Page 24 of Jewel of the Sea

“I was just leaving the clinic.”

“Closing early?”

“No one wants to brave this weather.”

“Except Miss Rhodes, apparently,” Randall said from beside her.

“Is that so?” Aiden chuckled. His gaze dipped to her skirt, which was dripping enough to have formed a small puddle on the floor beneath her.

“Sorry. Randall caught me while I was walking home.” She seated herself on a stool at the bar.

Randall sat next to her, leaning forward with his forearms atop the bar. “How about a couple mugs of that mulled cider?”

“Sure, just a few minutes,” Aiden said, giving them his back.

“It rains like this back in Fort Culver during the wet season, too. The river that runs nearby always floods and washes out the bridge,” Randall said.

“Every time?”

“They’ve had to rebuild it almost every dry season for as long as I can remember. They make it a little higher each time. I think it’ll get to a point where they build it so high, it’ll just tips over on its own, without any flooding necessary.”

Aymee laughed, and Randall smiled; the expression touched his eyes and lit up his face.

Why hadn’t she reacted to him the same way she did Arkon? He was a physically attractive man and seemed to be a decent person, once she looked past his wanting to hunt her friends, but she felt only a flicker of interest that dissipated as quickly as the smoke from a freshly extinguished candle.

“Why don’t they build a floating bridge?” she asked.

“There was a pre-fab bridge placed there during the colonization. Was supposed to be sturdy enough to last until production facilities were up and going and something permanent could be constructed.” He shook his head. “That’s most of the stuff on this world, right? It wasn’t meant to last this long. So, when that original bridge collapsed into the river, the people built the best replacement they could. Didn’t have the parts to make anything like the dock you have here.”

“Here you go!” Aiden set two steaming mugs in front of them and moved off to speak with someone else.

Aymee wrapped her chilled hands around the cup and slid it closer. “Do you think it was always the plan to drop us off with this stuff and abandon us here?”

Randall lifted his mug and sipped at it, wincing. “Always burn my mouth on the first drink, but this stuff is so damned good.”

Aymee chuckled.

He lowered his drink and stared into the steam. “I don’t think that was the plan at all. Something happened here on Halora, and something happened out there — a war, I think — and it all just kind of fell apart. They forgot about us after that.”

“I’ve always found it strange that we know so little about that history. Like this place. Why is it called The Watch? What were they watching for? I always assumed it was because of the lookouts at the lighthouse watching for storms, but that doesn’t feel like the right answer.”

“Your guess is as good as mine on that. All I really know is that Fort Culver was a military base, originally, and when everything went bad, my ancestors received a final order: defend the remaining humans against anything that comes, to the last man.”

Aymee raised her mug and blew away the steam before taking a careful sip. The pairing of heat and sweetness was almost overwhelming. “So, you’ve been trained from birth to be a ranger?”

“Yeah. My father’s in charge back home, and the tradition of it is considered a big deal.” He shifted his voice to a deeper timbre. “For three hundred and sixty-one years, every member of our family has served the people of Halora in this capacity, and you will, too.”

She arched a brow. “Must have been pretty intimidating to hear that growing up.”

Randall chuckled and took another sip of cider. “It was. I resented him for it, you know? But I understand. Sometimes it seems like everything on this planet is designed to kill us, even the damned plants. So we’re the ones who go out and kill it first. It’s not glamourous work, but it’s important.”

So we’re the ones who go out and kill it first.

Aymee dropped her gaze to her drink; it was cooling but retained a comforting warmth that she focused on to ground her thoughts. Their conversation didn’t need to continue down that path.

“Do you have any other family, Randall?”

“Yeah, I have a sister. Larkin. Everyone calls her Elle.”

---