“Speak for yourself.”
Doran playfully shoved her face in the pillow while leaping off the mattress. A race ensued, in which he beat her to the washroom and back to their quarters to dress. It was neck and neck for a moment, but he pulled into the lead and reached the galley just ahead of her.
The clomp of their footsteps drew Kane’s attention. He turned from the steaming vat of porridge on the stove and grinned at them. “That excited for my breakfast, huh? I knew I had skills.”
Doran returned the smile without having to fake it. He hadn’t uncovered any information to implicate Kane, so it looked like the Enforcers really had used the tracking system to find him. It felt good to let go of all that resentment, or at least shift it to the right people.
Cassia shared a knowing look with Renny, who sat beside her, nursing a cup of coffee and feeding Acorn a bean. “You’ve got skills, all right,” she quipped. “Mostly for being an—” She cut off when the captain hobbled into the room, then finished with a stiff smile. “Amazing cook. How do you make the porridge taste so sweet?”
“With an extra scoop of love, of course,” Kane forced through his teeth.
Captain Rossi barked a laugh and lowered onto the opposite bench. He eyed the ship hands while massaging his bad knee. “You can cut the act. I won’t revoke your leave privileges for fighting.”
Both blonds sighed with relief, apparently exhausted from ten seconds of being nice to each other. But their smiles turned genuine when they shared a glance. The promise of fresh air and wide-open spaces seemed to hang in the air like a second sun, lifting everyone’s mood. Even the captain had an extra pep in his step this morning…or rather in his limp.
“We’ve been in a pressure cooker lately,” he continued. “So I want you to blow off some steam.” Lifting a knobby hand, he clarified, “Quiet steam—the kind that floats up from a boiling pot, not the kind that comes screeching out of a teakettle. Keep your heads covered, and don’t draw too much attention. That means no getting locked up, and no passing out naked in the middle of the town churchyard. Understood?”
Renny chuckled behind his coffee cup while both ship hands turned the color of ripe raspberries. They nodded, gazing into their laps.
“It’s none of my business how you spend your wages,” Rossi continued, “but remember that we’re lying low, and that means fewer jobs.”
“No worries, Cap,” Kane said. “I’m only taking two chips with me.”
“Smart move,” the captain told him. “We’re not in the tourist ring anymore, so watch your coin purse, and don’t bring anything with you that you don’t want stolen. We’ll meet back here at sunrise.”
Cassia gasped with excitement. “We get all night?”
“You’ve earned it.” He pointed his crutch at the stove. “Now, finish your breakfast and go have fun. I hear there’s a harvest festival in town. Might be a good place to start.”
After that, bowls and spoons went flying in a blur of activity, and in less than ten minutes, Doran and Solara led the way toward town with Cassia and Kane walking closely behind, bickering about whose turn it was to do laundry in the morning.
The crunch of dried grass created a lively percussion as Doran lifted his hands and face in worship to the sun’s rays. It was fall here, and the crisp breeze carried hints of wood smoke and kettle corn—autumn’s signature scent no matter what planet he visited. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend he was home, tailgating at a college football game with his friends. But those memories made him ache with longing and stirred up fears that he might never return to that life. So he zipped his borrowed jacket tightly over his chest, tugged down his knitted cap, and gazed toward the festival in the town square.
Right away, he noticed the no-frills architecture and the absence of flashing billboards that set this place apart from the planets within the tourist ring. Most technology was manufactured on Earth, so by default, the farther removed the settlement, the more primitive it became. Cargill was located in the third ring, mostly producing grain. Next would come the ore mines, then the prison settlements, and finally his father’s coordinates in the outer realm.