I just didn’t sleep right unless I could lock my door. Though Ihadslept much more peacefully last night than I usually did, I’d woken up feeling achy and tired. I hoped I wasn’t coming down with a flu of some kind. I hadn’t been sick since opening my eyes in the Zeta Quadrant. Rescued by the Ker and offered sanctuary—after I’d applied for it—by the Aderians. Healthcare here was excellent. Except today, I just felt… off.
As if our conversation had summoned him, a figure appeared on the path. I took a second look because the sight was such a surprise. Was that Avertom? I had never seen him anywhere but inside his saloon, but here he was, coming up my path with a heavy satchel and a box in his arms. That wasn’t just a pair of locks for my doors, he was carrying much more.
“Uh, Jeltom? What exactly did you ask for?” I was already seeing a massive bill unfold inside my head. Locks might be worth it for my peace of mind, but what else was there? Avertom was still some distance away, but his long legs were making short work of it. Was I going to have to ask him to stay for dinner, too? A shiver of unease shot down my spine, one I tried to squash. I liked Avertom—I really did—but seeing him on my turf was a very different experience. Avertom was also definitely an empath, even if he was one of the few who never pried or gave me those pitying stares.
“I’ll get it sorted, don’t worry. Why don’t you head inside to start that food? He’ll be on his way in no time, and then we can eat.”Oh, good, Jeltom didn’t want Avertom to stick around either. I remained frozen in place, though, until my stoic mechanic reached out and, with a gentle, warm hand, gave me a nudge toward my door. It wasn’t until I was inside, my back against the wooden panel, that I realized that, for the first time today, my body didn’t feel quite so achy. No, that wasn’t true. I’d felt fine for a bit after lunch this afternoon, it had just been overshadowed by my embarrassment.
I couldn’t resist peeking through the window to see what the two guys were up to, though. Avertom greeted Jeltom loudly and warmly, his face very animated, his hands all over the place as he talked. I was a bit shocked to discover just how different his demeanor was around my silent mechanic compared to how he always was with me. I thought Avertom was the silent type, always calm and unmoved, but he seemed very energetic now. He even slapped Jeltom on the shoulder once and laughed uproariously.
There were far more things than just a pair of locks coming out of the bag, too, though I did actually see something that resembled locks. There were also what I was pretty certain were extra-secure latches for my windows, and a whole slew of very complex-looking parts that might be for the shield generator. With how casually Jeltom was taking care of stuff on the farm, I was beginning to believe he wasn’t here for a paycheck at all. Hadn’t he said something like, “I need to stay busy,” earlier today? I understood that. I liked to be busy, too, so I didn’t dwell too much on the past. And he had gotten shot; there had to be a story there.
Even so, we were both completely quiet that evening over dinner. I didn’t ask him about the extra parts, and he saidnothing about how much he loved my cooking, even if he devoured every single crumb of the potpie I’d made. There were no leftovers, like I usually had, but I didn’t mind that part at all.
I got to watch him install the locks too, which was surprisingly quick with the tools he’d brought with him. He showed me how they worked, keyed to my biometric signature so I wouldn’t even need something as archaic as a key. On impulse, I heard myself say, “Key yourself in too, okay? You might need it, and I trust you.”I trust you?How had that happened? Since when did I trust anyone, except Jess, maybe? I’d learned very young that in the UAR colonies, it was everyone for themselves.
Jeltom shifted his head to look at me, his weight moving from one leg to the other as he leaned toward me with his entire being. His long braid fell forward, and the tip of it swished against my hip, causing a shockwave of sensation to arrow through my body. “I am honored, Mariska,” he said, his head dipping down in a nod, but it was too slow to really count as one. “But you don’t have to do that. Your home is your sanctuary. I just want you to feel safe.”
My eyes stung—those stupid, stupid eyes stung—because I was ready to bawl just hearing those words.I just want you to feel safe.Just like that. Safe. He made me feel safe. His mouth tilted into that sexy half-smile I’d seen on him once the night before. Oh crap, I’d said that out loud.“Good,” he said. “Very good.” Then he raised his hand and pressed his palm to my cheek, each long finger stretching along the side of my head and sinking heat beneath my skin.“Sleep tight, pretty human,” he drawled as a parting greeting. He’d slipped out the door and vanished into the night before I’d so much as managed to blink.
Pretty human, sleep tight. And that touch to my face? I was floating on cloud nine as I drifted from my living room to the bedroom. Maybe I hadn’t made a big blunder after all that afternoon, maybe he was a little attracted to me too. Familiar self-esteem issues wanted to rear their head, but I decided to channel Jess for the night. I was a catch, I deserved happiness, and I wasn’t going to get it unless I went after it myself.
I washed up in my bathroom, which I’d scrubbed to within an inch of my life earlier that afternoon. When I went to close the curtain on my bedroom, I could swear I saw a light on in the barn. It winked out just as I saw it, perhaps I’d imagined it, but part of me wondered if Jeltom wasn’t still working back there.
Chapter 8
Jeltom
I could not shake a sense of unease that settled over me during the next few days. I worked hard to fix everything I could around Mariska’s small homestead. I worked so hard that I fell into a deep sleep each night inside the barn. Part of my unease came from the daily stirring of a dependency I was developing on Mariska’s presence. It was worse in the morning, and as achy as I felt being apart from her, it was clearly tougher on her human body. She was so happy each day to see me, but I couldn’t help but worry that she was getting sick.
She was pale, wan in the face, with deep circles under her eyes, and she had lost that powerful drive to work alongside me day by day. Her energy flagged by mid-morning, so she’d retreat to her home to do smaller tasks there. I wanted to call Danitalin again to ask her what could be ailing her, and had already taken furtive readings with my hand scanner to try to figure it out myself. Somehow, that felt too much like breaching Mariska’s trust, so I hadn’t yet. If this continued, I would have no choice but to involve others.
I wasn’t a doctor, though I had a very strong base in chemistry. As an assistant to Danitalin’s research before, I’d worked with chemical preparations. My strength lay in balancing things—like Mariska’s first batch of wine that had turned to vinegar. Restoring that drink to something actually tasty had been a challenge I worked on each evening before sleep, and I was getting close to solving it.
Then there was the news that Avertom had brought me the night he’d carried my deliveries up to Mariska’s farm. “There’s a strange female asking for you in town. She says she has important news to discuss with you. I told her to call your comm, but she did not have your contact.” I should have gone into town to figure out who could be asking after me, except I had been unable to bring myself to leave Mariska’s farm. I was certain that whoever it was, they were no friend—though Avertom had not sensed any malice and had called me a lucky fiend for having two pretty females to court right now.
That was the third issue. Tomorrow was this Valentine thing, and though I’d studied everything Danitalin had passed onto me thoroughly, I was certain I was going to get it all wrong. It was still pretty impossible for me to believe that sweet-smelling and deliciously curvy Mariska wanted me that way.
One moment kept playing over and over in my head: that one evening after I’d installed her locks, when she’d told me she trusted me. How had I earned her trust so easily? I had been so certain it was a much harder task than it had turned out to be.
I touched my arms and wondered if I was imagining the increased muscle mass or if I really had been packing it on since I’d thrown myself headfirst into all this farm work. Could be, but usually, it took a bit longer to develop, didn’t it? I felt stronger, though my skin was hypersensitive. My mind immediately circled back to Mariska’s flagging health, and my worry spiked.
I left the barn to find her; she was probably in the kitchen prepping food. We’d settled into a comfortable rhythm over the past few days, and I was certain she knew I was sleeping in the barn, though she never mentioned it. The extra help was makinga huge difference, and yesterday I’d gotten the automatic fence repair bots online. They hummed in the distance as they worked, repairing large swaths of fence at a speed neither Mariska nor I could keep up with.
I was about to head inside to join her for the evening meal when a different sound caught my attention. I checked my comm, then the sensors I’d set up along the perimeter. One had been tripped, and I frowned at its location. There were no large predators to worry about out here, so this had to be a trespasser of the two-legged variety. It wasn’t near the path, so whoever this was had stealth on their mind, that meant they were up to no good.
Mariska found me a few moments later in the barn, yanking clothes out of my backpack and shoving the bedroll aside so I could locate my laser pistol. Even I had grown complacent on Llykhe, especially back in my hometown, where nothing ever happened. I was glad I had the gun now, though, and strapped it with a practiced move to my leg. Securing a knife on my other thigh, I was not surprised to hear her gentle observation: “You were a soldier once, weren’t you? Is that how you got shot?”
I looked at her over my shoulder, words rising in my throat that I struggled to get out, let alone order into a coherent sentence. The alert on my comm reminded me that there was a much more pressing issue. Someone was trying to sneak onto her land for some reason, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t some youngsters looking for a bit of fun. Too many Lemane flowers in the hills made this location anything but ideal for partygoers.
“Later,” I said to Mariska instead. “You’ve got an intruder to the south.” Then I took her by the arm and urged her from the barn with me. “Do you know how to turn the shield on?” She nodded,so I gave her a mild push in the direction of the shield generator just outside her home. “Do it. It should be able to run for a short while.” It was a shield designed to form an impenetrable dome over the entire property. Meteors would burn up in the field, and anything alive would be crazy to try to pass through. If we were lucky, the shield would trap whoever was trespassing in here with us, and I’d have some answers.
Mariska did not ask any questions, but raced for the generator, her eyes huge in her face and the dark circles beneath them terrifyingly pronounced. I was afraid she’d keel over from exhaustion, and certain she wasn’t sleeping at all. Taking steps away from her and the humming generator as it powered up felt wrong, but it had to be done. I broke into a jog as I passed the stone farmhouse with its crooked chimney, then silently raced for the south edge of her property.
Long rows of thick trunks and ancient vines marched along the vineyard. It was the only thing Meteor Crater had going for it. Its vines were strong and healthy and ready to produce for many years to come in the right hands. The grooves in the dirt between each line were worn and sandy, evidence that the soil needed enrichment. Tonight, that rough, dry ground helped me cross the distance on silent feet.
The generator pulled a shield out of thin air with effort. It crackled across the sky like broken eggshells, bleeding like ink into solid spots until the field closed. If my trespasser had been close to the border, they could have made it through. That same shield would then block me from tracking them down. Not that I would; there was no way I’d leave Mariska on her own that long—not when she appeared so sick tonight. What was causing it?And why was it accompanied by changes in my own body, and a soreness of my skin that made me think I might be sick too?
I heard the whisper of a voice, sensed more than saw the shape of someone to my left. Slowly, I pivoted and drew my pistol, the weight of it familiar in my hand. This was as familiar to me as playing with chemicals in the barn. I was a soldier at heart, a warrior, a male built to withstand the darkness of war and violence. Not kind, not empathic, but strong and fearless.
