Page 16 of Marrying My Moth Lady

“The orange wings against the green leaves are a striking combination,” I murmur, almost dropping the container of nanobead liquid from my branch. Her smile sparkles like the sunlight hitting the puddles on the cigar tree leaves. “Reminds me of your auburn hair against your green dress.”

She beams at my compliment, as precious as the beauty of the butterflies—both in my life for a brief period. Time to get to work. I load the nanospray bottle with the yellow detector beads. Each bead is one-thousandth of a micron in diameter but can transmit a pulse of radio waves when activated. Will Millie ask how the technology works the next time we talk? If I explain it, will she gaze at me with rapt attention, or will her eyes glaze over like everyone else’s when I talk about my passion?

“Astounding. They don’t care that I’m spraying them. I don’t need my net,” I whisper as I spray the abdomens of each insect, careful not to hit their wings. The last thing I want to do is render one flightless and end their life.

“The butterflies love salt water. It’s like moonshine to them,” Millie whispers. “You’re tagging a bunch of drunks—like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“More like a cop in the parking lot after a football game. Should I make them do a field sobriety test?” I ask, bringing a branch full of critters to the end of my nose. “Excuse me, would you please lift half your legs and recite the alphabet? The one on the end wobbled! He may need a breathalyzer test.”

Millie’s sweet laughter at my jokes puffs my chest with pride. I’m comfortable being silly and she thinks I’m funny. Well, wonders never cease. I treat the tree like a priceless work of art, slowly releasing each branch so it doesn’t flick the butterflies off their perch. She waits as I tag each insect without fidgeting. I can’t help but compare this moment to the list of demands I told her I wanted in a partner. I hate that she’s perfect for me…and off-limits.

“I can’t thank you enough.” I replace the bottle parts in the case and pack my backpack without jostling the surrounding leaves.

“The way you treat the butterflies is a joy to me. If only all the humans respected the pollinators the way you do.”

“That’s the mission of the conservation center where I work—when they make me interact with the public,” I say with a self-deprecating smile. “We lead tours of pollinator gardens to explain why they are important to the food chain. It’s mostly kids on the tours, but we hope to reach every member of the community. Kids are the future leaders.”

“Off we fly to the puddling location of the spongy moth,” she says after a brief hesitation. My mention of kids threw her for a loop. I’d ask about her thoughts on motherhood, but that opens a can of worms I’m not ready to eat. I can’t offer her forever—not even a promise of tomorrow. Matthew will deliver me to my truck tonight and our relationship will be over…but not by choice.

“This is a week’s worth of work in a few hours,” I murmur in amazement. I’d love nothing more than to spend my free time hanging out with Millie. Are the millions Eli offered me to marry Amber enough to give up the chance to love Millie? No…but the deed to her forest is. To keep her safe, I must let her go.

“So, you can spend more time teaching at the center,” she quips before grabbing my waist.

“Evil! I thought you liked me,” I say with a pretend pout.

We launch off the tree in a cloud of disgruntled butterflies and Millie’s giggles. Nestled against her soft body, I marvel at her strength. I’m not a bulky guy, but I’m almost a foot taller than her. She soars through the canopy as if I’m light as a feather. Her wings flatten, so she rides the thermal differential between the upper forest and the warmth of the sun on the canopy.

A gentle swish and we raise a few feet to repeat the downward diagonal path of the glide. Her relaxed expression boosts my confidence, and my fear of flying evaporates. Instead, I fantasize about carrying her while on the ground. What if I carried her over the threshold instead of Amber?

The tree tagging of spongy moths isn’t as enchanting as the monarchs. It’s a somber occasion. We silently mourn the dying oak tree. Invasive moths ravish the old oak and leave behind slimy egg sacs. Millie calls them sulfur shelves, but their odor isn’t quite sulfur. Oh, they stink to high heaven, but not in a rotten egg way. The bark wears deep trenches where moth larvae have eaten their way into the tree.

“Do you see these villains when you look at me?” Millie asks in a quiet voice as we head to Millie’s secret coal fly spot.

“Your hackles are the same color as theirs,” leaves my lips before I consider her feelings. Great, best day of my life andnasty Horus comes out to insult the sweet lady responsible for it. Her eyes go glassy before I can do damage control. “I meant the commonality of beige hackles is the similarity between you and those moths. They aren’t sentient. They have no conscience—I mean, look at what they did to that tree—”

“The same thing humans do when they harvest cinnamon,” she says with a pitiful sniff.

“See? As a cinnamon-eating, butterfly stalking, invader from Ohio, I have more in common with spongy moths than you.” Phew! A small grin blooms on her lips before a tear can fall. Huh…usually, I’m disgusted by tears, but Millie’s soft nature brings out my protective side—a piece of myself I discovered today.

“Last stop, coal flies,” she says with a finality that washes away my verbal snafu. “They don’t puddle in the same sense, so you will have to be more careful tagging them—”

“You mean they’ll be sober,” I interject, to earn her luminous smile. She hovers over the ground until I get my bearings. I shouldn’t enjoy the slide of her body along mine as she lands in my arms…but I’m a bastard. I’m starving for her like a man eating his last meal before execution.

“Sober as the plague…and…ah hem…and they will be…um…” I didn’t think she could be any cuter, but tongue-tied, embarrassed Millie is sweet enough to make my back teeth ache. A feminine blush spreads across her cheeks, glides down her neck, and disappears into her cleavage. How I’d love to lick the stain in search of how far down her body it reaches…

Twisting the large purple coneflowers—which are neither purple nor cones—so the undersides face me instead of her, she reveals a coal fly orgy in full swing. Masses of flies hang off eachextra-large female. The females squeal and buzz as the males take turns with them. No wonder Millie turned a deep crimson.

“I fear we are a tad overdressed for this party,” I say, because I can’t resist teasing her.

“And understaffed, unless you have a few male friends on the way,” she says with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “I love your jealous frown!”

“Haha, yuck it up, buttercup,” I say with fake ire. “Just because I’m smitten with you doesn’t mean you can tease me with promises of—”

Our banter breaks when I spot a red construction flag between the flowers. The flag’s aged and the wire stand is slightly rusted, like the flag I found a few days ago. What are the odds of two red construction flags left behind in random places on the forest floor? There shouldn’t be construction for miles…we are a few meters from the government’s registered forest. This land is adjacent to a nationally protected forest, so only an idiot would build here. They couldn’t put infrastructure like pipes or electric lines because they can’t dig…

Shit…unless they owned the mineral rights beneath this part of the forest.

“That’s a Carter flag, isn’t it,” Millie says. “Otherwise, I’d say you saw a ghost.”

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