Page 17 of Tempting Jupiter
“No,” he said. “But I will tell you what I often tell him. Even an excellent strategy cannot guarantee success.”
“If something can go wrong, it will go wrong?” She wrinkled her nose. “Damn, you’re a pessimist. I hate pessimists.”
Secretly, Feeona agreed with him, but she had no intention of telling him. Plans and schedules were her way of minimizing the number of things that could go wrong. They gave her a sense of control that helped her keep a calm head. It was the best way she knew to deal with those things that inevitably did go wrong. “I—”
Jupiter tensed. His ears flicked, then he sprung to his feet in a blur of motion. He faced the doorway like a man ready to go into battle.
Feeona froze. “What is it?”
His ears flicked again, but he didn’t face her. “Someone’s coming.”
She got to her feet and put a hand on his shoulder. “I thought you were going to wait until the ship got to the station to try to escape.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked, but his stance eased.
She smoothed her palm along the bare muscle in a caress of regret, then let her hand fall to her side. He radiated heat and his body was all muscle. He was solid and vital and real and that made it all the harder to focus on the reason she was on theSalley Ho. “They’re coming for me, not you. I wish there was something more I could do to help you, but I can’t stay and I can’t take you with me.”
He looked at her then. His eyebrows bunched together and she knew he thought she was losing touch with reality.
“If you don’t start trouble,” she said. “Fitz won’t hurt you. He wants you and your friend alive. Believe that, if nothing else I’ve said. That will give you power and some room to work in.”
“Seneca is with them.” Jupiter spoke softly, as if the words were for his own benefit rather than hers.
Feeona tried to inject some much-needed optimism into her voice. “That means he’s okay, right?”
Jupiter nodded.
“That’s great. So, good luck.” In all the universe, why had he landed in her path and why now? Her stomach bunched. If things were different…
The sound of boots in the corridor drew her attention back to the doorway. Jupiter must have amazing sensory abilities. He’d alerted her long before Bug would have been able to detect the men approaching.
“Damn.” She’d forgotten Bug, and that was a measure of how distracted she’d been by the man in the bunk. Feeona closed her eyes, disrupted the camera and sent the call for Bug.
By the time Fitz strode through the doorway, her eyes were open and Bug had crawled into her recently re-coiffed hair. Jupiter had been right about Seneca. He was there with a half-dozen men pointing stingers and pulse pistols at him.
She could almost feel the tug between the two Arena Dogs, but Jupiter backed away, giving Fitz no reason to delay opening the security field. She wanted to hug him for being so cooperative.
Feeona focused her attention on the captain. “If you’re thinking of putting three of us in here, Fitz, I’m going to have to file a complaint.”
Fitz approached the hand control pad and waited as one of his men poked Seneca in the ribs. The jab didn’t seem to bother the Arena Dog, but Seneca stepped forward, hands secured behind his back.
Fitz eyed Jupiter. “Stay right there, or your friend here will have a zero distance pulse blast through the back. Mattie, you’re stepping out. You,” he said to Seneca. “You’re going in.”
Fitz didn’t even bother to sneer or take any verbal jabs at Feeona and that worried her some.
“Problem, Fitz?” Feeona kept her voice light.
Fitzhew scowled at her. “We have an Alliance patroller grabbing on. Apparently, they tracked you to me. They were looking for you because you’ve got warrants.” Fitz humphed. “Knew you were a damned criminal.”
He triggered the controls and the pulse field fizzed off. Feeona stepped out as Seneca stepped in. She thought she heard a low-pitched “thank you” as they passed, shoulder to shoulder. Behind her, the pulse field buzzed back into place.
“Well, at least the Alliance has better accommodations.” She kept the chipper note in her voice, but the tightness in her throat made it difficult. Leaving Jupiter and Seneca behind made her stomach churn.
One of Fitz’s crew grabbed her arm and yanked her around, putting her back to him. It left her facing the small cell. She watched the two Arena Dogs as the guy behind her jerked her lower arms together. The cool press of plasmold restraints against her wrists didn’t worry her, but she wished the incompetent bastard would hurry. The connection clear between Jupiter and Seneca squeezed her heart and Jupiter’s glance her way only added to the constriction in her throat.
He wasn’t expecting anything from her and she owed him nothing. So why was walking away making her head hurt and her belly ache? She had other priorities. Life and death priorities.
Sometimes the universe was a bitch.
