Of course, shehadbeen far more focused on enjoying carnal pleasures the one night she’d spent with him and she certainly hadn’t gotten the chance even to attempt a conversation with him since she’d broken him out of jail and brought him aboard.
When they’d studied the star charts together and decided upon a destination to take on supplies, he asked her to give him a tour of the ship. She was surprised. She didn’t really think there was much to look at, but she didn’t really have an objection.
She was more surprised to stumble across cyborgs moving purposefully up and down the corridors of the ship. It seemed strange in a way to see and hear so much activity when she was used to the empty echo of her own footsteps along the metal decking. In a way, it was also exciting. It was rare that she felt the sense of being in the center of anything, infrequent that she sampled the bustle of being around many people at once. And it gave her the same sense of anticipation that she always felt whenever she would visit a colony on some world—that she was going to experience something different and exciting.
Of course, they weren’t actually people, she kept reminding herself, but it still felt like that.
Chapter Six
It wasn’t until they had all gathered in what had once been the mess hall that Chloe began to have an inkling of what part of the excitement running through her was all about.
Tables had been set up and Chloe discovered that she was to share a table with Reuel and ‘her’ guys—plus three. Apparently, the cyborgs figured that Sebastian, Lucien, and Thor were now officially a part of her crew since she’d sprung them from jail when she took Damon.
Inwardly, she shrugged. It had begun to look like that didn’t really matter—now. The half-baked idea she’d had about settling somewhere appeared to be taking shape and, if they found the planet she remembered—well, it certainly didn’t bother her that the cyborgs were thinking about settling there. It beat the hell out of being all by her lonesome on the planet—well, just her, Damon, Jared, and Kane.
Not that it looked like there would be much point in trying to set up a salvage operation as she’d originally intended, which meant she wouldn’t actually need Jared and Kane, but … well, they were family. Anyway, she’d spent her ‘nest egg’ buying the brothel proprietor’s silence. She didn’t actually have any credits to start up a business if she’d still wanted to and would be in a position to attract customers.
She rather liked the idea of going someplace where she wouldn’t have to be looking over her shoulder for some lawman or bounty hunter.
Not that she regretted her decision for a moment! In point of fact, she wondered why she hadn’t thought about stealing Damon sooner.
He was so dreamy! She could hardly focus on her meal for thinking about the fact that soon she would have him all to herself!
She was just sorry it hadn’t occurred to her to ditch Reuel and race to her cabin to primp a little bit before they met for dinner.
She would’ve if it had occurred to her that they would dine together.
“This ship has a great deal of potential,” Reuel said.
Chloe dragged her attention from Damon with an effort. “It does?” she said blankly. Lifting her head and looking around the mess hall, she discovered that it was actually not the same color she remembered. Had they painted? She didn’t smell fresh paint. All she could smell was the faint scent of cleaner.
Good god!They’d cleaned the place!
“Yes. A lot of potential. I have been thinking that we could move quite a few colonists with it—assuming of course that we find a place to settle.”
“You have not remembered?” Jared asked.
Chloe glanced at him when he spoke, feeling her face heat. “It’s not like I’m not trying.Iwant to find it. I’m not crazy about running around the universe trying to stay ahead of rangers.”
“I did not suggest that you were not trying,” Jared said a little stiffly.
She shrugged. “I know. It’s just frustrating for me. I hadn’t even thought about it in years. I suppose I never really believed Pops when he was talking about us settling there. I hadn’t been with him that long, but it was certainly long enough to figure out that he just wasn’t the kind of guy that wanted to settle anywhere. That’s why it didn’t work out between him and my mother—although she said they were together for several years, until I was about three. I don’t remember that at all. I hardly even knew him when he came to get me. He’d only visited me a couple of times that I remembered.
“So … we talked about it for a little while—he loved to dream. He talked about building me a castle out of sand on the beach—and then we never talked about it again.”
“What do you remember of this world?” Reuel asked.
Chloe closed her eyes. “Blue skies—green. It was a lush jungle with all sorts of strange looking plants, but I remember they were mostly green—like the pictures of Earth. And the sea was a deep, dark blue. I played on the sandy beach and splashed in the water. The sun was warm on my skin and the wind blowing over the sea tasted like salt.”
She shivered abruptly opening her eyes. “It was creepy at night. We’d camped on the beach. I could hear animals, strange noises, bushes rustling. We saw fire in the distance. There are … things that live there, not humans, not really animals, some sort of primitive beings. I’d forgotten that. Pops was curious after we saw the fire and he took the shuttle up and flew low over the jungle, looking for the source. We hadn’t seen any sign of any sort of civilization and we hadn’t been able to hail anyone on any frequency, but we saw odd little dwellings made out of the foliage. That was why we didn’t notice them at first. And we only caught a glimpse of the … creatures.”
She discovered when she’d finished that all of them were staring at her.
“Hmm,” Reuel said. “Well, we could not expect paradise to be entirely unclaimed or a world to be so well developed and full of life and not have higher life forms. I think we can manage. We will certainly have the advantage.”
“You are cold, sweety?” Damon asked, slipping an arm around her.
Chloe smiled at him a little shyly, pleased that he’d noticed, warmed by his nearness but uncomfortable about him putting his arm around her in such a public place with so many eyes to notice. “Just a little creeped out remembering the natives,” she mumbled. “I’m almost sorry I remembered that part.”
