Betrayal of Innocence (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 1)

“It isn’t too late to change your mind,” Justin muttered from the kitchen doorway.

Briefly, Vanessa had the distinct impression he wasn’t just talking about setting herself up as bait for the kidnapper. Their eyes met. A wealth of understanding flew between them.

“I am not going to change my mind. I have to do this, for my own peace of mind,” she whispered.

Justin slammed out of the house without a backward look. He cursed his stupidity but there was nothing he could do about it now. He cared about her – a lot.

“Damn it all to Hell,” he growled.

Aaron grinned at him.

“I don’t see what is so funny,” Justin snapped. “She could go the same way as her sister.”

Aaron’s smile vanished in an instant. “It isn’t that,” he murmured. “I have never seen you this het up about anybody before. I can see why her, though. She is beautiful, charming, clever, and clearly well thought of in the village.”

“You sound like you are trying to sell her. You don’t have to list her attributes to me. I know how she is,” Justin snarled with no small measure of jealousy. “I didn’t realise you had been checking on her.”

“I have been checking on everyone in the village,” Aaron informed him.

Justin forced himself to relax. There was no reason to be so out of sorts with his colleague. Aaron wasn’t to blame for the foolish predicament he was now in. He couldn’t and wouldn’t change his life for a female, especially one he hardly knew.

“My life is the Star Elite, damn it,” he growled suddenly.

“It is for us all,” Aaron warned. “But it doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice all our lives, does it? We have to be people as well.”

“Not when we don’t know if we can make it home, we don’t,” Justin warned.

“Others have made it work,” Aaron offered. “You could unbend a little, you know.”

“How?” Justin challenged. “Could you live in a quiet little backwater like this?”

Aaron looked around the rolling landscape amidst which the quaint little village stood.

“I don’t know, it isn’t that bad. It is a damned sight better than London’s smelly, rat infested streets, packed with people who will steal your purse and rob your house with a roguish smile for half a shilling and sixpence,” Aaron murmured. “Besides, it isn’t wise to live where you work. If you do you are less inclined to truly take a break from what we do. I don’t know about you, but the last time I took time off I spent my time walking down the street looking at people’s faces, trying to identify people I knew we were after. Its damned difficult to know when to stop. One thing I find difficult to do in a place like this is remember that crime does happen here. It might be on a small scale for the most part, but it can be severe. It just doesn’t happen often.”

Justin sighed because he knew Aaron was right. He couldn’t find any argument, even though he still couldn’t envisage himself living permanently in a place like this.

“Wouldn’t you want to walk the fields with someone on your arm, or just sit out in the garden and enjoy the sunshine every now and then?” Aaron asked quietly. “It doesn’t have to be the main thing you do with your life. But if you get time off there is no reason why you can’t enjoy it. I mean, if you had a wife, and maybe a son or two then you would have plenty to do to fill your time, and it wouldn’t have anything to do with guns, crime, and spending most of your nights on guard.”

“Are you actually selling matrimony to me, Aaron?” Justin demanded. “I don’t see you rushing to find the vicar with a female in tow.”

“And you won’t either,” he retorted flatly with a theatrical shrug. “If anybody is more of a kind to marry it is more you than I.”

Outraged, Justin glared at him. “How so?” he demanded.

“We have all seen how you fell for Vanessa. At that first meeting you barely took your eyes off her. Since then you have been here more often than you have been back at the base,” Aaron teased.

“I have been working with the rest of you,” Justin countered.

“It just happens to be that most of your work incorporates Vanessa,” Aaron retorted.

Justin pulled a face at him as he helped him pull the carriage out of the outbuilding next to the garden.

“I don’t know her,” he declared flatly.

“Well, you have a few days left before we move on. I doubt the kidnapper will risk snatching her the first time we try this. You have time to spend with her to establish if you are compatible enough to weather matrimony. If not, you can leave here and never think of her or this rural life again. If you do find yourself reluctant to leave her then you have a very big decision to make. Courting her is going to be damned near impossible from London given the work we do. If you don’t make an honest woman out of her, or at least state your intentions are honourable toward her and secure a promise from her before you go, you have to leave her behind once and for all.”

“I am not going to offer for someone I barely know,” Justin snarled. “My life is the Star Elite, and that is the way it is going to stay.”