Page 6 of Wanted by the Alien Warden (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #4)
6
TASHA
S eeing the sun set on Zabria Prinar One was strange for two reasons.
For one thing, it meant that the shuttle that had brought me here had officially departed, leaving me behind. I was trapped with an arrogant alien warden and his band of convicted but maybe (hopefully?) harmless murderers.
The second reason it was strange?
I’d never actually seen a sunset. Not like this, anyway. Not in person. Terratribe I was too dreary, and Elora Station didn’t orbit a sun that would create colour like what I was witnessing now. Fallon’s ranch was a rust-gold silhouette beneath a sky of orange and pink and purple the exact same shade as Warden Tenn’s hide.
As the warden and Silar pulled on their reins and eased their shuldu to a stop in front of Fallon and Darcy’s home, I jumped to my feet and rushed to the side of the wagon. I planned to jump out before Warden Tenn could come peacocking over here making stupid pronouncements about me breaking my butt.
I glanced at him, making sure he wasn’t approaching yet, and froze.
He was dismounting. And it was astoundingly, infuriatingly hot.
His broad back tensed. One thick, muscled thigh swung backwards to meet the other, and then his whole big body heaved itself down with a powerful masculine grace, landing heavily but not-at-all awkwardly in the dust.
And now I was fully staring at him. Great.
I gritted my teeth and focused on the dusty ground before me. I jumped, and other than the way I felt my boobs nearly bounce out of my bra, I didn’t manage to embarrass myself. I didn’t fall, at least. Even if, compared to Warden Tenn’s practised movement, I felt a bit like something clumsy and legless in comparison.
Like… a potato. A lumpy, knobby little root vegetable that somehow managed to get itself jostled out of its wagon. Potatoes were something people used to cart around on wagons, weren’t they?
Before I could pursue that comparison to its inevitably depressing conclusion, the warden sidled into my field of vision. He did not look impressed.
“Warden Tenn,” I asked him, squinting up at him as the sky shifted its colours, like a bird adjusting its wings, behind him, “do you know what a potato is?”
He cocked his head.
“It translates,” he said at length. “We have varietals of starchy root vegetables that grow here. Why?”
“No reason,” I said, waving his question away. I didn’t even know why I’d asked it. I certainly hadn’t asked in order to gear up for yet another question, which would have been, Do you like them?
I strode purposefully towards the door that led into Fallon and Darcy’s home. This building was larger than Silar’s, a long, ranch-style cabin made of solid wood. Despite my head start, Warden Tenn caught up in no time.
Damn him and those long, muscly, not-at-all-potato-y legs.
“You could have waited for me,” he said on a quiet growl.
“I promise you, I wasn’t going to break my butt,” I sighed. “Can we get over this already? I am fully capable of jumping out of a wagon.”
“Your previous jump did not assure me of that.”
“That’s because your big foot was in the way!”
Warden Tenn inhaled swiftly, and looked like he was gearing up for some sassy reply, when the door to the cabin was flung open and a grinning, orange-limbed, blond-haired Fallon appeared.
“Welcome to our home!” Fallon called as the warden and I approached. Silar was unhitching the shuldu from the wagon, and Cherry appeared to be chatting his ear off about something as he quietly worked.
“Thank you, Fallon,” I said crisply. I wasn’t going to let his Old-Earth golden retriever act derail me. I’d already gone all mushy about Silar’s obvious devotion to Cherry and had basically already given him a pass. I needed to be alert to anything amiss. Darcy deserved it.
“There’s food!” Fallon said, grinning widely. “The warden told me you were on your way!”
Food. Oh, man. Food sounded really good right about now. Maybe that’s why I was so freaking hung up on potatoes a minute ago.
“Are they here?” came Darcy’s voice from somewhere behind the bulky body of her husband.
“Yes!” Fallon stepped out of the way, revealing a tidy sort of mudroom with a broom and a few spare tools and nicknacks that I didn’t recognize but that I could only assume were of great importance to an alien cowboy. Beyond the mudroom, another open door showed a bright and cozy kitchen. Savoury scents drifted out. As Fallon turned and bounded ahead into the kitchen, my mouth watered, and my stomach tightened.
Then, God help me, it growled.
I should have known better than to bother hoping the warden hadn’t heard it. Cherry hadn’t exaggerated about their hearing. And, frankly, even a human with ear plugs in probably would have heard my stomach just now.
“Did you just… growl at me?” the warden asked in astonishment. He’d apparently removed his hat a moment ago, and he held it in his claws now as he stared down at me, his sleek white eyebrows raised.
“I didn’t!” I protested, heat pouring through my cheeks. “My stomach did!”
“Your stomach growled at me?” His intense orange eyes made an agonizing exploration down my neck, to my breasts, to my belly. Where it stayed.
“Stop that,” I cried.
“Stop what?” he asked, still staring at my stomach. I wondered if he could see the way it swooped so sharply beneath his gaze.
“Stop looking at me!”
“I am trying to ascertain,” he said grumpily – grumpily! The nerve of this man! – “why your stomach does not like me.” His gaze returned to my face, set and serious. “Do any other parts of you have a problem with me?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that oh, yes, other parts of me had a problem with him. Starting with my brain, thank you very much.
But, unfortunately, some other parts of me had decided to stage a mutiny of the highest order. My heart, nipples, and, Jesus fucking Christ, the tingling place between my legs, apparently had no problem at all with the swaggering, orange-eyed warden.
I glared hatefully at him, trying to remind my body that I was in charge and the warden was a lying… liar pants. He never told me about the histories of the men here. He didn’t even apologize for withholding that information from me. He was a scoundrel of the highest order, and he…
He had the cutest fucking ears I’d ever seen.
I gaped, forgetting the embarrassment of my stomach’s growling and the righteous anger I harboured for my body as it dared to feel any sort of attraction to this male.
“What is it?” he asked, appearing for the first time ever-so-slightly uneasy.
Yeah, not so nice when someone stares at you like you’re an alien. Now is it, Warden?
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to recover some semblance of professionalism. “I just wasn’t expecting your ears.”
The ears in question twitched. Holy Terra. They were so… perky! And round! Cutie-patootie little Old-Earth mousie ears!
“What do you mean?” he asked, a huge divot forming between his brows, his angry face an absurdly hilarious contrast to his ears. “You thought I did not have them?”
“No, it’s just that I’ve never seen a Zabrian’s ears before. You guys have had your hats on this whole time. And unlike your men here, we didn’t get any anatomy references to prepare us for what you looked like.”
Speaking of which…
I slipped my comms tablet out of my pocket, held it up, and took a picture. He reared back, then scowled, when the light flashed.
“What did you just do?”
“I took a photo. For my new book.”
“Your what? ” There was a hint of gravelly warning in his voice. A warning that I chose to ignore.
“My new book,” I informed him, putting my tablet back into my pocket. “If the marriage program is to continue here – and that’s a big if, Warden – I want the future brides to have all the information necessary to make their decisions. So I’m writing a book on Zabrian males, similar to the one I wrote on human females.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but I’d spooked him with my ominous if the bridal program is to continue thing.
He wanted brides for his men. Which meant he couldn’t complain.
“And you need a picture of my ears for this?” he grudgingly asked after a taut silence.
“Oh, I’ll need more than that,” I replied with feigned cheeriness. “For the next thirty days, you get to be my own personal Zabrian-human liaison!”
The warden looked like he’d rather shit in his own hat.
Finally, he sighed and rubbed at his jaw.
“What does it mean?” he asked, suddenly softer now, his voice like a whisp of smoke against my skin. “What does it mean when a human’s stomach growls?”
My spine wanted to melt. I gritted my teeth and steeled it.
“If you had read the book I wrote,” I told him tartly before pivoting and heading for the kitchen, “then you would know.”