“If you guys want to go, believe me, I understand. It doesn’t bother me. You should go.”
He rubbed his chin in her hair. “I want you to come with us. If you want to,” he quickly added.
“Really?”
“Yeah. You’re our wife. You should come with us. I don’t want to leave you sitting here alone. She would understand.” She felt him take a deep breath. “We want you to meet Mom and Dad, too.” The men still called Kelsey’s parents that, even this many years later.
“They won’t want to meet me.”
“Yeah, they do. I already told them about you.” He looked down at her. His brown eyes had filled with melancholy. “They were really happy when I told them about you.”
Emi looked out the view port and watched as Phobos prepared to sink over the far horizon. Emi’s own parents had died when she was sixteen and still in school, killed in an accident at their lunar research complex. The men of the Tamora Bight were the only family she’d had in the ten-plus years since then.
“Okay.”
Chapter Five
They spent their first several days on Mars unloading cargo meant for the Martian base and loading the supplies they needed for their mission. Emi stayed out of the way and watched the three men work. This side of them, all business and focused on their jobs, fell in sharp contrast to their playful, loving, silly sides. She had no doubt if their lives were ever in danger, it would be these personalities, not her playful lovers, fighting to save them.
Aaron, drenched with sweat, stopped to pull off his shirt and draped it over a packing crate.
Emi let out a wolf whistle from her perch.
Ford and Caph laughed and immediately stripped theirs as well.
“Well?” they parroted.
Despite laughing, she managed to let two more wolf whistles fly.
Through the cargo gangway, she heard noises in the complex as the docking crews secured another large ship into its berth. Upon their arrival, only two other large ships, both medium-heavies smaller than the Tamora Bight, had been docked, in addition to several smaller passenger transports. The Tamora Bight was a type called a full heavy, a large, deep space cargo freighter now retrofitted for exploration duties. Curious, Emi walked down the cargo gangway into the main docking area and watched as the docking crews finished securing the newly-arrived vessel. When the cargo doors and main gangway opened a few minutes later, her breath caught in her throat when Captain Rob Elloy of the Kendall Kant walked out to confer with the dockmaster.
She ducked inside their gangway and pressed her body against the wall, her heart pounding.
“You okay?”
Emi nearly screamed when Aaron touched her shoulder. She hadn’t heard or sensed him coming, her nerves stretched to breaking.
He frowned at her response, then looked out the gangway. With a smile, he pulled her to him. “Remember,” he whispered, “Graymard pulled them from the sim immediately after you rejected them as a crew. The rest of that stuff that happened with them, it didn’t really happen. It was just programmed in as part of the sim.”
She closed her eyes and tried to relax, memories of the sexy exhibitionist show she’d put on with Caph and Ford to get revenge on Rob Elloy and his crew still fresh in her mind, even though it happened only in the sim. Not only had her wild and racy striptease never happened, nor her orgasmic screams broadcasted to the entire dry dock via intercom, neither had Elloy’s nasty comments about her men that prompted it. “So what you’re saying is I need to not hate them.”
Aaron’s deep, rumbling chuckle resonated through her body. “No, don’t hate them. Yeah, me and the twins have had run-ins with Rob and his guys. Nothing major. Normal bullshit. They’re good at their job even if we don’t always see eye to eye with them.” He caught her chin and tipped her face to his. “Remember, you’re our wife. We love you. We don’t give a shit what they or anyone else thinks of us. We never have. Don’t go trying to defend our honor for us.”
“Is that an order, Captain?”
He arched his eyebrows at her. “If you want to take it as one, Doctor, it certainly is.”
She let out a breath as she relaxed against him. “I’ll act professional.”
He rubbed her back as she nestled in his arms. “That’s all I ask.”
The men took a break to eat when Emi fixed them sandwiches and brought them down to the cargo hold. That’s when Captain Elloy appeared in their cargo gangway entrance.
Aaron spotted him first. “Hi, Rob.”
“Permission to come aboard?” he nervously asked.
Aaron, not as big on formalities as the former ISNC officer, waved him in. “To what do we owe the honor?”
He glanced at Emi before returning his focus to Aaron. “Just wanted to say hi. Didn’t get a chance to wish you all good luck before you left Earth.”
Ford couldn’t hold back. “Thought you were supposed to be a four-pack. They send you guys out alone?” Even though Ford’s tone sounded deceptively light, Emi didn’t miss the deep vein of irritation running through him.
“No, we’re paired. Our med officer had to take care of some things on Earth before joining us. She’s arriving in three days. She asked me to pass a message to Dr. Hypatia.”
That set all four on edge. “What?” she asked, startled. “What are you talking about?”
“Actually, it’s a message from all of us. Thanking you.”
She didn’t sense sarcasm from him and held her hand up to stay the acerbic retort she knew Caph itched to dish out. “Thanking me?”
Elloy actually blushed as a hint of a smile crept across his hard features. “Dr. Stevens said she’s looking forward to catching up with you.”
“Dr. Stevens?” Emi squealed with joy. “Donna signed up for the DSMC?”
Elloy actually grinned, something Emi never imagined the experienced military man could do. “She said you suggested she look into signing up. She did, the day after you guys lifted.”
Emi jumped off the cargo crate she was sitting on and threw her arms around Elloy in a hug. “Congratulations!” While Emi knew she wasn’t a good match for the personality-challenged grunts, as she’d dubbed them, she’d offhandedly mentioned to her best friend she should sign up for the DSMC, with the Kendall Kant’s crew in mind.
Elloy awkwardly returned Emi’s hug before stepping back and clearing his throat. Emi had turned the former military men down due to their rigid view of following “regulations,” and their less than enthusiastic response to her rounded figure.
The men of the Tamora Bight, by contrast, more than appreciated her, inside and out.
“So how did they race through your training so fast?” Aaron asked.
Emi caught a whiff of Elloy’s emotions, like he’d been chastised. “Extenuating circumstances. They needed us up and running. What she doesn’t know, she’s learning on the way here. We can teach her other stuff once we’re underway.”
Aaron stepped forward and offered his hand. They shook. “Congratulations, Rob. So what’s next for you guys?”
“Actually, we just got our orders a little bit ago. Change in plans. We’re following you to the first stop for support, that’s why the rush. Didn’t they tell you?”
“I haven’t received final orders yet. We’re supposed to get them soon.”
Elloy returned to business mode. “We have to jump to the Acetal sol-sys. It’s in the Perseus Arm. The DSMC received an emergency message from the Aroykin settling colony there that they’re having a medical crisis.”