She was a woman he didn’t want to cross, one of the many people on Krell he hoped he would never see again.
The burger arrived. He took a bite, and then saw Rikki make her way down the concourse. Her hair was red instead of its usual rich brown, and she looked a little too thin. Something had shaken her up.
He felt a momentary sense of disappointment. All morning he had been looking forward to confiding in her. But he didn’t think he’d have a chance now.
He hadn’t seen Rikki look this upset since he’d met her. When she first arrived at Tranquility House she had been through such a traumatic experience, she hadn’t talked for weeks. It wasn’t until that night those horrible potential adoptive parents had rejected him that she had said anything, and then it had been to give him advice.
The least he could do was listen to her. After all, she had contacted him. She clearly didn’t need to hear his problems right now.
She grinned when she saw him, then stopped next to the table. She picked up a spoon and rubbed some dirt off it.
“I can’t believe you’re eating here,” she said as she picked up a napkin and wiped off a chair. Then she spread another napkin on the chair itself.
He said, “I can’t believe you’re going to sit on that. I think they wash the napkins less than they wash the chairs.”
She started and for a minute, he thought she was going to shove the chair away. Instead, she turned just a little green.
“Then I’m just going to stand,” she said.
He grinned. He had missed her. She had been his best friend forever, and she still was, no matter what was going on. Their relationship was purely platonic and would always be that way. He thought of her as his sister, not as the beautiful woman she had become.
“Hover,” he said, his mouth full. “You’re just going to hover.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You could be a gentleman and give me your jacket to sit on.”
“My jacket has been staying in this hellhole for the past three days, waiting for her ladyship to arrive.” As if that had been all he was doing here. He was still investigating, even though he had enough evidence against the Rovers to… what? That was what he hadn’t yet figured out.
She muttered something, then gave up and sat down.
They bantered for a few more minutes because that was their routine—that was how they felt comfortable. Then they’d get to the important stuff.
Still, as Rikki bitched about the restaurant and the food, he smiled at her. He had missed her. And he didn’t realize how much he needed a conversation with an old friend until right now.
Chapter 9
Skye stepped out of the bar. She had a few errands to run: she needed to reserve her room again and then she needed to find some kind of private place to check the scruffy guy’s image. Her stomach was a bit queasy from the lemon fizzy thing, or maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe the strangeness she had just witnessed.
Liora had taken off down the concourse a few minutes ago, but Skye didn’t want to follow her. Now that she knew Liora was here, she could actually track her, using the Guild system. Generally assassins on the job kept their Guild tracker off or on low, but Liora wasn’t acting like she was on any job at all. So Skye had checked as she stepped out, and saw that Liora hadn’t been thinking about her tracker. The folks at the Guild on Kordita couldn’t track her at the moment, but any assassin within a five-hour radius probably could.
She scanned the concourse for the scruffy guy. He had gone in the opposite direction from the one Liora had taken. Skye could see his back as he made his way through the crowd. He was heading the same way she had to go if she was going to renew that reservation.
She sighed. At least that would give her an opportunity to study him.
Then, because she couldn’t help it, she glanced at the Starcatcher. She wanted to lie to herself, to pretend that she wasn’t looking for Jack, that she was actually thinking of a greasy burger to settle her stomach.
But lying wasn’t going to work. If only she were already free of the Guild. If only her life were her own. She would go to him, and say,
She smiled at the thought. Maybe if she saw him again, after she got out. Maybe she would track him, like she tracked so many other people. Maybe she would “accidentally” show up wherever he was, and proposition him all over again.
The very thought reminded her of that spark in his eye when he realized she had propositioned him, a spark that she saw later when he touched her bare skin for the first time.
The memory aroused parts of her that she thought too tired to respond. Then she shook her head at herself.
And in doing so, she caught a glimpse of Jack sitting in the crowded open-air section of the Starcatcher.
She did need lunch. She could do some of her work from the open-air section of the Starcatcher. She could take Jack’s hand and see if he wanted to change his mind—one more real night only—and then, she could collect a few more memories.
After all, she had so very few good ones from the rest of her life, who would blame her if she stored up one or two more?
She took a few steps across the concourse and froze as a buxom redhead talked to Jack. He laughed, and so did she. Then she wiped off a nearby chair with a napkin.
He was clearly inviting the woman—who was drop-dead gorgeous—to sit with him.
Drop-dead gorgeous and in fantastic shape, the kind women got without enhancements, with a lot of physical work. Rather like Skye.
Only unlike Skye, this woman had other unenhanced parts that seemed to come as standard issue for attracting men—the large breasts, the narrow waist, the stunning face. And she looked so comfortable with Jack.
If Skye had to guess—and she rarely had to guess, that internal sense of hers was right so often—she would say that the relationship between these two had something to do with work, and a whole lot more.
They seemed so comfortable with each other.
Skye watched, mesmerized. She should have moved away, stepped out of view, paid attention to her surroundings. But she couldn’t.
The woman sat down, ordered, and then her smile faded. She seemed upset. And that upset seemed to bother Jack.
Not only had they been close once, they still were.
Skye had to concentrate to breathe. She had to remind herself that she had set the rules. A one-time thing. A man who clearly told her he didn’t do that ever. He had been so shy, so uncertain, that she had found it a turn- on.
She had thought him less experienced, not
He had said he didn’t, but men lied when they were being propositioned. And she had already told him it was a one-night thing. Maybe he thought the relationship was none of Skye’s business.
Maybe his uncertainty had nothing to do with his experience, and everything to do with this woman. Maybe, despite an openness (that, granted, Skye was just assuming was there), maybe he felt like he had cheated on the lovely redhead.
