Page 11 of Rescued By the Alien Bull Rider

If I was ever going to find a place like that, that day was certainly not today.

“I grew up on a ranch,” I said. “I can do chores. Earn my keep. Even help with the wagon repair.” Nervously, I licked my lips, and for a second I thought that the hot whiteness of Zohro’s gaze dropped to my mouth.

Silence stretched until it went taut. Now I was the sweaty one. If Zohro said no, which I was more and more convinced he was about to, then I was basically fucked.

But when he answered, it was with explosive exasperation. “Of course you will stay at my ranch!” he snapped. “You think any decent male would leave you here to fend off genka alone in the dark?”

“I mean, Bones did…”

“Do not mention that name to me again,” he said warningly. “Getting sucked into his own shuttle engine would be too lenient a punishment for what he’s done.”

For what he’s done…

Leaving me?

I stared at the massive, white-eyed shadow before me, utterly gobsmacked. That’s what Zohro was most pissed off about right now? The fact I’d gotten left behind?

Getting left behind was the story of my fucking life. Mama dying. Paul ghosting me when I told him about Baby Girl. Pa rejecting me. Bones flying off without a care once he’d gotten his credits.

Over and over and over again.

No one had ever been angry on my behalf about it before. I thought of the knife Zohro had wrenched from its place without a second thought, as if about to gut Bones like a fish for abandoning me. I hadn’t even been that angry on my own behalf! Getting left behind… It was something I’d come to expect by now.

Sometimes, when the whisky wasn’t enough to drown out my most depressing thoughts, I wondered if it was something I deserved.

But Zohro didn’t seem to think so. No, apparently Bones was the one who deserved something shitty right now. Not me.

Despite the cold air, I felt suddenly warmed. All the way down to the toes in my boots. I beamed at Zohro, and he stared at my face as if in astonishment. Maybe Zabrians didn’t smile.

Did they hug?

I would have hugged him, but the belly made it kind of hard, and I hadn’t exactly revealed the nature of my “medical condition” to him yet. My big fleece jacket, too bulky to pack in my bag, concealed my shape well enough. And even if he did see my belly, he might not know what it meant. He wasn’t human, and it wasn’t like he was some medical doctor or something.

But he was, I decided, a pretty cool guy. A little grouchy, maybe, but I could handle that. I’d grown up around gruff New Alberta farmers, men who would rather have taken a hoof to the head than get all gooey and talk about their feelings.

In fact, the way Zohro moodily prowled over to my bag and comms tablet, hoisting them up without a word and tying them to Wyn’s saddle…

It made me feel right at home.

5

ZOHRO

Ispent the walk back trying to figure out how to convince Jolene to marry me.

Like an idiot.

She’d shown no interest in me. She’d appeared thrilled with my offer to fix up the wagon so that I could take her to Tasha and the warden.

So that they could enter her into the bride program and…

And potentially marry her off to one of Warden Hallum’s men.

Wyn was on my left, Jolene on my right as we headed for my ranch. I did not think she was very short for a human woman, but she walked surprisingly slowly. I had to rein in my own natural pace, which I found difficult. I’d never liked feeling like I was wasting time. I liked bending to other people even less. And there was the very real threat of genka in the night, as well as the bull we’d left behind to graze for now. I’d fetch him on my own in the morning, once my wounds were bound.

I wanted her in my house. Soon.Safe.

When I wasn’t scanning the land ahead for predators, I watched her from the side. Sometimes her hands went to herhips or her lower back, as if they pained her. That worried me, but she did not complain. The few times she felt my eyes on her, she turned my way and gave me a smile that seemed designed to dazzle me into silence.

---