Read Online Moonstruck by Susan Grant - Free Book Online Page B

another look, only to catch him winking at her over his shoulder, as if he knew she’d take a second peek. Oh, she hated him, too! Face ablaze, she turned back to the corridor ahead.
    Tango’s flirtation left her emotions roiling. She was relieved when she finally reached Admiral Bandar’s suite of rooms at the end of a quiet corridor housing senior officers’ quarters. One of the cargo rats—a crewman she’d served with on the Vengeance —was waiting outside the admiral’s suite with the crate. “Got the admiral’s things,” he said.
    “I’ll let us in.” Hadley submitted to the retina scan and walked inside.
    The crewman slid the heavy crate through the door and straightened. “Gods, look at this. It’s a blasted palace.”
    A palace to a space-hand, she thought, thanking him and shooing him out. Still, it was quite the suite, and with a view to die for. Hadley’s quarters on the other hand had two square portholes. On the Vengeance she’d had one, so it was an improvement.
    She made the bed with the admiral’s sheets and blankets, plumping the pillows. Then she set to the unpacking. The crate held familiar items from Admiral Bandar’s old quarters: several glass bowls and numerous holo-cubes from her travels. The images were exclusively scenery—the sea or sunsets taken on shore leave, never other people.
    Hadley knew the admiral had family, but only because once she’d dared to ask. The admiral’s parents were religious, extremely so. Admiral Bandar had been raised on a planet settled by pilgrims. Odd. The admiral was not a believer. Vehemently not a believer. Religion was a topic everyone around her learned not to bring up. It too often made the admiral irritable, and sometimes even pensive.
    Hadley strived to do anything but upset her. Admiral Bandar was her hero. She remembered the emergency drills, growing up on her home planet. Then one day the drill was real. They were under attack. The Drakken ships were destroyed by a warship under the command of Admiral Bandar when she was still only Star-Commander Bandar. The admiral had saved Hadley’s planet. From then on, Hadley was determined to model her life after the admiral’s. She was the first female from folksy, clannish Planet Talo to win an appointment to the Royal Galactic Military Academy, and the youngest graduate to be selected as the admiral’s executive officer. The miracle of Hadley’s existence was having the honor of serving in a capacity to make the officer’s life easier. Although it was her dream to someday rise up through the ranks and captain a ship of her own, she learned so much from watching in her day-to-day routine as Admiral Bandar’s assistant.
    Hadley’s thoughts returned to the Earthling pilot, and his disrespectful words. With four brothers at home on Talo, she knew he’d been trying to show off. That unsettled her almost as much as his rude observations of her boss. Maybe even more. It wasn’t often she was in a position to be flirted with. On the Vengeance, most of the other junior officers were intimidated by the fact that she was Admiral Bandar’s exec. What did they think—if they broke her heart she’d turn them in? It was her darkest secret that she was still a virgin. It would stay her darkest secret, too. What twenty-three-year-old was still a virgin? Maybe now on the Unity, she’d finally have a chance to expand her social horizons.
    With the Earthling? He was handsome. He was exotic, too, being from Prince Jared’s homeworld. If only he wasn’t such an ass!
    With reverence, Hadley placed Admiral Bandar’s items around the suite. The admiral would no doubt fine-tune the arrangement, but after so many years of working with her, Hadley had developed an almost infallible sense of what the woman liked. She reached into the container for the last item. It was a medium-size white engraved box she was used to seeing sitting on a shelf high above the admiral’s desk. It was a pretty box, but ornate,