Cyborg Nation by Kaitlyn O'Connor (english readers TXT) 📗

She was sure it did up until her belly began to change shape. Then, she wasn’t so sure.

For days after the first look she’d encountered, Bronte pretended she didn’t notice them staring at her and they pretended they weren’t staring. It was Gideon, as usual, who took charge of the situation.

She’d finally decided to remove the splint and check the progress of her healing. The bone, she discovered, had knit. She couldn’t tell anything for certain without a scan, naturally, but to her hands it felt whole and she couldn’t detect any pain from pressure that might indicate that it was still weak. Cautiously optimistic, she’d finally decided to try putting a little weight on it to test it further and used her crutch to stand and walk a little way. There were twinges, but nothing that seemed to indicate she still needed the splint.

“Are you certain that you should be doing this?” Gideon asked, rising from the fire he’d built and crossing the sand to stand next to her.

Bronte looked up at him and then glanced at Gabriel and Jerico, who were busying skinning and cleaning the animal they’d killed for food since they’d pretty much run out of the food they’d brought with them. Neither of them were looking at her, but she had a feeling this had been a group decision.

They had a way of ganging up on her and then sending Gideon to play ‘bad guy’.

She faced Gideon again. “I’m testing the leg,” she said finally. “It feels healed enough to walk on it.”

He frowned, but thoughtfully. “It has had time?”

Bronte chewed her lip. Under ordinary circumstances, the answer was no. “It seems to have had time,” she compromised.

“This means it should not.”

“I think the nanos helped it heal more quickly. I examined it. I’m not going to risk breaking it again.”

He looked unconvinced.

“Alright!” Bronte said testily. “I’ll put the splint back on … for a few more days. But after I take a bath.”

He nodded, satisfied. “I will bathe with you while Gabriel and Jerico set up the meat to roast.”

Bronte was a little irritated until it occurred to her that she wouldn’t have her splint on and that opened up possibilities. As much as she appreciated the fact that Gideon had seen to it that none of them tried to initiate sex while she’d been recovering, she felt well enough now to test that, too.

Setting her crutch down, she held most of her weight on her good leg and undressed. Gideon scooped her up before she could even consider trying to walk without the crutch and carried her into the water until it was waist deep on him before lowering her to her feet.

Disengaging herself from his hold, she stepped away from him when her feet had touched the sandy bottom. The buoyancy of the water supported her enough she wasn’t concerned about her leg even if she’d been premature in taking the splint off and she was anxious to clean up and see if she could coax Gideon into remembering she was a woman, not just an invalid.

She still mourned the lack of fresh water and soap to bathe, or even the type of cleansing units she’d had before she left Earth, though she’d not only gotten used to bathing with water, she’d discovered she liked it. Bathing in the sea was different. She enjoyed that, too, but it didn’t leave her feeling clean like fresh water and soap. It was probably the heavy salt content, she thought, and very likely she still would’ve felt sticky even if she’d had soap, but she liked smelling clean and feeling clean not just thinking she must be clean if she soaked in water long enough and scrubbed her hands over herself.

The water wasn’t at all kind to her hair, either. It wasn’t as glossy and soft as it had been before, but she wasn’t sure the water was entirely responsible for that. Her hair was lighter and she knew that was from the sun. She suspected the sun’s rays had damaged her hair just as it had her skin—lightening her hair to a brighter, less subtle red and darkening her skin.

Not for the first time, she wondered about her all over appearance. She hadn’t been beautiful before and she knew damn well nothing that had happened to her had improved her looks.

It had Gideon’s, she thought as she studied him surreptitiously, and he hadn’t even needed it. His skin had darkened to a more golden color and his dark ash blond hair had lightened to a paler blond and the sharp contrast had added a unique appeal all on its own. Like her, he’d also lost weight, but it had only seemed to give him a leaner more muscular look all over and it made his face even more appealing—stronger, more angular, more masculine somehow—made all three men look even more virile.

He never really relaxed his guard anymore. On the ship, he and Gabriel and Jerico had seemed to spend most of their time squabbling and carousing like rowdy teenage boys. From the moment of first threat, though, they’d gone into rigid military mode and now, even when they appeared to be relaxed, they weren’t. They never allowed themselves to get distracted by a difference of opinion as they had before—in fact, there didn’t seem to be a difference of opinion. They worked together almost as if they were of one mind.

But then maybe it was just that, as soldiers, they each knew their role in the scheme of things? Gabriel and Jerico were the foot soldiers and Gideon the leader they looked to to decide the best course of action and the best usage of their skills?

It was outside their roles as military men that they were adrift and uncertain. What everyone else considered the ‘real’ world was chaos and confusion for them and it made them feel awkward and unsure of themselves because they didn’t know what to say or