Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The (3 page)

“
I was about to come out
for her.” Emma gathered the used needles and the extra thread up
with trembling fingers. She longed to climb the narrow stairs to
her living quarters or fall into one of the beds along the wall but
a long night of watching over her patient awaited her.

“
What can I tell the
town?” Vannie whispered as he followed her over to the
sink.

Emma looked over her shoulder. Poor
Jenny leaned as close to her husband’s head as her belly would
allow. Only two months until the due date for the couple’s first
child. Jenny mumbled words into Russ’ ear, stroking his hair and
bathing his face with her tears.

Emma turned on the water to wash her
hands and hide her words before answering. “Tell them he lives for
now. Blood loss could take him by morning or infection in the next
few days.”

“
What of that stranger?
Did he help you?”

Emma paused, recalling Vin’s last
callus words, but also his fingers covered in Russ’ blood as he
worked across from her. “Vin did as much for Russ as I did. Russ
would have bled to death before I finished if Vin hadn’t been here
to assist.”

“
He’s a doctor,
too?”

Emma shook her head and found a bottle
of antiseptic to drop the stitching needles into. “He leaned his
skills on the battlefield.”

“
Well, we owe him, but I
don’t like it. No reason for a soldier to come here.” Vannie and
Moe worried about Emma’s secret more than she did.

“
Everyone has a past.
Perhaps he’d seen enough of death and wanted to retire from
war.”

“
You always think the best
of people, Emma.” Vannie gave her a weak smile, tinged with worry.
“That’s why we love you, lass, but I’ll be sending Vin on his way.
He’s too young to be retired from the military.”

After Vannie left, Emma trudged through
the cleaning of the surgery. Then she pulled a chair near the
operating table for Jenny to rest.

She checked the bandages on Russ’ legs.
No blood leaked through but was it because the stitches held tight
or because so little remained in his body? Images of tanned, clever
hands flashed before her as she tucked the blankets around Russ’
legs.

Had Vannie allowed Vin to spend the
night within the walls? Usually Vannie or Moe would send strangers
on their way before the daylight faded and the gates closed but
dark had already fallen when Vin left the surgery. And the rains
had arrived sometime in the last hour. Surely Vannie wouldn’t force
Vin out into the wilderness in the wet. And dangerous wildlife
roamed the forest.

Emma settled on one of the beds,
sitting up so she wouldn’t fall into a deep sleep. She watched
Jenny and Russ but her thoughts turned again and again to Vin.
Where did a man learn to act with such calm competence in a crisis?
What experiences created his cool indifference? Why had he come to
Hovel Port? Though none of it mattered. She’d likely never see him
again.

Chapter Two

Vin watched the settlement stir into
wakefulness. Not even the top of the line viewing equipment could
see much through the driving rain. He’d been on planet for the last
cyclical rain though under the cover of his ship.

Only a few people dared the wooden
walkways connecting the buildings. They huddled inside long coats
and beneath hoods of water resistant canvas. Vin stayed dry under a
waterproof tarp, high in a thick-limbed tree growing part way up
one of the steep slopes surrounding Hovel Port.

His perch provide a good scouting
position and kept him above the reach of the larger predators
roaming the forest below him. He’d mounted an electrified snake
ring beneath this nest to keep out the half dozen viper species
he’d encountered. The camouflaged tarp over his head hid him from
the winged predators he’d fought off his first day of observing the
settlement.

Today the gates of the village stayed
closed in the rain but the walls wouldn’t keep him out if he wanted
in. Did he?”

Vin didn’t like thinking about the
injured man and his pregnant wife. Seeing Jenny’s protruding
stomach the previous night had caused a pinch in Vin’s chest as if
he’d been shot with a stun laser. For a moment he couldn’t find his
breath. He fought back the pain of remembrance and sought the
numbness of mission focus. He’d found his bait but would she draw
his prey?

Emma wasn’t at all what he’d expected
when he started his search for her. He should have checked deeper
into her background. She was young to be educated as a doctor. Last
night gave away her inexperience with wounds. Perhaps she’d only
used her skills in the world of the pampered citizenship where
she’d lived most of her life. Her compassion surprised him,
especially considering her parentage, as did her modest living
arrangements. He wouldn’t have thought a woman used to the luxuries
her father’s evil had bought would hide in a place like Hovel
Port.

Emma Jones didn’t resemble her father
in any physical way. Her dark eyes contrasted with the golden curls
that fought against restraints. The mass of hair looked too heavy
for her petite form and delicate bones. How did her thin neck hold
her head up with all that hair weighing on it? He hadn’t cared for
his body’s shocking reaction when she freed the curls and ran her
small hands through it. But those hands had darted with precision
and strength as she stitched her friend’s torn flesh.

If he’d dreamed of those gifted hands
moving on his body last night, he rationalize it down to long
months of loneliness. But Recon Marines knew about being alone. His
solitude sat comfortably with him in the tree. Even during the last
months of travel among societies and large crowds of citizens, he’d
been alone, more alone than ever in his life.

Since his earliest memories, his
brothers had been beside him, fighting and dying. Only after the
disaster on Crevan Four had he learned the true meaning of being
alone. Recon Marines never looked beyond the current mission until
Crevan Four where his brothers-in-arms had found a way to have a
future. The others made plans for a life, a family and finding a
way to live as real people. But not him. He had his mission, his
revenge. When he finished with this last bastard…. He didn’t know
what he would do. He had no hopes, no dreams and no desire to start
a life somewhere.

The worst of the rain had passed and it
would end abruptly an hour before sunset. The thirsty ground would
soak it up and the towering mountains north of Hovel Port would
fill the fill the streams the miners worked in. The men would pan
and sift, hoping the rains carried bits of silver ore from the
massive operation upstream. Vin didn’t understand how Hadrason’s
Mining empire continued to operate when the owner languished in
prison. The world of business was as foreign to a Recon Marine as
breathing water.

Vin put his long viewers away and
settled back into the hammock he slept in. He’d rise early and
enter the town as soon as the miners departed for their work. The
stream they worked lay half a mile from the gates, and they started
their shift with the sunrise and ended it ten hours later. They
eked out a living here on the edge of civilization and far from
Galactic Law.

Why did Emma decide to hide here? Was
it only to his inexperienced eyes that she didn’t blend in? The
thought returned him to his contemplation of her person. He could
lift her petite form with one arm. He shifted in his swinging bed,
calling on years of discipline to put Emma Jones from his mind and
seek sleep. Any good soldier could sleep and wake on demand even if
he couldn’t control the dreams and nightmares waiting for him
there.

* * * *

Emma rubbed her aching back. She
resisted groaning as her muscles protested her movement but she
didn’t want to wake Jenny. Her friend dozed on the bed only a few
feet from where Russ lingered in the mercy of deep unconsciousness.
He’d held on through a day and another night but had still to wake
or stir. Infection had replaced blood loss as the main threat to
him though she worried he’d fallen into a coma.

She hobbled to the refrigerator holding
her limited medicines. Russ had already received the entire supply
of her best antibiotics so the next dose would be a second tier of
effectiveness. If Russ woke, he would suffer severe pain and what
she had wouldn’t last him three days at best. She’d used most of it
up on a woman who had burned her hand in an accident seven days
ago. She’d lost track of how long ago the last shipment of supplies
had reached Hovel Port. She leaned her head on the door, staring at
the contents as if her wishes might answer her needs.

A rush of cool, damp air feathered
across her back. Cold and wind always lingered the first two days
after the rain. She turned, expecting the door had blown
open.

Vin pushed it closed behind him. He
carried a small package under one arm. He nodded at her and walked
to Russ’ side.

Today Vin wore similar clothing as
before, gray pants and a light blue shirt beneath his brown jacket.
In the muted light created by the lone lamp over the sink, his eyes
looked lighter than ever. He touched Russ’ cheek with the back of
his hand. His gaze lifted toward Jenny and lingered there for a
moment.

Emma thought he flinched before looking
away but her exhaustion might be playing with her.

When Vin looked her way, his expression
was his usual. “I think he’s starting a fever.”

Emma joined him at the bedside, keeping
her voice as quiet as his. “Not unusual for a severe injury.” But
she feared the same. She touched Vin’s hand where it rested on the
table side. “Thank you again for your help.”

He stared at her hand resting on his
for a moment and then removed his. He unwrapped the shiny material
covering the package in his other hand. He pulled out a small
bottle and held it toward her. “Give him this to fight the
infection. Your medicinal supplies are pathetically
inadequate.”

Emma considered herself an
even tempered woman. But she was
very
tired. She pressed her lips
together and gathered her patience before answering. “We’re so far
from regular shipping lanes that we’re not even considered an
outpost. We’re so far out they have no term for where we are. It
makes supplying difficult and unpredictable.”

Vin spoke slowly. “You’re in the
planetary system Merris on the fifth world. This region of space is
called The Metal Belts.”

Emma snatched the bottle from his hand,
unsure if he mocked her or tried to be funny. She was beyond
amusement with worry and fatigue. Then her mind comprehended what
her eyes saw on the bottle label. “Fusomycle! Is this
real?”

Vin frowned and spoke slowly again.
“This is a powerful antibiotic that has been in use in the military
for almost two years.”

Heat climbed in Emma’s face. The
lunkhead wasn’t mocking her. He thought she was a complete idiot.
Lucky for him Jenny’s presence necessitated she control her temper.
“I know what Fusomycle is but it’s impossible to get in any but the
richest hospital wards. This little bottle is worth five measures
of silver.”

“
Closer to
ten.”

“
How did you get
it?”

Vin stepped back from the table. “It
will fight any infection. You’ll probably only need two
doses.”

Emma followed his retreat, aware of
Jenny stirring on the other side of the room. “How did you come by
this?”

“
I had it with me.” Vin
turned his back on her. “Treat your patient, Dr. Emma
Jones.”

Emma bristled anew at his brusque order
and avoidance of her question. Even though his odd accent drew her
name out in a way that played across her nerves. Between his deep
voice and pretty face, she could almost forgive his insulting
treatment. But not quite. “You had it with you? Because you
expected to encounter a man with his legs nearly cut off? Does that
happen to you often?”

He turned back to her, something
flickering in his eyes. He glanced at Russ and then back to her.
“Yes.”

“
Yes? Yes
what?”

“
Yes, I often see injuries
like this and am always prepared.”

Emma saw no mockery in his clear, gray
eyes. And she began to suspect the slight crease between his eyes
might be confusion. Sympathy and shame filled her. Vin’s rudeness
and brisk manner likely were a product of emotional trauma or
perhaps one of the horrid head injuries that afflicted so many
former soldiers. Though he looked too young to have served for
long, Emma saw the bleakness of great loss behind his cold gaze.
She’d seen the look many times before. “I’m sorry.”

“
For what?”

“
I’m sorry you had to see
injuries like this one.” She reached out and touched his
arm.

He jerked out of her reach this time.
“It wasn’t your fault, and you have no reason to be sorry.” He
stalked out, letting in another gust of cool air.

Emma looked at the small bottle in her
hand. It could provide a miracle for Russ. Her friend would owe his
life to Vin. She smiled at the closed door. The least she would do
was save Vin in return.

* * * *