Simon whistled softly. “That’s a lot of activity in a very short time. This guy bears watching. Sonny, monitor his actions, please, until further notice. Discreetly, mind.”
“Understood, Simon.”
“Do you have any visuals of him?”
The viewscreen on the entertainment center crackled to life. Kafari recognized him at once. He was young, not more than twenty. His hair was dark, his skin pale as curdled milk. His eyes, a nearly transparent blue that might have looked glacial, in another face, had a fire-eaten look about them. Shudders crawled down Kafari’s back.
Simon looked down into her eyes. “That’s the guy you saw?”
Kafari nodded. “There’s something… not quite right, about him. His rhetoric didn’t make any logical sense, but those people were spellbound.”
“Charismatic fanatics are always dangerous. All right, Sonny, I’ve seen enough for one night. Thanks.”
“Of course, Simon.” The viewscreen went dark.
Kafari shivered again. Simon hesitated, then slid an arm around her shoulders. Kafari leaned against him, soaking up the warmth and basking in a feeling of safety that drove away the cold waves coursing through her. A moment later, warm lips touched her hair. She tilted her face up, drowned in the bottomless depths of those shadowed eyes. Then he was kissing her, gently at first, then with hard hunger. His hands moved across her, those beautiful hands, caressing, sliding around to cup and stroke, the heat of his fingers on her flesh setting her ablaze from within. Kafari whimpered, guiding his fingers to tweak one nipple. He fumbled with buttons and so did she.
There were scars under his shirt, old scars, jagged and white with age. He sat very still as she traced her fingertips across them, trailing the width of his chest and down one arm. For a long moment, Simon just looked at her, eyes smouldering, breaths unsteady and rushed. “My God,” he whispered. “You are so beautiful it hurts…” He closed his eyes, clearly fighting for control. Eyes still closed, he said raggedly, “Not here. Not like this. You’re too precious to just take you on a couch, like some rutting teenager with no control.”
Kafari’s eyes burned and her throat closed. Nobody had ever said anything half so beautiful to her, ever. She didn’t think anyone ever could. “Why don’t—” she whispered, then had to stop and swallow, hard. She tried again. “Why don’t we move somewhere else, then?”
He opened his eyes, gazed into hers for a long time. “You’re sure about that?” he finally asked, voice strained.
She nodded, not trusting hers.
The slow smile in his eyes would have dimmed the noonday sun. A moment later she was in his arms. He swung her up, off the couch, carried her into his bedroom, went to the bed with her. The feel of his body against her — and aeons later, inside her — was the most beautiful sensation she had ever felt. Tears came to her eyes as she arched against him, crying out softly and then more urgently. She wanted him, needed him, knew that she would go on needing him for as long as they both continued to breathe. In the shuddering aftermath, he simply closed his arms around her and held on, like a little boy seeking safety in a storm. She wrapped her arms around him, cradled his head against her bosom, and held him while he slept.
Kafari kissed his dark, sweat-dampened hair and knew that whatever happened tomorrow, nothing in her life would ever be the same, again. And this time, the difference between then and now was so wonderfully sweet, she lay awake for a long, long time, just savoring it.
II
Simon was nervous. So nervous, he had to dry both palms against his uniform trousers. It was, Kafari had assured him, a small wedding — small, at least, by Granger standards — but the crowd on Balthazar and Maarifa Soteris’ front lawn looked to Simon like an entire small town had emptied itself for the occasion. Just family, huh? he thought, staring at the sea of strangers who’d come to witness their vows. He hadn’t realized just how big a family he was about to acquire.
Wind ruffled his hair and sighed through the treetops. The sunlight poured down the high, rose-colored cliffs like warmed honey, spilling joyously across green fields and orchards heavy with fruit and half-grown calves playing chase in the nearest pasture. Simon breathed in the scent of flowers and living, growing things all around him… then Kafari appeared and everything else faded from his awareness. His throat and groin tightened, just looking at her. The cream-colored dress she wore set her skin aglow. Tiny wildflowers adorned her hair. A strand of pearls, harvested from her family’s own ponds, lay nestled against her throat, their luster dim compared with the brilliance of her eyes as she caught sight of him.
She moved slowly forward, one hand resting lightly on her father’s arm. Simon swallowed hard. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d said yes. The welcome her family had given him still astonished Simon. He was an outsider, totally unfamiliar with their customs, yet they had made him one of them from the very beginning, greeting him with such warmth, he knew that finally, after a lifetime of solitude, he had found a place to call home. These people would be his family, in a way unique in his whole life.
Kafari’s mother watched through streaming eyes as her daughter moved slowly between the rows of chairs toward him. Iva Soteris Camar was a small woman, slender and shorter than her daughter, with the kind of face Helen of Troy must have possessed by the end of the Trojan War, the beauty that had launched a thousand ships tempered by the agonies of war. She had lost two sons, had lost cousins and other relatives, neighbors and close friends. The pain of those losses was etched into her face, but her chin was up and the joy of seeing her daughter wed shone in her eyes, alongside the grief that her family was not complete, to watch it with her.
Simon was a little in awe of Iva Camar.
As for Zak Camar… His was a face carved by wind and sunlight and adversity, but there were laugh lines, as well, and a solid strength that reminded Simon of trees whose gnarled trunks had seen five hundred years pass by since their roots had first dug into the ground. At their first meeting, Zak Camar had sized up Simon through hooded eyes, apparently possessing an instinctual radar that told him “this man’s sleeping with your little girl — and if he doesn’t measure up, he’s gonna walk off this farm missing some body parts.” Zak Camar’s good opinion meant rather a lot to Simon, and not just because he wanted his body to remain intact.
Zak’s dark eyes were suspiciously moist as he placed Kafari’s hand in Simon’s. Her fingers trembled, but her smile was radiant, hitting Simon like a blow to the gut. They turned to face the officiant, a tall, broad woman with dark eyes and a gentle smile. She spoke softly, but her voice carried a long way.
“We are here today to share the creation of a new family,” she began, “a family that will forever be a part of the families from which it is descended. Some of those folks are here today and share this creation joyously. Some of them aren’t, except in spirit and memory, folks who defended this land we stand on and folks who defended worlds so far away, we can’t even see their stars, at night.”