Page 2 of Rescued by the Alien Bull Rider (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #6)

Reckless. You never fucking think!

I shoved Pa’s words away. Because I did think, thank you very fucking much.

And I just happened to think that partying and meaningless hook-ups with strangers represented a damn fine way to spend my evenings.

It sure beat getting into bed at sundown and staring at the ceiling like Pa did, poking pathetically at the jagged edges of my own trauma and confronting the ghost of a mother I never got to meet.

So sue me.

But that was before Baby Girl. My cycle always came like clockwork, and I knew within days, before I even took a test, what was going on. I quit drinking. Quit the casual sex. Quit all of it.

And, surprisingly, it wasn’t as hard as I’d anticipated. Like maybe I’d been looking for an excuse to cut the crap and just live with myself in the ugly quiet for a little bit.

Maybe it was easier to do it with Baby Girl. Because I wasn’t really alone. And I could do things for her, make healthy choices, that I hadn’t been willing to make for myself.

Sal warily slid a glass of water over to me, like he wasn’t even sure if I was capable of drinking something without alcohol in it.

I accepted it with a grateful nod. Pregnancy made me thirsty all the freaking time.

It also made me pee all the freaking time.

I plucked the Terratribe II lemon garnish from the edge of the glass and discarded it on a napkin, already feeling that ever-so-lovely acid crawl of heartburn up my throat and not wanting to make it any worse.

“So, what’s new with you?” Sal asked, coming back to me after delivering a pitcher of New Alberta beer to a boisterous group of off-world tourists.

Well, Sal, I’ve lost my horse and my home in the span of one shitty afternoon. Oh, I’m also pregnant, coming up on my due date with the speed of a sonic freight shuttle, with absolutely no one to support me through it. How are things with you?

Fuck an Old-Earth duck. I was going to have to figure my shit out, and fast.

Instead of answering Sal’s question, I asked one of my own. “What’s that?” I jerked my chin towards a small picture behind the bar, standing up and balanced against liquor bottles. Unlike the other Old-Earth Alberta pictures, this one wasn’t framed, and I didn’t recognize it. “It’s new.”

It looked like it could maybe have been a picture of Old-Earth Banff, showing soaring peaks, spiky coniferous trees, and a shimmering lake in the foreground. But the mountains looked more pink than they appeared in other Banff pictures around the bar. Like they’d been plated with rose gold.

Sal plucked the picture from its place, then handed it to me.

“That’s the granddaughter of an old family friend. He’s passed on now, but I still get updates on the kids. Although, not so much of a kid anymore, since she’s gone off and married some big alien rancher.”

“Alien rancher?” I peered with renewed interest at the image.

Now that I was looking closer, I could see three figures standing on the shore of the lake.

One was human – a beautiful, smiling woman with medium brown skin and long, tight curls tied into two thick braids.

She was leaning comfortably – joyfully – against the side of a massive blue male of an alien species I didn’t recognize.

Unlike the human, he wasn’t smiling, but I thought I could detect a certain softness in his mouth as he gazed at her instead of the camera.

In front of them, a smaller teal-skinned alien with no shirt was standing awkwardly with both arms stuck straight out to the side and big teeth bared.

I snorted at the universal awkwardness of what looked to be a child being told to smile and pose for the camera.

“Her name’s Magnolia,” Sal went on. “Apparently these Zabrian folks are desperate for wives for their men. Something about Zabrian women not wanting to live the rancher lifestyle on the outpost planet. I’m not quite clear on all the details.”

A husband…

And a child.

I looked even closer at the image, now completely absorbed by it.

Magnolia looked so happy. And they somehow had a child between them that clearly wasn’t biologically hers but that she seemed to love anyway, one of her soft human hands affectionately placed on the child’s shoulder.

They appeared as a perfect little family unit, out for a day of leisure on some Zabrian lake and taking a picture to commemorate the occasion.

It was the kind of happy family memory I’d never had.

Tears choked my throat. I blinked before one could slip from my eyes and splatter on the picture. Text at the bottom of the frame suddenly caught my eye. Greetings from Zabria Prinar One!

“She sent it as a file on her comms tablet, of course,” Sal said, taking the picture back and replacing it on the shelf. “But I like printing things like that out. Feels more real to hold it in your hands sometimes.”

“I know what you mean,” I replied with a sniff, thinking of the pictures of Baby Girl I’d had printed this very afternoon.

Ah. Poop. If I started thinking about those photos, down in the dirt in Glory’s empty stall with Pa walking away while I knelt to pick them up, I really was going to break down and blubber all over Sal’s bar. I’d never even done that when completely wasted.

“So, what’s the deal, then?” I asked, forcing my brain to stay focused on something else. “Human women can go to this Zabria Prinar One planet and marry a rancher out there?”

“From what I gather, yes,” Sal said with a shrug. “There are no females there, and apparently there are lots of boys still waiting for a woman. Like I said, sounds like the Zabrian ladies don’t fancy the rancher life.”

But I did. I loved the rancher life. It was my fucking life .

Or had been, until I’d been kicked off of the ranch that had been my home for the past twenty-three years.

But maybe…

“Do they have horses?”

Sal gave me an odd look, probably because of the desperate note that had suddenly entered my voice. I took a sip of water to try to chill myself out a bit, but only ended up gripping the glass so hard my knuckles hurt.

“Yep,” he said, and something inside me sang. “Or the alien equivalent, I guess. Magnolia sent a small text update along with the photo. Said she’s learned to ride.”

“And there are still men waiting for wives?”

Sal nodded. “Apparently there are more single men than married.”

So I could go to this beautiful, bizarre place, and get a house, a ranch, a horse?

All I had to do was marry some lonely, horny alien rancher?

Considering how slim their pickings were, one of them was bound to accept me even with Baby Girl on board.

Pa fell in love with my mama when she was pregnant with another man’s child.

Why not one of the seven-foot-something males like the one I’d just seen in the photo?

And unlike my childhood, I planned to be there for Baby Girl’s. No siree, I didn’t plan on up and dying. I was going to be there. To see her grow. To make sure she had the family I didn’t.

Family…

I could really have a family.

Or at the very least, even if there was no big love connection between me and whichever rancher wanted me, I could at least have a home. And not just any home. A ranch . With horses.

For the first time since I’d left home today, I felt a near-violent stab of hope in my chest. Or maybe that was just Baby Girl punching me. She rolled and kicked. Like she was pleased with my idea.

That settled it.

I was going to this Zabria Prinar One.

I was going to find myself an alien rancher.

And come Hell or high water, I was going to marry him.