Royal: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 5) Page 26

Intervene, he told himself. He didn’t like the stress. He didn’t like being in the middle of that shit and knowing that he wasn’t allowed to not pick a side. He didn’t want to pick a side because he honestly understood where both of them were coming from, even if he didn’t like how they were going about making their points.

  He turned back to the stove, vowing to keep his mouth shut for a minute longer. He could wait that long to see what shook out of the confrontation, but beyond that, he’d have to step in. The fighting wasn’t productive.

  “I guess…down the line,” she started, “Luke and I will have gone our separate ways and moved on with our lives.”

  “A waste of time and emotional investment,” Alex said. “Time that could be spent with someone you actually want. Or do you even have emotions?”

  “Of course I have emotions!” she spat. “If I didn’t feel things, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to stand on my own in this place. And I never said I didn’t want Luke. I—”

  She clipped whatever she was going to say, and Luke turned to see why.

  But there was no compelling reason why. She stood, pink-cheeked, with her mouth open and eyes comically wide.

  “Don’t clam up now.” Alex strode over to her and bent to meet her gaze. “You what?”

  She closed her mouth and swallowed visibly. “I… Well, it’s evident that’s a moot point. It doesn’t matter what I want as long as I can do what I came here to do.”

  That wasn’t moot, in Luke’s opinion. Her having feelings was pretty fucking important. He couldn’t give a damn about people who were shamelessly ambivalent, but he didn’t abandon the ones who cared. A man as emotionally hungry as him would never turn away an opportunity for genuine affection. He didn’t know if that was what Autumn was offering, but he was open. He didn’t care if that made him a greedy bastard.

  “As long as you get to stay, you mean,” Alex said to her.

  She performed a jerky shrug and Alex narrowed his eyes to angry turquoise slits.

  “You can’t have him,” he said.

  “Cut it out, Duke,” Luke said. Alex was going to beat the dead horse all day if left up to his own devices. Normally, his persistence was a trait that got Luke hot and bothered, but Autumn was getting bowled over by it. She didn’t know how to handle Alex Hauge. He probably wasn’t the kind of garden-variety asshole she dealt with on the job every day.

  “Come here,” Luke told him. “Find me a strainer for the pasta.”

  Alex didn’t move, and Luke was starting to suspect he would have to physically remove him from Autumn’s proximity, but he finally let his hand fall and straightened up.

  He cleared his throat and strolled to Luke, leaving Autumn rubbing her arms as if she’d caught a chill.

  “I don’t have a strainer. If I bother cooking at all, I make do. If I lose some pasta down the drain in the process, I chalk that up to the circumstances.”

  “Just use the lid,” Autumn murmured. She returned to her seat, pulled her feet up beneath her, and hugged her tablet against her chest. She stared down into her open bag and chewed at the inside of her mouth.

  “It doesn’t matter what I want,” she’d said.

  But that wasn’t right.

  Luke knew how she felt. He was reminded of the devastating fatalism every time he’d looked at Owen, and he hadn’t been able to get away from Owen. Hell, he’d followed him to Jekh because that was the kind of shit the best of friends did. That was the kind of shit people did when they loved people in ways that didn’t necessarily make sense to anyone else.

  He let out a breath and rooted through the drawer for a lid that fit well enough. Cutting his gaze to Alex, he said, “You wanna put on a shirt, Duke? You’re too much of a temptation.”

  Alex drummed his fingers against his biceps and stared coolly at Luke.

  Luke shrugged and strained the pasta. “I wouldn’t dare tell you how to dress in your own ship.”

  “You’ve been doing that since the very first time you stepped onto it.”

  Luke laughed. “Maybe you should be used to it by now, then.”

  Groaning, Alex started away.

  Luke grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. He slipped his hand to the back of his head and brought his ear down to his lips, and whispered, “Behave.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to be decent. That’s all. Don’t assume that means anything’s changing between you and me.”

  “Can you promise that?”

  “I shouldn’t, but I will.” He promised it because he meant it. Luke didn’t believe in throwing people away. If he could, that meant they’d never really meant anything to him in the first place. “Luke and Duke,” Luke whispered. “Worst idea in the history of this planet, probably, but it is what it is.”

  Alex nodded curtly and retreated to the bed area. He found a shirt and put it on.

  Luke finished putting together dinner and handed everyone a plate. “Bon fuckin’ appétit, I guess. It’s not gourmet, but at least it’s hot.”

  Alex groaned a shoved a forkful of noodles into his mouth. “I’m not sure if you’d be in awe of some of the spreads my family serves or disgusted by the excess of them.”

  Luke snorted. He turned off the burners and carried his plate to the seat near Autumn’s. He didn’t see the point in trying to isolate her—didn’t see the point of manufacturing unnecessary tension.

  “Would probably depend on my mood and how patient I was on any given day,” Luke said. “My parents still like to have a few big meals every month. Or at least, they used to. I imagine they don’t cook nearly as much with all the kids being off-planet. We used to all be close enough that we could stop by on most weekends. Sometimes, I’d take the train up from DC or fly if I found a cheap enough plane ticket.”

  “Odd thinking of plane travel now that I’m here,” Autumn mused quietly. She’d barely touched her food, except to nudge all the noodles toward the center of her plate.

  He didn’t think she was going to say anything else—she was just going to drop that conversational morsel and then flee as if she hadn’t been all that vested in the conversation in the first place.

  Luke nudged her with his knee. “Because of the ships here?”

  She nodded and stuffed some food into her mouth.

  “I’m sure they’ll catch up to the technology eventually so people can get around easier.”

  “Maybe.”

  He watched her primly slice her noodles into tidy lengths with the edge of her fork, and he had to say something because he was getting twitchy. Italians didn’t eat their noodles like that. “Christ, woman, just twist it!”

  She snorted, and her smile fell away as quickly as she’d put it on. “Twisting would make the most sense, right?” She cut her gaze up to him and pulled it quickly away. “I guess I’ve been conditioned not to. When I was a kid of…oh, I don’t know, maybe around ten, my dad took me to this fancy Italian restaurant with his newest wife. Of course, I ordered spaghetti. It wasn’t even on the menu. He was so angry. Said I was embarrassing him. The waiter said it wasn’t a big deal and that they always had plain pasta ready to be sauced. My father let it go then, but the whole meal, glared at me like I’d brought shame on the entire family by just wanting a plain plate of noodles with red sauce. ‘If you’re gonna eat it, don’t eat it like that,” he’d said every time I tried to spool it around my fork.”

  “I think my father would have some particular names for a guy like that.” For that matter, Luke had some names for him, too, “asshole” being the least of them. His parents were hardly what anyone could call normal, but they were like most decent parents in that they didn’t care if their kids went through picky stages as long as they ate.

  “I got to a point where if I had to eat around him, I just wouldn’t eat.” She raised her eyebrows and let out a ragged breath. “And that’s exactly what a preteen needs, right? Triggers for an eating disorder? That’s one of the reasons I started watching Cree so
closely, especially when she approached puberty and didn’t seem to be fleshing out the way you’d expect.”

  “Do you think she’s—” Alex started, evidently as concerned as Luke.

  “No.” Autumn put up a hand and shook her head. “I can say a lot of things about Cree. She’s reckless and headstrong at times, but I think she’s a lot smarter than I was at the same age. She doesn’t take anything our father says as gospel. I envy her ability to tune him out.”

  “Maybe she’s able to because of you,” Luke said.

  She shrugged, but the slight frown she’d been wearing ebbed somewhat. “I’d like to take credit, but I think Cree is just being Cree. When I was last able to get online and check my email before we reached The Barrens, I got a message from her mother threatening to file abduction charges against me for taking Cree off the planet. Cree might be a legal adult now, but her mother might still have a case.”

  Luke whistled low.

  She winced and set down her fork. “As if I needed more legal problems, right?”

  “Don’t worry about the legal shit. Can’t do anything about it right now.” He picked the fork up and closed her fist around it. “Eat.”

  “And, God, my father has to know exactly where I am on the planet now as well as what I’m doing. He’s going to be…chomping at the bit.” She stared down at her food with a curious expression that hinted that she’d forgotten it was even there. But she did eat. She twirled noodles around the fork tines and got the spool of spaghetti into her mouth, smearing only the smallest amount of sauce on her face in the process.

  “Cree’s an adult now,” Luke said. “I doubt there are any judges who’d appreciate having their time wasted by that sort of filing.”

  “Is a judge going to force her back to Earth? Probably not. Can a judge find me reasonably culpable for her leaving Earth in the first place?” She shrugged. “I guess it depends on what mood the judge is in on the day the case is tried.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “You sound so certain.”

  “Gotta be optimistic about some things, or life is really miserable.” He looked at Alex. Alex had finished his spaghetti and was leaning against the counter, giving Luke a blasé look.

  If Luke had wanted to exert the brain energy, he probably could have translated the expression into words, but it didn’t matter. Alex was hostile, and justifiably perhaps. It was Luke’s job to bridge some sort of accord between the two. The role of peacemaker was a familiar one for him in the Cipriani family, and he was used to be being Owen’s intermediary.

  Luke considered himself to be a pretty good judge of character once he gave himself a chance to weigh all the facts. With some effort, the three of them could get along. Autumn was cagey, but he didn’t think she was dishonest. Like almost everyone else he knew who’d traveled to Jekh, she was both running away from something and toward something.

  They had common ground and something to bond over if they allowed themselves to.

  He didn’t expect the process to be an easy one, but he’d never run away from a challenge.

  Challenges made life interesting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Autumn put her head down, clutched her tote bag against her torso, and ran as hard and as fast as she could toward Alex’s ship.

  The wind was picking up fast and brutal and all survey work on the project site had been canceled. Apparently, the uptick of wind was cyclical in The Barrens and a contributing reason for why vegetation requiring long germination periods didn’t grow there. She’d somehow missed that detail in her research.

  She slapped her palm against the door and shouted, “Luke? Are you in there?” She slapped it hard again and again, hoping that if there were anyone inside, they’d know that a thing with a brain made the noise, not nature.

  The wind was so brutal that it’d knocked her hair bun loose, and the wind was whipping her hair against her face and into her eyes.

  “Luke? Please, open the door!”

  She realized there was a chance he couldn’t hear her if he was inside. The wind howled so loud that if she hadn’t known better, she would have thought there was a freight train on approach.

  Another smack of her palm. “Luke!”

  She spat, “Shit,” and looked around. There were seven other ships parked nearby, many of which were much larger than Alex’s. There might have been someone who could take her in until the storm passed.

  She’d been sleeping in her tent for the past four nights—or working, rather. She’d been too restless for sleep. There were too many things to think about. Chief among them was pitching her plans to the board, which was comprised completely of Jekhans, and she’d never done business with Jekhans before. She needed to act with exquisite carefulness until they’d established a rapport. Also, she had to work out the mess with her permits on the housing development in Little Gitano. Then there was Cree and her persistent mother. Cree’s mother’s last email had been nearly comical in the ratio of threats to facts.

  Also, there was Luke.

  She didn’t know what to do about Luke. He was being so kind to her, and he didn’t have to be. He’d chosen to be kind after everything she’d done, and she wasn’t used to that sort of grace. The gift of it made her reel and dizzy whenever she thought of him, and that easy smile of his. Both teasing and warm.

  So warm.

  The door started cranking upward, and she let out a gasp of relief, ducking under it as soon as it rose to waist-high.

  A gust of wind swooped in behind her and sent a stack of maps and other papers flying in the cockpit.

  Alex ran forward to tame them as Luke motored the door down.

  “Damn. That picked up fast,” Luke said.

  “Incredibly fast,” Autumn said. “We had to decamp and find safer structures to wait it out in.” She rubbed dust out of her burning eyes and set down her bag. “Some of the foreigners went to their ships, and some went with the Jekhans to their caves.”

  She hadn’t wanted to go to the caves—not that she wasn’t curious about how they were organized inside, but because she didn’t want to intrude without a better reason for an invitation. There’d be plenty of time for her to tour the cave systems and learn how they’d adapted their traditional culture to the more stark surroundings.

  She’d actually been mulling over using the existing geological structures as components in her architecture. Obviously, the towering spikes were strong and products of the harsh climate. If she could get one of her trusted engineers in to test the structural integrity of them, she could possibly use them as supports. They could build around them and integrate them into the design rather than blowing them up and using the leftover gravel to create roads or something.

  No one else was thinking along those same lines, and so she knew she was going to have a tough go of convincing anyone to go for it. Her way would cost more in skilled labor, perhaps, but they’d save on materials. They’d be able to use better materials without the budget being blown all to hell.

  Better was important. Those people deserved it. They’d made lives for themselves in the stark place and they didn’t all want to leave. If there was a chance they could thrive there in the community they’d made, they wanted to try, and Autumn wanted to help them.

  “Come on in and get warm,” Luke said, heading to the rear of the ship.

  “Was I interrupting anything?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know but at least both men were fully dressed.

  But perhaps that was why took so long—they’d needed to put their clothes on.

  Her jealousy at their intimacy came with a chaser of guilt. She’d never made any efforts to show any to Luke after she’d arrived in Little Gitano, and figured she’d forfeited her chance. Still, she was put off by the fact that a man who took great pleasure in antagonizing her was also taking great pleasure in touching Luke.

  “We were trying to talk to Oreva,” Luke said. “The communications system is having a tough time connecting
to him. He’s trying to get back here, but has some business to take care of.”

  “I’m surprised he’s not here.” Autumn moved her bags out of the way and headed toward the bathroom. If she didn’t get some of the dust off her face and hands, she wouldn’t be able to stop fidgeting. “I thought this job was important to him.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes distractions are unavoidable. Suffice it to say, there’s a certain person on Earth who isn’t thrilled that Oreva came here to do business.”

  Furrowing her brow, she pumped a squirt of sanitizing soap into her palm. “A business associate?” Obviously, he wasn’t talking about Alex.

  “No,” Alex said in an undertone. “Girlfriend. I guess they’re breaking up.”

  “Oh.” Autumn grimaced. She could sympathize for Oreva, but not empathize. She’d never had a long-distance relationship or even one that had lasted as long as the trip between Earth and Jekh. It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable of enduring relationships. In fact, she liked the idea of them and wanted to be in one herself when the time was right. She hadn’t found anyone she wanted to take that leap with…until Jekh.

  The person she wanted was already in a relationship with someone else.

  She dried her hands under the air blower and stepped out. Alex was at the front fiddling with the COM panel. Luke sat in the co-pilot’s chair with his feet up on the dashboard. They were a matched set, both tall, athletic, and dark-haired.

  Unfairly attractive.

  She took a seat near the window and looked outside as she took off her shoes. The wind was thick with red dirt, and everything was covered with it. She needed a shower to get it all out of her hair, but she didn’t know if she wanted to ask. “The people here watch the wind the way some people watch rain through their windows,” she mused.

  “I can see why they would,” Luke said. “It’s something different.”

  “Mmm. That’s why I was thinking it’d be interesting if I could put some sort of viewing room on the ground floor of the buildings. A quiet place for sitting and watching. Doesn’t even have to be a completely designed room—just a long bank of seating beside a series of picture windows.”