Page 7 of Married to the Alien Mountain Man (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #5)

7

JAYA

T here was a very good chance that this was going to come back to bite me in the butt in a major way, but I didn’t automatically turn down Oaken’s offer of marriage. Instead, I asked if I could see his house and meet any of the other human women around here before I made my decision. I wanted to make sure the other women who’d been here for a while still had all their fingers, teeth, and faculties, and that they weren’t strapped to a breeding bench in a barn stall somewhere, being used as pets or ponies or hucows.

But Oaken eagerly agreed to show me his place, and even the warden – who didn’t seem like the sort to budge about anything he didn’t want to – said he’d be happy to introduce me to his human wife, Tasha. I figured those were all fairly good green flags. Hell, even Oaken himself was green all over, apart from his black hair, white eyes, and the dark gash of a wound on his noggin, of course.

Maybe it was a sign.

Or maybe the atmosphere here didn’t have enough oxygen after all, and my starving brain had decided to give up and go loopy on me. Looking for omens in something as goofy as the verdant hue of my maybe-soon-to-be-fake-husband’s hide.

Either way, I found myself on the back of the warden’s hover-vehicle – which he called a slicer – speeding through the mountains towards Oaken’s property. I’d assumed Oaken would come on the slicer, too, especially considering the limp I’d noticed before. But he’d said something about needing to walk back so he could “go get Nali,” whoever that was. Besides, once I was on the slicer behind Warden Tenn, it became clear that Oaken, with his trunk-like thighs, would not have fit with us.

I felt a twinge of guilt as I watched him get smaller and smaller through the visor of the helmet Warden Tenn had lent me.

During the ride, Lala was a hard little ball in my pocket, her legs folded neatly into grooves on her body. She’d scuttled out of the ship and latched onto me before I could leave without her. Not that I would have. She was my only real friend out here, and if things went sour, she’d be able to get back to the ship and try to tap into a comms signal to let somebody out there know I needed help.

Even having Lala with me, I was nervous. I’d vowed not to leave my ship, and when I’d said it, I’d meant that I wouldn’t go off-world unless it was on the Lavariya. But even this small trip away from her had me chewing on the inside of my cheek with anxiety.

Luckily, we didn’t seem to go far. The slicer was fast, sure, but it was only a few minutes of speeding through the mountains before we emerged into a larger span of a lush, grassy valley. And in the valley, there were buildings. Simple but well-built wooden structures that looked to be a couple of houses separated by a stream, as well as at least one barn, some sheds, stalls, and various fenced-in pastures that held animals I couldn’t see very well from the slicer.

As far as I could tell, the sheds and stalls were blissfully empty of any chained-up human ladies. So, that was something.

“Here we are,” Warden Tenn said after he’d landed the slicer and powered down the engine. “This is all Oaken’s property. He’s resided here since he was brought to this world as a child.”

“Hold on. As a child?” I asked, yanking off the helmet. “I thought this was a penal colony.”

Warden Tenn dismounted and took the helmet from me. His voice betrayed nothing as he flatly replied, “It is.”

OK. Well, that was all kinds of messed up. I thought Oaken was some kind of accessory to murder. But it was sounding more and more like he’d watched someone else commit murder when he was only a child, and had basically been banished for it. I found myself craning my neck to look back the way we’d come, but Oaken hadn’t yet appeared on foot.

“All the convicts came here as children,” Warden Tenn went on. He held out a hand to help me get down, but I ignored it. The slicer was big, but I didn’t find it too difficult to swing my leg over the seat and hop down on my own.

“That doesn’t make it any better,” I said. “In fact, that kind of makes it worse.”

Warden Tenn flicked his tail in a shrug-like gesture.

“It saved them from the mines,” he replied. “And I think most of them have made peace with their lots in life. Especially now that the bride program is underway.”

I snorted at that. Suddenly, the ooey-gooey hope I’d seen shining out of Oaken’s big, white eyes when he’d proposed made a hell of a lot more sense. He’d been here practically his entire life, cut off from his old world, his family, and, presumably, females of any sort. Getting to marry a human must have been just about the most exciting thing in the universe.

That twinge of earlier guilt very rudely turned into a full-on cramp.

“Silar, Fallon, Garrek… I think they’d all even describe themselves as happy, now that they are married,” Warden Tenn said.

“And what about you?” I asked, running my hands through my hair, made flat and sweaty by the helmet and the heat. “You said you’re married to a human as well?”

For the first time since I’d met him, Warden Tenn smiled. His face went from imposing and authoritative to so sincerely and openly warm that, for a moment, I didn’t even recognize him.

“Are you asking if, now that I am married, I am happy?”

“Well, yes. I guess so.”

His grinned widened. His orange eyes crackled with sudden, surprising whiteness.

“There has never been any man happier than me.”

“Tenn!”

A high, human voice distracted me from the surprise I felt at his response. I hadn’t pegged the warden as the dopey, romantic type. And yet, there he was, looking every inch a dope in love as a human woman hurried towards us.

After getting a look at who I assumed had to be his wife, I couldn’t really blame him. Warden Tenn had married, well, a ten. Missus Warden was a total hottie with a body, all generous curves, smooth skin, and long blonde hair shimmering in the sunlight as she approached. Warm brown eyes met mine. Above them, golden brows were furrowed with concern.

“Hi. I’m Tasha. Are you alright?” she asked in a rush. “Was that your ship we saw go down? Tenn took off as fast as he could to find you.”

She seemed genuinely nice, and I felt myself smiling at her.

“Yeah, that was my ship. I’m OK. No injuries. My ship is in rough shape, but it’s nothing I can’t fix.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Tasha said. “What do you need for your ship?”

Lala squeezed herself out of my pocket and scurried up my arm to my shoulder, replying before I could.

“We require a sonic recalibrater. My calculations tell me it will be at least two weeks before the necessary part arrives.”

“And she can’t stay that long,” Warden Tenn growled.

Tasha frowned. “Why can’t she? Of course she can!”

“Well, she can ,” Warden Tenn hedged. “If she accepts Oaken’s offer.”

“And what offer is that?”

“His offer of marriage.”

It was amazing, really, the way Tasha’s pretty face hardened so quickly into a cool mask. But even inside that mask, her eyes were fiery.

“His offer of marriage ?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“It was Oaken’s idea,” Warden Tenn said quickly. “Don’t blame me.”

“How about I blame the both of you?!” she cried, throwing her hands onto her hips. “This poor woman – sorry, what is your name?”

“Jaya.”

“Poor Jaya just landed here in distress, with no working ship and no friends around, and the best you two boneheads could come up with to help her is a marriage proposal?!”

“OK, thank you!” I whispered, glad somebody else agreed that this morning’s turn of events had been off-the-charts bizarre.

“Tasha appears to be a reasonable and intelligent human,” Lala said from her place on my shoulder. “I am glad we have found her.”

“Me too,” I replied. Not only did it make me feel a little less alone to have a human ally around, but seeing how Tasha didn’t fear her husband at all was another good sign about this place. She clearly had no problem voicing her opinions or standing up to Warden Tenn. It was actually kind of fun to watch her lay into him, especially considering the “Hand over your weapon and get off my planet” sheriff schtick he’d given to me earlier. He might have worn the warden’s hat around here, but clearly, he didn’t wear the pants.

“There is no way around it,” Warden Tenn was now telling his wife, looking distraught that she was pissed at him. “No one is allowed to remain here without permission from the empire. The only non-Zabrians who may do so are the brides, or someone like you, because you came here in your capacity as a liaison.”

“Well, can’t she be a temporary liaison or something?” Tasha asked. “I could be training her for two weeks! And then she could quit.”

“I do not have the power to create a position like that,” Warden Tenn said. “Unlike a marriage, which I do have the authority to facilitate. If she marries Oaken, she could remain here without any issues for the duration of the fourteen-day trial period.”

“But what about Oaken?” Tasha asked, some of her anger abating. “That isn’t really fair to him.”

“Like I said,” Warden Tenn grunted, “it was his idea. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

The warden had tried to talk Oaken out of it? This was news to me. I guess that’s what they’d spent all that time whispering about.

Why had he tried to talk Oaken out of it?

I’d been so wrapped up in how this situation was affecting me, that I hadn’t had time to consider Oaken’s point of view much. Why would this be so unfair to him?

Would it be any more unfair to him than it was to me?

“Look, why don’t you come inside?” Tasha said to me. She pointed to the smaller of the two houses, the one across the stream. “Magnolia just made lunch. And you can at least stay that long without having to become somebody’s wife first. Right, Tenn?” she said, raising her brows meaningfully at her husband.

“Fine,” he said.

For a moment, I thought he’d leave it at that.

But as we headed for the building across the stream, I heard him add under his breath, “But only for lunch. If she wants to remain here until tomorrow morning, then by the empire, she’d better be married by nightfall.”