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Giving him a last pat, I lower my arms and step back. Then I move to Becky and offer her my hands, thinking that I will help her stand.
Looking contemplative, her head tilted back so that she can scan my face (I feel a dismayed twinge for my mate that she’s limited to scanning my expressions alone, not my brain activity), Becky places her hands in mine. Accepting my gesture of help. When I pull her to her feet, I’m slow to release her hands. I think deeply on her reactions to my courting efforts as we make our way back to the house.
“Are you leaving Paco loose?” Becky asks.
I shrug. “As if stalling him or turning him out in the paddock does any good. He’s loose more than he’s contained.” I place my arm around her shoulders. A companionable gesture meant to convey my gentle feelings of fondness for her, if she will accept it. Acceptme.
To my relief, Becky doesn’t stiffen or startle or move out from under my arm. She doesn’t reject my touch as she looks up at me and asks, “What about what’s left of the lead rope?”
Then she stuns me by reaching up and hesitantly catching the hand that I’ve draped over her shoulder, and clasping it so that we’re one-hand holding as she further queries, her voice unnaturally thick, “You’re just going to let it dangle from his face?”
Paco’s nose bumps the back of my thigh, then the seat of my pants as his lip drags over my pocket, hoping to steal treats. Or weapons. His is the sort of character that would rejoice in either discovery.
“He’s—fine,” I assure Becky, my brain misfiring at her voluntary touch. “The rope isn’t long enough to cause him harm, and if he lets me remove his halter when we reach the porch, then he'll be free of the whole thing just as soon as we get there.”
“Oh.” Becky’s hand flexes inside of mine, but she continues to keep us knitted all the way to the door of the shanty.
Paco ascends the steps with us as if he intends to come inside too.
In fact, he passes us, only to stop before the threshold, appearing almost patient by the way he restrains himself from opening—and slamming—the damned screen door.
Feeling my mouth curve up, I relinquish Becky’s hand and remove his halter. I nearly drop the halter on the porch, thinking it’ll be in easy reach for tomorrow—but I think better of it. No doubt Paco will take up his unprotected tack and inventively get up to all manner of trouble with it, before gleefully flinging it into the middle of a field ten oxyokes from the homestead.
In the end I bring the halter into the house instead. And I shut the door in Paco’s long face and softly shining eyes.
When I turn around, Becky is waiting, watching me.
Her hands are on her stomach, and her brows are slightly furrowed.
Her brain is lit up in puzzling areas.
Bending, I begin to unlace and remove my boots. I open my mouth to speak to her, but then find myself hesitating. When I straighten, boots in hand, Becky meets me, reaching for them.
Like she always does, I realize with a jolt. She wants to be the one to put them in the boot rack.
It could be that she wishes to be the one to keep order in the dwelling. But warmth suffuses me as I internally question if it might beherway—one of many, if my dawning theory holds—that Becky shows me that shedoescare for me.
When I don’t release my boots to her, she jerks her head up. The moment her startled eyes meet mine, I tell her softly, “I appreciate all the caretaking you do of me. Very, very much. And I am asking you, please—from here on out, I want you to tell me plainly what I can do to please you similarly.”
She blinks at me rapidly. Her brain experiences strange seismic activity. Haltingly, she offers, “You—could…”
I brighten, my sock-clad cybernetic feet braced, my entire body poised to hear what I can do for her to show that I have intense feelings of affection for her person.
“Rub my aching feet,” she finally finishes.
“I would like to do this,” I affirm. “I would tend them now if you’d be amenable?”
She’s still blinking quite rapidly. Tentatively, she lowers her chin in a nod. Then she shakes herself and tugs my boots out of my grip, waddling to the boot rack to care for my things before she moves for the sink and begins to wash her hands.
She curses softly.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
She sighs. “I have to pee.” She disappears into the siphon room.
“Take your time,” I call after her. “I really should peel the skin off the Oryx and submerge the meat in the salt box,” I say as I stuff my feet back into my boots. “I’ll return swiftly.”
I am very swift, but she very obviously has an idea of how long the skinning and salting process takes because upon my return, she’s bathing and nearly done at that. When she emerges, I’m waiting for her beside our bed. She gives me a curious look before she steps to me and allows me to help ease her onto the bed’s side.
