Page 77 of Caveman Alien's Touch

“The foam is not ready yet. Tomorrow, the clansbrothers say. We also have some other things you talked about. But we think daylight is better for that. Bronwen…”

I look up at him. “Yes, Noker?”

He takes a deep breath. “I love you, and I want to be married to you. Like Brak is to Piper.”

Butterflies take off in my stomach. “You do?”

“Yes. I know I didn’t spy on you or threaten tribers or chase you down a tunnel. You know, all those things that are required for marriage. So this must seem strange to you.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Those things that Brak did with Piper? They not are required at all! Is better ifnotdo those things.”

Noker looks crestfallen “Oh? Really?”

“Yes! What you did is better. Kill irox, find me in swamp, build baking oven, and all that. Much better.”

He looks away. “That night… When I said I would take you back to the village. It was not true. I don’t want you in the village. I want youhere. But I can also be in the village sometimes. The clansbrothers did well without me or Sprisk. Only one man was killed by the outcasts, not all of them, the way we feared. They are not as helpless as Sprisk and I thought before. They need us, but that need is not as desperate as I thought.”

“Theywantto do things for the clan,” I tell him, holding his hand. “Let them! They will surprise you with how good they are.”

“Yes.” His yellow eyes glow in the darkness. “So, if I want to be married to you. And Ireallydo. Do you perhaps want to be married to me? As well?”

28

- Noker-

Bronwen gives me a little smile and squeezes my hand. “Yes. I want that.”

The world suddenly spins around me, and I have to steady myself on the baking oven.

“Noker,” Bronwen exclaims, alarmed. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I rasp. “I just never expected that you’d say yes. But I had to try. It just seems too wonderful to be true.”

“It is true, Noker. Don’t I keep coming back to you? And don’t you keep coming for me?”

I straighten up and hug her hard. “I always do. And now, I always will.” I kiss her hair and her forehead and her mouth in a frenzy of relief and joy.

“I was sure getting all your friends to come here was completely unnecessary,” I go on as a deep happiness fills me. “Because you would never say yes. But Sprisk said that he would tell them about my plan to ask you to marry me. And then they would make their own decisions.”

Bronwen stares up at me. “Thatwhy they came along?! They knew you’d ask?”

“I assume so. Sprisk knew I would, and he must have told them the way he said he would.”

“Alder tok boutda paris sherton wuz bulshi,”she mutters in her own language. “Ey shulda knoun.They thought I would say yes then,” she goes on with more understandable words. “Because they not here for the question, Noker. They here for thewedding.”

I scratch my chin. “Ah. The wedding. Well, thereisa shaman in the camp now…”

She chuckles and punches my chest lightly with her little fist. “Oh, you and the girls have all thought it out. All right, my love. If we’re getting married, might as well right away. Tomorrow, that your plan?”

“Tomorrow would be good,” I agree. “Today is still the day of Crotar’s funeral. But tomorrow is a new and fresh day in the clan.”

- - -

The women spend the night on three other platforms, hoisted high up above the clansbrothers. I share a platform with Sprisk.

He laughs softly when I tell him about the question. “Of course she would say yes! She kept looking at you the same way Piper looks at Brak. I was certain. And so were the women, when I told them about your plan to ask. They packed everything they would need for a wedding.”

“Everyone knew except me,” I grunt. “So I almost fainted when she said yes.”

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