Chasing Emily [Duoterra 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (7 page)

This moment of distraction was his undoing as Robin had pulled free from the law enforcer, and as his hand hit Finn’s jaw, Finn went flying down the steps of the building, tumbling to land facedown in the dust.

He spat out blood and dust and raised a hand to his jaw.
Jesus, it hurt.
Robin had a fist like a hammer.

“Stop it this instance, all of you, or I’m putting everyone in jail,” shouted Garrett following him outside with Robin at his back, clearly enjoying the sight of Finn in the dirt.

Garrett had to yell several times and break up a number of fights before the fighting finally died down.

“Hey, where’s Emily gone?”

Finn looked around at the unknown person who had cried that out and frowned. Moving forward he pushed some people out of the way as if she could be hiding behind them. There was no sign of her. A sudden anxiety hit him as adrenaline rushed through his body, and he started running away from the building toward the empty bar. Racing upstairs, he heard pounding feet behind him and glanced over his shoulder. Robin was following him.

Shouting Emily’s name as they entered her suite, each of them took different rooms, flinging open the doors, which slammed back against the wall in their urgency.

Finally, having inspected all of them, the two men met at either end of the corridor almost like a standoff. It was clear neither had found her.

Emily had gone.

Emily looked at the building in front of her, The Black Yellowcock, according to the dirty sign. She beamed. It now belonged to her.

When she had arrived in Eden having fled from Finn and Robin three weeks ago, she wondered what she would do having no job, nowhere to live, and concerned that she would end up in the brothel. Despite her talents, that was one thing she didn’t want to do.

Usually she came to Eden every few months to negotiate supplies and knew the place fairly well so had come to The Yellowcock to hire a room, being fairly friendly with the owner, Alf, who was actually a second cousin of hers.

Although to begin with she had been reluctant to go to Alf when she had arrived, as she had been worried that the authorities would track her down there, but she had eventually decided it was worth the risk. At least it was far better than being taken into the brothel. She had tried a few bars which hired out rooms, but most were unhappy about letting a lone woman stay by herself. And as for offering her a job, there was no chance.

Emily thought long and hard about what sort of work she could get. She’d be no good as a schoolmistress as she had no patience with kids. Besides which, although her math was good, naturally, having to deal with weights and measures constantly, her English consisted of lots of swear words, courtesy of running a bar!

Although many a man had told her she was good with her hands, it was not for making any of the crafts that flourished due to the handiwork of the female population on the planet. Her attempt to even make curtains had been dire.

She did wonder about shop work, and she’d had a job in a general store—for about two days, but the lecherous old fart who owned the shop couldn’t keep his hands off her. She might enjoy the attentions of young men, but once they passed a certain age, something happened, and they seemed to go downhill very quickly!

Finally she had given in and had walked in the front door of The Black Yellowcock, where she was heartily greeted by Alf, who was struggling with a huge crowd of thirsty men, despite having three assistants. His bar was very popular.

Thankfully no one turned up to take her back.

Alf was getting on in years and yearned to retire to Riverside where his daughter lived with her family. It hadn’t taken long to persuade Alf to sell the bar to her. It was very rare that women on the planet were in a position to own a business, but they did it very quietly. Most people thought he had just hired her as his manager. Few knew that she had actually bought it from him.

“You want to do what?” he had asked when she had come up with her proposal, his incredulity clear in his voice.

Emily had smiled at his confusion. “I want to buy The Yellowcock.”

“By yourself?”

She had laughed out loud then. “Yes. I’ve run the bar in Frontier for years, ever since Vince died.”

“Well, yes, I knew that. But that’s in the wild regions. Will they let you buy it here?”

“Don’t see why not. This is between you and me. In fact, we could simply say you passed the business to me as your distant relative. Nobody else need know money exchanged hands.”

“That’s another thing, my girl. The Yellowcock is not cheap.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Alf. I have plenty.”

There had been a lot of discussion in the early days of the colony whether to trade with money or goods. Emily was glad they had chosen money, because she didn’t like the idea of her back room being filled with plum-apples and wilderbeast! Every person had been paid an equal amount for the first two years on the planet for their work in building the colony to jumpstart the economy. When an ironlike ore had been discovered and started to be mined, a certain amount was set aside to make the “credits,” as they were called.

Unfortunately, these credits were heavy if you took as much as she did in her business, but generally money didn’t move around the planet much other than through travelling entertainers like Finn or traders. Thankfully, Emily had been shrewd, and every time she travelled to Eden she had taken a portion of her credits to be stored in the one bank on the planet. It was the only place where you could get many services, including the hospital and the seat of the planet’s government.

She snorted—that wonderful body of people who had brought in the dreadful law that had nearly got her into trouble.

When a voice calling her name came from behind, her heart jumped through her chest. Spinning around, she thought that they had tracked her down, but it was only one of her regulars waving a hand in greeting.

Recalling her escape from the courtroom and her intended husband and erstwhile lover, she grinned. They had been so busy fighting each other over her, it hadn’t been hard to quietly move to the back out of the way and slip out of the building.

The walk across the street seemed to take hours, but as she took each step, a plan materialized in her head to grab enough of her belongings as necessary and flee town as quickly as she could, making her way to Eden. It was the largest town on the planet and somewhere she could hide out until the furore was all over and things had calmed down.

Resisting the urge to run to her bar in case she brought attention to herself and someone noticed, insisting she return to the courthouse, she gave a big sigh of relief when she finally reached her front doors. Then her emotions won out and she raced up the stairs, her heart beating violently.

It didn’t take long to gather the few things she needed as she had money in the capital so only needed essentials for the journey. She wasn’t one to collect keepsakes.

The next problem was how to cross the street to the stables without being seen.

When she took a quick glance out of the window, she cursed as she saw the fight had erupted onto the street. She frowned. It looked like there was more than just Finn and Robin fighting. Several other people were also fighting. What was it with men that brought out belligerency in them?

There was only one thing for her to do. She had to go around the backs of the buildings. Slipping out her rear door, she snuck from building to building, scurrying like a babbit and stopping just as suddenly when she was hidden from view, tentatively peering from her hiding place to ascertain if the coast was clear. She sighed. She seemed to spend her life watching out in case she was caught doing something she shouldn’t.

Much to her relief, she managed to reach the stable without confronting anyone and stole her own horse out of the back entrance to the building.

Walking the horse via a footpath until she reached the grotto, she then climbed onto it and took off in a hurry, wanting to put as much distance between her and town as she could before they found out she had fled.

Her journey to Eden had been fraught, as she had been fearful to begin with that someone would come chasing after her and cursed herself for having succumbed to her desire to make love to Robin in the waterfall. But he had looked so damned good, as he usually did. He was her downfall. Tall, strong, handsome, and yet it wasn’t only that. She loved his strength of personality and, on several occasions, had nearly given in to his plea to marry him, knowing he would always protect her. But something always held her back—the fear that if she married again he would turn out like Vince all over again.

After she had got several miles away without seeing anyone, she started to breathe more easily and let the poor horse relax.

Although that wasn’t her only concern. There was just the one road to Eden from Frontier, but any number of side roads branched off to smallholdings and farms. Despite knowing the way pretty well, normally when travelling to the colony’s main town, she took someone with her. She hated having to do that, but it was expedient. They didn’t have much in the way of theft on the planet, so she wasn’t too worried about anyone trying to steal her money or supplies. But she found from past experience that, by herself, men kept bothering her.

The trip had been okay once she realized no one was following her, apart from a near run-in with a wolf-cat. At least she thought it was a wolf-cat. No one had ever gotten close enough to see them clearly. They looked catlike from a distance running on all fours to escape the colonists hunting them. The “wolf” part of the name apparently came from the howling that could be heard, particularly in the far north mountainous region. She remembered her father telling her about the wolves of Earth who had become extinct decades before he had been born, but he had known of them from books.

She had been on horseback at the time when she saw it crossing the road ahead of her.

It stared straight at her, and she had to resist the desire to urge the horse into a gallop in the opposite direction—except that would have taken her back to Frontier. Instead she stood still for a few seconds, amazed that the horse was so calm around such a wild animal known for its ferocious nature.

Just as suddenly as it arrived, it departed on all fours away from her before she got a good look at it.

Her only other worry had come when she crossed the bridge over the river and joined the path from Riverside to Eden. Quite a number of people had been on that path, and they had all stared at her travelling by herself, but none had attempted to approach her, thankfully.

Shaking her head to dispel her memories, she waved a hand back at the man who had hailed her and walked through the doors of her new bar, glancing at a woman cleaning the tables. Now there was a story. The woman called herself Kara, but Emily suspected it was an alias. Emily had found her outside early one morning, weeping and bruised, and she had taken the girl in, no questions asked, as she guessed that Kara had probably ran away from the brothel.

Well, she wasn’t about to make the girl go back and had given her a job. Not serving, because if the girl had been in the brothel, she might be recognized by someone, but helping Emily clean the bar and working as her housekeeper instead.

“Hey, Emily,” called another voice from behind her.

As she started to turn, she saw Kara drop the cups she was carrying and dart into a back room.

“What was that?” asked the local law enforcer, Morgan.

“Oh, just one of my assistants cleaning.” Emily didn’t elaborate, guessing Kara wanted to keep her presence there quiet. “What’s up?”

“I need to speak to you about something.”

Her heart started thumping. “What is that?” Was he going to ask her about why she left Frontier? Or did he know and intended sending her back?

Before Morgan got a chance to answer her, he was called away by yells from up the street. She went on tiptoe and saw a wagon had got stuck in a narrow corner. She smiled. The owner of the wagon must be a stranger. Locals knew never to take a wagon down that particular street as it was just too narrow.

Turning to go back inside, she frowned, wondering what Morgan had wanted to talk to her about. She told herself that it couldn’t be serious or he would have confronted her before now. At least she tried to persuade her inner fears that it was nothing—without much success. Holding a hand over her mouth, she began to feel nauseous.

Robin threw a handful of twigs onto the fire. It burned brightly against the darkness as night fell. Neither of the planet’s two moons could be seen.

He shivered. It was fall, and the air felt cold in the woods that he was camping in. He was just glad that he had stopped when he did to settle down for the night. It wasn’t that he was unused to being in the woods as his job meant he spent a great deal of time in the forest near his home, but he knew those woods. These ones, which were on the road to Eden, were unfamiliar to him.

His biggest fear was falling asleep and being attacked by a wolf-cat, although he’d never heard of one this far south. A further fear was that he would inadvertently lie on top of the nest of a poisonous lizard known as the double-whammy lizard because of its two heads, both of which spat venom. Thankfully the creature was only a few inches long, so its venom wasn’t deadly, unless you stepped—or lay—on a nest of them.