Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The Read Online Free PDF Page B

but there there’s something about him.” He tapped his
temple. “He seems a bit slow in his mind, confused about simple
things. You’re the doctor, but I suspect he has some kind of brain
injury. He thinks real slow and careful about his words. Suspect
that might be why he lost his last job. We couldn’t turn him
away.”
    Emma’s heart swelled with love for Moe
and Vannie. The two big, tough men had hearts as soft as their
fists were hard. “Thank you. Moe.”
    “ For what?” Moe went back
to chopping the meat into bite-sized chunks.
    “ For being you.” Emma
started slicing the yellow potatoes again. She could never express
enough gratitude to Moe and Vannie for taking her in like family
when she arrived at Hovel Port.
    Moe grunted an answer and tossed a
handful of red meat into the pot sitting on the stove. “Only hope
the boy doesn’t get himself killed.”
    The burst of happiness evaporated like
the steam escaping through the ceiling vent. Emma wanted the chance
to clear those shadows behind Vin’s eyes. What would his handsome
face look like with a smile?
    * * * *
    Vin needed the help of five men to pull
the heavy man trap from the bottom of the muddy stream. He’d
already triggered the spring and could have left it but the
bastards that had placed it might come back and reset
it.
    “ Evil contraption.” Vannie
wiped his arm across his brow.
    Vin squatted and examined it. The
mechanism looked similar to an animal trap but an inanimate object
couldn’t be evil as Vannie named it. The sharp edges of the jaws
did look lethal. It surprised him that Russ hadn’t lost his legs
completely. “The next quarter mile of the stream is clear for
tomorrow.”
    “ Unless they sneak back
and set more traps in it tonight,” Vannie said.
    “ No reason for them to
know this one isn’t still in there. It would take at least four men
to place this device even if they have hover scooters and wenches
to lower it. They probably set them all at once a while ago. You’ve
just been lucky to avoid most of them.”
    “ I guess that makes sense,
though I don’t think losing one man and crippling another is very
good luck.” Vannie waved to the men still in the stream, signaling
the end of the work day. The star warming Merris Five touched the
top of the mountains. Full dark would follow within the hour. “Now,
Vin, I know you have a camp somewhere, but it’s not safe out in the
woods after dark. I know any number of families with a room to
spare.”
    Vin opened his mouth to object but then
stopped his words. He needed to stay close to Emma. He hadn’t seen
her since he’d given her the antibiotic though she’d made an
appearance in his dreams every night. Vannie waited for an answer.
“Let me think about it.”
    “ There’s red bears and
packs of nasty lizards out in the jungle. We lost a child our first
year here to those scaly beasts. Since then we get everyone inside
the walls before dark.”
    Vin had seen signs of the lizards,
including a few messy kills, but hadn’t encountered them yet. “They
seem to keep to the deep forest.”
    “ Not always.” Vannie
kicked the trap, barely shifting the heavy metal construct. “You
know about these things, a bit about doctoring and how to hunt. We
had a handyman until three months ago. He fixed up our machinery
when it broke, kept our solar power working and generally took care
of things people didn’t have the knowledge to tend
themselves.”
    “ What happened to him?”
Vin expected another tale of wild animals.
    “ He tired of the hard work
and no hope of making better than a mean living. Packed up and
walked up to the Hadrason mine and caught a transport off world. He
left his tools and such behind, and his workshop sits empty. He
slept in the loft over the work area. Don’t see any reason you
can’t take over his shop and live there.”
    Vin’s mind blanked at the idea of
having a place to himself. Almost like a house. His answer had
nothing to do with