Hercules 500 Page 16

  Excited despite her exhaustion, Anika commenced to trying to encourage the beast to move a little faster. Either she did manage to communicate her desires or the beast sensed it was nearing its destination. It began to shamble a little faster, pulling slightly ahead of the group.

  Anika started shouting as soon as she spied what looked to be a dwelling at the end of the long, winding drive. In a few moments, someone appeared holding a gun and lifted it.

  Anika started waving her arms a little frantically. “Mom! It’s me!”

  The woman lowered the gun, stared for a long moment and then threw the gun down and started running to meet them.

  “Annie? Annie!” she screamed, running so fast she nearly stumbled and fell twice.

  Probably would have except that a large man had appeared when she started screaming and he was keeping pace with her as she ran.

  Anika jerked on the reins of the beast until it skidded to a stop and then slid off the saddle. Her knees nearly collapsed when she hit the ground, but she discovered it didn’t matter. Her mother was upon her before she could struggle to take a step, nearly knocking her down as she flew at her.

  “Annie!” she sobbed. “Baby! Oh my god! Baby! I thought I’d lost you! We heard one of the shuttles had crashed and … and I couldn’t find you anywhere!”

  Anika burst into tears as she hugged her mother in return. “I’m so sorry I worried you, but there was no means of communications available to us. We were attacked. The captain said we had to bail out and ….” That comment reminded her that she’d arrived with a group and she sniffed, trying to pull herself together, and looked around for them.

  Belinda pulled away and mopped her tears. “Come on in,” she said, gesturing to everyone. “I know you have to be exhausted! And probably starving!”

  Anika turned and grinned at the guys. “This is my mom!”

  Cole felt a hard knot of emotion form in his throat as he watched the two women together. He knew in that moment that his children were right where he wanted them, right where they should be. He nodded when Anika spoke and then chuckled as the tightness in his throat eased. “Thank god for a friendly face!”

  Belinda snorted. “Well—I have to say in their defense people around here have plenty of reason to be sour. But let’s not talk about that right now.”

  “You would not believe what we’ve been through!” Anika gasped as they headed toward her home arm in arm.

  “Oh I expect I won’t have any trouble believing,” Belinda responded. “I’ve been here a while.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Belinda’s ‘humble’ home, they quickly discovered, was anything but poor. From the outside it certainly looked unremarkable, not quite a derelict but not all that far from it either. And the room they first entered, although scrupulously clean and very sparsely furnished, was no great surprise considering the modest exterior. Anika had actually suspected at first glance that it was a one room cabin.

  But it had hidden depths.

  Belinda sent them a mischievous smile. “Come on! I’ll show you my pride and joy and you guys can wash the road dirt off and relax.”

  Mystified, Anika sent the guys a look of confusion and followed her mother through an odd doorway hidden behind a rough bookcase. Belinda flipped a switch just behind it on an irregular, rock wall and illuminated what looked like a grand cathedral.

  “It’s a cave,” Belinda said with a chuckle at the look on Anika’s face.

  “You built your cabin in the mouth of a cave?” Anika gasped, too stunned to consider the reasoning behind it.

  Belinda didn’t take exception. “It’s actually why I took this land lot—It isn’t my first. I settled close to the Capital City when I first came, but it doesn’t take a long time to figure out how this world works—just like the last one or maybe worse because there’s no control at all over the company and their reps. So I heard about this place and came to check it out and I could see a lot of potential. I bought it and moved here.”

  Leading them along a walkway, she pointed out the pool that edged it. “This is about four feet deep at the deepest part and it’s always warm. I’ll leave y’all to it and see what I can throw together to feed you.”

  The guys didn’t even wait for her to get gone to start stripping out of their clothing.

  Anika hesitated, but she’d had sex with Chance and Sebastian and shared a sleeping bag with all three men. It was absurd to feel so shy about them getting naked in front of her.

  Or vice versa.

  Besides, she hadn’t gotten the chance to really examine any of them.

  Instead of tearing out of the cave behind her mom, therefore, she headed toward a spot that had a seat of sorts and settled. Removing her boots and socks, she unzipped the legs to her one piece suit and rolled them up, then turned to dangle her feet and lower legs in the water.

  Her mother’s domestic approached shortly after the guys dove in, carrying a stack of towels and washcloths, soap and even shampoo!

  Anika felt like she’d died and gone to heaven!

  That did it!

  As much as she enjoyed just studying the ‘male review’, the temptation of a hot bath was even more enticing.

  The guys weren’t really paying her any attention anyway!

  Stripping the suit the rest of the way off, she slipped into the warm water in her panties and undershirt. Under the cover of water, she struggled out of her wet panties and then grasped the bottom of her undershirt and fought the clinging cloth to pull it off over her head.

  Someone grabbed her just about the time she was thoroughly entangled and she felt her breasts flattened against a hard, manly chest.

  She couldn’t decide whether to finish removing the shirt or to try to drag it down again.

  The decision was made for her. Someone grabbed the clinging, wet fabric and whipped it off.

  A jolt went through Anika when she discovered it was Cole, his expression playfully teasing although there was heat in his eyes.

  Unnerved, she looked around for Chance and Sebastian and discovered that they were watching, slowly soaping up the cloths they held in their hands as if waiting for her to decide whether she wanted Cole touching her or not.

  Relieved on all counts—the fear they’d become enraged with Cole or her or both of them—she returned her attention to Cole.

  The teasing expression on his face from before had vanished. “You afraid of me, baby?”

  The question surprised her. “No.”

  He grinned wryly. “If your bookends weren’t standing there would you be?”

  Anika gave him a disapproving look for the comment. “They aren’t … but no.” She scanned his face. “I know you’re a good man, Cole.”

  Several different thoughts and emotions chased across his face in quick succession. “Been reading up?” he asked tightly, releasing her.

  He was touchy about his past—especially the debilitating accident he’d been in.

  Maybe all of his past.

  He’d grown up orphaned, living on a boy’s ranch.

  “I did. But I trust my instincts more.”

  He looked a little surprised, but instead of pursuing it, he moved away and got a washcloth for each of them.

  Anika thanked him and focused on her bath.

  Neither Chance nor Sebastian had shown any sign of taking exception to her having an interest in Cole, but she didn’t want to push it.

  The heated water was absolutely divine! She scrubbed until she felt her skin pruning and then washed her hair just as thoroughly. She was so weak from the warm, relaxing water that she found herself struggling to get out.

  Sebastian scooped her up and planted her wet ass on the bench with a splat.

  Chance, she discovered, was standing beside him looking indignant that Sebastian had beat him to her.

  She smiled at him and shook her head. “I’m just glad somebody grabbed me before I passed out.”

  None of the guys seemed to be in a hurry to
get out until her mother came to the door and yelled “Food!” Then they almost trampled her getting out, fighting over the towels, half ass mopping off and heading toward the table as they hopped into their change of clothing.

  Anika was a little outdone at how quickly she was usurped of their attention, but she couldn’t help but laugh.

  So much for wowing them!

  Not that she thought she was sexy when she had a very noticeable baby bump!

  Everyone was waiting for her when she managed to pull some clothes on and wobble back to the main cabin.

  Impatiently.

  Staring at the food steaming on the plates in front of them.

  “Aww! You guys didn’t have to wait.”

  “Yes. We did. Belinda said she would crack heads if we started without you,” Chance said.

  Anika bit her lip. Her mom was such a little thing next to these giant men it was hilarious that she could intimidate them!

  She squeezed in between Chance and Sebastian—which seemed to please them no end. Cole scowled at them from the other side.

  Belinda sat down in the empty chair next to him. “Dig in! There’s plenty.”

  Nobody had to be told twice. Anika wasn’t the least surprised to discover the food tasted even better than it looked. Her mother was a great cook!

  The guys wolfed down what was on their plates and looked around hopefully.

  “Good god! You’re going to have your work cut out for you feeding this bunch!” Belinda said with a laugh as she got up and refilled the plates. She was clearly pleased that they were happy with the food, though.

  “Not that you have to be a great cook to be an improvement on the cooking you can get at the places around here!”

  “No,” Chance agreed then, completely oblivious of the dirty looks that comment drew down on him, added, “But this is excellent.”

  “He’s funny,” Belinda said, chuckling.

  “Yes, he is,” Anika agreed, grinning at the puzzled look on Chance’s face.

  She did adore him, she thought, still a little uncomfortable with the realization but also aware that she’d fought that battle and lost.

  He believed he cared about her, too, and that, she realized, was enough.

  Love was, after all, a state of mind.

  Instead of trying to squeeze into Belinda’s tiny living area after they’d finished eating, they simply shoved their chairs back from the table a little and slumped in the seats for a visit.

  “I guess if you guys got the chance to have a look at the property maps you must have noticed the huge swaths of gray areas not available?”

  It was hard to miss since the gray areas actually accounted for most of the land.

  She nodded. “That’s company property. All the choice pieces. They aren’t all marked with the company name as owner, but that’s what they are.”

  Anika frowned. “I saw a couple of mines marked.”

  “Yeah. Different names, but it’s the same company. They did a survey for anything of value before they opened it to the ‘public’ for colonization.”

  Anika nodded. “So the rich get richer.”

  Belinda shrugged. “It’s a fact of life, honey. But this place has potential. And there are a couple of land lots close to mine that look like good land.”

  She said it tentatively, and Anika was uneasy about the guys’ reaction.

  Well, not Chance.

  He was going where she was going. “Great! I can’t wait to have a look around.”

  Belinda relaxed. “I heard some good news on the way back from Capital City. I wasn’t much in the mood to celebrate at the time, but it is good news! Somebody killed that bastard Marshall Sharp and his sorry band of thieves and rapists! So I’m thinking things around here are going to be improving drastically.

  “Of course, there’s not much doubt somebody will take their place and they could be even worse, but for right now things are looking up.”

  Anika studied her hands.

  She really wanted to confide in her mother, but the truth was, it wasn’t her secret. Certainly not just hers.

  Cole sighed. “Well, we might as well confess. I wouldn’t feel comfortable staying here with you if you didn’t have a clue of what we’d been involved in.”

  Belinda gave him a strange look. “What?” she asked breathlessly.

  “We killed them,” Chance said calmly. “The Marshall offered to give Anika a lesson and I did not like the offer so I shot him and then everyone else began to fire.”

  “Oh my god!” Belinda gasped, then thought it over. “You got my daughter in the middle of a gunfight?”

  “Don’t go there, mom! I was the one that started it. He told us to hand over our guns and I wasn’t about to stand still for that! We’d almost been eaten alive by this pack of beasts in the woods. So I … antagonized him, I guess. And he threatened me and Chance put himself in front of me to shield me.”

  She could tell her mother still wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t say any more on that subject. “Well, in that case, you guys are more welcome even than I first thought. And I wouldn’t worry too much about retaliation. You got the whole gang and the company doesn’t have much of a reach out here. I doubt they’ll even send anybody to investigate. They’ll just see about replacements.”

  Cole looked thoughtful. “Maybe I’ll have a talk with them about it,” he said. “I was a lawman on Earth so I’ve got experience.”

  “Ah! I don’t know how you’ll feel about playing their game, though.”

  Cole shrugged. “If they don’t have much reach out here then they aren’t going to know whether I’m playing their game or my own, are they?”

  “Good point!” Anika said cheerfully.

  Belinda looked thoughtful and uneasy, though. “Well! You guys can bunk with my Hercs Yin and Yang till …. Well, as long as you like, actually. I guess it’s going to take a little while to get settled.”

  Anika was so grateful for the offer she felt tearful. “You sure? I don’t want to be a burden ….”

  “You have never been a burden to me! Ever! And you certainly aren’t now. I can’t wait for the grandchildren to get here!

  “But I know you’re going to want to do your best to get the ‘nest’ ready before they arrive. And that’s ok, too. You’re here. That’s what matters. And now I can see you when I want to.”

  When the guys had headed into the cave trailing Belinda’s ‘twin’ Hercules robots, Belinda turned to Anika. “Now. This is why I know absolutely that Chance is no Herc. I have Hercs. That’s no Herc.”

  Anika sighed. “I was told he was. I didn’t lie about that. I just didn’t know I’d been sold a … well, I’ve been told he’s a cyborg soldier unit. The guys that sold him to me had gotten him from the dump where he was discarded after they’d tried and thought they’d succeeded in destroying him.” She bit her lip. “Sebastian is, too.”

  Belinda didn’t look surprised.

  Which surprised Anika.

  “What is this Cole guy?”

  Anika gaped at her mother. “Human.”

  * * * *

  Regardless of what Belinda had said, and they’d experienced earlier, nobody thought it was really a great idea for the foursome to be seen together in public. They were just too memorable according to Cole.

  Chance escorted Anika and her mother into town to claim her land lot and then Cole and Sebastian went to claim theirs.

  They came back looking as if they’d been in a fight.

  “Oh my god!” Anika gasped at the sight of them. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Cole muttered and stalked off.

  “We did not agree on who should have the land lot adjoining yours,” Sebastian said with satisfaction that made it clear who the winner of that contest had been.

  Dismay flickered through Anika, partly because Cole had lost and she didn’t know what that might mean regarding where he would go and partly because they’d split up specifically to keep from drawing at
tention to themselves. “Oh no,” she said faintly. “I thought we were … uh … trying to lay low?”

  That seemed to pacify Sebastian although it wasn’t until much later that she realized he’d thought she was upset that he had chosen land that marched with hers when she would have preferred that it was Cole.

  “We chose a quite place to ‘discuss’ the situation.”

  Anika smiled at him a little weakly. “Oh. Good!”

  She was more relieved when she discovered that Cole had taken land that marched along Sebastian’s. In total, that gave them over two hundred acres to develop and the men set to work on that right away.

  The weather had some fairly wild mood swings, they’d discovered. It was spring, but it tended to dip close to freezing at night and heat up well into the 80s during the day. That made Belinda’s choice of a location very understandable and they set out to find a similar situation for themselves if that could be had.

  It transpired that Anika’s piece, since it was directly beside her mother’s, also had a fairly sizeable cave, just nothing as extensive—which she didn’t particularly need or want.

  Although she was envious of the pool.

  Regardless, it was still plenty big enough to build a large, fairly grand structure with minimal materials.

  And that was yet another excessive expense that was making life difficult for the colonists.

  The company owned most of the timbered areas and, by happy circumstance for them, the mills, as well. Building materials were beyond outrageous. They were staggering and left most people with the choice of throwing together a shanty or going deeper into debt with the company.

  The guys opted to cut and mill their own lumber and also to work the main part of the structure with stone. Because they used the local materials, the house blended so very well with its surroundings that it was difficult to find unless one knew where it was located.

  Anika liked that.

  According to Belinda, they had a treaty with the local natives, who were inclined to be peaceful anyway, but Anika was still uneasy about living in a fairly desolate area among primitives that might decide they were tired of being peaceful.

  She hadn’t had as clear an idea of what she would do when she got to the colony as she’d thought she did. Her plans had mostly revolved around the family she wanted and having a nice place to rear children. Chance, the domestic she’d bought, would handle the nurturing while she worked, but she’d expected there would be jobs waiting for colonists to fill them.