Chapter Fourteen
Belle was feeling the fight she’d gotten into the day before when she woke up.
Connor immediately diverted her, however--just by arriving in her room and then because her first good look at him sent a shockwave through her, followed almost instantly by dismay, and then anger, and then memory.
He’d fought with Ryne.
She hadn’t seen it.
She’d escaped. Run.
Marcy had accused her of it--of instigating a fight between them.
She would’ve liked to dispute it, but she thought, maybe, the bitch was right.
He knew she’d had sex with Ryne.
Well, she amended. He knew she’d gone off with Ryne and he suspected.
And maybe he thought he was protecting her?
It flickered through her mind to wonder what Ryne looked like after the battle.
“You’re on rotation to work on the Artemis,” Connor said coolly. “You’ll need to get up and dress. I’ll walk you to the commissary for breakfast.”
Relief flooded her at that. She hadn’t actually had time to dread going out in public after everything that had happened the day before, but it instantly leapt to her mind and relief followed.
She was to work on the ship for a week, thank god!
Even if nothing specific or especially juicy happened while she was gone, that was days for them to get tired of her latest screw up.
Getting up at once, she hobbled a little unsteadily into the bathroom to get ready and then met Connor at the door when she was done.
They got stared at, but it was comforting to be in Connor’s shadow even though she knew it was probably her they were staring at.
Because she’d acted like she’d totally lost her mind when Marcy had grabbed her.
She knew that was it.
She thought it was.
Maybe it was because they’d figured out she’d had sex with Ryne?
She didn’t think it would cross their minds that she’d had sex with both Ryne and Torr.
But Ryne certainly.
Because Connor thought so and they would have figured out that was the reason they’d fought.
Thankfully, she didn’t see a sign of Marcy and it didn’t take long to grab a plate and eat.
She spotted Ryne and Torr as she left the commissary with Connor.
Her heart leapt at the sight of them and she found herself smiling at them before it even occurred to her that that might not be a good idea.
They were too far away for her to say anything--unfortunately--so she just flicked them a little wave to let them know she was going to be gone a few days, trying not to be too obvious about it.
Connor looked like he might be grinding his teeth when she glanced up at him a little guiltily.
Thankfully, they reached the shuttle and she headed to one of the seats in the back while Connor went to the front to pilot it. The remainder of the team wandered in one by one while she was waiting and she was sorry she hadn’t made any attempt to speak to Ryne or Torr.
She dismissed it after a moment.
It probably wasn’t a good idea anyway and, in any case, she doubted they expected her to inform them.
They’d had sex!
It had been just amazing and she wasn’t surprised at all that she’d felt like that because they’d really wowed her from the time she’d first met them--especially Ryne and she didn’t think that was because she’d met him first.
But it was just sex. As far as she’d been able to tell it was the main recreational pastime for pretty much everyone aboard the Artemis--certainly everyone old enough or not too old to want to have sex.
She wasn’t just a grown woman! She was a mature grown woman. She knew it didn’t really mean anything--especially to most guys--beyond a chance to enjoy themselves, relief, relaxation.
Well! Ryne and Torr weren’t even human.
She had no idea at all how they might look at it, but it seemed very unlikely that it was anything significant to them, particularly when she wasn’t even the same as they were.
She doubted they’d see it as a ‘commitment’ if they’d been the same.
Especially when she had had sex with both of them.
She frowned at that thought, realizing that she couldn’t recall anything that even hinted at there being any kind of discord between them because she’d had sex with both of them.
There had absolutely been a very great deal of discord when Connor had confronted Ryne, though.
As engaged as she was with her own thoughts as the shuttle lifted off and the ground fell away beneath them, a flash of something not too distant caught her eye just as the ship attained an altitude where she could see over the security wall and well into the distance above the tree tops.
Almost on top of that flash, there was a dull thud against the shuttle shields that made her jump reflexively. The search for the source riveted her for many moments, until they were too high to see anything.
It didn’t repeat, though.
Whatever it had been.
The discharge of a weapon?
It must have been, she decided, even though it seemed a little too far away to be anyone from the colony that might be out hunting.
And, in reviewing it in her mind’s eye, she realized it didn’t seem like a laser at all--although she couldn’t think what else it might be.
She hadn’t seen that the natives had anything but primitive, handmade weapons.
Of course, now that she knew they weren’t primitives at all she realized it was possible they had some more advanced weapons that either weren’t common anymore, weren’t commonly owned, or were just guarded in the sense that they didn’t want the humans to know they had something more powerful.
She shook the thought as they reached the edge of space and the shields covered the portals.
Almost another hour passed until they docked with the Artemis and another fifteen to thirty minutes after the shuttle had been parked in the hold before the air pressure equalized so that they could deplane.
Connor was the first one out. Belle was the last.
When Belle reached the deck, she saw that Connor was examining the nose of the shuttle carefully.
“What is it?”
Connor turned to look at her when she spoke, but his focus seemed turned inward just for a moment. He frowned. “Nothing I don’t suppose. The skin has healed if there was anything.”
The comment resurrected Belle’s memory.
“I saw a flash as we were leaving. It was … well the area and the distance suggested it wasn’t any of us. I thought it was just … something reflecting sunlight, maybe metal, maybe water. I heard something that thudded against the side of the ship almost instantaneously--though--thought I did.”
Connor frowned, hesitated and then caught her arm and led her back inside and into the cockpit.
“Artemis,” he said when he’d helped her into a seat and settled in the captain’s chair.
“Do a search of the security feed from the launch until we reached space and look for any anomaly. Colonist Annabelle Gordon says she saw a flash of light in the distance as we elevated to launch altitude.”
He met Belle’s gaze. “Direction and possible distance?”
Belle thought it over. “Northwest approximately five miles.”
“Affirmative,” the AI responded. “A missile was launched from the Northwest, five degrees fifteen minutes at a distance of five point 2 miles. The projectile struck the hull but it was spent before it impacted. No more than cosmetic damage. Repaired now.”
Connor’s lips tightened. “We were attacked and you didn’t think to issue a warning?”
The AI didn’t respond for several moments. “There was a single discharge,” the AI responded after considering the data. “I could not determine intent and the projectile was spent when it made contact with the hull.”
Connor contacted ground security.
“Kitchens.”
“We may have a problem,” Connor said grimly.
“No damage has been determined, but I’m not inclined to just dismiss it.
Belle thought she saw a flash of light in the distance as we left the compound and the AI reports contact with a projectile of undetermined origins.
I want you to take a squad out and have a look around.
” He hesitated. “If the any of the native warriors are inclined to join you and act as guides, I think you should take them up on it. The AI is sending the data it collected on the event. And of course we have our electronics to depend upon, but they know far more about their world than we do.”
Instead of getting up when he’d cut the connection, he swiveled his seat around to face hers and leaned toward her, taking one of her hands in both of his. “How are you today?”
Belle stared down at their joined hands more than a little breathlessly. Her mouth felt dry as dust. She cleared her throat. “I’m ok.”
He scanned her face carefully and swallowed with an effort. “You would tell me if you weren’t ok, wouldn’t you Annabelle?”
Belle felt her face heat. “You haven’t …. Nobody’s called me that in a long time.”
He tugged at the hand he’d trapped until she got up and then dragged her onto his lap and tucked her against his chest. Then he stroked a hand over her head, smoothing the hair before he continued, stroking her back.
“When did you stop loving me, Annabelle?” he asked in a strange voice.
“Have I fucked things up so badly there’s no hope for me? For us?”
A jolt went through her. She shifted away from him and tilted her head back to search his face. She couldn’t read his expression, but she didn’t need to.
And the truth was that she’d never stopped loving him--even though he’d hurt her so bad she thought she just couldn’t bear to go on living.
She settled her head against his shoulder after a moment, searching her memories, trying to decide exactly when it was that she’d erected a wall between them.
But, really, it wasn’t that hard to pinpoint it when she allowed the memory.
“Was it … because I failed you when you were … hurt?” he persisted.
Pain washed through her in a debilitating tide. Her throat clogged until she had to struggle to swallow. “You didn’t come,” she said finally. “I begged for you, but you didn’t come. I needed you to feel safe. They said … they said you didn’t want me anymore … because … because of what they’d done.”
“That was a lie!” he said explosively. “Who told you that?”
Belle looked at him wide-eyed, alarmed, angry that he said her parents had lied to her. “My parents.”
His lips tightened. “I was in jail. Check the ship’s records.
I tried to beat the bastards to death for hurting you.
I served a six month sentence. I didn’t try to go to you when they finally released me.
Because your parents said I wasn’t welcome.
And I believed them because I knew I’d let you down. ”
He seemed to wrestle with something. Finally, he helped her up, steadied her, and then got up and left the cockpit.
Belle watched his departure with a crushing sense of loss, fighting the urge to cry as it flickered through her mind to wonder if he was right, if it was too late, if he really had loved her and she’d just thrown that away.
The urge to go to her old quarters was strong but as much as she wanted privacy to let go of her pent up emotions, she didn’t want to be alone with them.
Instead, she headed to the Rec room where notices were posted and checked the work schedule.
It had been posted, whether by Connor or one of the supervisors, she wasn’t certain, but she found her name and the job she’d been assigned to--maintenance on the food printers.
She was the only one assigned to work in the food processing area--thankfully. She could have alone time and still do her job. It was easier to focus once she got to work, she discovered.
Well--she liked working with her hands. She’d always found it satisfying and soothing. And the job was just intricate enough to keep her focused.
She was so focused that she stared at Connor blankly when he interrupted her some time later.
“I hope one of those is working,” he said wryly. “It’s lunch time.”
Belle blinked a couple of times and finally smiled at him. “The others are working. I checked them out before I sat down to take this one apart.”
His gaze sharpened on her face for a moment and then he looked away.
Belle’s smile fell.
Someone close by snickered.
Belle felt her face heat, but she focused on the printer again, trying without a lot of success to convince herself the snicker wasn’t about her.
“Come on and eat, Gordon,” Connor said.
She didn’t especially want to sit down with the others to eat, but she set her tools down and got up and followed Connor--wondering why he was calling her Gordon, distancing himself from her.
But she knew why.
It was a wall and he wasn’t going to let her climb over it or break through it.
Did she want to?
Was it in anyone’s best interests even to try?
Because only thinking about turning her back on Ryne and Torr was enough to make her realize that she’d come to love them. She’d allowed her admiration for them to grow.
Because she was trying to save herself from yielding her heart to Connor--again--opening her herself to more hurt.
Connor deserved better than that--more than she had to give him now.
And yet … she would only be offering Ryne and Torr a corner of her heart because Connor had captured her whole heart long, long ago and he’d never let it go.
She had never let go.
That was why she’d decided that she would take an anonymous donor and artificially inseminate--why she’d chosen a hab for a single parent and child.
She was running.