“Bastard Ryne fight,” Torr said.
Belle felt her face heat up. “Oh. Captain Carnegie.” She thought about disputing that his hair was yellow but decided against it.
Splitting hairs.
It was more of a golden color, really.
“No ting here. Why you here?”
Belle chuckled with an effort. “Oh! I was just checking out the colony. Trying to visualize it. I got this plot for my hab today. Of course it won’t be built for a while, but it’ll be here and that over there will be the view from my window.”
Ryne and Torr exchanged a long look.
Their expressions were carefully neutral, and it made her belly shimmy, but she was pretty sure they’d understood what she was saying.
And that was a relief, really, to get that much over with.
No fuss. No ugly scene.
She wasn’t going anywhere with anyone. She was going to stay where she belonged, and she would be safe--at least as safe a place as could be had.
She didn’t want to make anyone mad or hurt anyone’s feelings, but she just didn’t feel like she was up to taking any kind of risk she could avoid.
And should--for her own sake and any child she might have.
“Come,” Ryne said. “You sit wid us for eat. Wind blow away you no eat.”
Belle gaped at him for a long moment before she uttered a chuckle filled with more outrage than amusement.
Something gleamed in his strange alien eyes--teasing amusement, she thought. “I’ll have you to know that I’m within ten pounds of what’s considered a healthy weight for my age, height, and bone structure!”
He lifted his dark brows. “Need baby fat. I make round.”
Belle blinked at him, but he reached to help her to her feet when he said it and she was able to pretend deafness.
As luck would have it, he grasped her wrist right on top of her monitor when he reached to help her up.
“What dis ting?” he asked, frowning as he studied it.
She knew as soon as she met his gaze that he knew it wasn’t an ornament and there was no point in trying to pretend it was.
He was no stranger to technology, she realized abruptly.
Noneof them had seemed the least bit surprised or alarmed aboutanyof the technology they had to have noticed.
Like the shuttle.
They’d watched it, but with no alarm at all, no surprise.
If they actuallywereprimitives they would’ve been--both.
“It’s … uh … just a medical monitor,” she said dismissively.
He frowned, scanned her face with more than a little … dismay, she decided. “Baby sick?”
Blood surged into her cheeks and then receded until her face felt bloodless.
Dead giveaway.
