Page 31 of Xel: Broken Bond

“Yes,” I said, because I did understand it. But like so much of my education, it had only been taught to me as an abstract concept, not as a practical experience. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I didn’t mean to concern you. I’m fine.” I was not fine. But I couldn’t for the life of me begin to find the words to explain what was wrong.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

COLE

The following morning, I was doubly grateful that Leesha was still there to help with the various chores around the sanctuary. I was still teaching Xel the basics, and we had Huckleberry to monitor to make sure he wasn’t developing any complications from his neglect, and the new calf with Rose, and two sets of visitors, one who wanted some chickens for her small acreage, and a couple looking for a pet dog, plus a large delivery of new clothes for Xel and groceries for the house.

Nonetheless, between the four of us – Bo included – we managed to get everything done, so that by the time one o’clock rolled around, we were actually ahead of schedule. We sat down to lunch together in the cottage, with Xel making us a stack of sandwiches, while Bo cooed about how cute the new calf was.

“We should have a naming competition,” Leesha suggested, between mouthfuls. I’d said she could leave now if she wanted to, but she’d decided to stay for lunch – likely for the chance to chat to Bo. “It would drum up some awareness and support for the sanctuary. But we’d have to make the point that we get finalsay. We don’t want a bunch of kids all voting for a name like ‘Bumfluff’ and we get stuck having to call the calf that.”

“Ooh, yes!” Bo crowed. “I’d have to take some photos. And post a story on the grid about him and Rose to get them adopted together.”

I snorted. “You’re just excited because that means you get to spend more time in the barn this afternoon.”

Bo didn’t bother denying it. “He’s gorgeous! His legs are so long! And those big brown eyes.” We’d checked on the calf this morning, and determined that he was most definitely male.

Xel was being unusually quiet this morning – or, at least, unusual based on how much he’d been chatting to Leesha yesterday. When it was just the two of us, he still tended to be fairly reticent. But after his reaction to the calving last night, I was a little concerned about his mood this morning. He’d assured me that he was fine, but I didn’t believe him now any more than I had last night.

“What have you got planned for this afternoon?” Bo asked, once she and Leesha had finished squealing about how cute the calf was.

“I’m going to show Xel the old barn. See if we can start cleaning it out. The government’s going to want to know what to do with it, sooner or later, and I can’t answer that until we know how sound the structure is.”

Xel sat up a little straighter at that, though he didn’t ask any questions about it. “There’s a second barn, up in one of the back paddocks,” I explained to him, since he was clearly curious about it. “You can’t see it from here. It’s behind a stand of hessia trees. But it’s about twice the size of the one we use, and the government’s floated a bunch of different options for what to do with it. If it’s fairly run down, we might be able to use it to house more animals. Or if it’s in good condition, we can turn it into a habitable building. Maybe offices for a conservation project.Maybe apartments for housing. Maybe a couple of classrooms for the Hon University to use on their biology programs.”

“There’s about five acres up the back of the property that we’re not currently using,” Leesha added, rolling her eyes. “Stars forbid we don’t put every spare scrap of land to good use, so if the barn becomes apartments, they’ll want to subdivide the rest and build houses on it. I’m voting for university classrooms. They can build ecology ponds and plant experimental crops, but at least that way, it’s not just more buildings.”

“Rendol is only forty per cent terraformed,” I reminded her, knowing this was an ongoing point of contention between us. “If the land is usable, of course they’re going to want to use it. They spent millions of credits to get it that way. And you can hardly talk about ‘nature taking its course’ on a planet that we’re deliberately manipulating for our own purposes.”

“There were plenty of lizard and insect species already here when we arrived,” Leesha said haughtily. “Doesn’t mean we can just wipe them out because they’re not ‘useful’.”

“Without jumping into the whole ecology debate,” Bo broke in, before the conversation could get too heated, “I highly doubt that Cole would be thrilled about turning the back paddocks into a miniature suburbia. So yes, we probably do need to make use of the land, but there’s no reason it can’t have an ecological focus.”

Leesha looked only partially mollified by that, while I tried to remind myself that there were plenty of options that didn’t involve huge numbers of people traipsing around on the property. Even if we had university students visiting on a regular basis, the classroom facilities could be kept separate from the animal sanctuary – assuming the university didn’t decide it wanted to study animal husbandry and start trying to ‘borrow’ our animals.

What Bo didn’t say – for which I was very grateful – was that I’d most like to use the barn as a stable for more animals and the paddocks as nothing more than pasture. More animals meant fewer people, and that meant less of me having to deal with strangers gawking and making inappropriate comments.

“I’m going to get going,” Leesha said, a couple of minutes later. “Thank you for the sandwich, Xel, it was delicious.” Xel beamed at her, pleased by the praise – which reminded me that I was supposed to praise him on a regular basis. I could blame either tiredness or distraction, but I’d been falling short on that duty today. Hopefully, after a couple of weeks of this, I’d get into a habit of praising him, so that I didn’t have to consciously think about it all the time.

“Yeah, thank you,” I said to Xel, as I stood up to see Leesha off. “They were really good. I’ll see you on Saturday?” I asked Leesha, as she put on her boots.

“You surely will. Unless something drastic happens earlier than that,” she added, with a knowing waggle of her eyebrows. We both knew that around here, things could change with only a moment’s notice. “But next Thursday I’ve got an exam, so I won’t be available for most of next week.”

I nodded. I already had that noted down in the calendar, and there were two more casuals I could call on in an emergency – not counting Sam, who was still in high school.

Bo headed back to reception shortly after that, and I sent Xel off to change his clothes while I cleaned up the kitchen. He’d been thoroughly delighted when the packages had arrived – so much so that I wanted to ask him whether he’d ever been allowed to wear anything other than the drab beige outfit he was currently wearing. But I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of Leesha or Bo, so I’d kept my mouth shut, resolving to ask more in-depth questions once we were alone.

I was a little intrigued about what he was going to choose to wear. Likely something practical. I’d already told him we’d be cleaning out the barn, and with his ongoing desire to please me, he would choose something that was designed to make working easy. But beyond that, I didn’t know. I’d left the vast majority of the clothes shopping to Leesha, so I wasn’t entirely sure what they’d come up with, between the two of them.

By the time I was finished stacking the plates in the dishwasher and wiping down the counter tops, Xel was ready. He came skulking back into the kitchen, shy and apprehensive, and I paused to give him a thorough look up and down…

Holy shit. How did he manage to make ordinary work clothes look so damn sexy?

He was wearing olive green trousers, made of a fabric I recognised that was very breathable. And damn, but his legs werelong. He was wearing a black muscle shirt on his top half, and I resolved to murder Leesha for choosing that particular item. Because I knew damn well it had been her. The shirt revealed the full length of Xel’s arms, from lean wrists, to shapely forearms, thick biceps and well-formed shoulders. And now that he’d admitted to being an erotic companion, she’d gone and given him something to deliberately show off his body.

I was going to kill her.

“That looks really good,” I said to Xel, since it was clear as day that he was apprehensive about the choice. “Is it comfortable?”