"Morning, Daria." The pretty girl glanced over her shoulder and smiled. She had been grooming her worna but now she let the animal free to graze and walked over to greet the young man who stood in the lane with a stack of packages and letters in hand. He was not the postman, but a freighter pilot named Lex who often did odd jobs for Papa. He might be dressed in worn work clothes and his hair might need a trim, but to Daria Nuanan he was the handsomest man in the whole Sorrus system.
"Hi, Lex," she said, brushing a tendril of hair behind her ear shyly. "Are you just delivering packages today?"
"No, your dad said there might be a gaffle shipment for the Outermost planet. And he wanted me to repair the shutters on your barn."
Daria pleaded, "You'll fix the shutters first, won't you? It's been at least a week since you were last by, and I've missed talking to you."
He grinned. "Would I ever pick a delivery over you, Daria?"
After she brought the mail inside - his shoes were too dirty for Lex to enter the house - Daria and he walked together to the barn, hand-in-hand. Lex had come from a wealthy family like Daria's, but his parents disowned him when he was still a boy. Daria had known him since they were very young; she had watched his parents push him away, and offered him a place to stay in this very barn when he was turned out of his house, and that was how he had come to work for her father. As he climbed the ladder to fix the shutters, Daria stood near the bottom. "Lex," she said, "are you ever going to admit how you feel?"
"I can't guess what you mean," he replied, tapping the loose nails in with a hammer.
"That you want to court me. Papa likes you! He'll surely agree."
"But your mom doesn't."
"It's just because you're poor."
"That's all it takes. Besides," he added, descending the ladder to move it to the next shutter, "I've almost saved enough for a down payment on a house in the Silver Hills. If I can prove I've a place for us to live, that might make your mom more amenable to our courting."
Daria sighed. She held the ladder steady while he climbed it again. "Lex Eldin, just once I wish you wouldn't be so damned logical."
Before he could reply - to make a joke, no doubt, and brush off her remark - Daria's father drove up in his gleaming white speeder. "Eldin!" he shouted. "Best leave those shutters for later. Got twice the gaffles I thought I had; you'll have to get moving now if we're to get them all to the buyer on schedule."
"Yes, sir! Get right on it!" He descended the ladder and handed the toolbox to Daria with a sigh. "I tried," he said.
"Come home soon," she murmured. She bid him farewell with a quick kiss on the cheek, and Lex ran to meet her father.