiny’s cargo bay. “We have about twenty minutes to do our damage. We can do it best with all hands.”
Jace’s crew didn’t need his command. They all came forward and tossed boxes into the mouth of Mutiny. Jace looked around the cargo bay of the IWOG transport. If the Basic was a treasure drove, this was ten times more. He tossed boxes and tried to clear his head.
“Just once, you wanted it easy.” Kraft smiled. “Pinch me or let me pinch you, neither one of us is dreaming.”
He nodded but thought back to the comment she’d made that nothing worth having comes easy.
In less than twenty minutes, his 2xBasic sucked down almost the whole total of a fully stocked 10xBasic.
With a grin, Kraft slapped the com of the IWOG transport then scampered aboard Mutiny. “They’ll never even know we were here.”
Garrett lifted his hand and Kraft high-fived it.
As soon as the airlock closed, Bailey piloted Mutiny off the transport. Gravity shifted and Kraft fell against him, giving him an enticing hint of her strong body and wicked scent.
Righting herself, she said, “Sorry, Captain. It’s a bit crowded in here at the moment.”
“We’re clear, Captain Lawless,” Bailey said over the com.
“I don’t care how big your boots get, girl,” Garrett said. “Let your toes stress that leather all they want, and I’ll give you my own hard-won leather to patch them!” Garrett swept Kraft up into his arms and twirled her in a dance around the crowded cargo bay.
She flung her head back and laughed like a delighted child. Her hair, forever bound in the twine of black linen, whipped out and almost hit Heller. He flipped it away with a grin.
Garrett saw the frown creeping down Jace’s face and carefully set Kraft away.
With shining eyes, Kraft turned to him. She went from happy to confused in the blink of an eye.
Jace left the cargo bay without a word, and made his way up the catwalk.
As he entered the hallway, he heard Heller ask, “Why is Jace pissed?”
Chapter Seventeen
Kraft didn’t say much about the world they traveled to, but she didn’t need to. All of them had heard of Windmere and Michael “Overlord” Parker. After insisting he was real and would pay a fair price for the goods, she refused to confirm or deny any of the gossip with a pointed, “He’s just a man, not a myth.”
Kraft knew Michael would be inordinately pleased by the rumors surrounding him. Beyond a doubt, Michael “Overlord” Parker could give the mythical Narcissus—he who fell in love with his own reflection—a run for his money.
Since Michael had bought the goods from the first transport job she’d run, she assumed he wouldn’t mind buying the goods from the second job. Unfortunately, the limited range of the com on Mutiny meant she had to wait until they were closer to contact him. If Jace had a Tasher on the ship, Kraft could have contacted Michael in real time, but the low-budget ship didn’t and she’d have to wait. Had she realized Mutiny didn’t have a Tasher drive, Kraft would have kept the one they’d salvaged from the Runner ship.
Jace had been avoiding her like a sink-full of dirty dishes since the transport job. She thought he’d be insistent about that night of kissing, but he hadn’t mentioned it. Boldly, she’d gone to his bunk door and offered herself up for payment, only to be told to go away. Perhaps he thought that if he delayed the payout, she wouldn’t leave. And on that score he was correct. Or maybe he changed his mind and wanted something else from her to pay off her contract to him. She didn’t know and couldn’t try to get a handle on it if he refused to come near her.
Perhaps that was why Jace was avoiding her. He didn’t want her to know what was going on in his head. Jace didn’t know that she found reading him increasingly impossible. As her inner turmoil rose, so did his. Frankly, her ability to flat-out read a book became debatable.
As she pondered all of this, Jace entered the kitchen.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked, probably drawn from the bridge to the kitchen by the enticing smell of the midnight snack she concocted for herself. She’d heard Bailey begging Jace to go check it out and bring back a bite or two of whatever it was.
&nb
sp; “No, I can’t sleep.” Kraft nodded to the stove. “You want one?”
“One what?” Jace cast a dubious glance to the pans on the stove.
She considered. “A moment?”
“Of what?”
“Time.” She flicked off the burners. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and met his gaze. “Throughout that job I could practically feel you worrying about me.”
As Jace looked down into her eyes, she felt the heat of his body against hers. But he backed away.
“Captain, I’ll give you every bit of my share of the job if you’ll just tell me why you’ve been avoiding me.” The cache from the job filled the cargo bay and at even one-fourth its value it would fill all their pockets to overflowing.
“You honestly think you have to pay me to tell you the truth?”
“Do I?”
“It’s complicated,” Jace said.
“The good things always are.” Kraft nodded. “Truth even more so.”
“You want the truth?”
She nodded. “Even if you think it might hurt my feelings.”
“I felt…emasculated.”
Her jaw almost fell off her face. “Why?”
“You’re better than I am.” Jace held her gaze with a deep shame in the depths of his eyes.
“I am not!” It popped out of her mouth automatically.
“You’re a better thief. With one job you’ve made more for my crew than I have in a decade.” He hung his head and turned slightly away.
“Whether that’s true or not, I didn’t do it to show you up.”
“I know. Somehow that only makes it worse.”
His broad shoulders slumped a bit more, making her want to embrace him from behind. But she didn’t, because her coddling him in anyway would only increase his feelings that he’d failed as a man. Kraft felled many a man for his misogynistic arrogance, but Jace’s turmoil was borne of a more basic male pride: he wanted to be her protector and defender—it shamed him utterly that she had become his.
“I’m not better than you,” Kraft said softly. “I have different skills than you do. There’s plenty of things you can do that I can’t.”
“Name one.” Jace kept his back to her.
“You can pee standing up.”
The comment caught him so completely off guard he laughed and faced her. It pleased her to no end to see him smile.
“Anything else?” he asked, chuckling. “I’d hate to think that was my big claim to fame.”
“You’re better at keeping your crew safe,” she pointed out.
He frowned. “That wasn’t your fault. I don’t think I could have fought down a Trifecta either.”
“If I could have one wish granted, it would be that you never have to find out.” Again, she felt an overwhelming urge to touch him and refrained only by fiddling with the pots and pans on the stove.
“You honestly don’t think you’re better than me, do you?”
“I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I think I have my tricks, but that doesn’t make me any more worthy to draw breath than anybody else.” She shrugged. “And frankly, Captain, you did something I couldn’t.”
“What’s that?”
“You saved my life.”
“No, I—”
“If you hadn’t bought me from Trickster…” Her voice trailed off because she really didn’t want to think about what could have happened. “Because of you, my dance didn’t end. And something else—you let me lead. I’ve never allowed what you did. I never let a member of my crew lead a job. I’m a bit too much of a control freak. You don’t seem to have that problem.”
“You pull no punches, do you? Even on yourself.” Jace straightened up a bit, losing that dejected edge.
Kraft smiled, then frowned. “I learned long ago to accept myself for all I am, be it good, bad, or ugly. I’m far from perfect, and I make terrible mistakes, but I strive to learn from them.” Lord on high, she sounded like a woman with a lot of therapy under her belt.
Jace looked at her for a long time. “Would you consider this a mistake?” He stepped close and lowered his head.
By a breath, his lips brushed hers. Her resolve not to let him kiss her wavered as her hunger to taste him became uncontrollable. Throwing caution to the wind, she lifted her face.
“What the hell is that smell?” Heller asked from the kitchen doorway.
Jace stepped back from Kraft, cursing Heller with every swear word Heller had ever spoken. He’d been so close to kissing her that his whole body surged with thwarted desire.
Kraft relit the burners of the stove.
Jace touched her hand, softly, as if to convey they would take this up at another time, then turned to Heller. “A victory surprise.”
“A celebration party,” Kraft agreed, nodding to his brief touch.
It pleased him to no end that she didn’t flinch away. Whatever darkness she’d once felt had apparently been altered. He wondered if things had changed because he understood that darkness better and had even come to accept it as a part of himself.
Capping his anger over being denied kissing Kraft again, Jace walked over and slapped the kitchen wall com. “This is the Captain, I need all hands in the galley.”
Bailey wandered in and took a seat at the table across from Heller.
Garrett ran into the room with big eyes as he strapped his holster to his hips. “We under attack?” His brown hair practically stood on end.
“Well, the sandwiches I’m making are likely to give you a heart attack, but that’s probably a few years down the road,” Kraft said.
Payton and Charissa laughed from the doorway.
“Come on in and join the party,” Jace said. Getting everyone in the room forced him to put a damper on his raging hormones. But still, he wanted to kiss Kraft so badly he could barely keep his gaze off her mouth. By a damn breath he’d missed his opportunity.
Everyone gathered around the table while he stood watching Kraft in the kitchen.
“What are you making?” Bailey asked. “It smells incredible.”
Kraft said something in German.
“One more time, in Universal, please,” Payton said.
“Hamburgers with fried eggs.”
Kraft worked the stove like a virtuoso. She slung spatulas and pans and in all her fury she created a stack of sandwiches.
“Now these have no redeeming nutritional value whatsoever, which is what makes them so irresistible. And, you can’t eat these without some of this.” Kraft slapped her hand to a squat metal tank.
“I know what that is,” Garrett said, rising from the table.
“Use those,” Kraft said, nodding to a box.
“Real glass!” Garrett exclaimed, lifting out thick mugs.
“Can’t have decent beer in anything less.”
Garrett dispensed tall steins of beer to everyone.
“Beer’s not ice-cold.” Heller grunted.
“It shouldn’t be,” Kraft said. “If it’s too cold, you lose all the subtle flavor of the hops.”
“After eating these gut bombs, I’m not so sure we’ll be able to taste anything subtle,” Garrett said.
The stack of greasy sandwiches didn’t last long. His crew polished them off with much licking of fingers and long sips of beer. Jace hadn’t had a beer in so long the alcohol went right to his head, then migrated to a few other places when he glanced at Kraft. He decided one would be his limit and nursed his mug like a miser.
“You’re gonna make us all fat!” Charissa giggled.
Payton moved Charissa’s glass away.
“Hell, we could all use a little more meat on us.” Garrett polished off his third beer. His face had a soft red sheen. “And what you doing way over there, Kraft? Come join the party.”
“Here,” Jace said, scooting over on the little bench at the head of the table. “There’s room.”
Everyone’s head swiveled toward Kraft. Jace could tell she felt pinned by the scrutiny.
<
br /> “Really, Kraft.” Heller grunted. “Damn rude of you to stand way over there.” He lifted his arm and sniffed. “I done took a shower.”
“Hell, darling,” Garrett drawled. “You best get over here after an invite like that. I do believe that’s the first time Heller’s ever called you by your name.”
“It is, it is.” Kraft sat on the little bench to the right of Jace and near Heller’s left.
Jace almost groaned at how good it felt to have the side of her body pressed fully against his. She gave off an incredible heat and she smelled like the food she’d made, but below lingered the scent uniquely hers. Like a mélange of food and sex. Jace thought of how close he’d come to tasting her wide and luscious mouth. He would have to be the last one to leave the table because if he stood up now, everyone would see how much he enjoyed sitting next to Kraft.
“A toast.” Kraft lifted her glass. “To good food!”
“To good beer!” Garrett lifted his glass.
“To good times!” Charissa giggled, plucking her stein back from her mother.
“To good money!” Heller growled.
“To good company!” Bailey said.
“To good health!” Payton chimed in.
“To the best crew in the whole of the Void!” Jace said.
Everyone clinked their glasses together and drank.
“You know what this party really needs? Music.” Jace nodded at Bailey. “Go get your girl, Bailey.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Bailey blushed, but Jace could see he just needed a little coaxing.
“I could always sing,” Kraft threatened.
“Come on, Bailey, play for us,” Jace encouraged, eyeing Kraft warily. “You really don’t want her to sing, do you?”
“Okay.” Bailey went to the bridge and returned with his guitar. “What should I play?”
“Play Lonesome Road. I believe Charissa here knows the words.” Kraft nodded to Charissa.
Charissa blushed then smiled at Bailey. “I’ll sing if you play.”
They made a lovely combo. A sweet tune brought to life by Bailey’s skilled fingers and Charissa’s wonderful soprano voice.
As everyone applauded, Jace suddenly felt that they made a family together. It pleased and dismayed him, but he focused on the good emotions inside. He wanted only happiness in his heart right now, and for once, the past didn’t haunt him. For a decade, Senna and their children darkened every pleasurable moment when Senna would have been appalled at such an attitude in him. For the first time, he felt that Senna wanted him to move on and open himself to love again.
Thief: Fringe, Book 1 Page 16
