Dark Solstice (32 page)

“Which one of you
ass
holes isn’t using birth control?” Rhea demanded furiously.

Both men recoiled as if she’d slapped them, paling noticeably before they exchanged an uncomfortable glance.

Raathe recovered first. “I’ve been in prison for two years, baby. They don’t worry about handing out birth control.”

“And you didn’t think I might want to know that tiny, insignificant little detail?” Rhea demanded angrily, planting her fists on her hips when what she really wanted to do was plant it in his face.

Raathe shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe we should find a private place to discuss this, baby?”

“Don’t baby me, you asshole! Why the hell should I worry about finding a private place to discuss this when I’m going to be looking like a blimp in a matter of months? You
knew
you weren’t on birth control and you didn’t say a damned word about it!”

“For god’s sake, Rhea!” Justice said placatingly. “It isn’t something you think about at a time … when … Well, fuck! I didn’t know they weren’t issuing birth control, did you Raathe?”

Someone around them snickered. Several other people made a pretense of clearing their throats and an effort to resume their conversations of before.

Rhea rounded on Kyle, her eyes narrowing. “Really? But you asked me to contract with you, didn’t you? How I’m supposed to take that—now? It didn’t occur to you,
at all
, that if you got me pregnant I’d be more likely to agree to a contract?”

Kyle’s jaw dropped noticeably, his face reddening. He exchanged another look with Raathe. Almost as if it had been an actual communication between them, each man grabbed one of her arms and they began to urge her out of the Rec Room. She slung their grip loose once they’d emerged and rounded on them angrily.

“I’m pregnant! I can’t
believe
you got me pregnant—one of you!”

Raathe and Justice both frowned. “You don’t know which one?”

“How the
hell
would I know that? I didn’t even know I was pregnant until that snotty bitch in the med lab announced it!”

“Hey,” Raathe said soothingly. “It’s not that bad.”

Rhea sucked in a harsh breath and expelled it, trying to reign in her temper. “To
whom
is it not that bad, John Raathe?”

He eyed her uncomfortably, but she could see dawning anger in his own eyes. “I wasn’t the only one enjoying myself,” he said pointedly.

She glared at him and Kyle for several moments and finally turned on her heel to leave. She hadn’t gotten far, unfortunately, before a sudden thought brought her to a halt.

She had no idea where her room was.

Seeing no hope for it, she turned back to look at Kyle. “Where am I staying?” she asked irritably.

Kyle stared at her blankly for a moment. “Fourth level, room twenty nine.”

“Thank you,
Ranger
Justice!” she said coldly and left them.

Raathe watched her departure through narrowed eyes. “The question at this point,” he finally said, “is do we tuck our tails and hide out for a while? Go after her and try to talk to her? Or see if we can find our balls and go back inside?”

“Any way you cut it we’re going to catch hell all the way back to Earth. I don’t think they’re going to get tired of ragging us about it any time soon,” Kyle retorted dryly, jerking his head in the direction of the room they’d just vacated where they could both hear a good deal of murmuring punctuated by bursts of laughter.

Raathe released an irritated sigh. “I’ve kind of lost my enthusiasm for pool anyway.”

“Tuck our tails, it is,” Kyle said wryly. “I think I’ll stroll down to the med-lab and see if they got a reading on the DNA.”

“I’ll join you.”

Justice wasn’t particularly pleased by the suspicion inherent in the comment, but he shrugged it off. It was just as possible the baby was Raathe’s as his. He glanced at Raathe as they entered the lift. “Any plans for what you’re going to do now that you’re officially a free man?”

Raathe slid a speculative glance at him.

“
Is
it official?”

Justice wrestled with his conscience. “Officially, they’re still looking for something.”

“That’s what I figured.”

“The Rangers could use a man with your skills,” Justice said instead of following that uncomfortable line of discussion.

A gleam of amusement lit Raathe’s pale eyes. “You think?”

“I know. It doesn’t pay worth a shit and the benefits are worse, but you get to take out bad guys and help the good guys.”

“Sounds like the military,” Raathe commented wryly.

Justice shrugged. “The Federation doesn’t pay as well as the private sector,” he admitted, “but it isn’t like the military. You don’t have someone constantly breathing down your neck and barking orders. There’s plenty of travel, plenty of excitement, and plenty of damsels in distress waiting to be rescued that are grateful as hell.”

Raathe’s lips tightened. “I’m pretty burnt out with chasing munch. There’s only one I’ve got any interest in.”

Justice’s good humor vanished. He wrestled with the anger curdling in his belly, but as much as he wanted to plant his fist in Raathe’s face, or at least inform him that his chances with Rhea were a flat zero, he and Raathe both knew it was a hell of a lot more likely that Rhea would fall in Raathe’s arms than his.

“Explain it to her,” Raathe growled testily.

Justice sent him a sharp glance. “I already tried that,” he snapped.

Raathe looked him over speculatively. “You don’t strike me as a man that gives up easily, Justice. Any man willing to spend a fucking year in that hell hole just to get his man ought to have the balls to go after the woman he loves.”

Justice turned a furious glare on him, but he couldn’t maintain it. “This is a little different situation,” he said sarcastically. “You planning on bowing out?”

“Hell no! She said she loves us both. I’m going for a contract.”

“You’d go for a three way?” Justice demanded with a mixture of surprise and indignation.

“It beats the shit out of the alternative. The way I figure it, you wouldn’t be around much anyway with all that travel. Besides, I figure I’ve only got two choices. I can walk away or I can accept the inevitable and try to make it work. At this point in my life, I’m not willing to throw away
anything
good that comes my way.”

Justice eyed him sullenly. “Neither am I,” he admitted finally. “But you needn’t get too excited about me being gone most of the time. I’d planned to take a desk if she agreed.”

Raathe’s eyes gleamed. “You
have
got it bad.”

“And you don’t?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t,” Raathe retorted with an amused snort. “You think I wouldn’t be dead set against this hair brained idea of hers if she didn’t have me wrapped around her finger?”

Justice considered it. “She did have a point. It already is a polygamist relationship. I don’t suppose making it official with a contract would change a hell of a lot.”

“Except we’d
all
have more reason to try to make it work,” Raathe said pointedly. “Including Rae. And that’s one woman who’s used to having things her way. She isn’t going to settle into a yoke easily, particularly since she’s more likely than not to figure out pretty quick that she isn’t in love either one of us.”

“I’ve never contracted with anybody myself,” Justice said musingly. “Actually, I’ve never spent more than a month with the same woman … and that was only because I was stuck in the colony on a job and couldn’t leave.”

“But you’ve been considering contracting with Rae when you haven’t even known her much more than a month?”

“I was thinking about it five minutes after I met her the first time,” Justice admitted irritably. “You don’t think she’s actually in love with either one of us?”

“I think she’s convinced herself she is, but that doesn’t mean she is. In your line of work, how many of the women you rescued decided they were madly in love with you?” Raathe asked dryly.

Justice felt coldness sweep through him. “Probably about seventy five percent—ninety if I include little girls and grandmothers.”

“Exactly my point. The trick is going to be to nail her before she has time to reconsider,” Raathe mused. “I’m thinking we can use the pregnancy thing to convince her, point out the economical benefits of having three wage earners in the household—kids are expensive—and the fact that it would be easier to juggle careers and child rearing with three parents instead of one. There’s someone on the Orca that could handle the legal work, right?” He didn’t wait for Justice’s nod. “I say we storm the citadel, keep her well occupied between the two of us, and then rush her into signing the papers as quickly as we can manage it. Tomorrow would be good, but I suppose it might take longer than that to get the papers drawn up. We should probably go ahead and take care of that. We don’t want to give her too much time to think it over before we get her signature.”

Justice stared at him with a mixture of respect and reluctance. “It might take me a little longer than a few days to convince her since she hates my guts right now. And I’m not actually comfortable with the idea of deceiving her.”

Raathe gave him a look. “You did it before,” he pointed out.

“You know damned well I didn’t have a choice! Anyway, I didn’t actually deceive her. I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I never lied to her!”

“I’m damned if I can see what there is about my plan that’s deceptive!” Raathe growled irritably.

“You just said you thought she was too traumatized by the situation to think clearly! That’s taking unfair advantage at the very least and I’m not comfortable with it.”

“Jesus! You
are
Mr. Straight and Narrow, aren’t you? Suit yourself. I’m real fucking comfortable with it myself!” Raathe muttered.

He was grateful as hell that Justice had not only claimed responsibility for Grimes’ and Cook’s deaths, but the deaths of the warden’s men, as well, clearing both him and Rhea of any concern about charges against them. It said a lot not only for the man’s integrity, but his skills, and the respect he was held in by his fellow rangers that no one had questioned his report by so much as the blink of an eye—not even his boss, who was really ticked off that he hadn’t been able to find anything to charge
him
with.

But, as the saying went, all’s fair in love and war, and this was both to his mind. If Justice couldn’t bring himself to unbend just a little to get what he wanted, it was his own fucking problem.

The med tech, as it turned out, wasn’t very helpful. “Can’t help you. She didn’t let me finish the scan.”

Raathe and Justice exchanged a dismayed glance.

“Look!” Raathe snarled. “You said she was pregnant, right? How the fuck could you tell that and not get the fucking DNA reading?”

“Because she jumped off the fucking table!” the med tech retorted. “The moment I said ‘fetus’ she sat straight up on the table like I’d jolted her in the ass with an electric current and threw the whole scan off!”

“We’ll get her back down here for another scan!” Raathe said grimly, stalking out of the med-lab.

“You mean
now
?” Justice demanded when they were in the corridor again. “You honestly think you can talk her into coming back down here now? After she chewed you a new one right in front of half the men on the fucking ship?”

Raathe halted abruptly. “You think that might be a problem?”

Justice stared at him in disbelief. “Hell, yes, I think it might be a problem!”

Raathe considered it. “Well, it’s going to be more of a fucking problem if we let her brood over it very long! She’ll decide she hates both of us, and
then
where the hell will we be?”

“She’s already decided she hates me,” Justice pointed out indignantly. “I’m not bearding the lioness in her den!”

“I’ll go then. You go back to the Rec Room and see if you can find your balls,” Raathe growled. “I’m sure they’re laying around there somewhere!”

Justice narrowed his eyes at Raathe. “You’re really starting to fucking piss me off, Raathe!”

“Well, that’s a start anyway,” Raathe threw over his shoulder, striding purposefully toward the lift.

Justice fell into step beside him.

“I thought you thought this was a bad idea?” Raathe ground out when they’d entered the cubicle.

“I do. I just want to be there when you discover it was a bad idea.”

Raathe didn’t move when the doors opened on level four. “What level is the gym on?”

“Level one.”

Raathe leaned over and changed the level command. “I could use a little unwinding.”

* * * *

Rhea paced the room in agitation until she’d worn herself out and she was still in such a state of turmoil that she couldn’t think straight. It was hard to grasp that she was pregnant, let alone figure out what she should do about it.

Anger surged through her again when she finally ceased pacing and flopped into one of the two easy chairs the room boasted.

That total
asshole
Justice had told her someone would be taking her down to the med-lab for an exam,
as if
she could expect someone to show up at any minute, and
then
it had been
two whole
days before anyone had shown up!

And
she’d spent two whole days worrying herself sick about Raathe when that total asshole had been lounging around with the rangers in the Rec Room as if he was just one of the guys!

What the
hell
was going on? How
dare
they just dump her in the stateroom and not even bother to tell her what was happening? Except for the droid that brought her meals, she hadn’t seen a soul!

Granted she’d spent most of her time wisely—having hysterics and sleeping off the after effects of weeping herself into exhaustion. She supposed, in her defense, she’d actually needed the outlet. Today was the first day she’d actually felt almost her normal self—until the scan, at least!

She still couldn’t believe how damned inconsiderate and irresponsible they’d behaved! They might at least have told her that they were off birth control so she was warned!

What was she going to do with a baby? Pack it in a bunting and drag it with her every time she had a job? Leave it in a care center for days or weeks at a time while she tried to make a living?