Page 5 of Wanted by the Alien Warden (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #4)

5

TENN

I f it were not for the sounds of two human females breathing, I would not have located them as quickly as I did. They were not anywhere I’d have expected to find them in such a small room. And even when my gaze did discover the source of the sounds, I still could not actually see them. All I could see were two little lumps beneath a blanket on the floor of Silar’s closet.

“What in the great blue blazes are you two doing?”

“Nothing!” came Tasha’s indignant reply from beneath the bed-covering.

“Well, clearly you are doing something ,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest and regarding the blanket-bumps with a furrowed brow. “You are sitting beneath a bed covering on the floor.”

The blanket-bump on the right – Tasha, I was certain – shifted, as if squirming beneath my gaze.

“We are having a very important and very private meeting!”

“I see.”

“If you see, why aren’t you leaving?” she countered testily.

“How do you know I haven’t left yet?”

“Because I haven’t heard your big, loud boots go clomping out the door!”

“I would not describe my gait as clomping,” I said, glancing down at my so-called big, loud boots. “Unless,” I added, “clomping has a different connotation for humans. If it means anything close to walking with great power and determination, then yes, I concur.”

“Sorry, I have to get out of here,” Cherry gasped before tossing the blanket away from her side of the fabric fortress and crawling out of the closet. She got to her feet and tipped her head at me. Then, she tapped her index finger against her forehead, and then aimed it at me in an odd, one-fingered human salute of some sort.

With her partner having vacated the blanket meeting space, Tasha sighed audibly and got to work disentangling herself from the bed-covering. She bunched the blanket up and stood, carrying it over to the bed where she dumped it down.

“Is it typical,” I asked her as she smoothed her hair, “for humans to hide beneath blankets in closets in order to conduct their meetings?”

“I told you it was a private meeting,” Tasha said firmly, turning to face me. Her cheeks were very red, as was the skin on her neck. A tail of tension wrapped itself around the base of my spine as I fought down a sudden, blistering urge to reach out and touch those reddened parts of her body.

“If you want privacy, perhaps you should not be so loud about it.”

Tasha’s eyes grew large in her face, those odd little hairs nearly brushing her upper eyelids.

“You heard us?”

“I heard your cry.”

Tasha’s cheeks got even redder. Cherry laughed.

“Sorry,” Cherry said. “That was my fault. There was a pinching incident. Though, in my defence, I think that pinch was warranted.” She tossed Tasha a meaningful look that I could make little sense of.

“If you say so,” Tasha muttered, rubbing at her small human ear. My eyes followed the movement of her fingers against that soft little slip of skin.

“Come on. Let’s go find Silar and we’ll show you the rest of the property,” Cherry said.

She reached for Tasha’s hand and pulled her past me out the bedroom door. I followed close behind, keeping those two joined human hands in my sights as I wondered, and pretended not to wonder, what it would be like to walk with such smooth, slender fingers laced easily with my own.

Not just any fingers.

Tasha’s.

Once outside, Cherry and Silar continued with their tour of the property. Silar led the way through gardens and fields while Cherry filled the silence. Every once in a while, Tasha asked a pertinent question, but otherwise she seemed content to listen and observe, her keen dark eyes sweeping over the scene.

Even with her obviously discerning judgment and her mostly neutral expression, I could not help but think Silar’s property had to be making at least a somewhat favourable impression on Tasha. I, myself, was impressed with the state of things.

The gardens were well-tended, the various plants blooming and the fruit trees bearing what would be an incredible harvest later in the season. Silar’s bracku herd was healthy, as were his shuldu. Even the Terratribe II cherry tree, a plant not native to this world, appeared to be happy in its new place on the property. I was certain that it was a little larger now than it had been when I’d dropped it off here some time ago.

Everything was thriving. Just like Cherry and Silar were. Cherry no longer held Tasha’s hand as we walked, but Silar’s instead. Tasha walked on Cherry’s other side, ignoring me completely.

It made me feel rather ridiculously like a young boy back at the Zabrian Academy. Every time that Tasha did not turn my way when she could have, it made me want to reach out and forcefully tug a bit of her pale hair from its neat twist at the back of her head.

An imbecilic notion, to be sure.

But a notion I entertained for far too long, and far too seriously, all the same.

“Well, I must admit,” Tasha said as we returned to the house, “this is a beautiful property. A beautiful home.”

“A beautiful life ,” Cherry emphasized, turning a dazzling smile upon her husband. Silar stared down at her in mute adoration. Then, he raised his hand and brushed a single knuckle along his wife’s cheek, just below the delicate place beneath her eye.

Feeling as though I were intruding upon an intimate moment, I turned my attention to Tasha instead. Her gaze was fixed upon Cherry’s face, and the Zabrian hand that so tenderly caressed it. I watched Tasha’s expression as it changed. Her features crumpled slightly, as if Cherry had pinched her again. Her eyes looked suddenly more glossy than before, and she gave a rather wet-sounding inhale through her nose.

She did not exactly look happy, but she did not seem aggravated, either. Was it surprise? Confusion? Perhaps it was unusual for human males to touch the faces of their wives this way.

I could not understand why that would be.

If I were married to a human like Tasha, I imagined I’d spend a great deal of time gently drawing the pads of my fingers, or the surface of my knuckles, or the tip of my tongue along the prettily curved contours of her face.

The tip of my… what?

And why in the great span of the empire am I fantasizing about what I’d do if I were married to her?

Marriage was something for the others. Not for me.

I’d craved it once, as a very young man.

And that foolish endeavour had become the greatest mistake of my life.

It was why I was out here, warden to the exiled convicts of our empire, instead of taking my place as a captain of the Zabrian Guard.

I could have been a general by now.

I shook myself out of those thoughts quickly. Regret was a road down which I’d long since learned not to travel. My life might not have been as beautiful as the one Cherry shared with Silar, but it was a life, and one that I’d become proud of in my own way.

And it was a life that had certainly become more interesting now that a certain pale-haired, dark-eyed, red-cheeked human was in it.

Tasha cleared her throat and blinked rapidly.

“Well,” she said. “I must say I’m satisfied with what I’m seeing here. Silar, you’re obviously doing a very good job providing for Cherry. And caring…” Her voice cracked. “Taking care of her.”

I breathed out.

It appeared that one of my men had passed Tasha’s test.

Only four to go.

“If we leave for Fallon’s property now,” I told Tasha, “we could be there before dark.”

“I’ll come with you! I love visiting them,” Cherry said excitedly.

“I will ready the shuldu,” Silar replied.

“Oh, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Cherry replied quickly. “I know you’ve lost a lot of time today already, and have chores to catch up on.”

Silar touched her face one final time and merely muttered, “Where you go, I go.”

And so it was that as afternoon bled out into evening, with Silar and I on shulduback and Cherry and Tasha in the wagon, we came upon Fallon and Darcy’s ranch.