Stripper: The Fringe, Book 4

Dedication

For those very brave and rare souls who love deeply and irrevocably.

Chapter One

“Betrayal must be forgotten to be forgiven.”

Planet Windmere, main compound, 2479

“You’re going to a stripper?” Michael Parker shot from his chair so fast he almost knocked over the carved chunk of mahogany.

“I want to forget Diane.” Duster remained seated and dug his sharp-shined, boot-clad heels in for a fight. He knew his boss wouldn’t react well to the news. Duster had been over the arguments in his mind a thousand times over the last three years. He wasn’t looking forward to the showdown, even though he’d always known he’d have to explain himself to his boss. But Michael was more than that. Michael was his employer, his best friend and the only person in the Void who truly knew him.

Seven feet of angry man dominated the vast area of base command. Michael “Overlord” Parker dwarfed the marble statues and hand-carved furniture as he strode across plush oriental rugs. The array of sensors, gleeps and holoplas screens faded in the wake of Michael’s intensity. Thankfully, the usual staff of thirty guards had retired for the night, but other guards waited beyond the ornate double-hung doors.

“A stripper would turn you back into the man who helped me run a slaver ship.” Michael snarled his comment without missing a step across the floor.

“I know.” Duster hung his head and picked at the seam of his canvas trousers.

“You’d be the man who
didn’t
turn my life around at gunpoint.” Michael became more agitated with every word he forced through his clenched teeth.

“I know.” Duster touched the cache of crackleseeds in one of his many vest pockets. He decided not to fish out a handful. Creating a pile of spent pods would
not
improve Michael’s mood.

“You’d forget everything from that day on.” Michael’s voice rose in volume along with the speed of his pacing. Eventually, he strode furiously back and forth. “You’d have no memory of the last seven years at all!”

“I know.” In marked contrast, Duster kept his voice quiet and level. He’d had three years to get comfortable with the idea—his boss less than three minutes. Duster knew if he let Michael rant and rave for a while, he’d eventually calm down and listen. Eventually.

“You wouldn’t remember Diane—a blessing—but you wouldn’t remember anything else
after
the day you met her.” Michael clenched his fists as if holding himself back from shaking some sense into Duster.

“You’re preaching to the choir.” Duster lifted his gaze to his boss. “Back off, Michael. I can hear you fine without you yelling.”

Michael abruptly stopped in his tracks and took a few deep breaths.

“I’m not going into this lightly.” Nobody could claim his decision to be stripped was whimsical. Duster had thought long and hard on all the ramifications. “I’m going to lose everything—my world, my life, my best and only true friend.”

Speaking so softly that Duster had to strain to hear, Michael said, “Move on. Take that ring off and move on.”

Duster glanced at the platinum band on the ring finger of his right hand, then quickly away. “That’s just it. I can’t.”

With two strides, Michael stood before him, grabbing at his ring-bound finger. “I’ll gladly take that damned thing off myself.”

Duster pulled his hand out of Michael’s grasp. “It’s not about my ring. I could take it off, so could you, but doing so wouldn’t change my mind.”

“A stripper will
destroy
your mind.”

“You think?” Duster appraised his boss with a critical eye. “How do you think I found this stripper?”

“How the hell should I—”

“I found her on your orders a year ago. You remember a year ago? When you were still drinking yourself stupid mourning Kraft and taking her ship out for rides?”

Michael dropped his gaze to the floor. “I sought out a stripper, but I didn’t avail myself of her services, did I?”

“Only because I gave you Mary.”

Michael grimaced. “Mary isn’t the point.”

“She is.” Duster took a deep breath. “Instead of a ring around your finger, you had Kraft’s ship sitting on the base tarmac like a shrine for damn near two years. You wallowed in her, Michael. You breached security more times than I can count while mourning Kraft. The only reason you don’t have her ship today is because Mary stole it and sold it.”

“That woman.” Michael cast his head back with a self-satisfied smiled. “Mary certainly turned my world upside down.”

“Mary could have taken over your world had she been so inclined.” Duster glanced at all the security that surrounded his boss. Security that Duster, as Master-of-Arms to Windmere and second to Michael, had installed mainly to protect Michael from himself. None of it had been worth a damn protecting him from Scary Mary. No matter what rules, regulations or restrictions Duster employed, Mary waltzed right through them. “Mary could take over your world despite everything I’ve done.”

“She wouldn’t.” Clearly irritated, Michael uttered the words as gospel, as if by saying them enough he could make them true. “And Mary has nothing to do with you hiring a stripper.”

“In a way, she does.”

It obviously took a great deal of effort, but Michael swallowed his anger and settled on the edge of his desk. “Explain.”

Well, at least Duster had gotten him to calm down and listen. “The only reason you got over Kraft is because of Mary. She’s your stripper, Michael. Mary stripped away your obsession with Kraft.”

“But Mary didn’t restructure my mind.”

“She did,” Duster insisted, trying to make Michael understand his desperation.

“Mary didn’t strip away my memory. With her help, I accepted my memories of Kraft and moved on.” Michael stood, and through gritted teeth, he said, “After all this time, you should be able to forget Diane and move on.”

Duster shot to his feet. “Damn it, stop hissing at me through your teeth like a talking wolf.”

They were standing toe to toe when Mary entered the room. Her brown hair and eyes contrasted with the deep purple of her clothing. Had Duster not known her, he wouldn’t have looked twice at her, as she seemed so innocent. But that was Mary’s camouflage. She looked as harmless as a wayward kitten, but she was as dangerous as a fully loaded Gatewin Gusher.

She looked around, frowning when she found only the two of them. Flippantly, she asked, “Should I get a bucket of cold water or just quietly back out of the office?”

When neither he nor Michael reacted, she bit her lip, and Duster suspected she thought they were fighting about her again. They’d been fighting over her nonstop for seven months. Ballistic screaming matches over Mary’s security access were common, often erupting in her presence. Those same arguments went on long after Mary lifted her hands in frustration and left the room.

Diplomatically, Mary offered, “If this is about me—”

Unable to stop himself, Duster let seven years of frustration erupt all over Mary. “Not everything is about you!”

Mary recoiled. Her clutch of reports tumbled from her hands and fluttered to the floor like wounded birds. Recovering, Mary deflected his attack with one of her own. “Excuse the hell out of me, Duster, for getting the wrong idea. It’s not like you two constantly square off over me, is it?”

Mary kicked the reports, sent them spinning across the floor, turned sharply on her bare heel and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the ornate paintings, despite two layers of permablast durosteel.

Duster sighed out a soft expletive as he settled back into his chair. “You can see why forgetting Mary would be a blessing not only for me but for her, and you as well.”

“You can’t blame her for thinking we’re in my office yelling about her, can you?” Michael frowned at the door Mary had exited through. “We’ve been yelling at each other over her since the day I met her. She knows you don’t trust her.”

Duster focused intently on his boss. “As long as I grace the Void, I’ll never trust her. There’s a damn good reason why everyone calls her Scary Mary.”

Michael’s jaw tightened. “Mary is the most dangerous person I’ve ever known, yet I still trust her. And I’ve very politely asked you not to call her by that particular nickname.” Clearly, Michael would not stand idly by and let his wife be slandered.

Duster promptly apologized. He wasn’t sorry for thinking about Mary the way he did, but he was sorry for saying anything disparaging around his boss. Michael didn’t take kindly to anyone denigrating his wife, and Duster couldn’t blame him. Duster didn’t like his boss bad-mouthing his wife either.

“The point is, I know you love Mary and you trust her. You have to because she’s your wife. But I can’t. Mary is dangerous, and”—Duster tossed up his hands—“I’m not here to argue about her anymore. Give her the damn keys to the kingdom. I don’t care.” Duster alternated his attention between the seam along his canvas slacks and Michael. “I’m here to tell you I’m going to a stripper, not ask your permission. It’s about Diane, but more than that, it’s because I can’t trust.”

Michael relaxed his combative posture and lowered his voice. “I’m telling you that you can trust Mary.”

“How the hell do you expect me to trust any woman after what Diane did to me?” Duster uttered a frustrated grunt and shook his head. If anyone on the planet should understand trust issues, Michael was the poster child.

“I’m telling you that you can trust Mary.” Michael repeated his words almost as if he did so in the hope that if he said them enough, they might become true in Duster’s mind.

“Really?” Duster appraised his boss with a critical eye. “You expect me to trust Mary because you do?”

“Yes.”

“So, if I trusted Diane, you would too?”

Michael opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Smugly, Duster nodded. “You wouldn’t trust Diane on my say-so, and you know it.”

“Diane left you in a shuttle with only an hour of air left.” Arms crossed and his feet shoulder-width apart, Michael took a defensive stance. “If I hadn’t found you, you’d be dead. You wouldn’t trust Diane any more than I would.”

Everything he’d just said was true, but Duster couldn’t let the issue go, not when Michael refused to see what was right in front of his face.

“Mary almost killed you.” With a measuring glance, Duster added, “As I recall, I rescued you from a shuttle Mary dumped you into
after
getting you into a fluffy blue robe that barely covered your ass.”

Michael growled at the parallel in their histories. “That shuttle could have gone for days, and you know it.”

Shifting tactics, Duster said, “Diane didn’t kill me.”

“Diane left you to die,” Michael said coldly.

“Diane only wanted to escape, like Mary.”

“Not even close.” Michael uttered a dismissive
tsk
. “Diane wanted both of us dead so we couldn’t go after her.”

“Mary—”

“Never left me in dire straits,” Michael interrupted him. “Mary made sure I’d get to your ship alive. Mary didn’t want to kill me; she just wanted to get away from me. She never lied and manipulated me like Diane did you. Dummy up and listen, Duster. You’re carrying a torch for a woman who would gladly set fire to you with it.”

With a heavy heart, Duster stood and moved toward the door Mary had slammed her way out of. “You just made my argument for me.”

“How the hell did I manage that?” A snarl of furious bafflement crossed Michael’s face.

“Diane manipulated me into betraying you. For my trouble, she damn near killed me. It’s been seven years, and I still can’t forget her. Until I do, I’m never going to find
my
Mary. I’m not going to find what you did, because I refuse to even look. I’m going to the stripper, and that’s final.”

“Don’t.” Michael followed him toward the door, and Duster held up a hand to stop him.

“Give me another choice.” Duster hoped Michael could actually offer an alternative.

“Time. Give it more time.”

“Seven years is enough. I can’t live like this. I see every woman who shows interest in me as a player who will ultimately betray me.” Duster thought of Rena and the hurt in her eyes when he told her their relationship could not continue. “It’s madness. I love a woman who wanted me dead.”