Page 23 of Wanted by the Alien Warden (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #4)

23

TASHA

T enn was uncharacteristically quiet as we headed off for Rivven’s saloon the next morning. It was only the two of us on shulduback today. Warden Hallum said he had some traps to check – traps he apparently used to catch various animals for fur and meat. He planned to join us when that task was finished, but he wanted to do it now and beat the rain.

After being apart from Tenn the past few nights, I would have been excited to have some alone time with him. If it weren’t for the fact he’d apparently gotten up on the wrong side of the bedroll this morning. The weather only added to the gloomy atmosphere. This was the first cloudy day I’d experienced on Zabria Prinar One. Heavy, opaque grey clouds pressed down from above. A humid wind swiped at us as we rode.

When we arrived at the saloon, we discovered Rivven alone inside.

“The others are not here yet,” he said, straightening up from where he’d been bent over, wiping down the bar.

“That’s alright,” I said. “We’re a little early today.”

I paused to see if Tenn had any of his usual sassiness to contribute to the conversation. But he just lurked, grumpy and quiet in the corner of the saloon. His jaw worked in silence, like there was something he did want to say, but he’d chosen to chew on the words instead.

“Riveting, Tenn. Truly,” I said with a roll of my eyes. My reply was probably a lot more barbed than the situation called for, but it seemed I couldn’t help it. Tenn’s mood somehow felt like a personal rejection. And that made me anxious. Anxious enough to lash out, with sarcasm if nothing else.

But I couldn’t stew about Tenn right now. Not when poor Rivven was standing there so awkwardly in his tuxedo.

“Apologies,” he said, his mouth twisting with concern when he caught me glancing at his outfit. “I have forgotten my bow.”

His bow. Like he was a gift.

He could be a gift to someone.

“I think you mean bowtie,” I said gently. “But it’s alright. Really.” I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “As much as I appreciate you and the others dressing in such, er, formal attire… You really don’t have to wear that every time you see me. Silar and Fallon in the other province certainly didn’t. They just wore pants and… Well, that’s about it, actually, aside from their hats.”

“I see.” He looked down at himself. “Should I change?”

“I leave it totally up to you. Do whatever makes you comfortable.”

Relief washed over his features.

“I’ll change.”

He went behind the counter, then pushed open a door and disappeared behind it.

“You’ll never get him in another shirt again now,” Tenn mumbled under his breath.

“That’s enough out of you,” I said, spinning to glare at him.

“Enough out of me? I’ve barely spoken this morning.”

“Exactly! You… You know what? Let’s go outside.”

If I was about to have a loud argument with Tenn, I didn’t want it to be in Rivven’s saloon where he would hear us with those big Zabrian ears.

Outside, though it was now later in the morning, the sky was even darker than before. A rumble in the distance told me we probably didn’t have long out here before the skies opened up and pummelled us. We walked through the long grass beside Rivven’s saloon into the area behind the building. There was yet more grass back here, most of it getting flattened by the rising wind, as well as a few trees and what looked to be an old, unused shed or outbuilding of some kind.

Once I’d stomped an appropriate way into the area behind Rivven’s saloon, I stopped.

“What is going on with you today?” I asked Tenn. “You’re being so moody.”

I wanted him to respond with anger – anger like my own – so that we’d be on some kind of equal footing.

But he didn’t look angry. He looked… grim.

“I have kept something from you.”

My heart lurched.

“Something I no longer feel comfortable hiding.”

My palms, pits, and forehead started sweating. My mouth went so dry I couldn’t even form the question, couldn’t even ask him what it was.

He didn’t need me to ask. He continued on his own.

“Last night, Warden Hallum indicated that none of his men have ever committed another crime after their childhood convictions. I… I allowed you to believe the same was true of my men. But it is not.”

I swallowed against a sudden bout of nausea.

“Who?” I whispered.

He let out a short breath, then met my gaze steadily and said, “Silar.”

“Silar?” I exploded. A fat drop of rain landed on my chest. “He was the first one to get a bride!”

“He was,” Tenn confirmed. I blinked, then swiped away another raindrop. Wind pressed my clothing tightly to my body.

“What kind of crime?” I asked. Because now that we were in this, I needed to know it all.

“Murder.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” I shouted. “Are you serious right now, Tenn?”

This whole time, I’d been trying to give the men here a fair shot.

This whole time, I’d been trusting Tenn.

And now…

And now, it was all going to shit.

As if agreeing with me, the sky puked up all its rain on our heads. A torrent of water soaked us. Lightning forked in the distance, followed by a bone-shaking blast of thunder.

I thought there was another stroke of lightning, but it was Tenn’s white eyes, piercing through the rain.

“We can’t stay out here!” he bellowed.

“Fine!” I pointed to the shed, then trudged through the spewing rain towards it.

It wasn’t all that much better inside the shed. Half the roof of the empty, dirt-floored building was already gone. Maybe blown off in a storm like this one.

But the half of the shed with a roof over it was mostly dry. We stood beneath its rickety shelter.

“Start talking.”

“Cherry was in debt to a criminal organization. She was on the run. It was why she sought to become a bride in this world,” Tenn said. “Did you know this?”

“No!” I hadn’t heard anything about this. But it certainly made sense. It would explain the fear I’d seen in her on Elora Station. And it would also explain why she’d been so anxious to come to a world as isolated as this one.

“She was tracked here by a member of that organization,” Tenn went on. “He attempted to kidnap her, and would have killed her if he’d succeeded. Silar killed him instead.”

I didn’t answer at first. My own breathing was so loud inside my ears that for a while, it drowned out even the cacophony of the rain.

“So Silar was protecting her,” I finally said.

I expected Tenn to agree instantly, but instead he sighed, and said, “Well. Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, not exactly? Why else would he have killed someone!”

I rubbed my temples. I wasn’t sure if it was the shift in the weather or the stress of this situation, but my head was beginning to pound something fierce.

“I want to be completely honest with you, Tasha. And, in the spirit of that sort of honesty, I must admit that Silar easily could have subdued the human male without killing him.”

Oh, Jesus.

“It was a human?” I groaned.

“Yes. It was a human. Silar killed him out of anger. Because he would have hurt Cherry. Because he put his hands on her, and aimed his weapon at her.”

“And you’re just telling me this now,” I said, bitterness creeping up my throat. Why the hell should I be surprised by this? Why should I feel betrayed? Tenn had kept information from me before. He could have told me about the men’s convictions long before that check-in call. But he didn’t.

And he didn’t tell me this. This, which was so much worse.

“You should have told me before now,” I said quietly. “The ironic thing is, humans actually have a legal defence for a case like this. It sounds like it was a crime of passion. Where rage renders you incapable of thinking and behaving rationally.”

“I believe this would apply in Silar’s case,” Tenn said after a moment. “I am surprised that is an acceptable legal argument among humans. Your authorities must be quite lenient.”

“We’re lenient? You’re the one who completely let it slide! You hid it!”

“I did hide it,” he admitted fiercely, almost angrily. “Because it would have destroyed him, Tasha! Destroyed them both. You were not there. You did not see Cherry’s panic at the idea her husband would be taken from her. She was willing to make a false confession and take the fall for his crime. Did you know that?”

“No! Of course I didn’t. I-”

“And now, for the first time,” he interrupted viciously, “I finally understand. I understand what it’s like to care for someone so deeply that you’d go to the mines for her. I understand what it’s like to know, in the deepest parts of yourself, that you would kill another man simply because he’d laid his hands upon her.”

“Her…”

“You, Tasha!” he thundered. “I mean you.”

Real thunder boomed, as if to echo him.

I blinked rain from my eyes.

Only it wasn’t rain.

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that I would do anything to earn your trust back. Starting with telling you my very last secret. The only other thing I’ve hid.”

Oh, God. What else? What else could possibly be so bad he hadn’t told me so far?

What else could be worse than murder?

“I love you.”

His eyes seared me.

“I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything,” he went on, raw agony slicing through his gaze. “I’d give up my badge for you. I’d go to the mines for you. I’d turn myself into a worse criminal than any of my men for you.”

“Tenn…”

“I want to keep you.” His voice went ragged at that. Like he was ripping the words right out of his body. “And I’d never ask it of you, Tasha, because I know how hard you’ve worked for what you have. I know how hard you’ve worked to find your place. To earn that place. And I am happy for you, truly. Even if it absolutely shatters me to know that your place, that perfect life you’ve built, is not with me.”

My perfect life.

My perfect, empty life.

The one I’d already been dreading going back to. The one that felt completely foreign to me now.

Tenn loved me.

And, in a desperate moment of self-preservation, as the rain fell and the wind screamed and the wood of the old shed creaked, I didn’t want to believe him. I wanted to pretend that this was just another lie. Some horrible rouse that would do nothing but humiliate me in the end.

But then, I thought of all words he’d spoken over our past days together, some of them innocuous on their own…

But devastating all stacked up.

I’d make time for you.

I’d give it all to you.

I was dying to touch you.

How does it feel to be the only one who can make me beg?

He loved me. He said he felt shattered, but I was the one who could literally hear the splintering of my heart.

“Tasha,” Tenn hissed urgently.

I felt that urgency quickening in my blood. I had to tell him that I felt the same. I hadn’t forgiven him, but I wouldn’t run away from this. Not now.

That shattering sound increased. A horrible cracking so loud it seemed to emanate from outside my body.

“Tasha!”

Tenn’s hands seized upon my shoulders.

He shoved.

I went stumbling backwards, right out the doorless entry of the shed. I almost righted myself, but once I was outside, my boots didn’t stand a hope in hell against the slick grass. I slid, then fell heavily backwards. My ass took the brunt of the impact before I slammed onto my back.

I gasped and gagged, the wind completely knocked from my lungs. My tailbone felt like someone had just taken a sledgehammer to it.

I finally did it , I thought weakly as my head spun. I finally broke my fucking butt.

Fighting nausea, I forced myself to sit up.

And then, through the unrelenting blur of the rain, I watched the rest of the shed’s roof collapse.