"Comfortable?" Simon rubbed his hands briskly at the fire before resuming his seat on the driftwood log.
Kaylee slid over into the circle of his arm. "Perfect. The fire's nice, even though it's plenty warm out tonight." She closed her eyes. "Never heard waves falling on a beach before. Kind of like listening to some big animal sleeping."
"Surf, you mean?"
"Yeah. Nothing but little lakes back home. I've traveled the 'Verse, but it don't seem like I've seen much of it."
Simon twined his fingers in the hair at the side of her head. "Back on Osiris, there are recreational lakes that glow at night. You swim in them, and your wake shimmers with rainbow lights."
"That sounds so beautiful." She settled closer. "You must miss home something awful."
"Parts of it I miss every day. But not all." He brushed his fingertips against her neck, feather-light, delighting in her shiver. It was all he dared take from her. "And… some of the things that are… most important to me… aren't there." Be careful, he told himself. Say the right thing. Do the right thing. Above all, don't get carried away. Don't dishonor her again.
"Like River?" She looked up at him, and he was sure it wasn't just the fire's reflection he saw dancing in her eyes.
"Very like River," he said, "but very much not." Despite all self-admonishments, he found himself leaning toward her.
"G'rammit!" Jayne's voice nearby cut the tenuous connection between them. The big mercenary continued, his voice too low to make out the words, and they saw him a bit farther down the beach, barely visible by the fire's light. He was talking to the captain, the two of them face-to-face and no more than a meter apart, and Simon knew they were quarreling. Jayne was waving his arms, getting hotter by the second, as Mal seemed to get more cool and still. To Simon, the two men looked seconds away from blows, or even drawing weapons. Jayne, in fact, dropped his hand to the handle of his knife, and Captain Reynolds his pistol.
Just as Simon got his feet under him, preparing to intervene, Jayne abruptly turned and stalked off into the darkness, headed down the beach. Mal watched after him a moment, then turned and headed back towards the grounded ship, somewhere over the sand dunes lining the narrow beach. Simon let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Then he noticed the state of the girl beside him.
Kaylee was staring after the two men, her hands crossed over her mouth. "Hate it when they get like that. Makes me feel like… they're capable of anything, ya know? Like maybe I don't know em at all, and…"
"They're gone," he said, drawing her to him with both arms. "Separate ways. Just an argument." He stroked her hair until she dropped her hands, then wiped the tears off her cheeks. "Baobei, what is it?"
Her face smoothed out, became cheery again. "Look at the stars. I love the way they look out the ship's windows when we're in the Black. Even better through a faceplate when I'm outside, so you can see em everywhere you look. But when you're in atmo, and the only way to see em is to look up, and they're all soft and twinkly, it makes em seem closer, somehow. Friendlier."
He felt torn. Kaylee obviously wanted to change the subject, but he felt reluctant to let it go. He summoned all the subtlety at his command, which he'd been told wasn't much, and got an idea. "Kaylee, do you know why my family courts the way it does?"
"You mean, startin when you're kids, and never doin it before your wedding night? I spose it's so you make sure you picked the right one."
"Partly. It's more like… making your pick the right one. You spend so much time together, by the time you marry, you can't imagine being with anyone else. And the courtship is almost entirely public, so you really do marry each other's families." Carefully he added, "Consummation is sometimes called 'final knowledge', because you learn everything else about each other before sex can cloud your judgment. Our style of betrothal makes divorce among the Twelve Families nonexistent."
"Everything. That's an awful lot."
"I don't suppose it ever really happens that way. But it's what we aim for." Tell me, he willed her silently.
She slipped out of his arms, stood, and stared into the fire. "And what if 'everything' turns out to be too much?"
He swallowed, thinking of secrets he'd prefer safely hidden forever. But a man couldn't keep secrets from his fiancée and still be a man. "That can't be."
She continued to stand staring into the flames for half a minute before she spoke again. "I told you about my family."
"I remember. Your father's a farmer on New Home. He and your brothers own a machine repair shop." He remembered the story well; Kaylee talked often about her family. Twenty years before, Mr. Frye had bought a tractor repair business at auction, mostly as a way to keep his own equipment running on the cheap, and discovered an innate talent for the work. He'd expanded as his sons – and, later, his daughter - grew and took over the business. They'd gotten a reputation as a shop that could fix anything, and people had begun to bring all manner of broken machinery to them. Frye's Repair now handled everything from agricultural equipment to hard-burn drives, and served customers from all over New Home. "Your mother manages the house and family. You're second youngest of four, the only girl. Oldest brother Matt, older brother Rosh, and little brother William, still in school when you took ship."
She nodded. "That's what I tell most everybody. Sometimes I start to believe it myself, then I feel all ashamed for… pushin her outta my mind like that." She paused. "I'm one of four, true enough, but I'm youngest, and not the only girl. And Will ain't really my brother.
"Willamina was born between Matt and Rosh, four years older than me. She was such a beauty, I know she coulda been a Companion if Ma and Pa had decided to send her off. At fourteen, she had boys in two counties payin her visits." She smiled at the memory, but then her face turned blank and still. Simon felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir.
"She useta walk me to school every day, even after she was moved to second school, and come for me after. She didn't have to. We just loved each other, you know? And we talked and had plenty a laughs together. Fought, too, but we always made up. She was the best." Another pause. "Happened when I was ten, and her fourteen. We were taking our usual shortcut through the woods on the way to school. That's where he took us, a big dirty man with burning eyes, or so I remember. Mina tried to scream, but he smacked her to the ground at the first squeak. I thought he killed her till she groaned." She shivered. "I shoulda run for help, I know that now. But I couldn't leave her.
"He gagged my mouth with a knotted rag. Then he wound a rope around my waist and tied my wrists to it at the small of my back. I remember standin there watchin him pick Mina off the ground like a stick a firewood and truss her up the same way while she was still gatherin her wits, and I started to shake so much I almost fell down. I knew this stranger hadn't just happened on us in the woods. There was too much planning in what he'd done. It made me ready to wet myself wonderin about the rest of his plans. After he had her done up, he roped us together at the neck with about six feet between, tied a lead to my neck, and led us off like a brace a ponies.
"We walked all day and night, through woods and hills and across streams, all of it strange country. We didn't stop for rest or food or even to tinkle. If one of us slowed or even stumbled, he jerked on my lead fit to take my head off. We were pretty much cried out when we got to his shack."
The driftwood burned up quickly, and the fire had lowered, bringing the night closer. Simon wanted to bring Kaylee closer as well, but he was afraid of how she'd react if he tightened his grip. Instead, he laid his free hand gently over hers where it rested on her thigh.
"We were with him for over two months, they tell. I couldn't have said. The days were all alike, and countin didn't seem to make any sense. We had more important things on our minds.
"There was no getting away. First thing he did once he got us there, before he even untied us, was take our shoes. I guess there wasn't another soul around for miles, and the shack was at the bottom of this steep-sided bowl, sort of, a half-mile-wide crater lined with rocks. I think it was an old quarry. The rocks were almost like black glass and sharp as knives, from little shards to chunks as big as your head. There was only one way in, and I near broke an ankle on the way down that first night. The ground around would cut bare feet to ribbons before you got fifty yards. It was better than a fence. And the cairns out back left us no doubt what'd happen if we got caught tryin to run.
"Most days, he wasn't there. He'd leave us and come back with firewood or jugs of water or something he'd shot. Coupla times he was gone all night. And a coupla times he'd go out in the morning and be back by noon. He went out, you never knew when he'd be back. You just knew he always would.
"We cleaned house while he was gone. We spent most all our time on it, even though it was just a little three-room shack and none too clean when we first got there. He could always find something we missed, even if we hadn't. Dependin on his mood, that could cost you anything from a meal to a whippin from a leather belt he had hangin by the door, a whippin that'd leave you stiff for days after. We only had the clothes we come in, but he expected us to be neat and presentable all the time, though he was none too tidy himself, so we washed those near every day too, and spent our days in our underthings or our skin while they dried. We cooked when he got there, and ate what he didn't. Then he might set us some chores to do while he watched. Come sundown, he'd head for the bedroom in the back. And he'd take Mina with him." She was silent for a few moments. Simon's skin crinkled from a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the night air. "Don't know which was worse – the first week, when I could hear her cryin and beggin him to stop every night, or all the nights after when she didn't make a sound."
"That…" He swallowed and licked his lips. "That must have been very hard. Especially not understanding what was happening to her."
Kaylee gave him a shriveling look. "I was a ten-year-old farm girl. A course I knew what was goin on." Her eyes returned to her lap. "And if I hadn't, I'd have learned right quick. He taught me things to do for him when he wanted a switch, things with my mouth and hands. But he used Mina for everything else. Maybe he thought I was too young, but I think he just liked her better. Truth, I think sometimes he took me along that day just to give him another hold on her.
"He threatened to kill us every day. He had this big knife just like Jayne's. He wore a belt sheath for it, but it didn't rest there much when he was with us. He carried it all the time, like his hand didn't feel right without it. He'd get worked up about something, he'd start to wave it around. Havin the point under my chin or the edge of the blade at my throat felt as natural as clothes after awhile. We just tried to stay small and quiet and not look him in the eye. It was enough, barely."
She fell silent. River wandered into sight from up the beach, the direction opposite the one Jayne had taken. She was walking barefoot along the wet sand lapped by the waves, bent and staring at the smooth surface; Kaylee, still gazing at her lap, didn't notice as his sister passed by. River darted a hand, dug, came up with a large crustacean of some sort, and set it down. She watched, smiling, as it burrowed back into the sand. Then her smile disappeared, and she raised her eyes to meet his over the smoke and flame. She mouthed 'Dummy,' looked meaningfully at Kaylee, and wrapped arms around herself. Simon circled Kaylee gently in his arms, and his sister smiled again and traveled on, disappearing into the darkness. He thought of calling a warning to her that she was wandering into the path of an angry mercenary, but the girl in his arms shivered, drawing his attention away.
The little redhead pulled in a breath and let it out. "We talked a lot when he was gone. We talked about getting rescued, at first, but that sorta petered out. We talked about the man who took us, and how his mind worked, tryin to figure some way to mellow him out, or at least avoid the worst from him. We talked about the weather, and how the days were getting shorter and colder. About chores and housework, home and family. How long our clothes were gonna last before they were washed to rags. Bout the only things we never talked about was what went on in that bedroom at night, and how much longer he'd keep us before he got bored and put us under a new rockpile and went lookin for fresh.
"One morning after he was gone, we were putting our clothes on the line. Oh, I didn't say. Those rocks didn't come right up to the shack's walls. The ground was cleared for maybe ten yards all around, so we could get to the clothesline and the outhouse and build a cookfire outside if he was there to watch. He didn't worry about us being seen, what with the shack being in the bottom of a bowl surrounded by trees in the middle of nowhere. Anyways, we were just hanging up our things and lingerin in the fresh air before we went inside to work. And we heard a whistle. Not the kind somebody makes when they're callin you; the kind a boy lets out when he sees a girl he likes.
"We jerked up like deer at the snap of a twig, but we couldn't tell where the sound had come from because of the echoes. But we looked hard, turning around all frantic, until we heard laughing, and we finally spotted this strange man, just visible at the top of the cliff, standing there lookin down on us with his hands on his hips like he was having the time of his life. Spose he thought we'd shriek and bolt for the door, bein we only had on these thin little shifts that didn't cover our bottoms. Instead, Mina started waving her arms and jumping up and down, squalling like she'd found a weasel in the henhouse, and after a couple seconds I joined in. We kept it up till he understood we needed help, and he rounded the lip of the pit to the entrance and started down. Then we shut up, except for crying, and watched him all the way down the cliffside and right up to that clothesline, because we were scared if we turned our heads away he might just disappear.
"He was youngish, twenty or so, and his name was Will. He'd come with his pa and some other men on a prospecting trip. That's all he had a chance to tell before we gave him our story. Mina begged him to get the others, but he wouldn't hear of leavin us. 'Climb on my back,' he said to her. 'I'll carry you to the lip and come back for your sister.'
"And that's what he did. Mina prolly didn't weigh a hundred pounds then, but a quarter mile over those rocks and the thirty-yard climb to the rim couldna been easy. I watched the whole thing, and I saw him stumble more than once. But he was awful determined, and he made it. They reached the top, and I was just about to yell a cheer when I saw him step out of the woods not ten feet away, and it froze in my throat.
"Will didn't have a chance. The man already had that knife out, and stabbed that poor boy hard enough to lift him off his feet, even with my sister still on his back. Mina tumbled off him, and I bet he was dead before he hit the ground.
"The man was on her before she made her feet, and gave her a clout. I could hear his voice but not his words. He sounded like a wild animal mauling something. With her wrist tight in his fist, he pulled the knife out of Will, wiped it on Mina's shift, and kicked the body over the rim to the stones at the bottom. Then he started back down the cliff side, towing her behind. He didn't slow when he reached the bottom, just kept pullin her along over the rocks while she shrieked and danced, tryin to avoid the worst of em. When she fell, he just dragged her without slowin down till she found her feet. That happened three times. I can't describe what her free arm and legs looked like by the time they got back.
"He stood over me with Mina sobbin on her bloody knees beside him, hangin from his fist by one wrist, and I wet myself. Good thing I wasn't wearin pants, I guess. He just said, 'Your room,' and I skedaddled inside to the little lean-to room where I spent my nights alone. He closed the door behind me, leavin just the light that found its way through the cracks in the walls. I huddled into my blanket and tried to shut out the sounds comin from the main room."
Kaylee fell silent. He held her stiffly, afraid to move. The fire had lowered to a flicker that barely illuminated them. The sound of the surf, the meager fire, and the log on which they sat comprised their entire universe. Neither of them looked up at the stars.
She took a deep breath and let it out. "He kept at it way after Mina quit screamin. After a long while, I realized I hadn't heard that belt on her flesh for a spell, and figured he was done with her, for now at least. I listened with my cheek against the door, but I didn't hear anything. But I was too scared to do anything else right away. Finally, I opened the door and peeked out into the main room.
"For a second, I didn't know what I was lookin at. It looked like he'd hung a butchered animal from the beam overhead. Then it whimpered a little, real soft, and I recognized her.
"Her shift was bloody rags on the floor around her feet. He'd hung her by her wrists, so high only her toes touched the floor. Her beautiful hair was a matted mess dyed with her blood. He'd left her face alone, mostly, but that belt had been on every inch of her from the neck down, and she was near skinned alive. I don't think he took her shift off before he started. It just sorta came apart and fell off her after awhile.
"I wasn't tall enough to reach the rope around her wrists, so I dragged a chair to her, half blind with tears. When I touched the knot, her eyes flew open and she screamed, 'No!' First thought was I was hurting her. Second was she was out of her mind and she thought I was him, come back to start again. Then she said, 'Don't touch me. When he comes back, he'll see. He'll see.' That stopped me cold, and I sat down on that chair and cried.
"After a while, I got my wits back and took a look around the room. You can guess what it was like. I told you he was particular about how things looked when he came back, and for sure he'd already be in a bad mood, maybe the worst ever. So I got rags and water and a brush and started washing blood off the walls and furniture. Cleaning house with her hanging like a butchered hog in the middle of the room, maybe dying. But it was all I could do.
"I couldn't reach the ceiling, even on a chair. I could only hope he wouldn't kill me for being short. The floor was just painted with her. I scrubbed the spatters farthest from her, but I couldn't clean the floor under her cause she wasn't done bleeding. I got a big pan and set it under her to catch the drips. I guided her feet into it, one at a time, and she didn't make a sound. I don't think she was really there, just livin from one breath to the next and not tracking anything else. My hands were red to the wrists by the time I was done. That made me look at myself, at the luh suh under my fingernails and stiffening the ends of my hair and my wet shift stained pink, and I knew I'd never pass muster. But the only clean clothes I had were on the line outside, and I was scared to poke my nose out. I just sat and shivered for a while. Then I sorta sneaked out, expectin his hand to drop on my shoulder every second." She shivered. "Will's body was still crumpled at the bottom of the cliff. I remember it was already in shadow, even though it was long before sundown; it got dark early in the bottom of that pit.
"I went back inside and cleaned up and changed. After that, I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I just sat down next to her, and we waited.
"Wasn't long before the light started to go. I decided I had to wash my sister's face, at least, and I wet a rag. She woke up again from that, I guess. And that's when she said it, the first time she'd spoke since I tried to get her down. She said, "I'm sorry, Kaylee. I'm so sorry." I was flummoxed, wondering how she could think any of this was her fault, till I took her real meaning." Kaylee leaned forward and hugged herself, seeming to shrink. "Night was coming fast. And when he came back for fun and games in the back bedroom, it wouldn't be Mina he took this time."
A knot among the sullen coals popped. Kaylee started with a little gasp, then huddled back into herself, alone even with his arms around her. Simon wondered where the others were, if they'd all gone inside for the night. He wished desperately for someone to join them, someone who could do more for her than bear silent witness. Someone like the Shepherd or Inara, who knew the ways of the world and its people, who could offer her some comfort and advice.
She took a breath and let it out. "After that, night seemed to fall like a stone. We didn't have a lantern or anything like unless he was there. So we waited in the dark. And after a while, I heard footsteps.
"But they weren't right. There were too many of em, and stepping too cautious and quiet. I used up the last crumb of courage I had and said, 'Hello?'
"The door swung open fast, and a couple men poked rifles in. I think it took them a second to ken what they were seeing, just like I had. One of them said, 'Anyone else?'
"'No,' I said to him. 'But he's coming back. He always comes back.' The other one who'd looked in pulled back, and I could hear him sicking up outside. Another man stepped in the doorway, and those two came in and took her down while I went for my blanket.
"It was Will's people, three of them. His pa was the one spoke to me. He looked over what the bad man had done to Mina and he carried her out of that place in his arms, wrapped in my blanket. He passed by Will's body, and one of the men started to ask a question, but he cut him off. 'We'll come back for what's left of him when we can. This one needs us more.'
"They brought us home, and our folks near died to see us. Those three men couldn't pay for a meal or a bed or a pair of shoes or anything else they wanted in my home town the two days they were there. And they sit at our dinner table whenever their travels bring em our way."
The fire was down to embers, and the stars pressed down on them. To Simon, they didn't seem friendly at all.
"He never got caught. He might've come back after we all left, but there was nobody there to hold him. Could be he never went back. Maybe he saw the others, or some instinct told him to skedaddle. There was talk of 'bringing the monster to justice,' but local law was just a marshal and two deputies. New Home got occupied early in the War, so there was troops billeted in town, but the Federal fellas had bigger criminals to chase, I guess, like those boys who burned the Alliance flag in the town square. Word went out all over New Home, course, but nothing ever come of it. So it seemed the best thing to do was put it behind us."
Simon felt certain his love hadn't put it entirely behind her and never would. But he asked anyway. "And did you?"
She shook her head, faintly outlined by starlight rather than the nearly-dead fire. "We tried, Lord knows, but it wouldn't stay there. Willamina was always there to put it in our faces. She never got over what he did. I'm not talking about the scars, least not the ones on the outside. She stayed quiet, like she was still in that shack with him in a mood. She took to wandering off and had to be watched all the time. Sometimes she'd start shrieking for no reason and huddle in a corner. Kinda like River, only without the big words. We still had hope she'd come back to us someday. But then, about the time her skin healed over, her belly started to swell."
He swallowed to wet his throat. "So Will…"
"Is hers and his. I spose on some Core World they'd have ended him, but it's not our way. She carried her baby and had him, though childbirth was hard on a girl her age, and the doctor said she'd prolly never have another. That was an awful shame, specially since she couldn't bring herself to love him. I hear tell of women come with child through that kinda misfortune, and love for their baby gets them through the pain of how they got it. But it didn't work that way for Mina. She couldn't even look at him. Ma named him after that boy who died tryin to save us, and raised him up herself with a little help from me. All he got from Mina was her milk till he was weaned.
"About the time little Will was learning to walk, Mina went missing, just disappeared. The only place she could have gone was the forest east of town – the one he led us through. The search combed those woods all the way to that shack. But we never found her. That was ten, eleven years ago. Will knows his real ma died in the woods when he was a baby, but nobody's gonna tell him another word about the rest of it till he's man-tall." She took a breath and let it out, seeming worn out by her tale. "So now you know the worst about me that I've got to tell."
"Kaylee…" He searched for words of reassurance and comfort, something she hadn't likely heard a hundred times from her family as she grew up. "It wasn't your fault. All the blame belongs to the man who took you."
"I know what he did, and how little choice he left me. I'm not talking about anything he made me do. I'm talkin about…" She choked, and he drew her closer. She sobbed while he held her. "I spent the whole afternoon cleanin house with her hangin in arm's reach. Just hangin there like a hog in a butcher's window, cause I couldn't get my mind off what he'd do to me if I took her down. I didn't even look at her, not even when I set her feet in that pan. That's what haunts me, how I let fear win out over love."
She was invisible in the dark now, just a presence in his arms and a small still voice. "That man Early. I think he was a reader like River, but he liked twisting people's hearts and watching them squirm. He had plenty of fun with me. The first second I saw him standing there staring at me, I heard my own voice saying he always comes back. I had this crazy thought it was him in another man's skin, that he'd come aboard with me and hid, biding his time. He caught it, and it was all he needed to start. He asked me if I'd ever been raped, knowing it would steal my breath and take the last little bit of starch out of me. He told me he could think of all manner of things to do to me, and I almost lost my water. He made me tell him I was helpless and alone. And when he was done, I was ten years old again, alone with him in that close little shack, and it was all I could do to keep on my feet. He laid me on the deck and wrapped my wrists and ankles with bindings a little kid could've got out of, knowing I wouldn't try them. Knowing I'd just lay there while he had his way with all of you. Cept River called me on ship's com and talked a little courage back into me, just barely enough."
She pulled out of his arms and stood, silhouetted against the stars. "I know you can't understand that. You'd face anything for River, and you don't fear for yourself at all." She faced the dead fire, as if seeking warmth that was no longer there. "You're the bravest man I know."
"Say that again the next time we suit up for a trip out on the hull." Simon looked up at the night sky. To him, it didn't seem friendly at all. The stars seemed to peer down at him like the observers in the operating theater at MedAcad, waiting with cool detachment for him to make a decision that would turn out either heroic or tragic.
He stood and fumbled in the dark for a stick from the woodpile he'd gathered. He stirred the ashes, digging up buried coals that glowed dully and brought a hint of warmth to his face and hands. He broke the branch, set it atop the embers, and reached for another. "Kaylee, what did you say to my father when he left us at Boros? When you whispered in his ear, and made him smile?"
"I said…" She paused. "I said, 'Now I see what kind of grown man he'll be, I love him even more.'"
The wood smoked, obscuring the coals again. Simon added more sticks, leaving plenty of air space. "I'm nothing like my father. That's not a son's independence talking. It's true. I wish I could be more like him. He always knows the right thing to do." He bent low to blow on the smoking pile.
The fire blazed up suddenly, stealing their night vision and making the stars disappear. He straightened, and saw that her attention had shifted from the darkness above to him. She held her hands out toward the fire and rubbed them together. "Maybe you don't always know the right thing to do, but what you do always seems to turn out right."
"No. Not always." He took a breath. "While my father and Sessions were working to get River out, I was trying to reach her too, clumsily, moving among men I didn't understand at all. I got involved with this group that claimed to be an underground movement. They weren't, just a criminal gang with a fondness for revolutionary slogans, but I took them at face value. I thought they could get to her and rescue her. So I offered them whatever they wanted."
"Money, more than I ever saw, I suppose."
"All I had." He stared into the rising fire. "But it wasn't enough to sway them. They couldn't trust me, they said. Not a child of privilege who'd never missed a meal, who'd dined in the fanciest halls on Osiris with the people they were trying to overthrow. To get their cooperation, I'd have to join them… and prove myself."
Her hand slipped into his and squeezed.
He squeezed in return, but didn't look at her, just stared into the flames. "It started harmlessly enough, I thought. They had some use for my skill as a doctor." He gave a head shrug. "Their jobs never seemed to go smooth either. They supported themselves with thefts and smuggling and other criminal acts. Some of their deals involved stolen pharmaceuticals. I was called on to check the goods and make sure they got what they paid for. I got familiar with the trade and the players, and they gave me the job of putting together the deals. Before long, I was planning the thefts, too, raiding clinics and warehouses. The hospital caper was just an idea, though. I never did it until we raided Saint Lucy's."
"That's how you knew the street value of the drugs from the hospital, and what to take." Kaylee nodded. "Wondered about that."
"Shepherd Book did too, I think. He made some remark about me being a 'criminal mastermind' that was a bit too pointed for comfort." He took a breath and let it out. "But that was just the beginning."
A distant bellow sounded from the darkness some distance down the beach, making them both jump: Jayne. Then River shrieked, and Simon took a step that way before he heard her laughter follow.
Kaylee's hand was still in his; she tugged him back to the log to sit. "They're fine. She's safe with him, safer than if she's alone."
He forebore to say that she hadn't seemed so sure of the big man a short while before. His medical training included only the sketchiest knowledge of psychology, but he knew that deep-seated fears resulting from childhood trauma bypassed rational thought and close-held sentiments alike.
They sat holding hands without a word, quietly listening. Before long they heard heavy feet pounding along the shore, headed their way. Simon heard his sister cry, "Faster! I'm not dry yet!"
"Well, I'm wet as a dog in the rain," was Jayne's reply. "Twixt you drippin on me and the sweatin I'm doin."
"Shouldn't have thrown me in, then. Or offered to dry me off after."
"Already gone half a mile with you." Jayne jogged into the edge of the firelight. River rode his back, her thighs clasping his hips and gripped in his big hands while her arms wound around his massive shoulders. Her wet hair clung to her, as did her wet clothes, and she seemed to press against Jayne's back more firmly than a good seat required. "What I gotta do next, climb a gorram tree?"
"No trees, ape man. And it was only a hundred meters." Horse and rider passed out of the light, headed up the beach. Her voice began to fade with distance. "Get to the top of the dune, and it's my turn."
"That'll be the day." They passed out of hearing, and the surf was the only sound once more.
Simon stood and threw more wood on the fire, almost the last of what he'd scavenged off the beach. The flames rose. "I don't want to tell the rest, on my word I don't. But I will, if you want to hear."
"Come back to me, and finish it." From the log where she still sat, Kaylee offered her hand. "You've had it locked away long enough." When he was settled, she snuggled into him, gazing into the fire. "They were setting you up for something, getting you too far in to back out."
He stared at her. I love her. She's beautiful and sweet and has gifts that baffle me. But I never suspected until now that she might be smarter than I am. "I wish you'd been there to warn me."
"Doesn't matter. You'd have done it anyway. What did they want?"
He shifted his attention to the fire. "Information. About the Twelve Families, everything I knew. Habits, vices, relationships, personal secrets, business dealings. And details about how they lived. Their routines, travel preferences, items about their estates. I'd been visiting their homes all my life, but I was shocked at the sheer volume of what my... associates wrung out of me. Security arrangements, keypad codes, floor plans. Staff schedules. Even tidbits of gossip I didn't realize I'd heard. I thought it was going to be used for theft or burglary." He gave a shrug, a short, choppy gesture that was really a stifled impulse to strike out at something.
"Simon." Kaylee looked up at him. "Good people make awful mistakes sometimes. It's not right to hate yourself over it."
"I should have guessed what they were up to. I knew what sort of people they were. They talked about 'doing away with the oppressors' often enough."
He realized he was squeezing her hand hard enough to hurt her, and opened his fingers. But she gave no sign of pain, and hung on to his open palm. He took a breath. He'd thought he could never tell another soul this story, but once he started, the words wouldn't stop tumbling out of his mouth. "Four servants and two guards were killed during the kidnappings. I knew them all. They took six people, two of them children. The ransom demands were impossible to meet. The money was one thing, but the political ultimatums were another. They killed a hostage to prove they meant business. He was an old friend of my father's, the man who'd given me the stethoscope I took to MedAcad."
The fire was lowering again, but the stars didn't reappear. He supposed the sky was clouding over, hiding them. "I would have gone to the police if I could have helped them. But all I knew about the plot was the source of the kidnappers' information. I'd have gone to jail, or the block, and River would have lost her only chance of escape. Or so I told myself." He stood, slipping out of Kaylee's arms, and tossed on the last of the firewood. "The hideout was discovered through a casual witness and raided a few days later. All the other victims were recovered unharmed, except for one young woman, a cousin of my mother's, who'd been… abused. Several of the kidnappers escaped and were never apprehended. I broke the last of my ties with my family then, because I was sure the police would uncover my link to those monsters. I hadn't lived at home for some time, but I unlisted my code and moved to a blackout zone. I spent two months living on cash and barter, thoroughly illegal on Osiris, while I waited to be found. Eventually I was, but not by the police. One of the men from the Underground, or so I thought then. He directed me to Persephone to pick up my 'package'. The rest you know. I thought I was being paid for my services, but it was all for nothing."
"You couldn't know that," Kaylee said, standing behind him. "The fix River was in didn't leave you any good choices. But you couldn't just sit by." her arms circled his waist, and he felt her head on his shoulder blade. "I gotta be the luckiest girl in the world."
"After what happened to you? How can you say that?"
"Simon, men like that are rarer than a two-headed cow. Gotta be, or the 'Verse would just fall apart. I already met two; I won't cross paths with another if I live to be a hundred. There's good in most anybody, though it might be buried too deep to be worth goin after." She squeezed him. "But men who'll do anything for love are just as hard to find, and I got me one."
A strange noise from up the beach grew louder as its source approached: footsteps, lighter and quicker than the big merc's, combined with a soft hissing. River jogged into the firelight, pulling a crude travois across the hard sand. Big elbows were visible poking out of either side of the frame. River stopped at closest approach to the fire, blowing hard, and Simon saw Jayne lying at ease in the sling between the poles with his hands clasped behind his head.
The big man said, "Still say it's cheatin. Then again, I got nothin against a little cheatin, long's it's honest. Reckon you win my dessert tonight."
River grinned. "I'll share, but only if we use the same spoon."
"Dunno bout that. Might catch crazy germs or suchlike."
River let go the handles, and the travois thumped to the ground. Jayne hoofed and rolled out as the girl walked to the fire in her still-damp clothes. She rubbed her hands and gooseflesh-pebbled upper arms to warm them. "Little mouse," she said, "scuttling from hole to hole, but the cat's out there somewhere, all sharp claws and cold amused eyes."
"Shiia," the big man said as he rose and brushed at his clothes. "Best you two finish up your spoonin and head in soon. Captain says we're liftin at first light, and a damn fine idea it is, too, you ask me." Jayne's voice held no trace of resentment at his mention of the captain. "C'mon, Moony, let's leave em to their business and get you in some dry clothes."
"Jayne?" Kaylee pulled away from Simon to face Jayne and River as they stepped away from the fire. "What was the argument about?"
Jayne gathered his eyebrows. "Argument?"
"With the Cap'n, earlier, before you walked down the beach."
The big man shook his head. "Wasn't no argument. He just brought some bad news bout the next leg a the trip, and I was blowin off steam about it. Reavers hit Ayers Rock yesterday. They're long gone, a course, but that's only six hours away."
"You had your hand on your knife. Cap'n's hand was on his gun."
"Ah, hell." Jayne looked into the fire, avoiding their eyes. "It's only natural for a man's hand to find whatever weapon it can, when he's talkin bout Reavers." He pressed a big hand into River's shoulder blades and urged her into the dark in the direction of the ship. "Don't know why those two don't just move into a passenger cabin and be done."
"They will," River said, her voice fading into the dark, "As soon as Kaylee tells Simon why she likes strawberries better than sex, and he tells her about Bethany and Beatrice Chan and the medical cadavers."
Simon and Kaylee turned to each other. "I don't know what she's…"