When Sparks Fly (4 page)

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. “The government was kind enough to replace my eyes with
cybernetic implants. I can see colors, but my depth perception will
never be what it was.”

He didn’t have to explain his lack of scars;
she understood about skin regeneration. “You weave when you walk,”
she said softly, finally understanding. “But you haven’t been
weaving lately.”

He grimaced. “I finally checked into the
clinic the other day. They activated my compensation chip. I
haven’t wanted it installed; there were bugs in the early versions
and some of the vets went insane. I was finally…” He shrugged. “I
had it installed.”

She digested that. “I’m sorry I thought you
were a drunk.”

He smiled crookedly. “So, I’m not. Does that
mean you’ll go to bed with me?”

“No!” she gasped.

“So much for the aid and comfort due a
suffering vet.”

Her eyes narrowed, for she was suddenly
suspicious. “Did you make all that up?”

He opened his eyes innocently. “Did I?”

Growling, she turned and headed for the
house. He was a liar! Or was he? Maybe it was time she called in a
favor.

“Have you got everything?”

Xera looked at Brandy and half smiled. “You
asked me that three times already.”

“Well, it’s a little far to come back for
something you forgot,” Brandy snapped. “You’d better send us mail
every chance you get, and don’t leave anything out.”

“Would I do that?” Xera smiled, in a good
mood now that her day to leave had finally arrived. “Are you sure
you don’t want to come to the spaceport to see me off?”

“Why? I’d only get to see you for an hour
more, at best. Besides, somebody has to look after this place.”
Brandy gave her a hug and managed a strained smile. “Be good.”

“I will. I’ll make you proud,” Xera
promised, misty-eyed.

“You already have,” Brandy replied, her own
eyes shimmering. “Go on with you. You’ll miss your flight.”

Gem picked up one of Xera’s bags and
grunted. She dropped it back on the ground with a thud. “What did
you pack in here, bricks?”

Xera smirked and hefted the bag onto her
shoulder. “You can get the carry-on, shorty.”

“Watch it, squirt. I can still take you,”
Gem warned, though she doubted she could. Her sister was six feet
tall and built like a tank. She’d also been in martial arts
training for years.

The smaller bags were heavy, but Gem made
sure she didn’t look like she was straining. It wouldn’t do to let
the young ones think they had anything on her.

Hyna Blue met them in the front drive, next
to the waiting transport. “I need a few hours off,” he said. “I
have some things to do.”

Gem was distracted, so she demanded out of
habit, “What?”

“Things,” he replied.

“Like what?”

“Stuff at the clinic,” Blue said. He sounded
irritable. “I have an appointment.”

“Oh. Sure,” Gem decided. “I guess Brandy can
introduce you to Jean Luc later. We’ve got to go before Xera’s
late.”

She wondered why Blue hadn’t mentioned his
appointment yesterday but promptly put it out of her mind. She had
more important things to consider than what her gardener did with
his time. She’d put in a call yesterday to an old school-friend at
the cop shop, as the locals referred to their police station. The
friend had looked up Blue’s record and confirmed he’d served time
in prison with a military transfer, where he’d fought in the
Interplanetary Council’s peacekeeping forces. As for the rest, the
friend couldn’t say.

“Will you stop thinking about him?” Xera
made a face as the transport moved away from The Spark. “At this
rate I’ll come back and you’ll be engaged. Gem Harrisdaughter Blue.
What a stupid name.”

“You make it sound like I’m in love. I’m
not,” Gem retorted. “There’s a mystery about him, is all.”

“A fatal fascination,” Xera agreed dryly.
“Forget it. I’m sure I’ll have my share of bad love stories, too.
We can laugh about them when I get back.” She grinned. “I can’t
believe I’m actually going! Sometimes I thought this day would
never get here.”

“We’ll see if you’re still excited when
you’re running around at five AM, dressed in that truly ugly
uniform.” Gem smiled, knowing her sister better than she implied.
Xera would mind neither the schedule nor the clothing.

“I’m not the one who has problems with
mornings, remember? I just hope the guy who set the fire gets
caught. At least you still have Brandy and Jaq to help you…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Gem said. “The
police think it was a one-shot deal. We can hope they’ll know more
soon. At any rate, you need to focus on your studies. If you want
to learn to pilot a starship, you’d better pay attention.
Daydreaming about home might send you crashing into an asteroid or
something.”

The transport pulled up at the field. There
was a dizzying amount of traffic taking off and landing, both
airships that hopped between Polaris’s island asteroids and craft
designed for deeper space. Off to the side Gem and Xera could see
the construction of a coming spaceport expansion.

They paid the transport driver and entered
the far terminal. A stream of passengers lined up for Xera’s
off-world flight. A voice came over a loudspeaker, announcing that
the ship was boarding.

Gem’s sister took a deep breath. “This is
it. Thanks for everything, sis. I love you.” She gave Gem a
crushing hug.

Gem sighed and willed her tears not to fall.
“I hope the GE appreciates what they’re getting. I’m sending them
half my family. I love you. Be strong.”

Her sister gave her another hug and got in
line. Gem watched until Xera boarded the big blue ship, then turned
away. Xera couldn’t see her now, anyway, so there was no point in
waiting.

She could hardly focus as she shuffled out
to hail a transport home. Her sadness was overwhelming; it would be
at least a year before she saw her sister again, maybe longer.
There was no point in hurrying back to mope around the inn. Maybe
she should take the day off and just shop or something. Distracted
as she was, the first stinging blow to her head was a surprise and
she lurched sideways. It felt like she’d been grazed with a small
rock. She reached for the bruise…and got tackled by a gorilla.

Gem grunted in pain as the sidewalk caught
her hip, but the grassy strip beside the pavement absorbed the
worst of the fall. Whoever had grabbed her now rolled and dragged
her up behind him, ran them back toward the terminal. He ducked
them behind a concrete pillar and pressed her between his body and
the stone.

She caught a glimpse of his face. “Blue!
What are you…?”

A chip exploded off the stone right by their
faces. Hyna Blue moved them to the other side. “Be still! Don’t you
know we’re being shot at?”

Shot at? Gem froze, then gingerly reached up
to feel her head. A smear of blood came away on her finger. Water
replaced her knees.

“Not now,” Blue hissed, holding her upright.
“You can wet yourself later.”

That roused her. “I’m not going to…!”

“Wait.” He looked around the pillar.
Whatever he saw made him ease out from behind it. “It’s clear.
Looks like my buddy Zsak winged him.”

Confused, Gem let Blue drag her out from
behind their concrete shield. A big blond guy in an old transport
waved at them. “He shot the guy?”

“Just a graze, but we don’t want him coming
back for a second try at you. Your attacker shot at you from a
transport on the street. As soon as Zsak fired on him, he raced
off.”

“Did you see? What are you doing here,
anyway?”

Blue towed her toward it, using his body to
block hers. “Let’s get out of here before the cops swarm the place.
I don’t want to stand around answering stupid questions.”

She didn’t see why not, but he hustled her
into the backseat of the roofless transport and slammed the
door.

“Hi,” the blond guy said. He had a handlebar
mustache and goatee, but his hair was close-cropped.

“Who are you?” Gem demanded, trying to get
her bearings. She touched her wounded head again.

“Get down!” Blue hissed, and shoved her down
on the floorboards between his legs. He leaned over where she
crouched, covering her. “You don’t need to make it easy for
them.”

“Zsak. Nice to meet you,” the blond guy said
casually, driving like a maniac. They narrowly missed hitting a big
fuel transport.

“Here, let me see that.” Blue shifted so he
could inspect her head. He whistled. “You’re lucky the guy wasn’t a
better shot.”

“Who would want to shoot me?” Gem asked,
bewildered.

He shrugged. “Maybe the guy who tried to
burn down your inn?”

“The police thought that was random.”

He looked at the blood on his hand. “This
doesn’t look random to me.”

Faintness caught her again.