They spent the rest of the meal eating and exchanging stories. It felt like the start of something, maybe even somethinggood. What that might look like, he had no idea, but it gave him hope that coming to Defiance Station had been the right choice for them.
CHAPTER FIVE
Tish was headedfor the docking ring, still second-guessing last night’s impulsive decision to offer to help. Not that she’d told them thatshewas a ship mechanic. She’d left herself an escape hatch. All she had to do was ask the other mechanics she knew to take the job. One of them would say yes.
She hadn’t done that. Despite hours of overthinking and doubts, she was on her way to the bounty hunters’ ship. Just considering those two words made her question things again.Bounty hunters.
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe their claims that they didn’t take corporate contracts and didn’t kill their targets. None of the admittedly few cyborgs she’d met would ever work for the corporations that had enslaved them, especially not if it meant killing for them.
No, the issue was simpler than that. If Hamish Kerr decided that revenge was worth more than her value to him, he could put a bounty out for her. Mace and Xaber might want to safeguard society, but in her experience, it wasn’t so easy to sort out the difference between good and bad beings. Some of their targets would be beings like her—not exactly innocent but not guilty of terrible crimes either. She’d broken her indenture because shefaced an impossible choice, either submit to abuse from her new owner or run.
She’d opted to flee.
Still, she needed work, and from what she knew about the two cyborgs, they were decent and kind. Tish understood that her circumstances were not their fault. Her opinions about their chosen profession werehers. And while they were valid from her perspective, that didn’t mean she was right.
Tish sighed, giving vent to her frustration and general fatigue. She’d been going around in circles on this topic all night. It was time to make a decision. Was she doing this, or did she need to let the job go to someone else?
She scoffed. Who was she kidding? It was a chance to spend time with two very hot, surprisingly decent males. Plus, sheneededthis job. Oxygen might be free here, but everything else came with a price tag.
Decision made, her next priority was to pick up her tools from her locker in Grotta’s office. She left them there because it was more secure than her pod at the hotel, and until now, she hadn’t needed them for any other jobs.
She approached the section of the docking ring where the incident had happened last night. Tension crept into her shoulders as she neared the spot, only to fade when she saw that the airlock on that side glowed red, indicating it was sealed with no vessel on the other side. They were gone.
And goodfraxxingriddance to the lot of them.
Grotta wasn’t in her office when Tish got there, which meant she could grab her things and leave without the need for small talk or explanations. She’d put on the cleaner of her two pairs of coveralls, which was probably an indication she always intended to take the job. Same as she’d done her best to tame her hair so that it fell over her face in tight spirals instead of puffing out like an agitatedpeskinhaving a bad hair day.
She growled to herself as she fastened her tool belt around her waist. “If my subconscious already knew what would happen, why didn’t it send a memo to the rest of my brain? If I had known, maybe I could have gotten some sleep!”
Even as she said it, she knew that would not have happened. She hadn’t slept well since Hamish had stopped taking no for an answer. From the moment she’d hit him over the head with a wrench and run for it, she hadn’t felt safe enough to relax and get a proper night’s rest. She operated on caffeine and stubbornness until her body finally collapsed from exhaustion for a few hours. That was her life now. She was free…but it came with a cost.
Being alone and perpetually on edge was better than the life she faced back on Amadox Station. Hamish saw her as a possession, like the shop and contracts he’d inherited from a female he was only distantly related to and had met only a handful of times. If there was an afterlife, Zendi was most likely plotting her nephew’s painful demise right now.
She made it back to theLiving True’sberth a few minutes early. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one ready to get things rolling, because she was still a few meters away from the door when it slid open and a large but familiar form stepped out.
Mace. Since last time they’d met, she’d almost convinced herself that he wasn’t as dangerously handsome as she remembered. But now she was staring up at him, and if anything, he was better looking. Damn it. She was not developing a crush on her new employers. Sure, they were hotter than the heart of a star, but that was a good reasonnotto be interested. Males who looked like that could have their pick of females from almost any species she could name.
Mace smiled in greeting and then glanced up and down the corridor with obvious confusion. “Morning, Tix. Not that I’m unhappy to see you, but I thought you were bringing someone who could help us with the ship. Did they turn you down?”
“Help has arrived.” She flung out her arms. “Ta-da. I’m the mechanic.”
“I see.” Mace gave her a level, assessing look. “You had doubts?”
It wasn’t the words that clued her in to the issue. It was the set of his jaw and the way his ice-blue eyes darkened.
She lowered her hands and met his gaze. “I did. But not about you or Xaber. It’s what you do for a living that gave me pause. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be involved in that, even indirectly.”
“And what did you decide?”
“I realized that trust doesn’t work on a sliding scale. Either you believe in someone, or you don’t.” She placed one hand on her tool belt. “I trust you both, so here I am. Oh, and in case you have concerns, I’m a certified ship mechanic with almost twenty years of experience. I’m certain I can set your ship right.”
“Twenty years of experience?” His lips twitched. “You’ve been doing this longer than Xay and I have been alive.”
The unexpected comment broke the lingering tension between them, and she laughed. “Does that make me the older, more experienced woman in this arrangement?”
It was out of her mouth before her internal filter activated. She ducked her head and quietly hoped the deck plates split and let her fall into the void. Better that than death by mortification.
Mace snickered and then burst out laughing. “If you’re offering to audition for the role…”
