Page 12 of Wanted by the Alien Warden (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #4)

12

TASHA

I n the morning, I found a neat pile of clothing waiting for me outside the bedroom door. There was a sturdy-looking pair of brown pants, two more long-sleeved brown tops, and a broad-brimmed hat that looked like a smaller version of the warden’s.

After Warden Tenn had left the room last night, I’d crept out to hand wash my underwear and I’d hung them in the bedroom overnight. After hanging in the dry air, they were no longer damp. I put them on, fastened my bra, twisted my hair into a bun, and then tried on one of the new outfits from the warden.

The new clothes fit perfectly. So perfectly it was almost annoying. I found myself running my hands up and down the seams, admiring the quality of the garments and the obvious competence that had gone into making them.

I wonder where he slept last night.

Not that that mattered, of course. There was no reason for me to even think about such a thing.

But…

I was fairly certain I’d taken the only extra bed.

He hadn’t been in the kitchen or anything last night. Outside, maybe?

That’s where he was now. I saw him through a window, speaking with Fallon as he appeared to be readying his grey and white-spotted shuldu. Only then did it occur to me that Silar probably took his wagon home last night, and I’d be riding that alien horse.

With him .

“Got everything you need?” Darcy asked, pulling me from thoughts of being in such close proximity with the warden.

“Oh, yes! Thanks!” I held up my extra clothes, including the ones I’d been wearing yesterday.

“Let me get you a bag,” she said. She returned a minute later from her bedroom with a leather satchel. She held it open for me, and I dumped the clothes inside, followed by the toothbrush and toiletries.

“Thank you for all this,” I said, meaning it. “I’ll figure out a way to pay you back. Maybe the warden can help me coordinate something with Fallon’s account. Or I can do a transfer to you.”

“Oh, God, don’t worry about it,” Darcy said. “What kind of hostess would I be if I didn’t provide the bare minimum for my guests?”

I smiled, feeling a little less disoriented in this world now that I had some things with me that I could call my own.

And maybe some friends to call my own, too.

Together, we all ate a quick, simple breakfast of cheese, meat, and preserved fruit.

“You do not mind that it is not shaped as a square?” Warden Tenn asked as I finished my last bite.

“A square? Like, the food? No. Why, did something in the book give you that impression?”

“No.” He hitched up his pants. “Shall we go?”

“Yes.”

Now that I’d visited with Silar, Cherry, Darcy, and Fallon, I was anxious to continue on so that we could meet the other men and then check on Magnolia.

“So, unlike Cherry and Magnolia, I’m not much of a natural hugger,” Darcy said as she and Fallon followed Warden Tenn and me outside. “But I’m getting better.” She held her arms out at her sides.

“I’m game if you are,” I told her.

She grinned, and then enfolded me into her arms. I hugged her back, feeling an unexpected ache at the back of my eyes.

“Safe travels,” she whispered. As we pulled away from each other, she got out her comms tablet. “Give me your info,” she said, “and I’ll add you into our group chat.”

Once that was done, and I’d said goodbye to the beaming, blond-haired Fallon, there was nothing to do but get myself up into the saddle.

Which, as I stared at Warden Tenn’s beast, was very obviously going to be an impossible task. Even a human as tall as Darcy would probably be intimidated.

I really might break my butt this time.

“Can you reach the stirrup?”

Despite the morning’s heat, I shivered at the warden’s gruff voice directly behind me.

“I… I don’t think so.”

If I even attempted it, I was certain there would be a very good chance I’d rip the crotch of these new pants the warden had stayed up half the night making for me.

“Then I will lift you,” he said easily. “Try to relax and don’t do anything-”

“Unfortunate?”

“Right.”

A smartass retort was just building at the back of my throat when Warden Tenn’s hands on my body eliminated all possibility of speech.

This wasn’t like yesterday, when he’d quickly grabbed me so that I wouldn’t fall.

This felt… Slower. More intentional. His hands started at my hips, then moved in an agonizingly relentless slide up to my waist. His palms settled there, cupping my curves, his long, thick fingers splayed against the bottom of my ribcage.

My heart spasmed.

I held my breath.

The warden didn’t. I heard him let out a ragged-sounding exhale. He moved a little closer, his front brushing my back. Tingles erupted, bursting from scalp to spine.

Sensation pooled between my legs.

I wanted him to move his hands higher.

Or lower…

No!

I didn’t want that. At least not the cerebral part of me. Certainly not. I was a consummate professional!

I just apparently happened to have a body that was rapidly becoming stupidly horny for this arrogant alien warden.

It was probably because I hadn’t slept with anyone in months. The last person had been Gerald, and that had never been a particularly awe-inspiring experience, even in the beginning of our relationship.

I was just feeling the effects of a very long, very dreary dry spell. Clearly, my hormones were going absolutely haywire in the presence of seven-foot-something of pure muscle and masculine Zabrian energy. Maybe I’m ovulating.

He might not even be single! There obviously wasn’t anyone living with him out here, but maybe this was just a temporary contract. Perhaps, someday soon, he’d go home to someone else.

No. Not home to someone else , just home to someone. “Someone else” would imply “someone other than me.”

Which was patently ridiculous.

What was even more ridiculous?

How much the thought deflated me, left me feeling bleak and depressingly empty.

It didn’t matter if the warden had someone special waiting for him. I was here to do a job, do it well, and that’s what I’d bloody well do.

Warden Tenn’s fingers tightened. My skin prickled. I felt a momentary stab of sickly fear that I’d be too heavy, but that feeling disappeared as soon as he hoisted me easily into the air. He settled me on the saddle with no apparent effort on his part, then pulled himself up after me. His chest pressed firmly against my back as he reached both arms around me to grab the reins.

“Let’s go, Rabbit.”

“Did you just call me Rabbit?” I asked.

“What? No. That’s my shuldu’s name.”

“Oh! A rabbit is an Old-Earth animal.”

“I see,” he said, steering Rabbit through the gate and towards the dusty road. The sun was climbing higher, and I found myself grateful for the protection of the new hat.

“If it’s a type of animal, why did you think I was calling you that?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I admitted. “That’s why I asked.”

His chest rumbled against my back every time he spoke. It was annoyingly pleasant and terribly distracting.

“If I were going to call you something besides your name, I wouldn’t be calling you something that refers to an animal.”

“Oh? And what would you be calling me, then?”

He paused for so long I thought he wouldn’t bother answering. But then, suddenly, he said, “Something pretty.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt the sort of pleasure that went rushing through me then. Dizzying, heart-squeezing, brain-melting. I opened and closed my mouth several times, my head completely emptied of thoughts except for, The warden thinks you’re pretty.

Or, at the very least, he thought I deserved a pretty nickname.

No one had ever told me I deserved anything pretty before.

I wanted to run from the compliment. To reject it. It felt like I’d be protecting myself that way.

So I tried to tell myself that he was just trying to soften me up. Wear me down. Get past all my defences and leave me vulnerable to biased judgments in favour of his men.

But…

I remembered his words from last night. Words about this world stripping a man of all his most polished insincerities.

So what, then?

Was he lying last night when he’d said that?

Was he lying now?

I didn’t ask any of those questions. Instead, I blurted, “Are you single?”

“Am I… A single person?” I could hear the smirk in his voice as he said, “There is only one Warden Tenn.”

I rolled my eyes.

“No, I mean, are you married? Or, do you have someone… Someone back home?”

Thank fuck he asked me if I was married last night. It made this ever-so-slightly less mortifying.

“No,” he said. “I am stationed here on a permanent basis. There is no one waiting for me.”

“Oh. That’s…”

“What?”

“That must be kind of hard. Isn’t it? You don’t ever want to be married?”

He hesitated, then stiffly replied, “I wanted to be married once. Almost was.”

My belly flipped, then tightened.

“What happened?”

God. Stupid, Tasha. Why are you even asking this? It’s none of your damn business!

But the warden answered anyway.

“I was courting someone when I was a recruit, training for my place in the Zabrian Imperial Guard. It was early in our relationship and I didn’t know who her father was. It turned out that he was a very high-ranking official – much higher ranking than someone like me. When our relationship was discovered, it was made abundantly clear to me that marriage was not a possibility.”

“Oh, no. And there was nothing you could do?”

“Well, there were things she could have done. If she’d wanted to, she could have denounced her family’s wishes to continue seeing me. But I learned too late she never had any intention of doing such a thing. She knew from the beginning that things would never progress into anything serious.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No, I did not. Her father was furious with me, of course. For daring to try to enter their sphere.”

Oh, no. This was bad. I was having feelings for the warden. Poky, squishy, sappy sorts of feelings.

I wanted to freaking hug him. And that was dangerous. Horniness, I could deal with.

More deep-seated emotions were going to be much, much trickier.

“So what happened after that?” I nudged gently when he lapsed into silence.

“I was given a choice,” he replied. “I could be expelled from the military caste and stripped of my rank. Or I could take up a position as a warden here.”

All at once, with the crushing gravity of a boulder on my chest, I hated the Zabrian Empire. Hated their caste system, hated their laws, hated that they’d lied to get the human women here. I hated those who’d basically exiled Warden Tenn for the audacity of wanting to marry the wrong person. Hated the systems that sent traumatized children stumbling and alone into this world.

But the children weren’t alone, were they? They had the older convicts.

And they had the wardens. Just like the one behind me now.

“That’s terrible,” I whispered. “To be punished like that. Just for falling in love.”

“Love?” He sounded startled.

“Oh!” I felt myself blushing. “Sorry. When you said you were thinking of marriage, I kind of just assumed…”

“I was very young,” he said. “And I was foolish. I was more infatuated with the idea of my own future than I was with my intended bride. I was trying very hard to put together all the pieces I thought were required for an acceptable sort of life. Rank, wife, career. But this life has its merits, too. And I have made my peace with it.”

I understood a bit of what he meant. I’d spent so long, and worked so hard, to get away from Terratribe I. To begin the kind of life I thought I’d always wanted. The fancy new job, the bright office, the clean but ultimately empty apartment…

Those things had always been my goals.

By all metrics I’d valued most, I was successful beyond my wildest dreams.

But sometimes, alone in my cold Elora Station bed, I had to acknowledge how terrifyingly hollow that success felt now that it was actually mine.

In Warden Tenn’s saddle, with the road stretching endlessly ahead of me, I thought about returning to Elora Station when all of this was done. And I felt my whole being contract with unexpected despair.

Rabbit’s crisply clopping hooves were the only sound.

We didn’t speak again until the warden’s station came into view later that afternoon.