Page 25 of Married to the Alien Mountain Man (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #5)

25

JAYA

O aken led me back inside, murmuring soft words I barely heard. My ears were ringing. My head felt like it was stuffed with Terratribe II cotton. My tongue was ash.

And my ship was gone.

But the devastation I felt at that reality wasn’t anything close to what it would have been before I’d come here. I was hurting. Sad, scared.

But surviving.

Surviving, because a man with huge, strong, and achingly tender hands was holding mine now.

Oaken’s kitchen was a fucking disaster. Most of the roof had been ripped off. Cupboards hung open and empty, their contents smashed upon the floor. He pulled me through it all and opened the door to the bedroom on the other side of the house.

It was jarring, how perfect this room looked in comparison to the kitchen. This portion of the roof had not come off. The window remained intact. The bed was neatly made, the furniture precisely in place.

The old Jaya would have felt resentment at that. Bitter jealousy that my bed was gone, while his remained in perfect condition.

The new Jaya was only grateful that something that could bring Oaken comfort had survived.

“Sit,” Oaken whispered, easing me down onto the edge of the bed. I let him do it, my legs barely able to hold me up anymore.

The silence was strange after the cacophony of the storm. It made everything Oaken did oddly loud. The rustle of bedding as he wrapped the bed’s blanket tightly around my shoulders. The open and shut of a drawer. Water running somewhere, and then the heavy rhythm of his boots returning.

I shivered and gasped when a damp cloth touched my cheek. My skin felt too raw, too sensitive. But Oaken’s touch was so delicate, so careful, so kind. The tenderest of ministrations.

Thoroughly, he cleaned my face, taking care around stinging scratches I didn’t even know that I had. He gently drew the cloth along my lips, my cheeks, my ears. Down my throat to my collarbones. He cleaned each one of my fingers, then traced the lines of my palms.

“It’s OK,” I croaked, finally finding my voice. “I’m OK. Go find the animals. Make sure they’re alright.”

Nali had fallen asleep curled up in the cellar, but the bracku and shuldu were still out there somewhere.

“Are you certain?” Oaken asked. His knuckles bumped my cheek. His thumb stroked the curving indent below my eye.

“Yeah. I’ll be OK.”

He got down on one knee before me. My eyes ached. I’d seen him down on one knee before.

Before all of this.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he said, white expanding in his eyes.

“I promise I’ll still be here when you get back.”

Exhaustion was pulling me down like the gravity of a word much bigger than this one. I couldn’t have gone back out there with him right now even if I’d tried. Besides, I couldn’t ride a shuldu on my own. I’d be no help to him trying to recover the bracku and survey the property’s damage.

“Lie down,” Oaken said softly as he stood. When I didn’t do it right away, he grasped my shoulders and pushed me onto the mattress.

He took off my boots.

He tucked me in.

And then, he left.

I wasn’t alone, though. Lala crawled around under the blanket, emerging to sit on the pillow directly in front of my nose.

“Any luck connecting with the ship yet?” I asked.

It was a good thing I didn’t get my hopes up, because she quietly answered, “No.”

“So, where does this leave us, Lala?” I tried to sound neutral, like I wasn’t absolutely terrified to lose her, too. “You’re programmed to look out for the pilot of the Lavariya . I’m not sure I qualify anymore. Will you…” My voice cracked painfully. “Will you still stay with me?”

She’d been my most constant companion. The one who’d gotten me through my aunty’s death. More than two decades flying together.

I hadn’t been with anyone as long as I’d been with her.

She didn’t answer for a moment, as if she were sifting through protocols and programs to form her answer. I tried not to hold my breath.

Finally, as if coming to a decision, she scuttled close enough to touch a spindle to my cheek.

“The rest of the Lavariya may be gone,” she said at length. “But I remain. And you are still my pilot.”

I took her in my hands, clutched her to my chest, and sobbed.

* * *

I slept so deeply, and so dreamlessly, that it was almost like I’d died in the tornado. For a few silent hours, I ceased to exist.

When I woke up, weak, watery sunlight was shyly making its way in through the window. It looked like it was late afternoon out there. The sky was clearing.

And so was my head.

I didn’t feel so powerfully overwhelmed as I had before falling asleep. There was still grief – I knew there likely always would be – but there was also a modicum of my usual energy coming back to me. Today had been a true disaster.

But we’d made it through.

And now there was work to do.

I didn’t bother trying to comb my hair yet. I simply tied it into a messy ponytail at the back of my head, scraped my bangs over to one side, and put my boots back on.

“I’ll certainly have my work cut out for me in here,” I said to Lala in the kitchen as she crawled up my side to settle on my shoulder.

But before I did any clean-up inside the house, I wanted to see if Oaken was back. And I also wanted to check in on Magnolia, Garrek, and Killian.

I didn’t see Oaken anywhere outside. And even though my eyes looked for her without my brain telling them to, I didn’t see the Lavariya , either. Putting my hands on my hips, I let out a low whistle. Swaths of fencing on Oaken’s property had been flattened, or ripped out of the ground entirely.

Movement flickered in the distance. A streaking shape of teal and grey.

Killian. I grinned, thrilled to see that little chaos bean racing towards me.

He didn’t look as happy as I did. He looked panicked.

“I can’t find Nali!” he screamed, leaping clear across the stream. Behind him, his house looked intact, and I saw Magnolia come running out the door after him.

“She’s OK!” I called. “She’s in Oaken’s cellar!”

Killian skidded to a stop before me. He blinked huge, white eyes.

“Thank you!” he said, his scrawny chest working like a set of bellows. He looked like he was about to take off in the direction of Oaken’s house.

But right before he did, he hastily threw his arms around my waist. The little dude was stronger than he looked. Probably would have cracked a rib if he held me any longer than the tiny split-second he gave me.

He loped away, heading for Oaken’s. By the time he disappeared into the roofless kitchen, Magnolia had reached my side.

“How are you?” she asked, her worried eyes searching my face. “I… I don’t see your ship.”

“I know.” I sniffed hard, but was relieved to see that I didn’t feel like I was on the edge of tears. “But before the storm moved in, I…”

Was I really doing this? Was I really saying this out loud?

Saying it out loud would make it real.

“I already decided that I want to stay.”

“Oh. Oh, Jaya.” Magnolia’s eyes shone. She apparently had enough tears for the both of us. They overflowed, spilling down her cheeks in shimmering lines. She turned to face Oaken’s house and put an arm around me. Lala moved closer to my neck, leaving room for Magnolia to rest her head against my shoulder.

“This world has a way of turning all our best laid plans upside down,” my sweet friend said, giving my waist a comforting squeeze, “doesn’t it?”

“Ha!” My laugh was genuine. And it felt so fucking good. I put my arm around her, too. “You can say that again.”

“But if there’s anything I’ve learned here so far,” she said, “it’s that it somehow always seems to work out for the best.”

Killian emerged a few moments later, cradling Nali’s fluffy pink body in his arms. She yawned lazily, then cuddled up against him. As if, now that the danger had passed, there was nothing left to worry about.

It was a comforting thought. There was peace in that moment of stillness, my arm around Magnolia, watching Killian traipse happily through the grass with Nali.

The only thing that would make it better would be…

“Have you seen Oaken?”

“Yeah,” Magnolia replied. “So far he’s found Fiora and at least one other shuldu. He and Garrek are helping each other round up the rest of the shuldu and the bracku herds now. But it could take a while. Do you want to come have some food with us?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I want to start cleaning up inside.”

“Alright,” Magnolia said, giving me one more squeeze before letting go. “But we’ll be right across the stream. Just holler if you need us.”

“I will.”

I watched Magnolia and Killian walk with Nali towards their place.

Then, I went back inside and got to work.

I wanted to make some really solid headway on the kitchen before Oaken got back. After a couple of hours, things still looked like shit. But at least it was slightly tidier shit. I’d cleared the floor of all the debris and swept, then scrubbed, the surface. I scrubbed out the cupboards, too, wiped the counters, righted the kitchen table that had been knocked onto its side. The chairs, apparently, had been sucked out through the roof. No telling where they’d ended up. Any dishes I found that weren’t broken, I washed and put away. Even Lala put herself to work, doing what she could on her little skinny legs, collecting bits of broken glass and checking floorboards and corners for any sharp things I’d missed.

By the time the sun was setting, things were almost looking semi-normal. Many of the cupboard hinges were busted, some of them no longer having doors at all. For a moment, I forgot my ship was gone, and I went right out the door to get some tools from inside her.

Only empty grass, and a brilliant orange and indigo sky, greeted me.

It was a bit of a sucker punch. I tried to breathe through it, focusing on the cool air on my skin, the beauty of the landscape around me. The setting sun turned the mountains into brilliant spikes of copper. In the other direction, away from the mountains, flatter land and trees were deep green, dusted with gold.

I squinted.

Some of the trees were moving.

My heart rammed. My legs shook. Adrenaline made my hands tingle then go numb.

Two riders were heading this way, leading their herds behind them.

And behind the herds…

No. It can’t be.

But she was bigger than the bracku. So even behind them all, I could see her. The sun spilled over her hull, glinting brightly, turning her into a fucking beacon.

The Lavariya.

They’d found her. They’d found her, and had somehow hooked her up to the bracku and shuldu. Slowly, they dragged her over the land towards me.

Towards home.

I took off at a sprint. When my husband saw me coming, he dismounted in one great leap and started jogging my way.

“Oaken!” I cried. I collided with him so hard I would have knocked a normal human man flat on his ass. As it was, Oaken only made a slight, “oof,” sound. Then, his arms went tight around me, Clutching and tense. As if a part of him had been worried he’d come back and find me gone.

After a moment, his arms began to slacken.

“Jaya, you must let go. I have something to show you!” Oaken said urgently against the top of my head.

I ignored him, hugging tighter.

“Jaya!”

“I know, Oaken! I saw her,” I breathed against his chest. “But this is way more important right now.”

I felt his sharp inhale. Then, he stilled. Something warm pressed against the top of my head.

Oaken’s cheek.

“Where are we taking this thing?” came the gruff rumble of Garrek’s voice.

I finally pulled out of my embrace with Oaken, but I slipped my fingers down his wrist to hold his hand. I didn’t want to stop touching him. Immediately, his fingers laced with mine.

Garrek and the animals had gotten quite a bit closer. He was holding Fiora’s reins in his blue fingers.

“Right beside the house, please,” I said. “Right beside our house.”

Garrek gave a grunt of acknowledgement in reply and continued onwards with the bracku and the Lavariya.

“Our house?”

Anxiety rippled, but I smoothed it out, like I was running my hands over wrinkled satin. I thought of Nali, yawning and cozy in Killian’s arms, totally at ease because everything was alright now. And Magnolia, telling me that this world had a habit of turning your entire life upside down…

Only to right it in the best possible way.

I looked into Oaken’s questioning eyes. And I was not afraid.

“Our house,” I repeated serenely.

“But your ship!” he exclaimed. “I truly do think that it is alright! It appears as if the storm merely picked it up and set it gently back down. Once you have your new part-”

“I don’t want the new part.”

Oaken’s fingers twitched, then tightened on mine. I reached up with my free hand, laying my palm – the palm that Oaken had painstakingly wiped dust and dirt and sweat from – against his cheek.

“I don’t want to leave,” I said. “I decided that even before I thought the Lavariya was lost.”

Here we go. No turning back now.

“I love you. I want to stay with you. As your wife.”

Oaken’s eyes burned a whole through my head.

He said nothing.

“Oaken? Did you hear me? I said-”

“I did hear you,” he croaked. “Forgive me, Jaya. Your words… I have waited so long to hear them. I have spent so many nights dreaming of them. I have fantasized so vividly, and so often, that I worried… I worried that maybe this wasn’t real.”

“It’s real,” I whispered. “I’ll say it as many times as I need to. I want to stay with you. I want to remain your wife.”

“I love you,” Oaken said in a heated rush. His free hand went to my throat, his palm sliding against my throbbing pulse. “I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for you, Jaya. It’s why I gave up on ever marrying again after you left. Because no one would ever be able to fill the gaping hole you left behind.”

He loved me. He really fucking loved me.

“But you never… You never said anything! You never asked me to stay!”

“How could I have?” Oaken asked gently. “When I knew how much you wanted to leave? When I knew how much your ship meant?”

“The Lavariya still means a lot to me,” I admitted. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you found her and brought her back. But when I think of leaving now, I don’t feel excited at the prospect of that freedom. I just feel…”

“What?”

“Lonely.”

“I never want you to be lonely,” Oaken whispered. He lowered his head.

I chuckled against his mouth.

“Well, it’s a good thing I have a husband now, then, isn’t it?”

That husband drew me closer, and in the perfect light of the setting sun on Zabria Prinar One, he kissed me.