Accidental Acquisition (Kindred)

She realized she had begun to cry and she put a hand over her face to try and hide the tears.

“Oh, Jilly honey—I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to push you!” Suzanne exclaimed. “And I don’t want you to worry about the dinner, either. I can ask Commander Sylvan if we can postpone it or maybe he can give it to another restaurant. Under the circumstances, I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Jillian swiped at her tears and glared at her friend and former sous chef.

“Don’t you dare. You know perfectly well I’ve never let down my standards when it comes to a VIP dinner!”

“I know that, but serving high-rollers at The Palms is different from catering to finicky alien ambassadors who want ingredients we’ve never even heard of before!” Suzanne protested.

But Jillian shook her head.

“I’ll be just fine in the morning—I only need a hot shower and a good night’s sleep,” she said firmly. “In fact, I need to get back into the kitchen—it’ll ground me and help me get over all the craziness from today.”

Suzanne looked at her closely.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to send you into some kind of breakdown from all the stress.”

“You know me,” Jillian told her. “I thrive on stress—as long as it comes in the form of food and cooking.” She gave a little laugh. “I’m actually looking forward to making that crazy jumja soup for the Nebrian ambassador—now that we have the thaelite and an ion-scoop to cut it with.” She frowned. “Although I’m going to have to ask you to send either Hard or Kind to bring the thaelite brick from the shuttle to the kitchen—it’s still in the anti-gravity compartment and there’s no way I can handle it myself.”

“I’ll send Hard and then I’ll come help you prep myself,” Suzanne promised. “The babies are over their croup now, so Kind can handle them all by himself—at least for a little while.”

“Thanks.” Jillian gave her a grateful smile. “I’d love to cook with you again.”

“You know I love motherhood, but I really miss being your sous chef sometimes,” Suzanne said, grinning back at her. “Tomorrow is going to be just like old times at The Palms—you’ll see.”

“Except we’ll be cooking jumja soup and frikencorn paste instead of Wagyu steaks and lobster tails,” Jillian pointed out, laughing and they hugged each other again.

It felt good to laugh with a friend—it made Jillian feel safe and normal. She just wanted to put the events of this horrible day behind her and forget everything that had happened. In time, she hoped it would all just seem like a bad dream.

Except not all of it was bad—what about that erotic massage Kalis gave you? whispered a sly little voice in her head. What about the way he rescued you and sacrificed himself for you? Are you really going to try to forget about him too?

Jillian tried uneasily to push the voice to the side. She didn’t want to think about the big B’varren Kindred right now—she just wanted to concentrate on getting back to normal.

She had no idea that things were going to be anything but normal the next day…

26

It started when Jillian got to the kitchen of Pat-ar and realized she was the only one there. Where were Lor and Lydia her line cooks? The two of them were a couple—a Beast Kindred and his human bride who had met and bonded over their love of cooking and food. Shortly thereafter, they bonded in a more literal sense and came up to the Mother Ship, where Suzanne had hired them to work at Pat-ar.

Jillian liked them a lot—they were hardworking and good at their jobs and above all, dependable. Neither of them had missed a single day of work since she’d come up to run the restaurant two years ago and they knew there was an important dinner to prep for today. So where were they?

She got her answer a moment later when she had an urgent feeling that someone needed to talk to her. Opening her mind, she waited for the Think-me message to come through.

“Hello?” she thought. “Who is this?”

“Chef? It’s Lydia—I’m sorry to call you on the Think-me but I can’t come see you in person.”

“Really? What’s wrong?” Jillian was instantly concerned.

“Well, remember I told you that Lor and I were going to take a trip to Yanna Globen yesterday?”

Jillian nodded, and then remembered her line cook couldn’t see her.

“Yes,” she sent back.

Since Pat-ar was closed on Mondays, it was everyone’s day off and her two line cooks often took the opportunity to do a little sight-seeing on different planets. The fact that the Mother Ship could fold space to allow you to get to almost any destination in the known universe was a great advantage for people who loved to travel and explore other cultures and worlds.