Page 38 of Smart@ss Cyborg

Determining that he's contrite, I set him securely on his four hooves. On the ground. Where he belongs. Snorting, shaking his brushy mane out, his grumbling subsides to disgruntled-sounding snorts.

My mouth twisting into a reluctant smile, I pat him. To my surprise, under my hand, his hair peels from his skin and comes away in a clump.

I stare at it as it drifts to the ground. “Oh no…”

“It’s okay,” Becky allays, accurately ascertaining why I’m concerned. “He’s shedding. It happens to the horses too, before the summer heat hits.”

I blink. “Say again?”

Becky gestures at Paco. “He’ll become sleek as summer hits.”

My brows have reached my hairline. I can literally feel them lifting up my hair. “This isn’t summer?”

Becky tries to hide a wince, but I see it.

I swallow. “You mean to say the sun will get CLOSER to the planet surface?”

One of her shoulders rises in an uncomfortable shrug. “That is how summer happens, I guess. So yeah.”

Refocusing, choosing to ignore the horror of her statement—for now—I return to the matter at hand. I move for the steps again, but stop at the foot of the first one so that Becky and I are near enough in height for our eyes to be mostly level with one another.

Becky eyes me with curiosity. “You rang?”

My brow puckers. “What?”

She waves her hand. “Nothing. What is it you need?”

I gesture behind me, at the barn. “I can’t find where the other poles and wire are.”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

I ascend another step and lean into her space to plant a kiss of affection on her forehead. “I used the supplies that were available, but now those are gone. I have many oxyokes left to do—where are the rest of the posts and fence you’d like me to erect?”

Her eyes are wide. It takes her several blinks before she draws her gaze off of my mouth. “You went through everything that was piled in the barn?”

I nod.

Gaze moving past me, she shakes her head, tone full of something like wonder. “That was fifty oxyokes’ worth of fencing, Will. Everyone told us it’d take two days per oxyoke—and that was if we hired help.” She looks at me now, eyes assessing. “You fence inhumanly fast.”

“You shortened my name,” I breathe.

She pauses, looking uncertain. “Is that okay? Would you rather I call you—”

“No,” I rush to say. “I was under the impression that shortening a name tends to signify friendship. Or so I have seen in vids. Is this true of real life too? Of… you and me?”

Becky glances away in a manner that I’ve heard vids describe as bashful. “Yes.”

My heart swells. “Would you like the remaining acreage fenced as well?” I ask.

She blinks and her mouth opens and closes once before she’s able to marshal the ability to reply. “Yeah. I mean, we can’t afford to do it all right away, but ideally we’ll be able to buy the supplies to set up a couple more grazing pastures so we can rotate the horses. To do that, we’re going to have to make a trip into town.”

I drag my gaze up from where I’d been admiring the too-comely curves of her body. “We should be able to make a good-sized purchase.” I don’t say it aloud, but we still have the saddlebag tender, after all. Although we’ve never spoken of it, I get the impression Becky feels both justified at claiming the money, while simultaneously hating it. “When would you like to go? My friend,” I add, touched.

Lips curving, she tosses the dishtowel she’d been holding onto her shoulder. “We can go now.” She looks tremendously fetching standing before me, even with Paco’s spittle staining her clothing.

Acting on my impulse to show her more affection, I swoop down, the brim of my beaver felt hat turning up as it drags over Becky’s blouse before I reach Becky’s belly, and plant a kiss on it. “Hello, little Tad,”I say, shortening Tadpole’s name. “My other friend.”

Becky sucks in a startled breath as her stomach bumps my mouth. Her hands fly up, coming to rest on my shoulders—but she doesn’t push me away. “The baby’s moving.”

---