Love Me, Love Me Not

Reed's breath, then his lips, tickled on Saile's neck with the words. "Marry me Saile."


She admired his persistence and calm strength of purpose; it had drawn her to him when they first met. Saile closed her eyes and waited for the tingles to run their course before she elbowed him away.


She leaned the heels of her hands on the rail of the landing and watched the last of the milling herds of llamas; they blurred through the exhaustion of the last week as the damitts gathered them up and pushed them toward the horizon. "That's my stock," she said. "You've stolen what's left of my stock."


Reed grinned. "Define 'stolen'."


"This is all pointless without the breeding herds."


"If you married me, they'd be yours again."


"Give my blaster back and I'll agree."


"Will you promise not to shoot me?"


Saile looked away.


"Your blaster was not set on stun on the high mesa."


"It was." Saile shrugged. "But I changed it."


Reed nodded.


Saile turned and sat against the rail. A tall ship gleamed in the distance. She slowly stood and turned again. The llama herds were making their way toward the horizon, the opposite horizon. Why had he stolen them if not to export the furs? She looked at the ship again, the logo splashed on the nose seemed familiar. Was it Teffen's?


"Are you going to apologize for trying to kill me?" Reed asked.


"Will you give my blaster back?"


"Don't think I should."


"Why do you want to marry me if you didn't need the ranch for a spaceport?"


"I still need that ranch. This isn't a spaceport, it's just a big flat rock with some railing, a landing and a systems interface controller."


Saile turned away, hoping he didn't see the disappointment that welled up and threatened to choke her. Love me not.


Hands rested warm on her shoulders and she shrugged him off. Reed grabbed her again and spun her around. "I've asked you to marry me a hundred times. It has nothing to do with your ranch."


Saile wrenched loose and slapped the lying son of a blat-wing as hard as she could. She whirled around to run, but froze on the second stride as the remaining damitt chattered and snapped to focus its attention on her. Reed's arms wrapped hard around her and picked her up, holding her close against his chest. "Don't run Saile," he whispered against her. "Remember they're instinctive hunters. Never forget that."


She nodded and Reed let her feet touch the landing. He led her to a terminal and punched in a code. Legalese filled the screen then scrolled down to a boxed summary. Her vision blurred as she read it. Reed had stolen enough of their stock to keep her uncle from making the payment, the mortgage had come due and Reed foreclosed. He owned her.


He stood close but, for once, kept to himself. Her shoulders ached, cold, where his hands usually rested. "If you don't want to stay with me, I'll pay you a fair share. It'll be enough to set up your own place or you can go off-world and start over somewhere else."


Love me.


"You're a thief," she forced out.


"I've been called worse." Reed turned back to the terminal, logged the legal system off, pulled up security, bypassed it and logged into the maintenance controls. His fingers moved too fast for her to read the warnings that popped up and disappeared as he entered the codes and commands. He murmured under his breath and cursed the system, then finally laughed. "Some poor technician's going to catch it for missing that calibration." He keyed a final sequence. A flashing red countdown centered on the black screen. "Time to go," he said. He whistled up the damitt and sent it ahead before he grabbed Saile's arm and rushed her down the ramp.