Page 40 of Star Prince

One corner of her mouth quirked, he thought, but he couldn’t be certain. His humor always seemed to startle her. It was as if no one had ever dared to tease her.

Maybe no one else had.

To his pleasure, she put away her weaving. “I don’t talk much,” she admitted in a softer voice.

An insistent yowl interrupted him before he could reply.

“Crat.The kettacat.” Lara jumped off the chair and scrambled down the gangway to the front hatch, where a thin, scarred kettacat waited.

It ran to her, gurgling, rubbing its side against hercalves. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, but didn’t reach down to stroke the kettacat. It mewed loudly.

“I thought I told you to leave,” she said, nudging it gently with her leg. “It’s been following me all over town. Then today it trailed me here.” She spread her hands. “Go. There’s no home for you here.”

“Let it be,” Gann said. “I’ll bring out our leftovers later.”

“And then it will think it can stay. Good-bye,” she told the kettacat. But the pitiful creature continued to rub itself around and in between her legs, its fur swishing against the plush sea green fabric of her pants.

Lara stood still, her arms limp at her sides. She appeared utterly baffled by the cat’s unconditional love. Gann was equally mystified by her apparent inability to accept affection of any sort. For that his heart went out to her—not in pity, but in stark admiration. To be so emotionally crippled, she must have survived something horrific. But instead of living the rest of her life cowering in the shadows, a victim of circumstance, she had learned to be a repo pilot and a tracker.

“Dinner’s getting cold,” he said.

“I’ll warm it.” She appeared to jump at the chance to avoid the kettacat. Without another word, she left Gann and the stray alone on the entry ramp.

The creature watched her go. Then it lifted itsmournful silver-green eyes to Gann and mewed.

“Dinner? Sure, why not?” he replied. “You’re a lot more talkative than my partner there.” He scooped up the kettacat with one hand. “Now, how about we go see if any of it rubs off on her?”

When Lara walked out of the galley holding a crock of stew in her hands, Gann was already waiting for her, his booted feet crossed at the ankle, his fingers laced over his stomach. The kettacat darted out from under the chair and began rubbing itself against her legs. She set the crock so firmly on the table that he expected the cookware to break. One of Lara’s bracelets jarred loose, and he caught it before it rolled off the edge.

He noticed she said nothing about the kettacat. She sat and held out her hand. “I’ll take the bracelet,” she said.

He studied the delicate bauble before giving it back to her. “It’s a lovely piece,” he admitted. “You’re very good.”

Her expression vacillated between annoyance and pleasure as she ladled stew into her bowl and then Gann’s, belatedly, as if it were an afterthought. “I’ve woven silver for years.”

“You’re always wearing different pieces. Where do you keep them all?”

“I don’t. I pull them apart and begin again.”

“Hmm,” he said between bites of stew. “That fits.”

She raised a brow. “Is that supposed to mean anything?”

“It fits your personality.” He tore off a hunk of bread and used it to soak up broth. “You don’t appear to be attached to anyone or anything.”

She sputtered. “If this is your idea of conversation, I—”

“Lara.” He spread his hands. “I am trying to get to know you, for no reason other than that I want to.”

She contemplated him for a long moment, her gaze searching, as if she were truly seeing him for the first time since they had struck up their odd partnership. Using his heightened instincts, honed from years of training and bajha, he sensed the wounded soul within her.

“I don’t mind solitude,” she said, then went back to eating with pointed concentration.

His ruefulness of late invaded him. “I don’t, either. It’s why I chose this life. I’ve long, and willingly, put my personal wishes aside for my duty. Yet, with each passing year, I become more aware of what I lack in my life.”

He noticed that she had stopped eating. “And what is that?” she almost whispered, searching his face.

“Someone with whom I can bare my soul.”

---