The Cold Between. Elizabeth Bonesteel

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      “I will tell you,” he admitted, wondering at his newfound gregariousness, “I have never had trouble sleeping. Out there, I was well-known for it. I could sleep on my feet if there was a need. But I did know a few, like you, who needed windows.”

      She shifted against him, and he was surprised to feel a twinge of desire returning. “I used to fall asleep in the engine room,” she told him. “There’s this catwalk there, with these big floor-to-ceiling windows. They take them out for maintenance sometimes, when she’s docked, but the rest of the time, it’s the best view on the ship. A few months in, the captain heard about me sleeping there, and he found this little unused storeroom with one windowed wall and had it converted for my quarters.”

      “He is thoughtful, then? Your captain.”

      She was quiet a moment. “In some ways,” she said. He was not surprised she found it a complicated question. Command required separation, and often callousness, and even those who understood were not always comfortable with being on the receiving end. “Mostly … he is observant, and he is good at knowing what keeps us efficient.” She looked up at him. “I used to think, sometimes … There are these moments, in life, when you just stop and realize that everything is just as it should be. Everything. I had that, a little. For a while. But even now—I try to remember that life doesn’t have to be perfect to be valuable.”

      He brought his hand to her face again, brushing his knuckles against her cheekbone. “Are you always so kind?” he asked her.

      “Only to people I’m in bed with.”

      Her hand was resting on his rib cage, and he felt the heat of her fingertips and wanted to pull her on top of him. Somehow this woman was turning him back into a teenager. “It seems to me,” he observed, lacing his fingers in hers, “that you are not the sort of woman who should be finding herself in bed alone.”

      “Now you sound like Jessica,” she said.

      “She is right on the cure,” he told her, “but not the problem. You are a beautiful woman. Regardless of your ship’s shortsighted population, you should be worshipped, not sent out to try your luck at a spaceport bar.”

      “My luck worked out well this time,” she pointed out.

      “I am serious.” Actually, he was outraged, but that seemed presumptuous. “This fool, that you were in love with. What happened?”

      A shadow crossed her face. He had seen it before, in the bar, when she had dismissed the possibility of true love surviving on a starship; but either he had missed the depth of her pain, or he simply read her better now. “The usual,” she said, and he thought her lightness was feigned. “He lied, and I found out. I tried to forgive him. I failed.”

      “How long ago was this?”

      “Two and a half months.”

      He winced. “Damn. I am sorry, my dear. I did not mean to remind you of fresh grief. Especially here.”

      She shook her head. “But it doesn’t hurt to remember it here.”

      “I am your first lover since then.”

      “Yes.” She smiled, and some of the wickedness was back. “You do not remind me of him at all. And that is a compliment.”

      Just then he heard a sound, and realized it was her stomach rumbling. “Good Lord, is that you? Are you hungry?”

      “Starved, actually,” she admitted, looking embarrassed. “I was too nervous earlier to eat much supper.”

      “This,” he declared, “I can fix.” He sat up, and her hand slid over his arm to rest on his back. “On your feet, woman,” he commanded. “I must give you fuel. I have every intention of your needing it.”

      She followed him out to the kitchen. He leaned down to retrieve his clothes, pulling on his shorts and handing her his shirt. She shrugged it on, not bothering to button it, and he took a moment to take her in. He was never going to be able to look at that shirt the same way again.

      Shaking himself, he turned and opened the refrigerator, a cool draft escaping into the darkened room. “You have a sweet tooth,” he assumed.

      “God, yes,” she said, moving in behind him to look over his shoulder. “What do you have?”

      He retrieved his latest experiment from the top shelf. He was only on the second stage—he was still deciding whether to wrap it in pastry, or to thicken it and coat it in some expensive, off-world chocolate—but he thought, so far, that it was rather wonderful on its own. He pulled open a drawer to retrieve a spoon, and scooped a little out of the bowl.

      “Here,” he said, holding the spoon out to her. “Tell me what you think.”

      She took it, glancing at him, then gamely took a taste. In an instant her expression changed to something not unlike what he had seen a few minutes ago by the alcove.

      “Oh my God,” she breathed. “What is that? Cream, and lemon, and … hazelnut?”

      “You have a discerning palate,” he told her, pleased. “I’ve also added a splash of rum, just to deepen the fruit flavor. I was worried it was a bit too much.”

      She shook her head. “No, it’s perfect. Lovely. Is there more?”

      So he handed her the bowl, and they wandered into the living room, and he sat next to her on the couch while she consumed his experiment. “You made this,” she said, as she ate it all, bite by bite.

      He nodded. “It is my profession. I am a dessert chef.”

      “My goodness, yes you are,” she said. She scraped the bottom of the bowl and looked into it sadly. “I suppose that was all,” she sighed, and he laughed.

      “There are a few others at earlier stages,” he told her. “Incomplete. I experiment, a bit, on my own.”

      “Have you done this long?”

      “Off and on, for about thirty years,” he told her.

      “Was that your profession with PSI? Did you cook for them?”

      He shook his head. “I was an officer,” he told her, deciding not to elaborate. “But Fyodor—he was our captain, and for most of my life there my mentor—loved to make desserts, and on the longer journeys he would always try something he had never made before. He would have me help him. After he retired, I kept on doing it.” It had been a comfort, one thing he had been able to keep constant after everything around him had changed.

      “Is that why you came here?” she asked. “To be a chef?”

      He paused. “In a way,” he told her at last. “I was born here. My sister has never left. Her husband died last year, and she asked me to come back and help her run her business. She has a café, so cooking for her made sense.” He felt a strange sense of relief, and of exposure; he had not spoken of Katya to anyone since he had come back.

      He waited for her to ask why he had left, why he had stayed away for so long; but it was Katya that had caught her imagination. “Are you close to her?” she asked, with something like СКАЧАТЬ