Page 4 of Married to the Alien Mountain Man (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #5)

4

OAKEN

B y the time I’d run what I thought was about two spans, my right foot felt like it was ready to fling itself off of my ankle in protest. But I didn’t give up and I didn’t slow down. I needed to find that ship.

The mountains were not an easy place to land. Even for a skilled Zabrian pilot who knew the way.

And I was certain this was not a Zabrian pilot. It certainly hadn’t been a ship of Zabrian design.

At least what I’d heard of the vessel’s landing had not sounded too much like a crash. I kept running, chest heaving, lungs burning, doing my best not to break my other blasted ankle in the process as the soft grass of the valleys nearer my property transformed into treacherously rocky ground. Sun gleamed off the warm pinkish-gold stone. Dust churned beneath my frantic footfalls.

And then – ahead, beyond an outcropping of stone – came the sound of a metal door unlatching…

And footsteps.

I skidded around the outcropping to find a wide, flat area of pink stone between towering peaks. A near-perfect natural landing pad. My eyebrows rose as I slowed to a stop, impressed that any pilot who had not visited this world before could find such a place, especially under what I had to assume had been some sort of distress.

The ship appeared to have landed alright, as far as I could tell, anyway. It was not a large vessel – probably meant for carrying only one or two people – and was vaguely tube-like in shape, but tapered into slightly rounded points at each end. This gave it an arching, scythe-like quality from where I viewed it.

No sign of the pilot.

No sign beyond yet more footsteps. Coming from the other side of the ship.

I hurried around the vessel, then froze.

There stood a lone pilot in the stony valley.

They were bipedal, but their features were entirely obscured by a thick white suit and large, round helmet.

“Atmosphere is breathable,” came a sudden voice through the open door of the vessel, though I glimpsed no other occupants.

Before I could attempt to figure out who had spoken, my eyes were drawn back to the pilot, who now unfastened their helmet, removed it, and…

And revealed the prettiest face I’d ever had the pleasure of seeing in my entire blasted, exiled life.

A human face.

She stood at least two heads shorter than me, and yet it was as if she’d suddenly grown larger than any other thing around us. More imposing than the towering mountains. More dizzying than the searing breadth of the sky.

My vision became a dark, opaque tunnel with only her visible at the centre.

Her face was small, her cheeks lush lines leading down to her jaw, the bridge of her nose elegantly curved. Her skin was a rich, medium brown, her hair a darker shade than this, cascading about her shoulders in waves as she freed the lengths of it from inside her white suit. She had a shorter layer of hair at the front that fell forwards over her forehead, drawing my focus to a pair of large, intelligent eyes with deep, dark wells at their centres.

“Thank goodness for that,” she said, her words easily parsed by my inner ear translator. “I was worried I’d be stuck in my suit out here for weeks.”

Even her voice was beautiful.

“It should take about two weeks to get a delivery from Elora Station to this planet, assuming the delivery is allowed by local authorities and that you don’t use sonic freight,” said the voice from inside the vessel. This disembodied voice, as far as I could tell, was not a male voice.

That was good.

I did not stop to analyze why, exactly, I thought it was good this pretty pilot was not travelling with a male. I was too distracted by the high peal of her sudden laughter, the intimate revealing of her straight white teeth and the pink wetness inside her mouth.

A pink wetness that made my lungs feel hot and strange even though I had stopped running some time ago.

“Sonic freight? Come on, Lala. I’m going to be scraping together every credit we’ve got just to pay for the recalibrater and get a normal delivery. We’re in the fucking space boonies out here.”

The pilot left her helmet in the dust and went back into the vessel. When she returned, her suit had been stripped away to reveal tight trousers and a short, sleeveless shirt that showed a sliver of her abdomen and lower back. I spent so long staring at that exposed strip of her skin that I did not at first realize she had a large tool in her hand now. A hammer, I was fairly certain.

She was approaching a panel near the back of her vessel and she still had not noticed me. She kneeled down and pried off a panel near the bottom of her ship. Though this panel had appeared small to me at first glance, the opening now created was more than large enough for her to crawl completely inside. I watched in fascination – and no small amount of unease – as her entire body disappeared. The sounds of banging, breathing, and what I was fairly certain was human swearing, floated out of the opening.

“Damnit! Half the connections are shot now!” the pilot called to her invisible companion. Her lovely voice was harsh with frustration.

It made me want to help her.

I was just striding forward, about to make myself known and offer whatever assistance I could, when she unexpectedly shoved herself back out of the opening, stood, turned, and hurled her hammer.

Hurled it right at me.

I knew she saw me the moment the hammer left her hand. Her large eyes got even larger, her mouth dropped open in shock.

At least that means she probably didn’t throw it at me on purpose.

Even so, it was difficult to dodge the thing. I ducked, but the flying hammer still managed to skate painfully across my forehead and ear and take my hat tumbling to the dusty ground with it.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” cried the pilot. She took a step towards me, then halted and said, “I have a stunner.”

This seemed an odd combination of statements. To say that she was sorry for hitting me with her hammer, and then immediately inform me that she had yet another weapon at her disposal.

“On you?” I asked. Her clothing was tight, with no large pockets to hide such a thing. It did not hang off a belt, either, like Warden Tenn’s stunner did.

Her eyes darted to her ship, then back to me.

“You may go to your ship and retrieve it.” I spoke soothingly, softly, as if approaching a skittish shuldu. “I would very much like to avoid a stunner blast to the guts if at all possible. The hammer was greeting enough. But I would gladly let you go and fetch your weapon if it would make you feel more at ease.”

I blinked against sudden wetness. I watched her eyes go to my forehead. She winced.

“I really am sorry about that,” she said.

Even as she said it, though, she was walking backwards into her vessel, keeping me in her sights the entire time. When she came back out, she had some sort of small stunner in her hand. Her finger was on the trigger.

“I wasn’t aiming at you,” she said. “I was frustrated about something. And I didn’t know you were there.”

She raised her stunner and pointed it at my head. Which seemed rather unfair, as she’d already injured my head, and I certainly couldn’t think of anything else that part of my body could have done to offend her. But she was just so beautiful, standing there with her weapon aimed right at my face, that I found I could not fault her.

Dangerous thing, that much beauty. I had a feeling that someone who looked like her could get me to agree to just about anything.

This was only proved absolutely true in the next moment, because she kept her weapon up, bade me to come closer…

And I did.

Without hesitation.

“Are you going to shoot me?” I only had the presence of mind to ask it when I was but a step away from her. For all I knew, I’d just happily walked right up into her weapon’s lethal range.

“What?” She frowned. “No. This isn’t my stunner; though I do have that in my back pocket now. This is a knitter.”

The only knitting I knew about was done with needles. It was a hobby I’d picked up in my childhood before I’d even left Zabria. I’d felt a scurry of pure delight when it was mentioned as a human activity in the book Tasha wrote. I’d hoped it might provide a common point of bonding between my human wife and I.

If I ever got one.

“Do you knit?” I asked the pilot. I did not know why I felt a giddy sort of hope as I asked the question.

“Like, sweaters and stuff? No.” She waved the silver thing in her hand. “This is a WoundKnit 8300. Knitter for short. It helps seal up wounds. If you sit down, I can use it on your head.” She raised her free hand to shade her eyes, squinting up at me as the sun shone above.

It made me want to give her my hat.

But my hat was back in the dust where I’d left it, and it likely had my blood on it now. I did not want to give her something dirty.

She was leaning back slightly now, her gaze going up and down my body. “Yeah, you’ll definitely have to sit down. How tall are you?”

“I do not know,” I answered honestly. “I have not been properly measured head-to-boot since I was a child on Zabria.”

“Zabria…” She pulled her gaze from me to take in the mountains and sky around us. “But this isn’t Zabria, is it?”

“No. This is Zabria Prinar One. It-”

I was interrupted by the roar of an incoming engine. The pilot jumped back towards her ship as Warden Tenn’s slicer came storming into view. I had the most absurd desire to grab her slender wrist and pull her back to me. She’d only just invited me closer, and now she was fleeing.

As Warden Tenn stopped and then dismounted, stalking quickly towards us, the human pilot shoved her knitter into one pocket and pulled her weapon from another. She aimed it at the warden.

“Drop it,” Warden Tenn snapped. The warden was a good man, but the menacing edge of authority in his tone made me want to hurl myself in front of the small female.

And when Warden Tenn drew his own stunner in turn, I did.

“She is human,” I said quickly, planting myself directly in front of the barrel of Warden Tenn’s stunner.

“Yes, I am human, if that means anything to you,” she called from behind me.

“The last human ship that landed here without permission did not do so with good intentions,” Warden Tenn growled.

The pilot snorted. “My only intention is fixing my ship and getting out of here as quickly as possible. I can promise you that.”

“She is telling the truth,” I said, as if I could possibly know such a thing. I didn’t even know what the warden was referencing when he spoke of the last human ship to land here without permission. “I saw her opening panels in her vessel to examine the parts inside.”

“My sonic recalibrater’s toast,” the pilot said. “If you’ve got one on-world, I’d happily buy it from you. Or trade, if that interests you.”

“See? There is nothing to fear from her!” I exclaimed. “She merely wants some toast!”

“We don’t have anything like that here,” Warden Tenn told her, ignoring me.

“I have bread at home,” I offered immediately. “I could make her some toast!”

Warden Tenn’s eyes were still on the pilot behind me, but for a brief moment they flicked to my bleeding forehead.

“What happened to your face?”

“I got in the way of a projectile.”

His gaze narrowed.

“What kind of projectile?”

“Did I say projectile?” I wiped blood from my right eye. “I meant I tripped.”

The warden stared at me flatly for another moment, then sighed and said, “Oaken. You are a terrible liar.”

I gave him a sheepish smile and flicked my tail. “Forgive me, Warden. It is not a skill I have ever needed to practise before.”

Another sigh, this one much heavier and wearier than the last, and then, “You’re forgiven.” His attention once again went beyond me to the pilot. “Are you alone?”

No answer. Perhaps she was afraid to let us know she was outnumbered.

It made something inside me squeeze.

“She is not alone,” I said. “Because she is with me.”

This must have put her at least somewhat at ease, because after another short moment’s hesitation, she said, “It’s just me and my ship’s bot, Lala. She doesn’t have any weapons capabilities. And neither does the ship.”

“So the weapon in your hand is the only one you have?”

“Yes,” she said. “Unless you count that hammer over there.”

She must have indicated it, because Warden Tenn appeared to now notice it where it lay.

He raised a white eyebrow at me. “I assume that’s what you ‘tripped’ on?”

I flicked my tail again in a noncommittal sort of motion. “Perhaps...”

“Alright, Oaken. You can move now. I promise I won’t stun her.” His voice went low and wry. “But in case I’m making a terrible judgment call, if she decides to shoot me instead, I’m going to need you to subdue her while I’m down.”

Before I could respond to that command, Warden Tenn stepped around me and lowered his stunner.

“I need you to put down your weapon,” Warden Tenn said, a little more gently this time. He kept his own stunner lowered at his side as he slowly approached the pilot. “We are not generally hostile to humans here. In fact, I’m married to one. But this isn’t a normal planet that you’ve landed on, and in this province, my word is law.”

“What do you mean, ‘This isn’t a normal planet?’” she asked warily. Her eyes flicked to me now, as if to seek some sort of reassurance. It made me happy to see that she trusted me enough to look at me for explanation, or for comfort.

But that happiness was snuffed out when I realized I would never be able to keep that trust. Once she knew why I was here, she would no doubt recoil from me.

“This is Zabria Prinar One,” the warden informed the pilot. “A penal colony for convicted murderers under the control of the Zabrian Empire.”

I was right. She did recoil. She shot me a look that almost looked like one of betrayal.

It felt rather like a knife.

Or a hammer to the head.

“So you’re saying,” she cried, her voice rising higher and higher, “that I’ve just landed on a planet full of convicted murderers? And you’re telling me to put my weapon down?”

“I am,” Warden Tenn answered calmly, despite her obviously growing anxiety. “No one but a warden is allowed to carry a blaster-style weapon in this world. And no one but the wardens, the convicts, their brides, and liaisons under contract with the empire are allowed to remain on-world for any significant length of time. Whether you drop your weapon or don’t, either way, you must leave immediately.”

“But I can’t!” Raw panic ripped through her voice. It ripped through me, too, and without my brain telling it to do so, my body moved towards her.

But she did not like that, as evidenced by her weapon, which she now aimed squarely at me.

I supposed the warden had more patience for a weapon pointed at himself than at one of his convicts. As soon as the pilot changed her aim, Warden Tenn’s tail snapped forward lightning-quick. Using his tail, he seized and then snatched the stunner away before the pilot even had a hope of activating the trigger.

She stared at her stunner, now being transferred to the warden’s free hand, with a mixture of shock and horror. Then, rage was added into the mix, obliterating everything else.

“He’s the one who told me to go get my stunner in the first place!” she shouted, pointing a delicate finger at me.

“Yes. Well.” The warden shot me an of-course-he-did-the-absolute-fool sort of glance. “Clearly, he has taken a blow to the head.”

“It’s a scratch!” I retorted. “And it has already stopped bleeding!”

“I can’t leave,” the pilot reiterated. The panic was still there in her voice. In her eyes. But so was the rage behind it. “It’ll take at least fourteen days for the part I need to arrive out here.”

“I am sorry,” Warden Tenn said. “But I cannot allow you to stay here that long, unless you apply to the empire for special permission. But I can already tell you, they won’t provide it. If your ship is inoperable, then I can arrange for a transport to take you off-world. The ship can remain here until you can have it hauled away.”

“I’m not leaving my ship.” She said it so fiercely, it was as if the warden had suggested she leave behind some beloved living being. “And there’s no way I’d be able to pay for my own transport on top of having my ship hauled out separately. That would cost double the price of the part I need. I don’t have the credits!”

I would have offered her a share of my own meagre collection of credits – all of them, if she wanted – but I had a feeling that would not be enough.

But perhaps… Perhaps there was something else…

“Well, I’m sorry, but-”

“Warden,” I interrupted with a hiss.

Warden Tenn’s brows came together as I moved closer to him. A plan was taking shape inside me with a swiftness that made my pulse buck beneath my ribs.

“You said before that she cannot stay here.” I spoke in quiet tones.

“Obviously, she can’t,” he replied. “The only ones allowed are the wardens, convicts, liaisons-”

“And brides.”

“She is not a bride.”

“But she could be.”

I only barely stopped myself from adding the word, “mine,” at the end of that sentence.

Warden Tenn’s eyes went briefly white with surprise beneath the shade of his hat’s brim.

“There is no way she’d agree to marry someone here,” Warden Tenn said with a dismissive snap of his tail. “She said herself her only intention is to leave. Besides, I could not ask any of the unmarried men to do such a thing. It would be colossally unfair to have one of them marry a bride who does not intend to stay.”

“You don’t need to ask anyone else to do it,” I answered instantly. “In fact, please do not.”

The idea of Zohro or one of the men in another province marrying this beautiful, stranded pilot did not sit right with me. Even Magnolia choosing Garrek over me had not inspired this sort of frantic jealousy.

I could not deny it.

If the lovely pilot was going to marry any man, even if only for a short time…

I wanted it to be me.

“Oaken…”

“I volunteer!”

“You don’t count,” the warden grumbled. “You’re probably concussed.”

“I am not concussed! And I do count.” I met Warden Tenn’s gaze steadily, though I knew mine had gone bright white. Desire tightened in my belly like hunger. “It could work, Warden. The new marriage trial period is two human weeks – fourteen days. That is precisely how long she requires to fix her ship! She could remain with me during that time. And if she chooses to leave after the trial period, I do not see how that is any different than any other human bride being allowed to do the same thing.”

“It’s very different, and you know it,” Warden Tenn shot back. “Yes, every human bride is free to leave, no questions asked, after the trial period of fourteen days. But that’s only assuming she has entered into the arrangement with the intention of actually being married. You’re proposing a sham marriage – that we already know will end after the trial period – simply so that she can be allowed to stay here with her ship.”

“Does it matter?” I asked. “If we both consent to the arrangement?”

Warden Tenn hesitated. In that moment of quiet, the pilot warily called over, “What are you two talking about?”

“Trust me,” the warden grunted, “you don’t want to know.”

“Please, Warden.” Empire help me, I was pleading. “Perhaps this could be good for me, too. It could give me some practice living with a human wife, so that I may be more prepared when my real wife shows up.”

If she shows up…

“Have you stopped to consider, Oaken,” the warden said, seriously but not unkindly, “that this may actually hurt your chances at getting a future bride?”

My shoulders stiffened.

“What do you mean?”

Warden Tenn rubbed his jaw, then breathed out.

“It will already be more difficult than before to convince human women to give you lot a shot now that they will be aware of your status as convicts,” he explained. “Have you considered that, while you are perhaps the only male here who is not actually a murderer, you are also the only male who now will have been rejected not just by one, but by two human brides?”

I had not considered this. But the warden had a point. I was already convicted of murder even if I’d never actually killed a man. And now, I would have been abandoned by two human women, even if Magnolia never actually met me before she left me. None of the other males thus far had been rejected by their females, let alone by two in a row.

Any woman with half a brain in her head would wonder what was wrong with me.

It was risky. Probably too risky.

But there stood the pilot in the shadow of her broken ship. Looking so pretty and so vulnerable and so blasted angry that she was helpless. Like it was an entirely foreign concept to her, something she’d never allowed herself before and hated experiencing now.

It made me want to do anything, everything to help her. To show her that, even in this far-flung, foreign world of convicts, she had at least one person she could turn to. At least one man to rely on.

I could be that man.

“If my future bride would reject me for Magnolia choosing Garrek over me, and then for my next wife leaving after the trial marriage period, then she simply must not be the one for me,” I said. “I decided long ago I do not want someone who does not want me. I will simply wait for the one who does.”

Even as I spoke of some faceless future wife, my focus was solely on the pilot. Her hair, her skin, those guarded human eyes.

Warden Tenn followed my gaze, glancing at her. He rubbed his jaw again, harder this time.

“You’re sure?” he finally asked.

“I’m sure.”

“You’re stubborn.”

I laughed at that. “Don’t we have to be,” I asked him with a grin, “to make a life out here?”

“Can’t argue with that,” he muttered. Then, with a final, heaving sigh and a smack of his calloused hand on my shoulder, he said, “I suppose you’d better go over there and propose.”

My heart slammed. Propose.

Propose marriage. To her. The beautiful human female who currently looked like she wanted to throw another hammer at my head.

I couldn’t wait.