Outrageous Fortune-Errant Freight Book One

Chapter 31

Rory slammed into his cabin—which looked as if it had been torn apart in a search because, oh, right, it had—and toed off his boots. These he kicked aside so they ended up in the general direction of the closet, next to the pile of laundry Galileo or his minions (and how did one go about finding minions anyway) had pulled from the inset hamper.

Near to snarling with irritation, he yanked down his suspenders and stripped the damp shirt straight over his head, tossing it onto the mound of rumpled clothes.

As if I'd be daft enough to hide the calculator with the dirty knickers.

He spun towards the head, avoiding looking at the ruin of his bed or the tipped-over inkwell on the desk blotter and drawers flung to the deck.

Twenty minutes, he thought. Ten, even. Just long enough to get out of the cold wet clothes and into a hot, wet shower, and then, maybe, once he'd sloughed the muck of the night off himself, he could face...

"Rory, we have to— Oh...ah... Hmmm."

He looked over his shoulder to see Jinna frozen halfway through the cabin door.

The cabin door he'd neglected to lock, because no one ever came into his room without knocking. Or ever, really.

He set a hand on the bathroom's doorsill and stared at the basin. "Can I help you?" he asked, not caring that his voice chill because, smog it, he truly had needed those few minutes.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice sounding oddly hollow to him. "I didn't realize you'd be..." The sentence trailed off and he now looked over his shoulder and he saw her eyes were fixed on his back or, more accurately, the marks on it.

All twenty-nine of them.

"It's fine," he told her, turning so she'd not have to look on the mass of scars.

"No it isn't," she said, blinking hard. "What they did to you? What Rand did to you? And to John, and to Quinn and his company? It's not fine."

Now he blinked. "I meant, it's fine that you've come barging into my room."

"I didn't barge—yes, I did," she backtracked, her eyes dropping. "I wanted to apologize for not saying something about Liam's father, before. I just didn't want you to—"

"To what?" The words burst out as he found himself unable to contain the hurt. "Didn't want me to what? Care? Be there for you? What?"

"This." Her eyes shot up, snapping. "I didn't want you to be—this," she said as she gestured at him. "All...snippy."

"I am not snippy," he said...snippily. "What I am is angry."

"And I didn't want you to be that, either!"

"Well, pity it is that you can't always have what you want!"

Her hands closed into fists at her sides. "It's not like I—"

"You never said a word," he cut her off, his voice so low it hurt to speak. "Mia says it's been months that smogging bastard's been after your babe and you never told me. Not one word, not one letter, not a single ping on the radio. Why? Did you think I'd not come?"

"No," she said. She shook her head once, with an expression he remembered of old. Chin tilted up, eyes cool... The pride of Pride. "I knew if I called, you'd come."

The jolt of her words scored as deep as the whip scored his flesh back in the day, so it was a moment before he could speak again. "But you didn't."

"No," she said again.