Page 30 of Rescued by the Alien Bull Rider (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #6)

JOLENE

T hree days after Autumn was born, two things happened.

One, my milk came in, and I got to fully revel in the unique experience of my boobs turning into boulders.

And two, Zohro suggested we move back into the house.

We’d been staying in the Surgery Shed the entire time so far, with Zohro leaving in brief spurts to do necessary chores and bring food and fresh clothes back for me and cloth diapers for Autumn.

He’d wanted to remain near all the medical equipment and drugs, but by day three, he was satisfied that both Autumn and I were in good enough condition to leave.

At the door to the Surgery Shed, I held Autumn and squinted towards the house.

It looked… Really, really far away.

“I don’t suppose you ever ended up fixing that wagon,” I said forlornly, already knowing he wouldn’t have had time on top of everything else.

“No. Why?” Zohro inhaled sharply beside me, then appeared to steel himself. “You wish to leave.”

“What?” I blinked at him. I could have kicked myself for my wording.

Of course he’d interpret my question that way.

I’d never actually told him I planned to stay beyond the trial period.

I opened my mouth to tell him that I wanted to stay with him, and for some stupid reason, I suddenly lost my nerve. Coward .

“No, I was just thinking that the house looks awfully far. I’m not sure I can walk there.”

I’d taken short walks over the past couple of days whenever Zohro put on his bossy doctor pants and told me it was good for me, but the house had to be at least a hundred metres away, if not more.

And anytime I walked for too long, I suffered through the most unnerving sensation that I was going to poop out all my major internal organs.

I didn’t need Zohro seeing me poop out anything else, thank you very much. I might have been pathetically in love with a man who basically saw me as a sister, but I could retain some of my shredded dignity. At least, I could fucking try!

“Why in the great span of the empire would you need to walk there?”

“Uh, are we going to magically float?” He wasn’t going to make me ride a shuldu, was he?

While my wounds had basically healed thanks to the nano-tech, the thought of sitting upright in a saddle left me woozy.

I was fairly certain I didn’t have any abs left in the soft squish of my abdomen, or if I did, my mind-body connection to those poor, weak muscles was currently offline.

Core strength?

Didn’t know her.

Zohro gave me a flat, impatient look, like I’d just asked him a very stupid question. Which was fair, as he didn’t seem the sort to believe in things like magic. Nor to entertain nonsensical questions from his tired human wife.

He ended up showing me what he had in mind not with words, but by sliding his strong arms around me and hoisting me easily against his chest.

I yelped with surprise, clutching at Autumn as intrusive images of me dropping her on her head paraded through my sleep-deprived brain. But we were both perfectly stable. She didn’t even wake up, her eyes peacefully shut, her tiny, heart-shaped mouth half-open against my chest as she snoozed.

“You don’t have to do this!” I exclaimed. Even though he did have to do it. Because there was no way I could walk all the way to that house without something scary happening that involved ominous words like “prolapse.”

“Well I certainly cannot ‘magically float you over’ as previously suggested” he said dryly. “Stop complaining and let me do this for you.”

“OK. Well. Thank you,” I said, relaxing in his hold. I rested my cheek against his chest, which was no longer bandaged but now had ropy lines of tissue that would probably become scars. “Why didn’t you use some of that snazzy nano stuff for this?” I asked.

“Are you saying that my perfect sutures were not sufficient?”

“No, you dork! I just mean… I feel bad I got to heal basically instantly meanwhile you’ve got these painful-looking scars.”

“That medication was for you. I would not have dreamed of wasting it on something as paltry as this. And my hand healed well already, so it did not hinder my surgical abilities.”

“I’m not talking about your surgical abilities. I’m talking about you!”

“They are one and the same.”

“No, they’re not!” I cried, glaring at the underside of his hard jaw. “You’re more than just a surgeon, Zohro.”

“I suppose you are right,” he admitted, casting me a wry look. “I am also a convicted murderer.”

“You’re more than that, too. You’re more than that to me.”

“Am I?”

We had reached the house, but he didn’t carry me in. He paused on the porch and held me, his gaze both guarded and searching.

“Well, of course,” I stammered, flustered. “And… And you’re more than that to Autumn!”

Nice one, Jolene. Using a literal baby as a shield.

“To Autumn… I see.” He finally put me down.

Inside the house, Zohro told me he was going to the cellar to get me something to eat. I went on ahead into the bedroom without him, carrying Autumn. When I saw our bed, I practically started drooling.

The little cot thing in the Surgery Shed had been fine for a few nights of fitful sleep. But a real bed…

It was calling to me.

Autumn was asleep for the moment. Maybe I could just lie down for a few minutes and close my eyes.

I just had to put Autumn down and-

Shit.

Where was I going to put her?!

In the shed, she’d always been sleeping on one of us, and we’d essentially worked in shifts.

I didn’t have a cradle or a crib.

Between my topsy-turvy hormones and the cruelty of my nap being so close and getting brutally ripped away, I burst into tears that took me entirely by surprise.

Bootsteps thundered through the house. Zohro exploded into the room, eyes blazing.

“What is it?” he asked, crossing to me in floor-swallowing strides.

“What am I doing, Zohro?” I sobbed. “I don’t even have a place for her to sleep!”

His white eyes narrowed, then swept over the room. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t have a crib! Or a bassinet or a cradle…

Or even a little basket! She needs to sleep somewhere other than the floor, or in our tiny bed where one of us might squish her!

” I wanted to wipe my face, but my arms were full with the still-sleeping baby who had no idea how much her mom was currently melting down. “Why did I think that I could do this?”

“Because you can do this,” Zohro growled, so fiercely it made me stop crying for a second. I hiccupped pathetically. He turned from me and left the room, and as he went he said, “And for the things you cannot do, that is when you turn to me.”

I stood alone in our bedroom, tearstained and tired, holding onto Autumn and wondering where the hell my husband had gone.

He had to be at the end of his rope, too.

He’d gotten even less sleep than me the past few days, between baby stuff and ranch stuff.

Maybe my tears were just too much on top of all the newborn crying he’d already been subjected to.

But that couldn’t be right, because only a few minutes later I heard him barrelling back into the house.

He came through the bedroom doorway at an awkward angle, veiny pink arms straining to bring something through it without banging it on the doorframe.

When he was finally inside the room, he turned fully towards me and set down…

The most beautiful cradle I’d ever seen.

It was made of solid wood, sanded and stained to immaculate, glossy perfection.

It was rectangular in shape, with spaced bars on the two long sides like a crib and a perfectly-fitted little mattress that looked like it had a snug sheet made from the same material as my new pyjamas.

Zohro pushed against it, and it rocked with a rhythmic smoothness that was entirely soundless.

“When did you make this?!” I asked, stunned that he’d pulled out an entire piece of furniture like a rabbit from a hat.

“When I wasn’t fixing the wagon,” he replied.

I stepped towards it. The solid headboard of the cradle has something carved into it. It looked like animals, standing in a row. I bent lower to get a better look.

“Are those horses? ”

But even as I asked the question, I knew they were. Not bracku. Not shuldu.

Horses.

“Yes,” Zohro said. “One of the documents in the collection of medical literature Tasha sent contained information on common childhood injuries. There were illustrations of human domestic life, and one of them showed a farm with a human family and their horses.”

“But… But why would you carve horses into the cradle?”

That had to have just been extra work for him when he already had so much to do.

“Because I know you love them.”

And that had me weeping all over again, which left my poor husband very perturbed indeed.

“What is wrong with it?” he growled, staring at the cradle with accusations in his eyes. “It is not supposed to make you cry more of your human tears! Tell me what it is, and I will fix it.”

“Don’t you dare change a thing! It’s perfect!” I sniffed back snot, lowering Autumn onto the flat mattress. Hands free, I finally wiped at my face. When I was done, I found Zohro bend over the cradle, his huge palm gently cupping the top of Autumn’s fluffy head.

“I’ll never understand,” he murmured, his eyes casting a white glow, like the softest drift of starlight, onto Autumn’s face.

“Never understand what?”

“How your Pa could have had you when you were as small as this,” he said quietly. “How he could have watched you sleep. Held you as I have held her. After all that… I will never understand how he could have possibly let you go.”