Domestic Duet: Domestic Alliance & Asset (37 page)

“Wait up for me.” He jogged off as the shuttle left the ground in a hush and whisper to slink away into the atmosphere. They were a family now.

Chapter 21

On the station, after getting a message from Leslie, Ryner’s wife, that the housekeeper took Norese to their home, she picked her up. After filing her report and logging Savannah, Timothy, and Theresa as new citizens, she took them to guest civilian housing. The three of them were placed in the same quarters for the night, similar to Sadie’s, only on the civilian end of the station away from the engine room and docking bay.

Inside, Sadie watched Savannah studying her with Timothy. Norese clung to Sadie's back, arms tight around her neck. Sadie waited to see what she would say or ask along with Theresa. She'd told both women everything about the government knowing of the karuntee and Richard abusing the treaty by undercutting the commander and trading in contaminated fuel.

She couldn’t keep her mind off Aroc, or Oliver for that matter. One she loved from her soul and the other she cared about, from her heart.

"So you were recruited by this Captain Ryner to work up here?" her sister asked, eyeing the other faces as they dialed in their meal of choice from the replicator, pushing buttons as if they would explode.

"I was kidnapped by Aroc and held against my will for a month. The commander found out and knew I couldn't just be returned to earth, not with what all I'd seen.” Sadie paused, watched the ladies absorbing her words, and waited until the glassy doe eyes receded back to their normal stare. “He found out I worked for the Edwards, then explained everything to me about domestic help being a front to spy on those hurting the earth and the planets."

"Are all maids in this program?" Savannah asked, gripping Timothy in her lap now.

"No. It’s by choice. The commander recruits from domestic help on Earth. They don't have to join, but he'll erase their memory if they don't."

"Did this Farkus...hurt you, sister?"

Being sheltered from other races is harmful to mental growth.

“Captain Aroc Farkus is an alien,” she admitted eyeing her sister. “Has he ever hit me or tortured me… is that what you’re probing me to know?”

“You know what I mean, Sadie. Did he force you to have sex?”

“No—”

“So, you like living with him?”

“I don’t live with him…yet.”

“And you have sex with…him?”

What next Theresa?
Did she go down on him? Would that be the next rude question from her mouth? This wasn’t like her sister to be so crude.

“You’re rattled. I understand this is a lot to take in. So why don’t you get settled, have a hot shower, then tomorrow with fresh eyes and some rest, we’ll sort out everything.”

“You like it, don’t you? Like him or it or whatever you call a karuntian.”

She did. “He wants to be as good a father to Norese as Daddy was to us, and I found that to be his biggest asset. So, yes, I do like him…a lot.”

Getting to her feet, Theresa paced in front of the kitchen space. Her eyes trailed over Norese latched on to Sadie, her little arms secure around Sadie’s neck.

They’d frightened Norese, her little girl.

Is that the way I saw Norese, as mine, my baby? Why not? I’d helped raise her the last year and Norese loved me as any child would a parent. And I’ve loved Norese from my heart.

The sound of her sister’s voice brought her out of her mommy cloud, the warmth hung close.

“Is she okay?" Theresa’s eyes went wide obviously uncertain what she’d done to agitate the toddler.

"Norese hasn’t seen this many humans. She’s cranky. I have to lie down with her or she'll be restless."

"Does she have those same spike weapons I saw on Aroc?" Theresa asked, turning her mouth down into a frown.

Sadie hated Theresa’s persnickety attitude toward anyone different than them, but she understood and felt a measure of pain for being so rough on Oliver.

Sadie touched the little girl's face. "Normally I wouldn't put her on display like this, but if you're going to be up here, I want her comfortable with all of you. Norese sweetie, relax for me." Norese’s small eyes grew wide. A kiss to her forehead and the toddler relaxed. Sadie lifted the little girl’s shirt off her back to show her spine. "They're for protecting herself in a battle, of which I hope she never has to use them." Sadie ran her thumbs along Norese's spine and the spikes slowly raised up from her skin. Norese buried her head under Sadie’s chin. "She doesn't like it, so we're teaching her how to raise them slowly so the sensation doesn't overwhelm her."

Savannah crossed her long legs, holding Timothy in her lap close to her chest. Sadie knew she was uncomfortable with Norese playing with Timothy, but she was still a child and that’s all that mattered to children. Savannah said, "Well, sounds as if you and the karuntee are already a family, Sadie dear. Do you not find human men attractive now? I mean does he act like a man...you know what I mean, suga." Savannah tipped her head in a coquettish angle of southern gentility.

Was he a freak behind doors is what Sadie took the meaning to be.

"Since I no longer work for you, I’ll be frank. Aroc’s sensitive, caring, is an amazing father to Norese, and behind closed doors, he’s a beast.”

“Sadie!” Savannah exclaimed. “You’ve been with him in that way?” She twirled her ankle, her shoes swirling in a sensual motion.

“Sister, you let him play with your...” Her eyes darted from Timothy to Norese before returning to Sadie. “Your, ah, peaches and cream?”

Be brutally honest and they’ll stop asking,
she convinced herself.

“He wasn’t playing,” she admitted with a sultry shiver tickling over her skin. “They have the same needs and desires as humans; at least he does.”

“Aren’t you afraid he might go beast on you one day?”

Sadie heard the implication he was an animal under his skin. “What you see is what you get, Theresa. He doesn’t howl like a wolf man or change into a dog. And if we’re all honest, not every handsome man is attractive.”

“And not every giant is gentle. I’m just looking out for your safety, sister.”

Sadie had to pull back. She’d gone through the same questions when she met him a year ago. “I’m sorry, Theresa. I’m concerned with the battle going on down on Earth right now.”

Savannah shied back behind her polished demeanor. “How long have you been in this program with the government?”

“A year. I’m still the same Sadie you hired eight years ago, just with a different perspective on life and an appreciation for the planet.”

She looked at Theresa leaning forward over her knees, picking at the hem of Sadie’s uniform she now wore.

“Sadie…has Ryner ever tried to recruit me? Or erased my memories? I want to know,” Theresa urged, wringing her hands.

Sadie touched her sister’s knee, shaking her leg. “Captain Ryner only recruited maids, as far as I know. You were safe down at the hospital’s administrative office.” Sadie waited. “You don’t like to cook anyway. Who’d hire you as a maid?”

Theresa sank back in her seat.

“Would you want to be?”

Theresa’s dark eyes glittered nervously. “Never—I just wanted to know if anybody’s been messing with my head… Playing with my memories.” She sat, arms folded over her lap. “I’m just… So this is sanctioned by the government?”

“Not what Aroc did, no,” she said. “But the selling of the fuel to be recycled properly on another planet, yes. Do they know there are humans recruiting ethnic maids to smoke out the troublemakers?” She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware. It was a shock to me when Ryner told me, but by this time, I’d been introduced to many bizarre things courtesy of Captain Aroc. ”

“What happens if you get caught?”

“We have our transporters. Then a cleanup crew’s dispatched to erase the memories of that affected person on Earth.”

Timothy wiggled away from Savannah and sat on his heels on the floor, holding out a hand to Norese. Sadie got down and allowed the little girl to extend a hand to touch Timothy’s. She wasn’t comfortable and scrambled back into her lap.

“Timothy, that was sweet of you to want to play with Norese. Give her some time; she’s still a little shy.”

“How long’s this been going on?” Savannah asked. “Richard cheating the government and making these deals with the aliens?

“I don’t know.” And she hadn’t. No one had ever told her what year or century this had begun, but she knew it hadn’t been recently. Aroc had too much built up anger for humans for it to start last year. “My situation was a little different. It works because some things are kept secret.”

Savannah came down on the floor with Sadie and Norese. “This Karuntee that you’re making a family with…can he…” She wet her lips, her cheeks a bright red with embarrassment. “Can you get pregnant?”

Pictures of Aroc’s nude body warmed her mind, making her sweat beneath her clothes. “Yes. Norese’s mother was human. She died in childbirth.” That pulled at her heart knowing it could very well be her in a year if they weren’t careful.

“You shouldn’t take any chances and use birth control, Sadie,” Theresa warned.

She looked between the women. “So no one has a problem with me being with an alien, just as long as I use protection?”

“Sadie, honey, I may have lost my home and any semblance of my life because Richard tried to steal from the government. I can’t take Timothy back down there and expect to be accepted in society, not the way we were before, and I don’t want my memories tampered with. If living on the moon—”

“Space station, Savannah,” she corrected.

“Space station is the only way to have a second chance, then that’s what I’ll have to do. You’ve been a real friend to me and at one point, I questioned whether I could trust you. Nevertheless, I’ve trusted you with my Timothy since the day he came into our lives. I can’t stop trusting you now.”

Sadie leaned in and hugged Savannah. “You’ve always been a friend, even when others treated their help like a servant. And I don’t say family because that support comes out of a sense of responsibility. A friend is there because the other person matters.”

“You matter, suga, always have.” She cupped her face. “And I can see you didn’t do this lightly, turn my Richard in. Your eyes are just as wet and glossy as mine. I love you, Sadie.”

“I love you too, Savannah. You’re a good person.”

Chapter 22

Sadie snuggled Norese’s warm, limp with sleep body to her shoulder, flurries of red hair floating in the air around her head. The puffs of peanut butter scented breath crossed her face as her little girl snored inches from her mouth. Yes, Norese was hers now and she couldn’t be happier had she given birth to her.

Exhausted, Sadie smiled weakly typing in the code to her home…their home until they moved into Aroc’s place. He did have a bigger place where Norese had her own room and him being over the karuntian’s, he’d need to be accessible to his people. Setting down Norese’s bag on the wall console hatch, Sadie nudged the button with her elbow. The bag slipped down into a funnel that fed the nylon bag into her guest room.

Adjusting the sleeping bundle on her shoulder, she kicked off her loosely tied boots making her way to the kitchen where she replicated a bowl of chicken soup.

“And 6 ounces of earl grey tea...120 degrees, no sweetener,” she added when the voice prompter spoke suggesting a beverage. Lifting the tray, she crossed out of the kitchen to the hall to put Norese to bed. The door buzzer sounded, bringing her attention around to Aroc and Oliver walking through her front door, immersed in deep conversation. The tray clanked on the table as she set it down, sluicing tea over the cup’s rim.

Oliver froze when he glimpsed Norese asleep in her arms.

Aroc crossed the space to hold her by the back of her neck, his thumb tipping her face up to meet his mouth coming down to hers. The familiar kiss quieted her jangled nerves knowing he was okay and in her arms.

When she pulled away to breathe and work the wet, gross vest from his body, remnants of the battle evident everywhere, she settled Norese to his chest. Sadie left the room and tossed the gore-laden vest in the incinerator, stopping to wash her hands before returning to the living room.

Aroc crossed the room to the replicator bar. “Commander—a drink?”

“Blue Ale’s good,” he replied, settling on the sofa, his attention trained on Norese clinging to Aroc.

Aroc grasped the neck of the containers between his fingers to hand one to Oliver who took a long drink before setting it on the table.

Waiting for the bomb to go off, Sadie propped a hip on the edge of the sofa, resting her knee to Aroc’s shoulder. Running her hand over his baldhead, she watched the exchange.

Oliver touched a finger to Norese’s tiny hand, stroking carefully.

Norese’s eye stretched wide at the first touch.

“Sweetie, it’s okay.” Sadie said.

“Is she always this shy?”

“She’s cautious of new people,” Aroc defended, kissing his little girl’s face.

“What did you think she’d look like Oliver?” Sadie said, waving a hand, gesturing toward his squinting eyes. “You look stunned.”