THE OFF WORLD COLLECTION (Short, Steamy Science Fiction Romances) (Off-World Series) (9 page)

When she tried to jerk away, the hand tightened painfully, holding her in place.

“Jerry, don’t be a plague-sucking fool,” someone called out, but nobody moved to get any closer.

“Just take it easy, and nobody’s
gonna get hurt,” the man who held her growled.

Fear bubbled inside
Beka, but also determination. She didn’t know Caleb Raider well, but she’d sensed the good in him. This man was different, and she was not going to let him change her destiny.

Chapter Two

Other guys had already retrieved their haulers from the parking area reserved for the new husbands. Caleb got stuck in a line of vehicles and had to wait his turn to stop at the gate. Nervously he drummed his hands on the steering lever. The sooner he could get airborne and fly Beka away from the chaos around the spaceport, the better.

When he finally pulled up at the gate, he jumped out and started for the place where he’d left her. As the scene in front of him registered, his heart skipped a beat, then began to pound in double time.

A luggage jockey was standing behind Beka, one hand on her arm, pulling her back against his body. In his other hand was a beamer, pointed toward the crowd. The man had a wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his face, partially hiding his features, but Caleb knew who he was. Jerry Costa, devil weed take him, one of the guys who hung around the spaceport making a hardscrabble living from pickup work. He’d started off like everyone else, with a homestead. But he’d done a crappy job of managing his property. After his stock had died and his crops had failed two years in a row, he was forced to give his acreage back to the company that had financed the settlement of Palomar. Since then he’d been a town rat. What did he think he was going to do now, take Beka to the hovel where he lived? Or did he have some hidey-hole nobody knew about?

As Costa held
Beka like a hostage, he looked around, his gaze challenging.

“Back away,” he growled, “Before somebody gets hurt.”

Most people took a step back, probably figuring his beamer was illegally set to kill. And why get yourself drilled trying to save someone else’s gal?

The blood had drained from
Beka’s face. And her eyes had grown large as they darted around the retreating spectators. When she finally spotted Caleb pushing his way through the crowd, he saw a look of relief flood her features.

Silently, she mouthed his name.

He wanted to sprint forward shouting curses at the slimeball who had her, but getting himself killed wasn’t going to do her any good. Instead he stayed in the crowd, easing his beamer from his holster as he approached.

With the weapon in his hand, he made it to the front of the throng, putting himself in Costa’s line of fire.

Forcing the anger out of his voice, he called out, “You don’t want to do this, Jerry.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Like I’d tell you.”

Beka’s gaze was on Caleb, and he saw something in her eyes, something urgent. He didn’t know her well, didn’t know how she would react in this situation, but as he stared at her, he saw her glance down to her right near her feet. She flicked her gaze up to him, then looked down again, and he saw her body shift slightly. After several long seconds, she made a moaning sound and went limp, falling to her right, knocking her captor off balance.

Jerry tried and failed to keep
Beka on her feet. And as her body slipped away from his, Caleb had a clear shot at the bastard.

He took it, drilling a bolt of energy into the middle of the man’s chest. He went down like a mud toad sucked underwater by a tuber fish, but as he fell, he got off a shot, slicing a streak of fire across Caleb’s arm.

He ignored the pain, charging forward, intent on pulling Beka out of harm’s way.

With Jerry down, men in the crowd moved, disarming him and getting in some strategic kicks and curses before a warning blast sounded, announcing that the cavalry was coming, now that the emergency was over. Storm troopers in helmets and body armor rode up on jet bikes, ordering the onlookers back. Probably somebody on the scene had called them.

As the troopers secured the area, Caleb rushed to Beka. Instinctively, he reached for her, folding her close, overwhelmed by the feel of her slender body in his arms and by the emotions surging through him. He barely knew her, yet he cared about her in a way he hadn’t anticipated. He remembered his mother hugging him—a long time ago. But this was nothing like that and nothing like when two men embraced each other. There was a whole different quality to holding Beka in his arms.

His hands flattened against her back, and his voice thickened as he asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Thanks to you.”

“You did
good.”

She lifted one shoulder. “I wasn’t going to let him take me if I could help it.”

Did that mean she’d made a commitment to him? Or was she just choosing the lesser of two evils?

For a moment, his total focus was on the woman in his arms. Then he heard someone clear his throat and realized they were standing in the middle of a throng of avid spectators.

When he eased away from her, he saw one of the storm troopers standing next to him.

“We’ve got Costa in custody. You going to press charges?”

He thought about having to stay in town to complete those formalities. “Can you get him for drunk and disorderly? He wouldn’t try a stunt like that sober, would he?”

“We can lock him up for that. For a few days.”

“Fine. I’m outa here.” He was used to making his own decisions. But it suddenly occurred to him that it might not be appropriate now. His gaze swung to Beka.

“Unless you want to charge him.”

“No.” Her voice was firm, but he didn’t know if she was responding honestly or simply agreeing with the man who’d won her as his bride.

After years of living alone at his homestead, he was uncomfortable being the center of attention, and he knew half the onlookers were watching him and
Beka as he picked up her crate and hoisted it to his shoulder before walking beside her to the gate. The other half of the crowd was watching the cops take Costa away.

He saw
Beka eye his hauler and wished he had something shinier for her to ride in. But he’d opted for practicality rather than style, and he wasn’t one of those guys who had to get a new model every few years—for show. This thing had served him well for six years and was still going strong. It could take a metric ton of cargo and was even equipped for livestock.

He loaded her crate into the back along with the supplies he’d already picked up in town, then opened the passenger door for her and waited while she gripped the handle, hoisted herself up the high step, and climbed up.

When he got into the pilot’s seat, she was already buckling her harness. He fired up the jets, looked to make sure nobody was in the way, and then took off vertically before leveling out and swinging toward the west and home.

He heard her drag in a sharp breath as she looked at his arm.

“He burned you.”

“Not bad.”

“I don’t need a macho idiot for a husband. Go back there so you can get medical attention.”

The outburst stunned him. Then he told himself she’d been under a lot of stress in the past hour—meeting her new mate and almost getting kidnapped. “We can take care of it just fine at the homestead.”

She gave him a fierce look. “If you end up dead with an infection, how do I get back to town?”

“You’ve got a
comms unit. It’s always got a channel open to Central. Call the authorities in case you get into trouble, and I’m not available,” he clipped out as he held his arm stiffly against his side to ease the pain.

Fighting for calm, he added, “I’ve had a lot worse and taken care of it myself. That’s what you have to do when it’s almost an hour into town.”

“Like what?’

“I sliced my leg open once on a bailing machine.”

“Oh, great.”

“I haven’t done it again,” he snapped.

They rode in silence for several minutes after that, and he watched the instruments and the ground below, but he was all too conscious of the gal beside him in the confined cab of the hauler.

He caught her feminine scent, saw her delicate features up close and admired the way her blond hair caught the light of the sun slanting in the windshield.

They had passed the wide ring of cleared land around Listerville and the spaceport and were flying over heavily wooded territory. Even after the initial extermination project, there were still predators hidden by the thick foliage of the virgin woods, but the settlers stayed away from them unless they were in a heavily armed raiding party.

After the forests and the patches of devil weed that could swallow a man whole, came more cleared land, this time with individual homesteads. Some specialized in crops, others cattle, and some were mixed. As Jed had said, Caleb’s mining operation gave him an advantage over most of them.

They were fifty minutes and three hundred klicks from Listerville when Caleb slowed their airspeed.

“We’re here?”
Beka asked.

“Soon.”

She leaned toward the window, looking down at his extensive fields and the fortified storage and living complex.

He went to the vertical thrusters, setting down in the farmyard about twenty meters from the house.

“We can go in and get you settled. I’ll unload later. I mean except for your crate.”

She answered with a little nod, then asked, “What good does a fence do you if anyone can fly in like we just did?”

“It keeps out borgans and granlings.”

“What are they?”

“Have you heard of tigers and bears?”

“Like on old Earth?”

“Yes. Borgans are big cats—something like tigers. And granlings are something like bears.”

“Oh great.”

“They made a meal of some guys when we first came here, but now they mostly stay in the thick woods. Unless their prey is in short supply.”

“What else do I need to know?”

“Can you shoot a beamer?”

“No.”

“We gotta remedy that soon.”

He saw her swallow as she looked around the property.

“What’s that?” She pointed to a long, low building with a glass roof and sides.

“Where I grow most of my table vegetables. I have fresh produce all year round.”

She nodded.

“Some of the animals are in the fields, and some are in the barn.”

“Which animals?”

“I’ve got cows, chickens, horses. The usual farm stock.”

“Why do you need horses?”

“With some places it’s easier to get there on a horse than a rider. And…” He raised one shoulder, “They’re fun.”

“The borgans and granlings can’t get them or the cows out in the fields?”

“There are force fences that mostly keep them out.”

“But you have stronger defenses around the house?”

“Right. And when I’m out in a field, I increase the power.”

“The farm stock and the vegetables are for yourself—or do you make a living from them?”

“Mostly for myself. But I do sell some horses and steers.” He paused for a minutes. “And there’s a
catborn mine on the property.”

“
Catborn, what’s that?”

“It’s used in the biotech industry.”

“A mineral?”

“No. It was originally organic.”

“There’s a biotech industry on Palomar?”

He laughed. “No. I ship it off world.”

“How much time do you spend mining?”

“Not a lot. It’s easy to dig out the stuff, once you get down in the tunnels.” He kept the explanation simple. He wasn’t going to talk about the dangers of mining
catborn until he had to.

After unbuckling his harness, he jumped down and walked around to her side of the transport. When he reached for her hand, she let him help her down, and they stood stiffly facing each other before he turned toward the house.

His heart was pounding now, and his mouth had turned so dry that he wondered if he could speak. She was here, finally. But what would she think of his home?

He keyed the access pad at the door, and they stepped inside where he activated the few energy lights, then struck a match and lit two oil lamps.

He’d spent hours cleaning and straightening, but now he cringed as he looked at the worn furniture in the front room. From there he could see the bedroom, where he’d put on the new sheets and an old quilt over the top of the blanket.

Instead of making a comment on the decor or the sleeping arrangements, she said, “I want to take care of your arm.”

“Yeah.” It was hurting like a son of a bitch, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

She looked around. “Where is the light best?”

“Uh . . .” He shrugged. “The food prep center, I guess.”

“Okay.”

He crossed to the prep center at the side of the main living area and flipped on the lights.

“You need to take off your shirt.”

He nodded and ran his fingers along the inside of the fasteners. When the front was open, he lowered his suspenders. As he started to ease the burned arm out of the sleeve, fire shot through his nerve endings.

“Slat.” Immediately, an apology sprang to his lips. “Sorry.”

“I’ve heard worse. I guess on a farm, there’s a lot of slat.”