This is one reply I’m not worried about the captain reading.
I love you and miss you, too. Please marry me so we don’t ever have to spend a night apart again. The details don’t matter to me as long as you’re mine and I’m yours. Whatever it takes to prove to you that I love you and only want you in my life, I’ll do it. I can quit, or you can quit and travel with me. Your choice. And whatever choice you make, I’m good with that as long as you’re my mate for life.
I send it. I don’t want to delay my reply in case something happens to me. I already have enough regrets about unsaid words to last me a lifetime.
I never want to leaveanythingunsaid to Olarte, even though I’m reasonably certain they know how I feel about them.
Now I realize that, on that first day I met them on the berthing arm, I fell in love with them. I don’t know why, but I did.
Does the whyreallymatter?
I remember Mom once saying that when she and Dad met, it was love at first sight.
Why not for me, too?
Our first dinner and subsequent time together following our initial meeting only cemented the certainty in my soul. And every time after that. I’d never been in love before, so I had no clue what that feeling truly was, or what it meant…until I met Olarte.
I don’t know why Olarte, or why my body instantly recognized they were meant to be my soulmate, but I won’t question that any longer.
It took a while for my brain to catch up with my body and be okay with the whole contract thing, but that’s okay. As long as I can make it safely to the other side of this particular mess, I am certain Olarte and I are going to be together for life. Whatever I have to sign to make that happen, I’ll do it.
I just have to do my damnedest to live through this to make it to that point. Because I have zero doubts that, when you look at the lengths these fricking people have already gone to, killing to protect their profits probably isn’t even going to slow them down.
I’d prefer McMurtry and I don’t become speedbumps in that process, either. I’m too damn close to finally having the tenuousthingI’ve searched for my entire adult life, that joy I’ve always longed for.
Likehellwill I let someone rip it from my grasp without me fighting for it with every cell in my body.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Olarte
After my meal with Colarmin, I retreat to the solitude of my stateroom. It is quite comfortable and easily as large as my quarters on the space station. Certainly larger than my bedroom at my family’s home on Pfahrn.
But Colarmin’s words during our meal still bitterly ring in my ears.
Phey do not know Davies, do not know hisheart.
Perhaps their limited contact with humans has left Colarmin with an incorrect judgment about their general nature.
Davies is my mate, meant to bemine—of this I am certain.
Phey also do not know the things Davies and I have already done together. Phey do not know all of the conversations Davies and I have had in private, in the dark of night, sharing a bed together without physical sexual intimacy.
Phey do not know how this manwaitedfor me. There is no lie within Davies’ emotions. He would not have waited so long for me if there were.
Phey also do not know what Davies has done, unasked,forme.
Becausehe loves me.
Therefore, I choose to have faith andbelieveDavies loves me.
None of those things are Colarmin’s business, however, family or not. I will not speak of these things with phem, or with the rest of my family. And until this situation is dealt with and brought to a hopefully satisfactory conclusion, I will do my best not to fixate on Colarmin’s words.
Davies needs me, and he is my rightful focus at this time.
Based on thePalmarian Rubayne’s current position, it will take us approximately another day to intercept it. It has been decided not to alert them of our approach, which I wholly agree with.
No telling what might happen if the smugglers know that someone is wise to their plot.
