Page 34 of Escape Velocity

She kept staring at the bracelet. “This is beautiful. But you shouldn’t have gotten it for me. Not now.”

“I wanted to,” he answered, not quite sure why he had done it. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

They were back in the Golden Fleece a few minutes later. As soon as they were inside the ship, he heard Amber let out a sigh of relief.

“Yeah,” he agreed as he stripped off the extra clothing he was wearing. When he pulled his arm through the sleeve, he gritted his teeth.

She stared at the charred fabric of his sleeve. “Your burn! I wasn’t even thinking about it.”

“I’ll take care of it later.”

She pulled off the headgear he’d made her wear and stripped away the two dresses over her shirt and pants.

Turning, he headed for the bridge, and she followed, plopping into the copilot’s seat beside him and leaning back with another long sigh.

He gave her a quick glance, noting the way the color had drained from her skin. He knew she was reacting to her close brush with disaster, but he didn’t have time to deal with that now.

After checking the fuel readout and seeing that he had almost a full charge, he signaled his departure to the controller. Five minutes later, they were out of there. He didn’t know his ultimate destination, but he figured the nearest asteroid belt would be a good interim stopping point.

As they pulled away from the station, Amber spoke. “You should be angry with me.”

“Who says I’m not.”

“You didn’t beat me.”

“I don’t beat women,” he snapped. Turning toward her, he added, “I’ll deal with you later. Now, I need to pilot us to somewhere safer.”

“I should get out of your way.”

He felt some of his tension drain away when she left the control room. He didn’t really want to talk to her. But her conversation with the bastards kept playing in his head. Had she betrayed him? Or what? For his own safety, he had to find out, but he wanted to wait until he felt in control of his emotions before he heard any answers she had to give him. Plus, he’d better be sharp enough to know when she was lying.

He remembered the pipe coming down on his head. He’d been out for about a minute, the shop lady had said. Maybe he had a concussion. Maybe that accounted for his out-of-pattern reactions.

While he set the ship’s course, he couldn’t stop questions about Amber from swirling in his mind. What did she mean about the situation being “her fault?” And how had she tricked him? He was pretty sure she’d done something he wasn’t going to like hearing about.

Because he didn’t want to deal with Amber, he stayed in the pilot’s chair for several hours, simply focusing on the task of putting distance between the Golden Fleece and Freedom Station. As he felt his energy draining like a fuel cell with a leak, he acknowledged that the ship was better off using the automatic pilot. He set a course for a spot in the asteroid belt where he had hidden out before.

As he made his way down the companionway, he noted that the door to Amber’s cabin was closed, and he knew she was staying out of his way, which was a wise move at the moment. He thought of knocking and asking if he could trust her while he got some sleep. Imagining that confrontation made him snort. Why bother if he couldn’t trust her answer?

He stopped in the head, used the facilities, then got out the medical kit and pulled off his shirt. He’d been too busy to think about the burn, but removing the shirt made the scorched skin sting like a bastard. Still, as he examined the damage, he could see it was only superficial. He slapped on some healing salve, then gingerly touched the spot on his head where he’d been hit. It was sore, but he decided the best thing to do was leave it alone.

Leaning toward the mirror, he checked his pupils. They were the same size. That was good, but was it all right for him to sleep?

Knowing he didn’t have a choice about that, he went to his cabin where he dimmed the lights, kicked off his boots, shoved his beamer into a storage compartment, and flopped onto the bed.

Almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.

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He woke sometime later when he felt the mattress shift.In the dim light that had switched on, he saw Amber sitting on the side of the bed. She was wearing one of the dresses he’d pulled from the boxes. In their mad rush to fashion a disguise, it had done nothing to improve her appearance. But she’d arranged it in a different way, and now it looked sexy.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked.

He flexed his arm. The salve had helped. “Yes. The burn wasn’t deep.”

“I’m glad.” She swung her legs up onto the mattress. And rolled to her side so that she was lying with her body wedged against his.

He could have pushed her away. Instead he asked, “What are you doing?”

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