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“Don’t worry about me,” came Silar’s gruff reply.
I chuckled softly. “Isn’t that what wives are for?”
“Is it?” He sounded entirely bewildered by that. I’d been mostly joking, but the surprised confusion in his response made me wonder…
Just why, exactly, had Silar participated in this mail-order-bride program? What was he looking for?
What did he want from me?
It wasn’t an alarming question. I didn’t feel afraid. Merely curious about this quiet, solid, blunt alien male who seemed so entirely and deeply unsentimental that I couldn’t imagine him even wanting a wife in the first place, at least not for romantic reasons.
Maybe he just needed a farmhand. But he could have had his pick of stronger alien races with citizens who’d be more than happy to come work in a place like this in return for food and lodging on a safe world.
Sex, then? But he’d bolted like a spooked animal when I’d kissed him. He’d barely touched me apart from getting me up on Tarion’s back. Even now, it seemed like he was putting some space between us. He sat up perfectly straight so his chest no longer brushed my back and he held the reins loose enough that his arms weren’t forming such a tight circle around me anymore. Experimentally, I leaned back in the saddle only for him to tense up and shift away.
I fixed my posture so the poor guy wasn’t stuck leaning back at such an awkward angle, mulling it over and getting nowhere. As Silar urged Tarion into a slow trot, steering us into a wide, dusty road, I gave up on trying to figure it out. Whatever his reasons, he’d married me. I was safe. At least for the next month.
And I sure as hell wasn’t about to look this gift shuldu in the mouth.
10
SILAR
The ride back to the ranch seemed impossibly long, though the position of the sun told me I was making expected time on the journey. I spent most of the trip trying very hard not to touch my wife, because every time I did it felt as if I’d been hit with the lowest setting of a stunner. Not enough to knock me out, but enough to send every nerve bristling with hotly distracting sensation.
So I sat up straight and did not touch her, keeping my eyes on the road ahead and sweeping them side to side every now and then, watching for ardu serpents and other creatures that could cause us trouble. Luckily, larger predators like genka and ortu did not typically hunt out in the open. They were more trouble in the trees near the ranch, which was why keeping fences mended was one of my top priorities.
By the time we plodded up the last stretch of the road to the ranch, I knew my ears would be badly burned. Spring sunburns crept up easily. The sun wasn’t hot enough to feel it.
I didn’t feel it yet, but I would later. At least it was only our ears prone to burning. The rest of our hide was made of much stronger stuff. Unlike Cherry, who looked vulnerable and soft everywhere. Alarmingly so.
“Oh, wow! This is it?” she asked from the saddle in front of me, tilting my hat back on her head to get a better look.
“Yes.”
I looked at my property, bestowed upon me as part of my conviction by the Zabrian Empire, and wondered what she saw. I’d grown so used to the place, having been here so very long, that I found it difficult to observe my home with a stranger’s perspective.
Directly ahead, a lane branched off from the main road and led up to my lumber-walled house. It looked suddenly small. It had never seemed that way before. But before, it had only been me.
Beyond the house stood the shuldu stalls, the large winter barn, the grazing pastures, and the gardens, everything enclosed by fencing I meticulously maintained. Behind it all, the mountains glinted pinkish-gold on the horizon, their tops still dusted with snow. Between the mountains and the fencing of my property stood some woods with a creek, swelled higher now than it would be in summer due to winter’s melt.
I did not need to turn Tarion onto the lane to the house. He knew where to go. I relaxed my hold on the reins further. Normally, by this point in the journey home, I’d be feeling much more at ease, away from other people, alone with my animals and plants and thoughts.
But now, I was not alone. And instead of my usual feeling of serene solitude I instead prickled with something hot and harried, my throat and the crotch of my pants feeling uncomfortably tight.
“It’s lovely!” Cherry said as we rode up to the house. I felt an awkward relief at that. If she hated the place, I was not entirely sure what I’d be able to do about it. Of course, I could try to make whatever adjustments to the property she requested, but my time was severely limited.
But other than her room and her bed, which I still planned to build, perhaps I would not need to do much else. That was good. The cattle were high maintenance enough without adding my human wife’s wishes into the equation.
I could not deny that the relief I felt was not solely about less work to be done.
A part of it was because, in her pronouncement of liking the property, it felt that she was making a judgment upon me by proxy. I’ll marry someone else. Anyone else. Her earlier words, which she seemed to have forgotten, still clanged in my head like metal on metal.
But she liked the property. That was a start.
I quickly dismounted, needing to not be so very near her for a moment. It was not a long moment, though, because despite her awkward wiggling and rolling, she could not get down on her own. All she managed to achieve was getting onto her belly and lying sidelong on the saddle, the backs of her legs facing me, her rump directly at my eye level.
I could barely remember what Zabrian females looked like. I’d certainly been too young to look at their backsides like this with any sort of appreciation. I did not know if backsides were even meant to be looked at, to be coveted. Whether this was typical for a Zabrian male, or some terrible result of my excision from good society, I had no idea.
