Page 12 of Kiss of Steel

Noise? Did he mean her teeth chattering? “I’m f-f-freezing.” The squawking eggers didn’t bother him, but her teeth chattering did? This was the last straw. “Y-y-you’re an ass-h-h-hole.”

He muttered something and grabbed his duffel. He dug around inside and pulled out a jacket and tossed it at her. “Here. Now, stop that.”

She itched to throw it in his face, but pride wouldn’t keep her from freezing. She could be hypothermic by the time they got to the ranch. She shrugged into it without a thanks. If he could be rude, so could she. The jacket dwarfed her; she could have wrapped it around herself twice, but lined with faux fur, it was blissfully warm. She shoved her frozen hands into the voluminous pockets and hunkered down into the coat.

* * * *

She resembled a turtle with the jacket pulled up to her ears, leaving only the top half of her face and the choppy, wind-tousled mop visible.What the hell did she do to her hair?In the hologram, she’d had a fall of glossy, whiskey-colored locks that had gleamed in the light.

A human male might have deemed her long locks beautiful. Such flights of fancy never crossed his mind, but he did notice details. Paying attention to subtleties meant the difference between life and death. The slightest quirk in facial expression, a shifting glance, a pupillary contraction, a tiny bead of perspiration—all could spell trouble. If he assessed face and body language correctly, the other guy died. If he erred, he died. An assassin dealing with the dregs of humanity didn’t get a second shot.

But were all targets irredeemably evil? Again, his mind wandered back to the conundrum. He’d been told so, but some hadn’t seemed like it, and that had planted a seed of doubt that maybe Solutions had ulterior motives. It wasn’t a cyborg’s place to question orders, but once he’d started, the genie escaped from the bottle, and he couldn’t get it back in. Doubt had infiltrated every mission from that point forward.

Which had led to his current situation. He swept his gaze over Refuge’s desolate landscape. Whenever he’d imagined what freedom might be like, he hadn’t pictured posing as a human with awife.Who’d a thunk?His lips twisted.

In a fit of pique, his new wife had called him an asshole.I’m so much worse than an asshole.He was one of those monsters she mentioned.

The chattering had stopped, and her nose wasn’t quite as pink as it had been.

In the enclosed wagon, her scent—something warm, fragrant, pleasant—aroused a funny, foreign, uncomfortable ache. So, he focused on the negatives—the travesty done to her hair, the clickety-click of her teeth.

He’d given her his jacket. What else could he have done? It was either that or listen to the incessant racket. He couldn’t let her freeze. It wouldn’t bode well for his longevity at Refuge if he rolled up to Haven Ranch with a frozen, dead wife.

“Are you warmer now?” he asked unnecessarily, since she’d ceased shivering and chattering. He’d thought himself averse to conversation, but her husky, smooth contralto sounded the way aged whiskey tasted. He didn’t often get to indulge in spirits, but he enjoyed them when he could. A good whiskey had been one of his few pleasures.

“Yes, Jason, thank you.”

My name is Steel.The words poised on the tip of his tongue. He’d arbitrarily adopted the name Jason when meeting Mike Fury. But why couldn’t he be Jason? New life, new wife, new name. He’d at least chosen it himself, unlike Steel, which had been assigned to him by his creator.

“What kind of job did Refuge give you?” he asked.

“I’m supposed to work in the co-op, the store.”

“You did that kind of work on Earth?”

“No, I was a secretary. I don’t suppose they need secretaries at a ranch.” She peered over the collar of the secondhand coat. Her eyes were the color of Scotch. “What about you?”

“Ranch hand.”

“Have you done that kind of work before?”

“No.”

“So, this will be your first time wrangling livestock.” Her eyes twinkled.

“I ’spec so,” he drawled, surprising himself with a joke.

She glanced at the eggers. “I wonder what kind of animals they have here. If they’re like cows or horses. Llamas.”

“Hornigers.”

“What’s that?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. But I heard that’s what they have on the ranch.”

“All of this is new to both of us,” she stated.

Newer to him than her. She at least had experience being human.

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