Excerpt from: Karavan's Hope

She was wearing a Security Force vest and laser belt.  Her face was streaked with sweat and dirt, her clothes torn and bloody.  Half her braid had come undone and the stray hair formed a dark halo around her head. 

He'd never seen her look so beautiful.  Crying her name, he started down the steps and then stopped, suddenly fully aware of what she'd done.  "I told you to stay on Karavan! What were you thinking, coming down here?  You could've been killed!"

She shrugged.  "Wasn't.  Did things go all right with you?"

He holstered his weapon and closed the distance between them, half ready to kill her himself. "Well, let's see," he said, his voice growing colder with each word.  "I made it back to Karavan, had a nice conversation with Anabel and Vander, went looking for you, and was informed that you'd come planetside.

"When I couldn't find you on the wounded or casualty lists, Odt suggested I come down here with a pickup crew and start turning over corpses.  So, you tell me-- do you think things are all right?"

"Look," Ki'Rana said.  "I didn't . . . I didn't mean to worry you like this.  I thought I'd be back by the time you returned to the hub."

"Well you did and you weren't and--"  He lost all semblance of the false calm he'd been trying to project.  "Hells, Ki'Rana! I don't want to fight with you."

"I don't want to fight with you, either," she said, hooking her thumbs on the belt around her waist and the guns it held.  "I've done enough fighting today."

He reached for the buckle and unsnapped it, tugging it away and dropping it behind her.  Hooking his fingers over her waist band, he jerked her forward.  Pulling her against him, he unsnapped the back fasteners holding the SF vest tight and let that drop to the ground, too.

She pressed closer against him.  "Gods, I'm glad you're all right, too."