That had to mean a woman—and one he was pretty sure I’d disapprove of.
I’m not flattering myself; Mack and I, we’d recently realized we had feelings—and it was as uncomfortable as Hell. Since he’d never been that worried about revealing his sources, before—and he’d hidden plenty—then he had to have a reason, and I was guessing it was a woman, one that I’d disapprove of...or maybe one that he thought I’d be jealous of.
Well, there was only one woman that had any chance of that.
“So,” I said, “when did you see Marie for this cozy little chat?”
And Tens sputtered, like he was trying real hard not to laugh. Case, our pilot, wasn’t so subtle. She gave an inelegant snort, and got out of her seat.
“Ship’s on course,” she said, as she crossed the command center. “I don’t need to be here for this.”
I could hear her cracking up as soon as the door to the command center slid closed behind her.
“I... uh... I... We met on Gressen,” he admitted, and blushed red to the hairline.
Tens took one look at him and started howling with laughter.
“Tens...” Mack wasn’t impressed, and Tens couldn’t stop.
It was the first time I’d ever seen the man fall out of his seat, and then he just lay on the floor, curled up and crying, because he was laughing so hard.
“Not funny, Tens,” Mack snapped, and I bit back a snicker.
“Just tell me,” I said, and then said the one thing that was bothering me. “What was it? You needed one last fling? Wanted to make sure she really didn’t want a bar of you and was never going to change her mind? What?”
He stared at me, his face working through the range from denial to anger to horror, and, finally, frustration at not being able to get a word in edgewise.
“I... Oh, give it a rest, Cutter. I just wanted to tell her about you so she didn’t hear it from anyone else.”
I froze.
“Why? It’s not like we’re engaged,” but I knew I was wrong the minute I said it.
We weren’t engaged, and we were still tiptoeing around the edge of declaring intent and exclusivity, but neither of us were looking for anyone else, and pretty much everyone else had picked Mack was taken before I’d been ready to admit he might be interested.
Whatever.
It didn’t mean we were in love!
And Tens stopped laughing. When he spoke, he was as serious as the Stars.
“It kinda does, you know.”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I didn’t. He was right, no matter how much I didn’t want to admit it, and no matter how much Mack was being cautious about that final step. We both knew we were “in it but deep”, as Abby liked to say, but we weren’t quite ready to admit just how deep.
I looked over at Mack, and he looked back. I caught a flash of vulnerability through the link we shared, and then it was gone. Still, it took more courage than either of us wanted to acknowledge for him to ask the next question.
“So. We okay?”
I rolled my shoulders in an elaborate shrug.
“Sure, Mack. Why wouldn’t we be?”
And he took a peek into my head to see that it was true, before he’d continue with his story.
“She kissed me,” he said, and I stared at him.
“Why’d she do that?”
“Because she was happy,” he said, and I heard what he didn’t add. That I’d found someone new.
And he was as conflicted as Hell about that. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disgusted with himself.
Stupid man.
I looked up and caught him staring.
“What you guys had was special—and she’s nice enough to want you to be happy without her.”
“Oh. Right...”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Tens was obviously sick of the mushy stuff. “All of this touchy feely shit and you haven’t even shagged yet. Why don’t you just get to the point?”
He looked from Mack to me and back, again, and then spelt it out for us.
“The wrecks? Marie obviously wanted to give you a pairing gift.”
It was my turn to blush. I squashed the urge, feeling the color rise and fade in a short-lived burst of heat.
“Whatever, she gave you data. You want to go looking for wrecks on Alpha 9, where, I might add you and I are not flavor of the month, so you obviously have a plan, right?”
Mack shrugged.
“Nope. That’s why I raised it. Thing is, Marie said the wrecks are old, like Wolf-War old, so they’re old tech, and buried deep because of the weapons they used there.”
Well, they would be old, but I didn’t know enough about what happened in the Wolf Wars to even start having a clue about what weapons had been used on Alpha Nine. As far as I knew the wars themselves hadn’t touched the world. I slid out of my seat.
“Looks like I have some research to do,” I said. “I’ll send Case in to take over.”
Mack looked at me.
“I know nothing of the Wolf Wars,” I said, “and this is a retrieval job and a half. Your Marie knew what she was doing when she passed it to you. She must like you a lot.”
I watched the color flow over his face and down his throat.
“She used to,” he muttered, and I remembered the stories about just how far Mack had gone to try and convince Marie to come back. I mean, the ship was named for her, for fuck’s sake. The man had fallen hard, been as smitten as anyone could possibly be. The fact everyone thought he’d fallen just as hard for me was a little disturbing.
Not that he’d let it show. I think I’d forced the admission out of him at a time of stress. We’d been about to head out on a mission, and I’d told him not to worry about me because I knew he was taken and it wasn’t me. And he’d told me it
