Free Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller Page B

meaning it. “Kindness isn’t found everywhere, Teeba Jaklin.”
    She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. It’s not.”
    “Have you lived here all your life?”
    “No,” she said, fiddling with the stove’s knobs. “Twenty-one seasons. Came here with my man. He died a miner. I stayed. Took to teaching.”
    Behind her laconic reply Anakin sensed an aching well of memory—and was sharply reminded of Bant’ena Fhernan. This was turning into a mission overrun by sad women.
    Or maybe it’s just that nobody anywhere can truly call themselves happy
.
    “Twenty-one seasons in the same place,” he said, to fill the silence. “Hard to imagine. It’s almost longer than I’ve been alive.”
    She sniffed again. “Practically a boy, you are.”
    He watched her place two slices of bread on the compact cooktop grill. Beneath her reserve and her sorrow she remained wary, watching him from the corner of her eye as she toasted the bread.
    This isn’t going to work if we can’t get her to trust us
.
    “Can I do something to help, Teeba?”
    “Eggs in the cupboard there,” she said over her shoulder. “Know how to whip eggs, do you?”
    The question woke memories. Sharing kitchen time and laughter and dreams with his mother: fetching pots, measuring agra-flour, slicing dried ottith when he was old enough for her to trust with a knife.
Family
. Real family, not the oddly separate togetherness of the Temple.
    “Yes, Teeba. How many?”
    “All you find in the bowl. Fork’s in the drawer. Cracked shells go in the ’cycler.”
    After emptying the raw eggs into the bowl and disposing of the shells, he started beating the pink yolks and whites together. “Teeba, is this right?”
    Another disparaging sniff. “Thought you said you knew whipping eggs.” But she looked into the bowl and gave him a small, approving nod. “Right enough.”
    The toasting bread smelled good. His stomach rumbled again, loudly. “Sorry,” he said, seeing the woman’s eyebrows lift. “Good appetite.”
    “That’s enough with the eggs,” she said, exchanging toasted bread for fresh. “You can set them aside and put plates on the table. Four. There’s someone coming.”
    Laying places at the table, Anakin looked around the kitchen. The only splash of color was a handful of flowers on the windowsill. Otherwise he got no sense of the woman who lived here. As a rule he never had any trouble reading people, but this Teeba Jaklin? Wary and sad. That was it.
    And that’s not very much when we’re risking our lives
.
    As he finished setting knives and forks to go with the plates on the battered old table, Obi-Wan returned with his hair slicked wet and no dried blood in his beard. A tiny nod as their eyes met, and a casual flick of his fingers: Obi-Wan code for
Nothing untoward in the rest of the house
. He’d done his own dawdling to make sure of their safety. Nobody did “cautious” like Master Kenobi.
    Teeba Jaklin turned off the grill and fired up the stove’s two small hotplates. “You. Teeb Yavid,” she said briskly. “Pull the butter and nutpaste from the cool box and put the crisped bread on the table.”
    “Of course,” said Obi-Wan. “Anything else?”
    Their hostess wore the same brown tunic, trousers, and boots, but her gray hair was caught in a blue scarf this morning. Jaklin tucked a loosened wisp back into confinement and shook her head. “No. Not a man born can make tea or cook eggs in any proper fashion.”
    Swallowing a smile, Obi-Wan did as he was told. “There’s an extra place set, Teeba.”
    “Good to know you’re not blind,” she said, setting a kettle of water to boil. “Two of us oversee Torbel village. Me and Teeb Rikkard, the head miner. He’s a need to assay you, Teebs. It’s true you’ve not murdered me under my own roof but these are sideways-looking times. You’ll not complain.”
    Anakin exchanged another look with Obi-Wan.
No, I’m pretty sure we won’t
. “How many live here in Torbel,