Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a busy man.” Not only was she dismissed, she was summarily escorted back to her assigned quarters by two equally uncommunicative soldiers. Once inside, she sank down on one of the chairs in the tiny recreation area and morosely propped her chin on her fist. It wasn’t two seconds before the light by the door flashed, indicating she had a visitor. With a sigh she got up and went to scan the admittance panel. Will Janssen stood outside, a frown on his face. He’d shaved, she noticed, his chin clean and taut, and someone had given him a set of clothes that weren’t singed and dirty from their precipitous flight across a disintegrating planet. Tousled dark brown hair and very light blue eyes gave him a boyish look, but Tara knew he was thirty. Under his father’s administration he’d been in charge of the colony’s governmental finances as chief officer, which was an important position with or without his family prominence. It was also appointed by the Universal Council, not his father.
