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19
CHERRY
The next morning began a days-long stretch of very hard work, and it wasn’t hard because Silar was busting my ass. Far from it. If anything, he seemed reticent about giving me any of the tougher jobs, which only made me want to prove myself even more.
Which in turn meant I probably went a teensy bit overboard. I was pretty sure that Silar was now a stupefied combination of confused by my enthusiasm for mucking stalls, pulling weeds, and milking alien cows, and quietly impressed by his wife’s absolute balls-to-the-walls energy. Which was a relief, because we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere in the romantic feelings department.
At least… he didn’t.
I, unfortunately, was growing more and more attracted to my husband with every passing day. And not just because of his sculpted body, or constant state of shirtlessness; his calloused hands, or the curling strength of that prehensile tail I kept imagining in far too many intimate places.
No, it was more than that. It was in the way that whenever I mentioned something that was missing, like the table for the kitchen or more recently a better set of door hinges for the outhouse, it suddenly seemed to just appear. It was in the way he treated his animals with his particularly disarming brand of gruff, restrained tenderness; the way that he barely ran his claws through his own hair to comb it but spent hours each day cleaning and caring for his shuldu. It was in the way he seemed surprised, maybe even guilty, when I did normal spouse things for him like make him food, darn a bit of torn clothing, or offer to rub his shoulders. He always refused that last one.
Unfortunately.
He also kept strictly to his side of the bed when we slept, lying on his back on top of the blankets. Without fail when I woke each day, he was already up for the morning, elbow-deep in chores that I’d told him the day before I’d tackle for him myself.
I was glad to have the work on the ranch to keep me busy and wear out my body so much. Otherwise, I might actually have to deal with the fact that I seemed to be falling rather fucking rapidly for a husband who, apart from touching my boobs and coming in his pants that one time, seemed perfectly content to keep his distance from me.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Until the stampede.
And this wasn’t the fun sort of stampede. This wasn’t the Zabrian version of the Old-Earth tradition of the Calgary Stampede.
Oh, no. This was the out-of-control, get-out-of-the-way-or-your-human-ass-will-be-a-pancake stampede.
And somehow, I managed to end up practically right in the middle of it.
The day started normally. It was my thirteenth morning waking up in an empty bed and cursing the fact that Silar already had such a big head start on me. I scrambled into clean-ish clothes (everything I had seemed permanently coated in dust no matter how well I tried to wash them), slammed on my boots, had a quick pee, and washed up a bit. Then I donned my hat and headed out to find my husband.
Only he’d already moved on from the shuldu stalls and barn chores and was likely now patrolling the property on Tarion or one of the other shuldu, checking the fences for places to repair. It was one of the chores he refused to let me help him with. I’d pestered him about it a few times – because there was a ton of property and metres upon metres of fencing to take care of all by himself – but his eyes had flashed bright white and he’d finally laid down the law yesterday.
“You do not go near the fences. Especially any damaged areas,” he’d growled fiercely. It was the only time when his body and voice were actually telling me what strong emotion his eyes were glowing with. And it was anger.
“Why not?” I’d pressed, my own irritation rising in turn. Hadn’t I proved myself useful enough to him yet? How many walls did he intend to throw up at me? Or fences, in this case?
But he’d just taken a menacing step towards me, his tail making the leather of his belt creak audibly when it tightened around the hook at the back.
“No. Fences.” Then he’d softened a little. But only a little. “Promise me, Cherry.” His hands had twitched, like he’d wanted to reach for me. I raised my chin and dared him to do it. Dared him to touch me when he’d been so damn careful not to.
But he’d just curled his hands into fists and let out a tight breath. The whiteness of his eyes dimmed, allowing me a glimpse of those oddly beautiful lightning bolts of blue.
“Promise me,” he’d whispered.
And like a love-struck fucking dummy, I’d promised.
So, no fences for me.
With Silar busy on that job, I decided to get back to the gardens. I’d never gotten a chance to work with plants or soil this way on Terratribe I, and I actually really enjoyed it. I loved the feel of leaves and stems and roots. The way the soil coated my hands. It all smelled so fresh and new to me, and I had no idea if it was because this was an alien planet, or if it was just because I’d had no experience in the botanical realm. Either way, it was completely novel and entirely engrossing. And it yielded results I could actually see with my own two eyes. This wasn’t installing the same fucking part on the same model of engine hundreds of times a day on an assembly line, feeling like you’re stuck in a time loop and never actually seeing the finished product. Nope. This actually made me feel like I was doing something real.
For every weed I pulled, I made more room for the vegetables to spread and grow. For every place I watered, new growth sprouted. It had been just under two weeks since my arrival, but spring was in full bloom now. The garden had green and yellow and reddish-brown shoots popping up all over the place, and the fruit trees were so heavy with buds that their coming blossoms promised to be spectacular.
It was like this, down on my knees, my hands turned red from the soil, that I suddenly felt it.
Trouble.
It was tactile before it was audible. A bizarre and untraceable rumbling through the ground. A shy shiver of sensation at first but growing stronger every second.
