“How’d you get out?”
“When I was twelve, Ry fourteen, and Dare almost sixteen, we finally knew we could take the bastard. We set an ambush.” Justyn still remembered his sweaty hands and racing pulse as he listened to the heavy thuds of his stepfather coming down the stairs. And he had no trouble recalling the sharp scent of the man’s blood.
They’d left him a bloody pulp, and Justyn was just sorry they hadn’t killed the bastard. To stop him getting off on beating some other poor kids.
“Then we left.” They’d run as far and fast as they could.
“Your mother?”
He shrugged. “We left her, too.” She’d been scared, but she’d left her sons to rot for seven years. They hadn’t wanted anything to do with her.
Nissa’s body was vibrating with constrained fury. “Your father?”
“Dead by then. He didn’t have much to do with us after he and mom split.”
“Three young boys. Alone!”
“Hey.” Justyn reached out, took hold of her hand, and pulled her closer. “We escaped. We survived. It gave me a good appreciation for sunshine and doing things that feel good.”
Her face softened. “You are a good man, Justyn.”
“Whoa. Don’t go overboard.”
She slid onto his lap. “Most people would be in therapy, or turn out to be criminals, or just end up dead, but you grin at the world and enjoy yourself.”
He nuzzled her neck. “You know, Captain Smooth, enjoying yourself really isn’t a bad thing. You could do with learning a bit more about it.”
Her arms twined around his neck. “Maybe I’m just starting to realize that.”
Desire fired through Justyn’s blood, pooling in his crotch. “Nissa?—”
The beacon made a high-pitched beeping, colored lights blinking in a furious display like something had made it very angry.
With a curse, Justyn leaned forward helping Nissa to her feet with his hands around her waist.
He gave another curse and slammed a fist into the console. “The signal can’t get through the dense vegetation.”
She squeezed her eyes closed. “We’re stuck here with no help on the way.”
Nissa paced across the cockpit.“What do we do now?”
Justyn was staring at the dense foliage outside through the half of the viewscreen that wasn’t boarded up. “We have to get the beacon above the canopy.”
Right. They had to go outside. She smoothed a hand over her head. “Suggestions?”
“Well, we can climb a tree.”
They both stared at the jungle. There weren’t really any solid-looking trees, just vines and giant flowers.
“Or we can search for any higher ground?” she suggested.
He nodded and moved to the comms console, the least damaged in the cockpit. “Let me see if I can reroute some emergency power through here and do some scans.”
She perched nearby and watched him. A part of her was still seething inside at what he’d told her about his childhood, but she knew she had to set it aside. He hadn’t let what he’d suffered taint him. He’d made himself into the man he was and she’d never doubted the strong bond between him and his brothers.
He’d talked about loyalty. She knew now why it was vital to him.
And she was lying to him.
