Georgia felt the need to reward herself with another cup of sugary tea and possibly more bacon, when Fiona grabbed her by the arm, her nails digging through the sweater. “What was that? You think you can take my place?”
“It’s called customer service.” Bitch. Georgia yanked her arm away. “And don’t touch me.”
“I didn’t need your help and you gave away half our fees.”
“Those guests were about two seconds away from not paying a cent, so you’re welcome.”
Fiona huffed. “No one asked for you to be here.”
“Quil did.” The reply came out quicker than her decaffeinated brain worked.
Fiona cast a critical eye over her appearance, sweeping from head to foot and back again, sizing up the competition.
Right. Like Georgia wanted that piece of shit Quil.
Ugh. That attitude would not help her now.
She took a deep breath and reminded herself that only yesterday, Fiona’s world was rocked just as hard as hers. “I know we’re both upset. Yesterday we got a shock, but let’s remember that we’re not the enemy. Quil—”
“Don’t you dare say anything nasty about my honey bear.”
Not my enemy, not my enemy. Not my friend, but not my enemy.
Georgia fought the urge to sneer but continued in a measured, even voice. “He signed a contract to marry me and then turned around and married you. He played us.” Quil deserved their anger, not each other.
“What seems to be the matter, females?”
Speak of the devil.
Georgia’s back stiffened at Quil’s voice. She had all night to think of what to say to him, but her mind went blank.
He went to Fiona and pressed a kiss on the top of her blonde head and Fiona giggled, then shot Georgia a sharp look.
“He’s no prize, so you can stop acting like I’m trying to steal him,” she said.
“Well, what else am I supposed to think when another woman shows up on my door, claiming to be his first wife?”
“We’d have to be divorced to be his first—” She stopped herself, refusing to be drawn into dramatics. “We shouldn’t be fighting each other. We should be united against him.”
Both their eyes turned to Quil, with enough awareness to look uncomfortable. Then he tilted his head to the side and gave a grin full of mirth. His posture changed and she couldn’t say how, but he radiated confidence and good humor. The ears with little tufts of hair at the tip completed the image of a perfect little scamp.
Georgia knew that as soon as he opened his mouth, he’d spew such utter bullshit, and she’d want to believe him, because this man knew how to manipulate people.
“Stop,” she said, holding up a hand. “I’m not interested in whatever you have to say.”
“If you weren’t interested, you’d walk away.”
Ugh. And where did he propose she go? With what money?
Never mind. She wasn’t going to let him distract her.
“I’m disappointed, Mr. Achaval,” she said. “Six months ago, we signed a contract. It was no easy thing for me to do, to leave my planet, my friend, and everything familiar. I hope you appreciate that, but it’s been six months. Minds change. Circumstances change. You could have, at any point in the last six months, told me that you had doubts or wanted out.” She kept her voice even, an impressive feat considering how her heart raced and she wanted to grab his adorable little tufted ear and snatch it off his head. “Six months I’ve been writing you, and you used to write me back.”
Fiona gasped. “Boo! You never.”
“Did you get tired of waiting? Bored? Meet someone?” She tossed Fiona a glance. “The decent thing would have been to tell me. I would have been upset, yes, and disappointed, but I’d get over myself. Instead, you stopped all communication. Do you know I was actually worried about you? I thought you were dead.” She pressed her index fingers to the corners of her eyes, horrified to find them wet. He didn’t deserve her tears. “Or injured or something prevented you from replying. I honestly thought I was a widow. I never imagined that you’d abandoned me before you even had a chance to meet me.”
Fuck. Her fingers came away wet and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Sorry,” she muttered. All her emotions threatened to bubble over, a toxic mixture of self-pity and heartbreak. People left her. That’s what happened to her. Her father. Her mother. Kevin. And now this clown. Anger was so much easier to process than this misery.
“I want to stay logical to get through this, but your suggestion that I hook up with your brother was incredibly hurtful. I’m not a…” she searched for the correct word but settled with, “a party favor for you to pass around. I don’t think I like you very much and I think we need to speak with a lawyer.”
The little-boy-mischief-maker facade vanished and for a moment, Quil was just Quil, vulnerable and uncertain. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“How long did you wait before you replaced me?” She wanted to ask why Fiona, what drew him to her, and how he could so easily forget the commitment he made to Georgia, but those questions remained unspoken.
“Three months.”
Right around when his messages stopped coming.
A throat cleared behind them. Talen stood at the foot of the stairs. From his expression, he had clearly heard everything. Just as well. Georgia wasn’t in the mood to repeat herself.
He pointed toward the kitchen. “Tea. Food. Then we read this blasted contract.”
* * *
Talen
* * *
“I’m not an expert in contracts, and this was written in Terran first, then translated,” Talen said. He highlighted a passage in the contract. T. Achaval. “But the contract used the Terran spelling of Quil’s name. How Quil could have signed something so sloppily written, I’ll never know,” he said.
Quil grumbled in protest. “I don’t read Terran.”
“It’s in English,” Georgia said. “And why does that matter?”
“Because in the Tal language, Tranquility and Talen are nothing alike. They use entirely different letters.” He leveled his gaze on Quil. “Which means this liar here knew enough English to find a loophole.”
Found out, Quil shrugged. “The contract is not specific. It says ‘T. Achaval,’ which could be you or me. Really, the outrage shouldn’t be why I exploited a loophole but who put the loophole there in the first place. Celestial Mates has a lot to answer for, if you ask me.”
Talen cuffed Quil behind the ear. He squawked in protest and rubbed the side of his head.
Bright dished out crispy pieces of smoked bacon and toast, moving down the table one by one. When she reached Quil, she passed him by, sniffing loudly.
“But I’m hungry,” he complained.
“Make your own. I only cook for good kits, not spoiled brats,” she said coolly. When she finished topping off mugs of tea and ignoring Quil’s groans of hunger, she prepared a cart for the dining room. Quil jumped up to help, opening the door and pushing the breakfast-laden cart.
“We need a lawyer to get this mess annulled,” Georgia said. Dark circles hung under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t rested in days.
He admired the sure way she handled the three disgruntled guests. He made a note to talk with Charl about starting work later when they had guests in the house. More than the easy way she defused the tense situation, he enjoyed watching her lay into Quil. His brother deserved every word, but she had never been overly harsh. Her hands had trembled as she spoke, betraying her true rage, but she never resorted to name-calling. This female intrigued him.
“I agree. We need a lawyer. I’ll make some calls,” he said. The nearest town, Drac, was large enough to offer most basic services. The nearby mines powered the economy and the population steadily grew.
“Are you done? I’m bored, honey bear.” Fiona scooted her chair closer to Quil.
Quil looked toward Talen before answering. “I have to go into town with Talen and Georgia.”
<
br /> “Drac is boring too. There’s nothing to do there.” Fiona rolled her eyes. “Let’s go to the city, just you and me. We haven’t had any time together.” She not-so-subtly touched Quil’s tail at the base. He jolted upright.
Talen focused on his tablet, pulling up contact information for lawyers in Drac. He did not need to see his brother get his tail pulled.
“I must attend this meeting—”
Fiona brushed the tip of Quil’s tail against her lips and he suddenly lost the ability to speak.
“Soon. I will book us something as soon as possible,” Quil said, taking Fiona’s hand and herding her out of the room.
“Well, that was gross,” Georgia said caustically.
Talen’s laugh caught him by surprise. “And I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“Yeah, well, that and five dollars will buy me a drink.”
Chapter 6
Talen
Talen,
Can you pick up an order for me from the general store while you’re in town today? And you should get some proper winter gear for the female. I don’t know what the weather is like on Earth but I’m amazed humans have survived this long. They don’t seem to have any common sense when it comes to snow.
-Bright
* * *
Talen found a lawyer with an open appointment shortly before noon. Fortunately, the meeting was brief but, unfortunately, it did nothing to resolve the tension sitting heavily in his gut and he understood exactly why that lawyer had an open schedule.
Quil, Georgia, and himself had crowded around the lawyer’s desk. Fiona briefly protested at not being involved, worried Quil would run off with another woman. Honestly, given his track record, she had every reason to worry. She waited in the lobby, turning up the volume on a talk show playing on the view screen.
The lawyer read over the contract. “I’m afraid I’m not qualified to have an opinion on a Terran legal document.”
“It is a simple matter. That name is not specific. It needs to be annulled,” Talen said.
“But it is signed by both parties.” The lawyer, a Corravian male, sat back in his chair.
“So, I’m married to Quil?” Georgia asked.
“Like the good male said, the name is not specific.”
“What does that even mean?” she muttered.
“I’m afraid I’m not qualified to have an opinion,” the lawyer said smoothly.
Talen despised lawyers.
Georgia twisted her fingers into the ends of her hair. “Basically, I’m fucked, and no one even bought me dinner first.”
His ears flicked forward. He knew she spoke in frustration and was not literal, but he felt the need to clarify, “No one has fucked the human female.”
“Not true. Quil screwed me over pretty hard yesterday.” Her gaze caught his. The irritation was evident, but he saw nothing of the tired defeat he witnessed last night. This female had fire. Had they met in any other circumstances, he would be drawn to her.
“If the union has been consummated—”
“No one has fucked anyone,” Talen snapped at the lawyer.
“That was a figure of speech. A human idiom. My apologies,” Georgia said. “Can you at least advise me on my options? The man who signed this contract married another woman, using his full legal name.”
Quil sat calmly, as if he and his actions were not being discussed.
“You could contest the second marriage, possibly have it dissolved,” the lawyer said.
She waved her hand dismissively. “I have no desire to be married to Quil after what he did. I want to be not married. How can we make that happen?”
“Just for my own clarification, you are Tranquility Achaval,” the lawyer said, facing Talen.
“No. I am Quil. That’s my brother,” Quil said, finally involving himself in the conversation.
“You want to marry the brother instead of Quil?” the lawyer asked Georgia.
“I don’t want to be married to anyone. I want this to go away,” she said.
“Not being married will jeopardize your citizenship application and you’ll have to contact a lawyer on Earth. I’m not—”
“Qualified to have an opinion, yeah. I heard,” she followed. “What can we do about the citizenship application?”
“Well, immigration to Corra is very generous. Most aliens are sponsored for citizenship through their employers or marriage to a Corravian citizen. Are you a citizen?” He directed the question to Talen.
“Um, yes.” Purchasing property was the fastest way to get citizenship and Quil and Talen put both their names on the deed. Corra was a planet rich in natural resources but poor in its number of inhabitants. The planet’s local population had never recovered after an environmental disaster two generations ago and the government did everything to attract immigrants. When Talmar fell into civil war, a significant amount of people fled to Corra.
“If you marry Ms. Phillips, her citizenship can no longer be challenged,” the lawyer said.
“I don’t—” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. It was curiously flat, not as wide as his own nose. How could she breathe with that tiny thing? “How about a tourist visa? Or something short-term?”
“An employer can sponsor you.”
“I don’t have a job at the moment,” she said.
“I suggest you find one. Corra is ripe with opportunity for the enterprising soul,” he said, sounding just like a tourist brochure.
“Yeah, pass. I’m not sure I want to stay.” Another rub to the bridge of her nose. “Are you qualified to send a strongly worded letter to the matchmaking agency?”
With a strongly worded letter sent, Quil and Fiona departed for a getaway to the nearest city, and Talen took her to a Talmar café for lunch. “After we eat, Bright gave me a list for the general store. Do you need anything?”
She nodded. “A few things, yeah. What’s good here?”
“Everything is good here. Have you had Tal food before?” The owner was a remarkable chef but also had a notoriously prickly disposition. Talen had once found a sauce to be too salty, said as much, and she tossed him out of the café on his ear.
“Yes, on Earth. It was probably Terranized.” She scrunched up her nose, which he found endearing. “Earthified? Not authentic is what I’m trying to say.” She opened the menu. “This is going to sound ignorant, but are there foods a human should avoid?”
“Other than small variations in taste receptors, most sentient lifeforms are able to consume the same food without ill effect,” he said, pulling the clinical passage from a corner of his memory. The Navy required certain education modules of all enlisted sailors. Apparently, more of it stuck than he realized.
“I see someone took Comparative Biology.”
“Alien Nookie 101,” he confirmed, using the sailor’s slang name for the course.
She laughed and for a moment, unhindered glee transformed her. Yesterday, she had appeared worn and tired. In the morning, lack of sleep and stress hung about her. Nothing about her appearance had struck him as particularly attractive until that moment of laughter when she became riveting. Her eyes flashed green and he wanted to hear more of the melodious sound.
Georgia selected a grilled poultry dish served over a bed of rice. He ordered the same, only spicy, with a basket of warm bread and two sweet yogurt-based drinks. The sweetness helped with the heat, if Georgia found the dish too spicy. When their meals arrived, the trivial conversation went to the wayside. She took a cautious first bite and nodded, taking the next bite with relish, which pleased him.
“What’s yours like? Is it hot?”
He shook his head, a gesture he had seen many humans use. “You would not like it. Too spicy.”
“You don’t know what I like,” she said, spearing a piece of meat on her fork. She popped it into her mouth before he could protest. “It’s not so bad. A little warm.” Then her eyes went wide, and she frantically reached for the drink.
He huffed with amusement. The
delicate column of her throat as she took a long swallow caught his attention, causing him to avert his eyes. His admiration was inappropriate and unwanted.
“A little spicy,” she admitted.
He pushed the breadbasket toward her. “Bread helps as well. What are your plans? Will you return to Earth?”
“With what money?” She tore off a piece of bread, consuming it bit by bit. “I just spent the last six months traveling. I really can’t stomach the idea of more time on a ship. Can you imagine spending an entire year of your life like that?”
“I can and have.” She gave him a questioning look. “I served in the IU Navy, then ran cargo until Quil got the estate,” he explained.
“I thought you might be military,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t have the money for a ticket home.”
“Can your family assist?”
“No family. My mom passed away a long time ago and my dad ditched us.”
“That sounds lonely. My family is small, but they mean everything to me,” he said with sincerity. “What are your plans?”
“Find a job, earn enough money to get off-planet. I have a friend who’s moving to a colony in a few months. I’ll join her there.” She paused and then asked, “Is it okay to stay for a few days? I know what you said this morning, but—”
“The offer stands.” It’d be poor manners to turn her out and she needed a warm place to stay while she searched for employment. He scratched behind an ear, taken with a notion. “Work for me.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t want your pity.”
“Hear me out. The way you handled those guests this morning was perfect. I need someone who can manage visitors, because I’m busy with repairs and renovations. Honestly, I’ve needed to hire a house manager for some time. I can give you room and board and fair wage.”
The more he spoke, the more his need for Georgia to manage the bed and breakfast side of the house became obvious. Quil was consumed by his plants and Fiona proved useless for making guests feel welcome or managing the lodgings. He and Charl spent all their time restoring and maintaining the estate. Bright spent her time cooking for the family and guests.
Pulled by the Tail: Celestial Mates Page 8