RO WAS NOT IN THE TENT WHEN KENDIS got there. He didn’t know which cot was Jade’s, so he did a mental coin toss and laid her on the one on the right. He pulled her boots off and gently rolled her under the covering tucking the edges in tightly all around.
He watched her for a few minutes. He restrained himself from bending down and kissing those wonderfully full lips. He satisfied himself with just lightly touching her hair.
He sighed. He couldn’t understand why he was feeling this way about a female he had just met today. This morning, when he saw her standing on the porch back at the cottage, his heart had almost stopped. She was stunning.
Alex had talked about his little sister a lot, and it was obvious he loved her immensely and was very close to her. Kendis had been a little envious - he was an only child and had often longed for a brother or sister.
Prior to meeting her, he had imagined he could, perhaps, be like another big brother to her. Now he knew. No. What he was feeling for her was definitely not brotherly.
Shards. He wasn’t sure how to handle this. He’d had girlfriends before…and sleep buddies - sometimes they were one and the same - but he’d never felt this way about any of them. He needed someone to talk to about this, and soon. Before he did something utterly foolish - like kissing a sleeping woman.
He quietly made his way out of the tent. He stood there, breathing in the cool air, trying to sort out his feelings for Jade. He had just met her yet he felt as if he had just been marking time, waiting for her to come into his life, as if he had never really lived until he saw her. She was…astonishing.
Maybe he should just ask her to go out with him when they returned to the Dome. He shook his head wondering why he felt reluctant to do that. After thinking for a moment, he realized it was because he was afraid she would say no.
Damn. He couldn’t believe himself. He’d never been afraid to ask a female out before. Not even when he was fourteen and just leaving home to go to work for the pest company. Why, he had been out with a lot of women since then. Even he and Ro had…
He caught a motion out the corner of his eye and turned toward the mess tent to see Ro and Alex, holding hands, headed his way.
“What did Sparrow want?” asked Ro, when they got within talking distance.
She and Alex had been sitting with him when Sparrow summoned him to its tent. He had told them he’d be right back.
He mind-spoke because he knew how his voice could carry and he didn’t want to take a chance on waking Jade.
Alex took the hint: He gave a mental chuckle. He was grinning.
Ro gave him a small shove. She giggled.
Kendis smiled.
said Alex, with a huge grin. And with relief.
Kendis seemingly ignored the teasing statement but Ro and Alex could have sworn his eyes turned a deeper shade of green.
Ro had a feeling about Kendis and Jade. She smiled remembering when she and Kendis had been snowbound at a work camp one weekend, and bored, and they had… She stopped the thought. Alex had asked about her and Kendis, if they'd ever had a...connection, and she’d told him about that back in the canteen.
Once he understood she wasn’t still interested in Kendis that way, he’d shrugged and said he didn’t care what she’d done before he met her and if people were going to get upset about past liaisons, most would be getting upset all the time, especially the ones who’d worked for Nuisance Apprehenders, Inc., since so many of them had dated each other or had been sleep buddies in one camp or another.
She looked at Kendis. She was almost certain he liked Jade and she was pretty sure Jade liked him too. She thought he should probably tell her about their previous association. Perhaps she should tell her. She decided she’d ask Alex first.