Blood Will Tell (25 page)

After Risa had wound down, Miala said, “I’m sorry you had to deal with that while I was gone. I’ll definitely have a talk with Jerem.”

“No problem,” Risa replied, and then she gave Miala a closer look. “Are you all right? You seem a little...distracted.”

Considering everything that’s going on right now, I think “a little distracted” is doing pretty well
. She merely lifted her shoulders and said, “Probably just a little space-lagged. Nothing that a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix.”

“Okay—see you in the office tomorrow?”

Oh, hell, she hadn’t even thought about that. Of course at some point Miala would have to get back to work—Murgan hadn’t been her only client, naturally, and while some matters had been put on hold while she was gone, they would start to clamor for her attention as soon as word got out that she was back on Nova Angeles. But she also knew there was no way she could make it back in so soon. “I think I’m going to take a long weekend, if the schedule permits.”

A long pause, during which Risa gave Miala a penetrating look. Obviously she wasn’t buying the whole “space-lagged” argument. But after a moment she shrugged and said, “Well, since we weren’t expecting you back until early next week anyway, I think I can hold it together—as long as that damn decorator stays out of my hair.”

“Tell him if he changes his mind one more time, he’s fired,” Miala suggested, and Risa grinned.

“With pleasure. I’ll keep you posted if anything else comes up.”

“Thanks for everything—I couldn’t do it without you,” Miala said, and she meant it. Without Risa watching her back, she couldn’t possibly attend to the current upheaval in her private life and hope to keep her business going.

“Just remember that the next time I ask for a raise,” returned her assistant, her blue eyes laughing. Then she switched off the comm, and the screen went black.

Smiling a little, Miala returned to her duties in the kitchen. Trust Risa to always know the right thing to say. Even the unwelcome knowledge that Jerem had managed to perpetrate yet another assault on the sensibilities of the locals couldn’t completely erase her smile. The exchange with her assistant had helped a bit to put things in perspective, and Miala made a mental note to arrange for a nice bonus for Risa on her next payday. Technically she wasn’t due for a raise for at least another six standard months, but Miala figured it was the least she could do, considering what Risa had had to put up with while watching Jerem.

She had just finished placing the steaks under the flash-broiler when the door to the kitchen banged open and Jerem bounded in, followed by Eryk Thorn, who moved at a slightly more sedate pace. Her son was all glowing dark eyes. Obviously the news that Thorn was his father had been met with enthusiasm, and she allowed herself a small inward sigh of relief.

Jerem skidded to a stop by the refrigeration unit and opened it. After he had pulled out a pouch of carbonated fruit juice and taken a long drink, he fixed Miala with a slightly accusing stare. “You should have told me my dad was this cool.”

“Would you have believed me?” she replied, thankful that her voice sounded light and casual.

Apparently thinking about it, Jerem finally gave a reluctant shrug. “Probably not.”

Thorn himself paused by the high counter that separated the kitchen from the informal dining area where Miala and Jerem usually ate. The house of course had a proper dining room, but it only saw use once or twice a year. He watched her and her son with that same careful dark gaze she remembered so well, and again she wondered what he was thinking. His next words were ordinary enough, however. “That smells good,” he said. “What’s for dinner?”

Feeling right at home already, aren’t you, Thorn?
Miala thought, but she only replied, “Steaks and red-eye crab. I assume that’s all right—or did you become a vegetarian over the past few years?”

He almost smiled. “Hardly.”

And he stayed there, watching as she busied herself in the kitchen and had Jerem set the table for dinner. That was one of her son’s usual chores. Although she had a housekeeper mech to make sure the house stayed clean, Miala had never been comfortable with owning an array of domestic mechanoids the way some of their neighbors did. Possibly it was simply because she had been raised to do for herself. Jerem occasionally complained about his chores, few as they might be, but she thought it better that he learn how to do these things himself instead of simply asking a mech to take care of them for him. Somehow she believed that Thorn would have approved.

It was impossible to ignore that watchful figure across the room. Jerem continued to pepper his father with questions as the boy went about his task, but Thorn somehow managed to remain noncommittal without actually seeming rude. And Jerem apparently didn’t notice how little information the mercenary was revealing. He seemed happy enough just to be spending time in his father’s company.

Not until they were all seated, and the first platefuls of food had been served, did Miala finally turn to Jerem and say, “Risa called this afternoon.”

Her son paused mid-bite, staring back at her with wide brown eyes.

Miala tried to keep a smile from pulling at her mouth. Jerem of course knew what she was about to say—they had been through this countless times before—but his face was pleading with her not to reveal anything in front of Eryk Thorn. However, she had already decided that she would not keep this from the mercenary.

“She told me an interesting story about that prank you pulled, Jerem,” Miala went on. “You really topped yourself this time, didn’t you?”

Thorn looked from Miala to Jerem, a forkful of crab halfway to his mouth. “What prank?”

“Why don’t you tell him, Jerem?”

Her son’s eyes—Thorn’s eyes—narrowed. “It was no big deal,” Jerem muttered.

“That’s not what Risa—or Dr. Chand—thought,” said Miala, before she took a sip of her wine.

“Dr. Chand?” Thorn inquired.

“The principal at Jerem’s school.”

“Who has no sense of humor,” Jerem complained. But then he glanced over at Eryk Thorn, who kept watching his son steadily, no expression on his dark face. It was fairly obvious he wouldn’t get any support there. With a sigh, Jerem said, “We reprogrammed the holo-sign at school to say something different. No big.”

“What did you program it to say?” asked the mercenary. His tone was even, betraying no curiosity.

Jerem dug his fork into a piece of steak and smeared the morsel around on his plate, staring down as if the pattern of juices it left behind fascinated him. “Well...”

Thorn said nothing, apparently content to wait however long it took for Jerem to reply.

With a sigh, the boy muttered, “It said, ‘Free Nova Angeles.’”

Miala thought she saw the faintest quiver of the muscle in Thorn’s cheek, as if he had just repressed the urge to smile. But she doubted that Jerem would have noticed the twitch—she’d been looking for it, whereas her son had immediately cast his eyes back down toward his plate after he’d made his confession.

A short pause. Then Thorn asked simply, “Why?”

“‘Why’ what?” Jerem said.

“What was the point?”

The boy scowled and then met Thorn’s bland stare. “We just thought it would be funny,” he said, his voice taking on the sulky tone Miala recognized from countless other confrontations.

“Ah.” The mercenary lifted his own neglected glass of wine and took a sip, then set it back down. Then he said, “Your ancestors weren’t the original settlers here.”

“Well, duh.”

“Jerem,” said Miala, her tone a warning, and the boy seemed to deflate a little.

“They teach you about the Angel’s Flight expedition in school?” Thorn asked.

“Yeah,” Jerem said, his tone wary, as if he suspected a trap but wasn’t sure from which direction it would be sprung.

Eryk Thorn speared a piece of steak on the point of his knife. “So did they teach you about how the original colony here was set up to be independent of the Consortium, only to have Gaia decide Nova Angeles was too rich a prize to let go that easily? They teach you about the property seizures and the internments?”

Jerem bit his lip. Suddenly he looked even younger than his eight standard years. “Ye—es,” he faltered.

The mercenary lifted the piece of steak to his mouth and chewed it deliberately before continuing. “So why would you think it was funny?”

Miala couldn’t help but feel for her son as he sat there, staring back at Eryk Thorn and looking suddenly stricken. It was quite obvious that Jerem hadn’t even paused to consider all the ramifications of his prank.

To his credit, though, he lifted his chin a little and met his father’s watchful gaze. “I don’t know,” Jerem said finally.

For a second father and son faced off, identical eyes staring back at one another in a face different only in the years it had lived. Then Miala saw just the slightest softening in Thorn’s features, even as he said, “Well, you’ll learn,” and stabbed at another piece of steak.

Jerem seemed to sag in his chair; it was no easy thing to be faced down by Eryk Thorn, even if he did happen to be your father. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, in a very small voice.

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” Eryk Thorn replied, and Jerem squirmed slightly in his seat. “Maybe the people whose ancestors were disenfranchised or downright murdered, or to your mother—or maybe this Risa, since she had to clean up your messes while Miala was off-planet.”

“Sorry,” Jerem said, and even though he uttered the word in barely above a whisper, he did sound as if he meant it.

“Accepted.” Miala spoke immediately before Thorn could say anything else. Jerem might be occasionally thoughtless, but he wasn’t cruel—she could tell that Eryk Thorn’s words had had an impact.

The years had taught her not to dwell on Jerem’s mistakes—once he realized what he had done wrong, he never repeated the offense. True, he usually came up with new and inventive ways to get into trouble, but as aggravated as she got at times, Miala always recognized his mishaps as being born from a soul that simply needed to test its limits. There had never been anything malicious in his actions.

She sent a beseeching look in Thorn’s direction, and the mercenary nodded slightly. He raised the wine glass to his mouth once more and drank, then said, “I got into trouble often as not, myself. Let me tell you about this one time I had a tangle with a crime lord called Gared Tomas—”

And he launched into a tale she would have thought highly unlikely if anyone else had told it. Knowing Thorn, however, it was probably no more than the simple truth.

The rest of the evening passed quietly enough. Jerem still had homework, although he protested mightily having to do it at all, considering Thorn’s presence in the house. But after the mercenary reminded Jerem that he had promised to stay for as long as he could and would most likely be here far longer than just this one night, Jerem had taken himself off to his room, looking very put upon.

His absence left Miala staring awkwardly at Thorn and wondering what on earth they would do next. The table had been cleared and the kitchen tidied. She had no other necessary tasks to distract her. On a normal evening she would have retired to her office if Jerem had his own schoolwork to occupy him, or, lacking that, they would have sat down and watched a vid together. But none of those homely pursuits seemed at all appropriate for Eryk Thorn.

He spoke first. “He’s a good kid.”

How had Thorn known exactly the right thing to say? Miala smiled. “I think so.”

“But a handful,” he added.

“Were you any different?” she countered, and a corner of the mercenary’s mouth lifted.

An odd expression crossed Thorn’s dark eyes. “Worse. Much worse.”

“Care to elaborate?” Despite her diffidence, Miala moved closer to the mercenary. His expression—as much of it as there was, at least—seemed to be an odd mixture of bitterness and wry humor.

Thorn shook his head. “That’s a story for another night. Past is done, anyhow.” Then he looked over at her, and again she saw that quirk at the corner of his mouth. “What’s the kid’s bedtime?”

Puzzled, Miala slowly replied, “Usually around 21:00. Sometimes half-past, if he has a lot of homework.”

Thorn’s gaze slid past her to the chrono on the kitchen wall. “So about two standard.”

She nodded, and then her brain caught up to what he was driving at. No doubt the harsh overhead lighting in the kitchen illuminated her sudden blush perfectly.

“I didn’t rescue you from Murgan to worry about some kid playing chaperone,” Thorn said, and the sudden swift look he gave her made the blood flame even further in her cheeks. “I need to check on a few things. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Check on what?” she asked, but she knew he probably wouldn’t give her a straight answer.

But he surprised her. “My ship, for one. The rest isn’t important.”

“Of course not.”

Thorn pulled her to him then, and kissed her hard on the mouth. She didn’t have time to react before he released her and began to move toward the front door.

“Don’t you need the code?” she asked desperately.

“Sixteen two aught five, right?”

It was pointless asking how he had gotten the key code to her home security system. He’d only give her another one of those infuriating smirks. Instead, Miala watched him slip away into the night, feeling still the pressure of his mouth against hers, and forced herself to wait.

Hours passed. Jerem was finally put to bed at almost 22:00, protesting that he wanted to see his father before he went to sleep. It was only after Miala showed her son that truly the two of them were the only ones in the house that he settled down and at least pretended to go to sleep, although his sulky expression boded ill for Thorn. Her explanation that the mercenary had business to take care of had not sat very well with the boy, but it was the only excuse she could give Jerem. Truth be told, she wasn’t altogether thrilled with the situation herself. So the high and mighty mercenary couldn’t bear to spend a few quiet hours in the house with her? Too dull, perhaps? At least she wasn’t so boring that he didn’t want to spend the night with her!