Autumn Dawn [Polaris 01] When Sparks Fly (epub)

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.Not a good idea.“Why don’t we see if your new clothes are here? Let’s hope they’ll have the right size.I’ll order you some shorts as a bonus.”Hyna grinned and stuck his shovel in the ground.“You must like me.”“You appear to be worth the cost,” she allowed, looking at the amount of work he’d gotten done.“Nice job.”He just shrugged and followed her up to the inn, shirt slung over his shoulder.The newly purchased clothes had indeed been dropped off, but Gem held them out of reach as he grabbed for them.“Whoa! Shower first or I’ll have to pay for the whole lot.” She couldn’t imagine the clothing store would accept ill-fitting returns that smelled like compost.At first Blue looked mad, but then his expression became calculating.“Your place or mine?”Gem shook her head and showed him to the employees’ bathroom.“Soap and towels are inside.Clean up, find the clothes that fit and I’ll take care of the rest.Dinner should be ready soon.”Her words apparently spurred him.He was out of the bathroom in five minutes, dripping water and dressed in black pants that fit a little too well.The short-sleeved indigo shirt, meant to look plain and utilitarian, looked nothing of the kind as it hung open down the front.He was buttoning his pants as he came out.Gem twitched uncomfortably.She’d had warning, but she hadn’t been braced for how well he would clean up.Giving herself a mental slap, she said neutrally, “Better, but we’ll have to add shoes to the list.Yours are shot.Hungry?” She led the way to the kitchen table without waiting for an answer, then left him to Jamir’s tender mercies.She had to get away.Brandy walked in as Gem walked out, saw her expression and glanced into the kitchen.She paused, annoyed.Her eyes were mocking as she stared at Gem.“What did you say you hired him for?” she asked.Gem flushed.“You know why I didn’t hire him.Stop your teasing.”Brandy’s face grew serious.“I wasn’t teasing, Gem.Be careful.He’s not lover material.”The room got hotter.Without a word, Gem hurried to her office, shut herself inside and stared at the wall.She hadn’t hired Hyna Blue for his looks.A nagging started in her brain, a warning that circled like a pack of taunting children.She hadn’t had a boyfriend in a long time.Blue looked a little too good.He was her employee.Making him anything more would never be right.She needed a husband.Blue was the leaving kind.Maybe she’d better put Xera in charge of him.“Not in this millennium,” Xera said firmly.“He looks like an ex-con to me.”They were standing at the bar, and Jaq just laughed when Gem looked at him in mute appeal.“He’s your project.”“Fire him,” Brandy suggested brusquely.“I’m not going to fire him.He did good work today,” Gem said firmly, hating that she was digging her hole of responsibility deeper.“I do have a lot of things to do, though, and he was hired to help pick up the slack that gets missed.If you guys have any extra chores for him, speak up.”Xera snorted.“You want to turn him into a maid? He’ll quit.I know the type.”“He could help carry in the new mattresses we ordered, haul in the firebricks for the guestroom hearths, that sort of thing,” Gem suggested.“You don’t have to arm him with a duster and apron.”Xera smiled but looked thoughtful.“Brandy, you could introduce him to the brewmaster.He showed an interest.I’m sure he’d be of use cleaning vats and pipes.”Brandy propped her hip on a table and took a sip of her drink.“You do it.”Stymied, Gem sighed and gave up.There was no other option.She’d hired him; it was either fire him or put him to good use.She’d do the latter.It was easy enough to keep him in the garden over the following few days.That way she saw him only a couple of times, when she checked on his work.It was always perfect, which was a surprise, given her early impression of him.His manners did not improve, though.He winked at her when she showed up in the garden that day.Dressed only in a pair of cut-off shorts, and barefoot besides, he wasn’t shy about showing off his flexed muscles.“You come out here just to see this, don’t you, Blue-eyes?”“I come out here because no one else wants to deal with you,” she retorted.Looking at the work he’d done, she added, “Looks like you’ll be finished with the garden today.Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to our brewmaster.Brandy is his apprentice.When he retires, the distillery will be hers.”Hyna’s eyes gleamed.“I hope you like scrubbing floors,” Gem growled.“Jean Luc will have a mop in your hands for weeks before he lets you do anything else.”Blue shrugged.“I did worse in prison.”“Prison?” Gem echoed.“Theft.” He met her gaze defiantly.“My father kicked me out at fifteen.It was either steal or let strangers bugger me for a twenty.Which would you rather?”She looked down.“Don’t worry, they knocked the thieving out of me in prison.I volunteered to join the Space Corps then, and aliens kicked my ass for a couple of years.Ended up becoming a POW for six months on Platoos.” He was silent a moment.Gem felt sick.Platoos had been the site of one of the ugliest battles in the galaxy.The Galactic Explorers had tried to lay claim to a planet that was already spoken for by a particularly vengeful race.The Intergalactic Council, a group of representatives from different planets formed to promote peace, had finally gotten involved and forced the GE to sign a treaty.The surviving POWs had been released, most given immediate medical discharges.She took a deep breath.“You look pretty good for having spent six months in a prison camp.”He smiled without humor.“I was seventy pounds underweight when they released me.These eyes aren’t mine.They’d plucked mine out and chopped off my ears.My lips were sewn shut just two days before I was released.”A wave of faintness washed over her.She sat on the empty compost cart.“Your arm?”He waved a hand—not the cybernetic one.“I lost it in battle before all that.Crushed under a track truck.There was nothing left to salvage.” His expression was dark with memory [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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