“So we’re graced with a celebrity?”
“Only one of the best space pilots in the fleet.”
“Is that so?” Clara could do this. Flirt. And with each passing drink she plied the guy, the easier and safer it got having him there.Third one down.Several locals watched them from beyond. The door swung open and her eyes lifted away from the game and landed on the one being she’d hoped would never walk in.
Cargo guy kept talking, but she didn’t hear him. Not as Reid sat down at his side. The bar went tensely quiet but kept up its nonchalant front. Clara plastered a new, brighter smile on her face.
He watched her like he always did. Like a hawk. Or a very hungry mongrel.
After she’d arrived and stumbled into Bengie’s bar, she’d been given a job that same day, and started that very evening. She’d traded her vehicle in and found temporary housing outside the park in a used trailer. It drove, but not in the air, and that was fine with her. On her late nights or double shifts, she was allowed to park it behind the bar, but for the rest of the time, she had a plot of land she rented to buy out in the middle of nowhere.
Then Reid showed up, as a shadow at first and she’d thought she’d gone crazy until she caught a real glimpse of him lurking the perimeter of her home. Once she was sure it was him and not a stray dog, she made it a point to pretend he didn’t exist.
Now here he is, in his stupid suit, making it hard to forget him.
“What’ll you have?”
“Same as him.” His eyes didn’t leave hers.
“Ice and all?”
“And all.”
Her fake smile faltered. But she made the drink without spilling it and slid it over to him. He haunted her, and she had begun to like his haunting.
“Keep mine coming,” military man said.
Reid turned from her, suddenly, and faced him. She went and opened another bottle of the scotch, wondering when it was the last time someone had gone through one so fast, and wishing for a moment that she wasn’t pregnant so she could have a drink too.
“You’re Chris Anders,” Reid said as she turned around.
“And here I was hoping no one would recognize me,” he grumbled, slurring his words slightly. The stranger, Chris, faced Reid and frowned. “Another fucking Cyborg? Of course there is. I’m on vacation if you’re here to retrieve me.”
Clara moved away, needing the space, finding it suddenly hard to breathe and helped some of the other customers out. Bengie tapped her shoulder when she had cleared enough space between her and the men that were making her life a nightmare this evening.
“What’s happening?” Bengie asked.
She glanced over at Reid and he was looking right at her. She quickly looked away. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Check on the girl. She’s acting strange.” Clara looked over at their hooded regular, the soda still held tightly between her hands, tension radiating off her in thick waves. And Clara thought her night was going bad.
Oh fucking no.Her eyes widened and she grabbed Bengie’s arm and dragged him outside.
“What’s wrong? What the hell you doing, Clara?”
“Ben,” she hissed and leaned up to whisper in his ear as low as possible. “There’s a Cyborg in the bar.” Reid was sitting several yards from a complete and utter disaster. Clara wasn’t positive, not until that moment, that the girl was a Trentian.
It seemed like an eternity passed by before he got what she was saying and her suspicions were confirmed.
“Get him out of here!”
But he never needed to say it because Reid stormed out the back door, silencing the two of them. The look on his face, cold and hard, and so familiar it hurt her heart.
“Clara,” both men said in unison.
