by Lucy Kelly
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have written a will that said if she wanted to keep the ranch, she had to be married. He obviously wanted a son-in-law to carry on his legacy since she wouldn’t. She especially had a hard time with him putting in his will that if she weren’t married, the land would be sold. It was the final knife stab to her heart.
Any second now she knew the hot water would cut off, so she reached over and turned off the taps. Pushing the shower curtain aside, she picked up the smaller towel and wrapped it around her head. The larger one she used to run over her arms, and then pulled it around her body. Carefully stepping out of the tub, she finished drying off. Setting the towel over the toilet seat, she sat down and reached for her body lotion; working out in all kinds of weather was hard on the skin.
She thought back to the way her grandfather kept inviting the hands to dinner; he was practically pimping her out. Taking a deep breath, she calmed down. No, he hadn’t ever treated her like a tool to be used to get a man; she was just so sad about the entire thing.
Finished with the lotion, she took the towel off her hair and rubbed it a little. It was mostly dry, so she put the two towels back on the rack and took down her nightie from the hook on the bathroom door and pulled it over her head. Turning to the mirror, she put on a stretchy headband; she definitely needed a trim. Then she brushed her teeth and put on her face moisturizer. Was her face one that someone would fall in love with and just have to marry, all in the next ten weeks? Somehow, she had a hard time believing that.
Getting depressed all over again, she turned off the bathroom light and left to go down the hall to her bedroom. As a teenager, she’d hated not having a connecting bathroom. Now she could move to the master bedroom and have a connecting bath, only habit kept her in the room she’d grown up in. If she were going to have to sell the land in a couple of months, she decided she was moving into the master bedroom tomorrow.
Marla turned back the covers and sat down on the edge of the bed to check her alarm clock. Alarm set, she saw Rusty come into the room from performing his own last check around the house and settle in his dog bed. She lay down and rolling onto her side, she picked up her e-reader. She had a weakness for erotic romance and loved being able to order books and read them instantly. Reading had the added benefit of letting her forget about her problems for a little while. She buried herself in the world of shifters who knew at a first glance who their mates were. There were also many heroines like her in these books; women with big asses and larger than average racks. The thing about the shifter heroes in the books she loved even more than the fact that they appreciated a woman with her body type, was they didn’t cheat. Once they met their one and only, that was it. They didn’t cheat and they didn’t stray.
That thought blasted her right back down memory lane. When her grandfather’s will had become common knowledge in town, several men had tried their luck with her. She was flattered at first and even dated one guy, Jake O’Brien—forever after only known as ‘Jake the Snake’ with a capital‘s’ for nearly eight months. She figured he was the one guy who couldn’t be after her land, as his ranch was three times the size of hers and not adjoining.
She found out how wrong that assumption was, when she overheard him talking to a friend one day. She had gone to visit him at lunchtime, hoping to catch him free. Noting his office door was open a crack, she crept up to surprise him and ended up getting surprised herself and not in a good way. He’d been explaining to his friend how the deal was in the bag and he’d have the land in a couple of months. How she wasn’t too much to look at, but he didn’t plan to give up sex on the side.
She was really angry and decided to test what she’d heard. At that point, she’d snuck away like a thief, tiptoeing out passed his empty secretary’s desk until she reached the main door in reception. Gripping the knob, she carefully reopened the door. Looking out in the hallway, she was happy to see there wasn’t anyone there to see her. She closed it again louder than the first time and called out for Jake’s secretary. A moment later, Jake opened his office door. After poking his head out and seeing her, he stepped through.
“Hey, honey, I came by so you could take me to lunch. Now that you’ve sent over a couple of hands to help me out, I have some free time now and then,” she said.
She had put on a fine act; Jake never doubted a thing. As she suspected, he said he was happy to see her and invited her out to lunch at her favorite place. She waited until they were sitting down in the middle of their meal before speaking.
“I don’t know why you want my land so much you’re willing to marry me for it. I have to say, it’s not my idea of a good reason for marriage to me,” she said as she dug into her steak.
He had ordered her a salad and she overrode the order. She wasn’t ashamed of her shape. It was another indicator he was the wrong guy. His little possessive mannerisms that she thought were proof of his love now just seemed like a form of abusive control. She was seeing him in a new light and it was stark and glaring, no longer soft and rosy.
He gave her a shrewd look; she could practically see the wheels turning. First, she no longer was allowing him to guide her and now this crack about her land. The penny dropped; he now understood that she must have overheard his conversation earlier. What would he try next?
“Honey, men are dawgs down to the last one. I’ll admit I may have said some foolish things to my friend. You have to know we were just talking trash. I love you,” he said, using a strong voice, attempting to inject a ring of truth, but she saw his words for the lies they were.
“Then if and when you ask and if I say yes, you’ll agree to a pre-nup. You cheat on me any time between today and for the duration you are seeing me, whether we’re married or not, and not only do we break-up, I keep my ranch and I get half of yours,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
“Now, darlin’—I’m glad you brought up the idea of an agreement between us. Because I have a few stipulations of my own…” he started to say.
“Sorry, your little conversation today cancelled any stipulations you might have made. You have my terms, deal with them, or no deal?” she asked.
“I’m afraid you’re angry with me and you have every right to be. I acted like a horse’s ass earlier. I’m going to make it up to you, I surely will. But, honey, I can’t just sign away half my property,” he said, a little of the anger he was trying to hide tightening his voice.
She had a teacher once who told her if a person uses the word ‘but’ in the middle of sentence or group of sentences, everything they said prior to that was negated; it was a lie. Marla never forgot it.
“That means you’re already planning on cheating. Thanks for lunch, we’re through,” she said, standing up.
She considered throwing her water in his face or dumping her salad on his head. That would have been too much of a cliché and her friend, Sheila, who was the waitress, would be the one having to clean up the mess. Instead, she walked out.
A couple of weeks later, she found out he’d been screwing Sheila and wished she’d dumped not only her salad but also his chicken fried steak with gravy on his head. She had felt so angry and betrayed after, that she hadn’t dated anyone else.
Letting out a huff, she rolled over in bed. Dwelling on this shit didn’t help; it just gave her sleepless nights. It would take a miracle to find a man to get married now. It was the reason she’d signed up with the matchmaker. The woman, Miranda, was supposed to have a perfect track record. When they last talked, she had honestly thought all her problems were over. Miranda seemed to think finding her a husband would be easy.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t sent her one single guy to check out and time was running out. She made another mental note to call Miranda in the morning. Since she was wallowing in her misery, she thought about her more recent problems. Machinery breakdowns, broken fences, mislaid tools and equipment, had all combined to chip away at her savings and her determination. Thanks to Jake the Snake, she had no luck in hiring any h
elp. She found out he actually paid people not to work for her. She was pissed no one was willing to stand up to him.
The dawn insisted on arriving every morning at the crack of…dawn—and that was damn early. So putting down her e-reader, she turned off the light. After pounding her pillow into the perfect shape, she snuggled down into the covers and closed her eyes. Thinking about her problems always tired her out. Like every other day this week, she was asleep in minutes. Her body wanted to get away from her troubles too—oblivion was a nice place to hide for a few hours.
It was several hours later, around two a.m., when she heard a horrendous explosive crash. It woke her up from a sound sleep and she sat straight up in her bed. She figured some drunken idiot had taken the wrong driveway and hit something. He better not have hurt her animals! She flipped up the covers and reached to turn on the light. Stepping into her house shoes, she grabbed up her grandfather’s old flannel bathrobe. She could hear Rusty barking at the bottom of the stairs. In the kitchen, she went to the pantry and got her grandfather’s shotgun.
She’d been keeping it handy ever since her break-up with Jake. She’d had to use it a few times to convince him not to step foot on her property. Checking to see the gun was loaded, she headed out of the house. Rusty took off when she stopped to pull on her boots. Stepping out, she noticed it was pitch dark outside. She came back in and opened the utility cabinet to grab a flashlight. Starting out again, she whistled for Rusty; he had disappeared. He came running out from behind the hay barn and barked at her. She started working her way across the muddy ground with Rusty running back and forth from the barn as if to say ‘hurry up’.
From Rusty’s attitude, she figured there was something new going on instead of Jake coming back again. If it were trespassers, she’d convince them of the error of their ways with a little rock salt in their backsides. I don’t get enough sleep to put up with this in the middle of the night!
Rusty took off in the direction of her hay barn again. She couldn’t see anything from where she was moving. His more sensitive hearing and sense of smell must have pulled him over there. She walked past the roll-up door and smaller man-sized door into the barn as the problem seemed to be coming from around the back of it. Rounding the end, she got the shock of her life.
A freaky looking vehicle—it looked like a mobile home, a tank, and a helicopter had a three-way and gave birth to…this. Whatever the hell it was, it had crashed through the back of her barn and was currently residing inside. What surprised her was she didn’t really see any dents or dings, must be why she thought of a tank. Luckily, the barn was nearly empty at the end of April. She wouldn’t start harvesting her hay for another eight weeks or so. Therefore, she wasn’t digging it out of bales and bales of hay. Walking around whatever it was, Rusty met her halfway and then he ran back to something that had caught his attention.
He kept up the back-and-forth until she rounded the end of the truck or sled or whatever it was, and saw a man lying half in and half out of some type of opening. The door reminded her of a DeLorean car door the way the top half swung up. But that was only half the door; the man seemed to be lying on the bottom half, which formed a ramp of sorts. Rushing forward, she dropped to her knees next to him. Rusty was bathing the injured man’s face with his tongue. As he began to stir, she called Rusty away. The man, over six feet of man from what she could see, made a pain-filled sound, as his eyelashes began to flutter. He opened them and looked at her. He opened his mouth and swallowed once.
“Sanctuary,” he gasped before passing out again.
“Shit, what the hell do I do now?” she asked, looking around. This was no truck, from what she could see through the open doorway. It was something else.
“It must be some kind of experimental aircraft. What the hell were you doing flying over my land? You could have hurt my stock,” she scolded him, even though he couldn’t hear her, as she checked him over for any injuries.
“No obvious broken bones,” she said, not seeing any indicators of compound fractures. “I should probably call 911, though, and have him looked over by a doctor. He could have internal bleeding or something,” she said to Rusty.
She was used to talking to herself or Rusty, especially lately, when she was alone so much. She received a shock when a disembodied voice called out from within the plane, or shuttle, or whatever. “Scans show a concussion and some contusions. No other injuries are present.”
“Who said that? Where are you?” she asked.
“I am the on-board computer. I have been damaged, but may be able to offer you some assistance,” said the voice.
“I need to contact emergency services. No offense, it’s just that if you’re damaged, you might have made a mistake. He could have internal injuries. There’s no way I can help him by myself; he’s too big. I can’t lift him to get him into the house,” said Marla.
“The medical scanning diagnostic program is not part of the damaged systems. He will recover fully within forty-eight hours. I have sent out a distress signal. In the rear compartment, you will find an antigravity sled used for carrying heavy objects. If you can maneuver him onto the sled, you will be able to move him wherever you wish. I will be going offline now to transfer remaining power to the distress signal.”
“Wait! What’s his name? Should I call someone for him?” asked Marla.
She knew she had no family and how sad was that? This man, however, might have someone worrying about him and she wanted to let them know how he was.
“Technical Officer Karlo Darvik, I have no…”
The computer shut down. What both the computer and Marla were unaware of, was the computer had been damaged to a greater degree than it knew. The diagnostic programs gave back false data; no distress signals were sent.
Marla was startled when the computer stopped mid-sentence.
“Computer?” she called out.
When she didn’t get an answer, she figured it had shut down the way it said it was going to.
“Okay, I guess this means I have to find the antigravity sled, whatever that is.”
She had seen a movie a few years back detailing all the inventions and technology available now that had been inspired by Star Trek. An antigravity sled sounded like one of those.
“The Air Force or whoever owns this barn killer better show up soon. I’m going to need to get the hay in,” she muttered to herself as she entered the shuttle.
The floor was strewn with tool-like items she didn’t recognize. A few compartments had been opened during the crash. She pushed them out of the way with her feet so she wouldn’t trip over them.
“If I was an antigravity sled, where would I be and what would I look like?” she asked, as she looked around in the low-level light.
She was pushing a pole out of her way to see what was behind it and the pole fell out of the tall thin compartment. As it did, fabric was pulled out of a second pole still in the compartment, kind of like a tape measure or a scroll. When she grabbed the top of the second pole to keep it from falling out, too, she accidentally activated it by pressing a button on the end. The next thing she knew, she was tripping over the first pole and the entire apparatus was falling over.
“Shit!” she shouted as she lost her balance and fell over. “Oomph! Where did this table come from?” she wondered.
She was draped over a thin console table of some type. It was only when she tried to swing around that she realized she had found the sled and she was hanging in mid-air on top of it.
“Wow! This is some freaky sci-fi stuff.”
This was really weird! When she tried to shift her weight to get down, it kept tilting, preventing her from getting off it. After a few fruitless and sweaty minutes of attempting to get off the damn thing, she finally reached for the end of the pole. Fiddling around she was able to turn it off and went crashing to the floor. The two poles came together as the fabric, stretched between them, rolled back inside the poles. Rusty barked and came running inside.
&n
bsp; “The good news is, Rusty, I found the antigravity sled and it still works. The bad news is, by the time I get this guy, Karlo, into the house, I may need a doctor of my own.”
Rusty didn’t answer; he did go over and give her a lick on her cheek for encouragement. “Thanks,” she said as she got up. The fabric had retracted when she turned the knob on the end, so she was holding two poles a little over five feet long. She could see an immediate problem; the sled was a lot shorter than the man. As she dragged the thing outside, she also snatched up what looked like a duffle bag. She figured it was probably his.
It took another little while for her to get the sled open again. She found controls at the ends of the two poles, which were actually the edges of the sled. By holding the two poles, she could pull them apart and the fabric stretched apart as wide as she needed. It took her some experimentation to keep the sides apart and then get it to hover. She used an old trick she’d learned from her grandfather’s home care nurse to move the man. By bending the knee closest to her, she could push him over. His hip followed, making it easier for her to lift and roll the shoulder.
Positioning the sled under his head and torso, she pulled the first pole while turning the knob to hold it open. It only took her a few moments to get the hang of how it worked.
“Okay, so far so good. You still sleeping there, Karlo? Figures, just like a man, pass out and leave all the work to the woman.”
His feet were going to drag on the ground, she decided, but that couldn’t be helped. She was pleasantly surprised when she activated the sled by pressing the button on the end of the second pole; it lifted high enough so his feet were dangling about three inches above the ground. It also automatically tilted slightly so he wouldn’t fall off. Holding on to one of the poles with one hand, she put his duffle on his stomach and was happy to see the slide adjust again. Then she picked up the shotgun. Whistling for Rusty to come along, she started pulling the sled around to the large hole in the wall.