Rescuing Rory

by N. J. Walters

  She looked at Kal’s hand and tried not to remember that only moments before it had cupped her ass. Her butt still tingled from his touch.

  Rory swallowed hard and forced herself to step alongside him, ignoring his outstretched hand. She suppressed the feelings of regret that swamped her when it dropped back down by his side and his expression hardened. “This way.”

  He put his hand on the small of her back and guided her down the narrow hallway. She really should step away from his touch but didn’t. As much as she knew she was playing with fire, she needed the link to him.

  Rory knew what it was like to be alone, to have no one in the known galaxies to depend upon. This small connection, no matter how tenuous and delicate, was better than nothing. As long as she remembered they both had their own agendas she’d be fine.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  She was but she was too nervous to eat. “Not really.” It was only a partial lie.

  “I’ll get you something later,” he promised.

  They turned down a wider corridor and came to a stop outside a large door. Kal placed his palm against the scanner and the door swished open. He gave her a slight push and she found herself on the control deck of the vessel.

  Consoles formed a semicircle around the bridge. From here, the entire ship could be controlled by a small crew or even one man if there was a powerful enough computer to aid him. Like most space traders, the area was compact. The goal of a trader was to have as much room as possible for transporting goods.

  Rory could tell at a glance that everything was well-maintained and top quality. She approved. It also told her a lot about the men who ran the vessel. The three men she’d met earlier were there and all of them were staring at her.

  Flynn occupied the chair in the center, at the hub of the controls. He rose from his seat and motioned her forward. A bead of sweat rolled down her neck and she glanced at Kal to make sure he was beside her. Not that he’d be much help if she needed it. She didn’t know these men at all but there was a connection between them that went bone deep. It was obvious in the way they looked at one another.

  Whatever it was they wanted from her, they’d have it, no matter what it took to get it.

  All too late, Rory wondered if she hadn’t been better off on the Exos.

  Chapter Three

  Rory was scared and doing her best not to show it. Kal could sense her rising trepidation, see the way her skin paled and her lips tightened. She was sweating too and it wasn’t that hot on the control deck.

  She’d been pretty with her blonde hair but he liked her natural-red tone much better. It suited her. The chopped-off locks should have looked ridiculous, made her look more like a boy. Instead they served to emphasize her femininity. Not that it needed to be emphasized. Not with her smokin’ hot curves and full breasts. Not even his oversized clothing could hide her mouthwatering shape.

  Flynn took a step toward her and Kal automatically slid in front of her. His brother stopped in his tracks and raised a questioning eyebrow. Yeah, he should question him. Kal had no freaking idea why he’d moved so quickly to protect Rory.

  Maybe it was because he’d been the one to rescue her from the cage. Yeah, that had to be it.

  Kal forced himself to step to one side. Rory glanced up at him and then back at his brothers. They were an intimidating lot. They wouldn’t hurt her but she didn’t know that.

  “Why don’t you sit down.” He took her arm and led her to the swivel seat he usually occupied in front of the communications console. She sat in the chair and tightly gripped the arms.

  He crouched in front of her, knowing it was better if he questioned her. Flynn lacked patience, Garth lacked finesse and Amos would rather not have to talk any more than necessary.

  “We need to ask you a few questions.”

  Her eyes widened and then narrowed. The open fear quickly changed to calculation. Kal got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “What do you want to know?” Her low voice sank into his skin and pooled in his balls like a warm caress. He ignored his dick, which was urging him to finish the interrogation and get Rory back to his quarters.

  “Have you seen a woman with black hair with a white lock in the front?” He reached up and touched his own hair. “She’d be twenty-two years old and might go by the name Abigail.”

  Flynn moved until he stood next to Rory and glared down at her. Garth moved in on her other side, arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. Amos didn’t move from his post monitoring the engineering and electrical systems of the ship but he did sit forward in his seat.

  “Why?” Rory licked her lips and Kal almost swore aloud as his dick grew harder. He was practically mesmerized by the way her small tongue moved over her full mouth. “Why do you want to know?” she asked.

  Flynn grabbed the arm of Rory’s chair and twisted it around so she faced him. “Don’t play games with us, little girl,” Flynn warned. “Just answer the question.”

  Rory swallowed hard and her already pale skin grew whiter.

  “Dial it back, Flynn.” Kal rose to his feet and glared at his brother.

  Flynn ignored him. “Have you seen Abigail?” His brother’s voice was low and guttural and promised dire retribution if she didn’t answer him.

  Rory was glad she hadn’t eaten anything even though she was starving, because if she had it probably would have come back up at this moment. She’d been afraid before in her life. Thought she’d been as scared as a person could be. She’d been wrong. Nothing was as scary as the four men staring expectantly at her, waiting for answers.

  Especially the one called Flynn. She had the feeling if her answer didn’t please him, he wouldn’t think twice about tossing her into an airlock and jettisoning her body into deep space.

  She didn’t think he’d lose any sleep over it.

  “Have you seen her?” Flynn repeated.

  “I’m thinking.” What she really was doing was stalling. She didn’t remember ever seeing a woman with the same colored hair as they had. “She’s your sister?” It wasn’t too much of a stretch but asking questions gave her more time to think.

  A muscle in Flynn’s jaw jerked and he nodded. She glanced at Kal and found him watching her, waiting expectantly. She hated to disappoint him. And really didn’t want to disappoint his older brother.

  “What are you planning on doing with me?” That was a question she needed an answer to.

  Flynn leaned down, planted his hands on the arms of the chair and caged her in. “That all depends on your answer.”

  She was so dead. Her heart raced and she knew she was sweating. They were going to kill her. Why had she ever left the Exos?

  Because being dead was better than the life that lay ahead for her on the floating pleasure ship.

  Kal grabbed his brother’s arm and yanked him away. “Scaring her isn’t helping.” He shoved Flynn to one side and crouched again so he could look straight at her. He had such lovely eyes. The green reminded her of a picture she’d seen once of a rare gemstone.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Kal promised.

  Rory’s gaze flicked to his brother before coming back to rest on Kal. “I’m not so sure of that.”

  “All we want is answers. After that, we’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  Hope stirred deep inside her. “You will?”

  “Yes,” Kal promised.

  This was more than she’d ever hoped for when she threw caution to the wind and came with Kal. “I want to go to Albion 5.” Her aunt lived there. Her only living relative might not be overly fond of her but Rory didn’t think she’d be turned away from the door. After all, she was young and could work. And an agricultural planet was always looking for cheap labor.

  “We’ll take you there once you tell us everything you know.”

  She studied Kal carefully. He looked as if he were telling her the truth but what did she really know about them, about any of them?

  Ror
y knew she had to be very careful with what she said next. “I haven’t seen a woman with hair like yours.”

  “I’m going to kill Digger.” Flynn’s promise made her shudder. She had no idea who this Digger person was but she was glad Flynn’s anger wasn’t directed toward her.

  Kal’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe she was wearing a wig. Maybe her hair was dyed. After all, Rory was wearing a wig when we found her.”

  What was left unsaid was that their sister might be in a place much like the one they’d stolen her from.

  Kal wrapped his fingers around her wrist and rubbed her tattoo. “Digger told us that a woman with this tattoo roamed the galaxies with her father in a deep-space trader. We heard your father was dead but that you were still alive and tracked you to the Exos.”

  Rory closed her eyes as the flood of sorrow threatened to drown her. She swallowed back her emotions, not willing to let these strangers see how deeply she was affected. She managed to nod.

  Garth shifted, moving closer, and even Amos left his seat and came to join the others. She knew they were waiting for her to tell them something. Anything.

  “I was born in deep space aboard the Traveler. My mother didn’t make it and my father raised me.”

  “By himself?” Rory could hear the skepticism in Flynn’s voice.

  “No, not by himself. There was an entire crew to help him.” That early crew had been loyal.

  She took a deep breath and realized the longer she was with the brothers the more her fear dissipated. She wasn’t sure if that meant she was coming to trust they wouldn’t hurt her or if a person just couldn’t sustain fear for a prolonged period. What was scary became normal after a certain amount of time.

  “Rory?” Kal asked softly.

  She shook her head and continued. “I grew up on the ship. I can fix any engine, any mechanical problem.”

  “You’re a mechanic?” Amos seemed intrigued.

  She nodded. “If it has mechanical parts, I can repair it.” And that wasn’t a boast. She’d learned from some of the best from the time she could walk. She’d never had formal schooling but she could read and write and was the best damn mechanic in deep space.

  “So you traveled everywhere with your father?” Flynn brought the questioning back around again.

  “Yes. I’ve been just about everywhere in the Alliance galaxies and even beyond.”

  “But you haven’t seen a woman with black-and-white hair?”

  She hated to disappoint Kal but shook her head. “Do you have a picture of her? If her hair was dyed I might recognize her face.”

  Kal stepped to the console next to her and brought up a picture. It was about a decade old, the girl not more than twelve or thirteen. “This is the last image we have of her.”

  Rory studied it carefully. The girl was standing in front of a structure made from some kind of mud bricks. Looked like a house. She glanced at the brothers who were all watching her intently and then back at the picture. The air in the photo looked dusty and dry but the girl was smiling. She held a bucket in one hand and what looked like a doll in the other.

  It could be any one of dozens of planets. Rory thought it might be a mining planet of some kind as there was no vegetation to be seen. “This picture is about a dozen years old.”

  “Ten.” It was Garth who spoke. “That was ten years ago.”

  And they’d been searching for her ever since. Rory didn’t need to ask the question to know the answer. To have four brothers who loved you enough to spend a decade searching for you was beyond Rory’s experience.

  She rubbed her chest. Her heart actually hurt. No one was searching for her. No one cared if she lived or died.

  “What happened?”

  Flynn actually growled, a reminder to Rory that she wasn’t a part of this happy family and her fate rested on his whims. “What does it matter?”

  “I heard a lot of gossip when I traveled with my father. People tend not to notice kids. Or if they do, they don’t pay much attention.”

  “I can’t believe they didn’t notice you.” Kal’s voice was rough and there was a note in it that she didn’t recognize.

  Rory frowned. “Believe it. I was a skinny kid. My father kept my hair chopped off short and I generally had grease smeared on my face and under my nails from working on the engines. With my overalls covering me, I looked like a boy.”

  “Your father was protecting you.” It was Amos who pointed out that fact.

  “Yes.” Rory tightly gripped the arms of the chair as memories of her father threatened the loose grip she had on her emotions.

  “Smart man.” Flynn paced the confines of the control deck. “There was an explosion at the mine.”

  Rory mentally congratulated herself for getting that fact right. They had been living on a mining planet. How they’d gone from being miners to mercenaries or traders, or whatever it was they were, had to be a fascinating story, but one she didn’t expect they’d share with her anytime soon.

  Kal picked up the story. “No one knew what went wrong. It wasn’t a malfunction of equipment or a cave-in. It was deliberately set. When the dust cleared, Abigail was missing.”

  Rory could see the sheer agony on Kal’s face, on all their faces. She wished she could do something to alleviate their pain, which didn’t make much sense. She barely knew them.

  But they loved their sister. That much was obvious. What else was clear was that they’d never stopped looking for her. But there was one glaring possibility. “Are you sure she wasn’t killed in the explosion?” It happened. Bodies could be totally incinerated depending on the circumstances.

  “We’re sure.” Flynn whirled around to face her. He only had one good eye but right now it looked as though there were blue-green flames flaring in it. “We found her doll but it wasn’t damaged. She took that damn thing everywhere. It had been dropped there after the explosion to make us think she was dead.”

  That didn’t sound good at all. That sounded as though Abigail had been the target all along. Rory glanced at the picture of the pretty young girl smiling back from the picture.

  “Can you do an age enhancement on the image?” It would help Rory remember if she’d ever seen the girl—woman now—if she had a better picture of what she might look like today.

  Once again Kal’s fingers flew over the keyboard at the console. Rory found herself watching his hands. They were strong and calloused and steady.

  “Here we go.” Another image came up on the screen. The age-enhanced photo showed a woman around Rory’s age. Abigail was a beautiful woman with her exotic hair and green eyes. She looked more like Kal than any of the others but the family resemblance was undeniable.

  Rory studied the picture but nothing popped out of her memories. “Did you ever discover who might have taken her or why?”

  When none of them answered her, she pulled her gaze from the picture. “Look, I’m not asking just to satisfy my curiosity for the morbid details. Maybe I’ve heard something.” Flynn scowled, Kal frowned and the other two just looked grim. “Traveling as much as I did, I heard a lot of stories.”

  Kal shook his head. “There were always people coming on and off the planet, picking up shipments of ore, placing orders, supplying us with goods and food. It was impossible to nail down.”

  “Give me a list.”

  “Why?” Flynn put his hands on his hips and studied her intently. It wasn’t the most comfortable sensation.

  “Like I said, I’ve been places and seen things. I can’t bring your sister’s face to my mind. Maybe I’ve seen her. Maybe I haven’t. But maybe I’ve seen one of the people who was on the planet that day, someone who might have taken her.” She wouldn’t tell him the reason she was willing to help was simply because they loved their sister.

  Flynn glanced at Kal and then at Garth and Amos, waiting until they all nodded their agreement. “It’s a long list,” he warned.

  Rory scowled and held out her arms. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere or have p
lans. Plus, I don’t get to go where I want to go until you get answers.”

  Flynn studied her as if gauging her truthfulness. “Don’t lie to me, little girl. You won’t like the results if you do.”

  “Give it a rest, Flynn.” Kal offered her his hand and this time she took it. Her legs were wobbly and her knees weak. The last thing she wanted to do was fall on her ass in front of Flynn and the others. “Rory offered to help.”

  “I’m not convinced she’s going to be any help. We should have left her on the Exos,” Flynn muttered.

  Rory’s blood ran cold. “You won’t take me back there. You promised.” She’d fight to the death before she’d go back there.

  “No one is taking you back there,” Kal promised. His scowl was dark and dangerous. “We’ll take you to Albion 5 as soon as we can.”

  “After she’s studied the images.” Flynn laid out his decree.

  Kal nodded his agreement. “I’ll take Rory to the galley to get something to eat and then set her up in my quarters so she can start going through all the images.” He turned to her. “There are a lot of them. There were three supply ships with complete crews there that day, along with a ship from the mining company. Another one with new laborers.” He raked his hands through his hair. “And at a least a dozen more to collect ore. Plus some random ships that stopped for supplies.”

  “Then I’d better get started.” She began walking to the door, eager to get away from all the testosterone. Amos stepped into her path and she barely stopped before she ran into him.

  “Thank you.” His sincerity brought tears to her eyes.

  “I’ll do my best,” she promised. Wherever she was, Rory hoped Abigail realized what a lucky woman she was.

  Amos stepped aside and Kal escorted her away from his brothers. The door slid shut behind them and she felt herself wilting. Being under such intense scrutiny wasn’t exactly the most comfortable sensation.

  As if he knew how she felt, Kal wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he guided her down several hallways and into the galley. The room was small but functional. It didn’t take him long to order up a meal.