wore ill-fitting men’s clothing that had been patched and mended too many times. It hid her slim body from his interested gaze, and he tamped down the irritation at being denied.
When she turned toward him, he sucked in a surprised breath. She was beautiful. Her smile was shy but warm, and her eyes were bright and curious. She walked toward him, her bare feet making no noise on the old wooden floorboards and threadbare rugs, and held out her hand. “I’m Brook.”
He cleared his throat and hesitated before taking her small hand. “Cipher.”
“Cipher.” She tried out his name and grinned mischievously. “I wonder if I can solve you?”
He couldn’t help it. He smiled like an idiot at her little joke. Had he ever met anyone so adorable? She was sweet and innocent and pretty and—fuck. Fuck. Of all the ways to meet the only woman who had ever turned his head, it had to be like this. She was an asset. She was off-limits.
“You can make yourself at home,” she said, gesturing to his headgear and the backpack he carried. “Do you want something to drink? Was it a long walk?”
“Not that long,” he replied, taking off his gear and placing it on the table that seemed to serve as the place she ate and worked. “Water, if you have it.”
“I do.” She took a glass jar from a shelf and poured water from a pitcher into it. “Straight from our well,” she said as he handed it to him. “It’s clean. Daddy was very careful about where he drilled. It’s one of the reasons he built so high up the mountain. He wanted us clear of all the pollution from the mines.”
“You’ve lived here your entire life?” He sipped the surprisingly cold water and enjoyed the taste of it. “This is good.”
“I was born in that bedroom back there.” She waved her hand behind her. “My mother died when I was six, and I spent the rest of my time following Daddy around the mountain and the mines.”
“You were working in the mines as a child?” His protective instincts flared to life. He couldn’t imagine allowing his daughter to climb through dirty tunnels and breathe in the dangerous dust kicked up by the constant chipping and digging.
“Your people send little boys to war at the same age,” she countered with a shrug. “Life is hard for some of us.”
“We go to the academy. It’s a school. We’re educated and trained. It’s different than working in a mine.”
“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t go to school.”
It wasn’t the first time he had met a woman from this planet who had never seen the inside of a classroom. To his mind, it was a complete waste of resources on a planet where sharp minds were desperately needed. How many girls denied the right to an education would have accomplished great things if they had only been born somewhere else?
“So, they told me that you want to see some maps of the Drowning Door?”
He frowned. “Drowning Door?”
“The mine used to be called Pit Seventeen, but after the accident, it got another name.” She walked to the far wall of the cabin where someone had built a tall, wide cabinet with row after row of small but deep cubicles. The grid held dozens of maps, and she plucked the correct one and brought it back to the table. “The mine was bought out by some scumbag from The City who thought he knew better than the colliers.”
“Colliers?” He slid onto the long bench opposite her at the table.
“Miners who belong to families that have been here since the first mines opened hundreds of years ago,” she explained and moved two of the lanterns closer for better viewing. “They’re experts.”
“And what did the experts tell the scumbag?”
“That he was playing with fire,” she said sadly. Rolling out the maps, she slid her pale hands across the yellowed layers of paper. “This mine was in three sections at the time but the accident happened down in the deepest part. The ventilation wasn’t adequate, and the gases built up until a spark caused a horrific explosion. The owner had been warned about the gases and that there was water behind this wall here.” She tapped a spot at the bottom of the map. “The explosion blew a hole in the rock, and the water gushed up and out and flooded the lower level. The workers on the top level dropped the emergency gate—a solid metal door—and sealed