Ajax (Olympia Alien Mail Order Brides Book 3)

by K. Cantrell

  He shakes his head. Not surprising. I think I can teach him well enough to pass the driver’s test, which I guess he can’t take until after he gets his green card. Maybe I should check though. Like that’s the most important thing to worry about right now.

  Ajax trails me to the car and as soon as he processes which one is mine, he opens my door for me. I slide into the driver’s seat, mystified, and watch him circle the car to jump into his own seat. Where did he learn about flowers and carrying heavy stuff for women and opening car doors?

  “You seem to know a lot about Earth customs,” I say casually and put the car into reverse. “You know, for someone who just got here. You just got here, right?”

  Suspicious much? Besides, if he’s got something to hide, odds are good I’m not going to get it out of him with my not-slick line of questioning.

  And as expected, he nods eagerly. “Half cycle.”

  I have no idea what that means. “Cycle of what?”

  “Moon.”

  Oh. Half of the moon’s cycle is like, what? Two weeks? I have never tried to measure time by the moon’s cycle, but in a way, it’s an elegant system—if you spend a lot of time looking at the sky, which I’m guessing he does.

  That hits me hard, envisioning him staring at the stars where he came from. It sounds lonely and has a forlorn feel to it that twists my heart. Again. He has to stop doing that. “Do you miss home?”

  At this, he scowls and it’s the first time I can remember him conveying a negative emotion. “No. Bad place.”

  Fair enough. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here, according to Ares. At least we’re not doing horrible in the communication department. It just takes a little effort and some extra clarifying questions.

  With that in mind, Ajax and I spend the remainder of the car ride in a halting discussion about what his bodyguard duties will look like. We agree that the main concern is my ex showing up at my home and that Ajax living there is the best scenario to handle that possibility. He informs me that I should never answer the door without him standing right next to me, and I nod because this is about keeping me safe. A few more details later, and we’ve covered the basics.

  I’m feeling pretty okay with this setup by this point.

  At home, I usher him into the apartment I rented on the sly from Seattle. That alone makes it awesome, but I like it because it’s mine and has plenty of space so I don’t feel crowded.

  Or rather that was the case. With Ajax in it, the walls shrink down and he gobbles up all of the extra oxygen in the room. My skin prickles and I can’t figure out where to stand. The living room opens to the kitchen, but putting the small island where I chop vegetables between us seems a bit extreme when the person I’m so very aware of is my husband.

  At loose ends, I stand near the coat closet and gesture to the room at large. “This is it. I don’t have a guest room, but I rarely have company so you can sleep on the couch until we can figure out something better.”

  Ajax nods and lowers himself gingerly to one of the cushions and even I can see that he’s worried about sitting on it, as if he might break the frame into a million pieces. Is being this careful a normal day for him? I think about the bent fork and assume it probably is.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him and decide that I’m going to have to get used to his presence somehow, so I cross to the couch and settle against the arm at the other end. “You’re going to be living here. You might as well get comfortable. If you break something, I can replace it. I have a great insurance agent.”

  The joke falls flat, probably because he doesn’t even know what insurance is, let alone that I sell it. There’s little point in explaining that I’m my own insurance agent so I scout around for another subject that might put him at ease. He’s killing me with a tightly contained vibe laced with caution. Maybe he’s a little unsure too and that’s not okay. I hate being scared all the time and I don’t want him to feel that way.

  “It must be hard to come to a new place,” I offer as a conversation opener. “Especially when you don’t know the language or what’s going to happen to you.”

  When I came to Olympia to start over, at least I had been here before. He only has Ares and I guess he knows Penelope’s husband too. I should have them all over to watch a movie or something. Not only would he have some familiar people around, it would be good for me to socialize like a normal person. It’s been a long time since I’ve hosted a party.

  I vow to schedule that as soon as possible.

  Ajax nods but doesn’t comment.

  “You’re going to have to learn English sometime,” I tell him wryly. “The sooner the better.”

  Charmaine said that’s one of the first things to address in Ajax’s acclimation because their speech is already so different from Earth accents. I have to admit that’s not the reason I mentioned it. It should have been. But I want to be able to talk to him. It’s frustrating to have someone suddenly become a companion whom you know nothing about.

  I try again. “What do you like about Earth so far?”

  “Brooklyn,” he rumbles.

  I glance at him expectantly but he doesn’t continue. “I’m listening.”

  “Like Brooklyn.”

  Oh, man. His dark eyes spear mine and I’m drowning in them all at once. That’s a heck of a thing to throw down. “I’m the only thing you like about Earth so far?”

  He shakes his head. “Not only. Best.”

  That doesn’t do a lot to stop the gushy stuff going on in my chest. I’m the best thing about Earth. The guy shows up from outer space and has an entire planet of stuff to experience and learn about and absorb. Yet he’s here with me in Olympia, Washington as if I’m the greatest tourist attraction around.

  “You save…me,” he clarifies and that melts whatever inside of me was still solid after the last round of revelations.

  “I did,” I assure him because I get that above everything else. Safety is a huge thing for me too and what a kick that I’m the one who gets to provide that for him. It’s poetic or something.

  “You’re saving me too,” I admit. “I haven’t felt safe in a long time.”

  He smiles and I realize I’m the most relaxed I’ve been in a long time too. I like being able to confide in him. He’s not judgmental, preachy or pushy. I need that.

  We’re crossing a bridge or at least opening a gate to one. The fledgling threads of connection fuse together between us and I like it more than I should. But this is the whole reason I married the guy—because there are no expectations of this relationship turning into anything more than it is.

  But not having expectations doesn’t mean that I can’t be open to something unexpected happening.

  Maybe we’ll end up friends. I reach out and cover his splayed hand in a small show of affection. Why? I don’t know. Probably I’m still wondering what he feels like and the warmth of his skin surprises me.

  I only have a second to register it though before he yanks his hand from beneath mine.

  “No touch,” he says hoarsely.

  Yeah, okay. I did say that. But his strong reaction bothers me. “I meant no touching of an uh, intimate nature. We’re living together. It’s expected that we’ll actually brush against each other on occasion. Maybe that we’ll even get to the point where we hug each other.”

  He shakes his head, his dark gaze unfathomable. “No touch. No break Brooklyn.”

  I blink. That’s an unexpected pronouncement. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that he might not be able to control his ability to bend me in half like the fork. If that’s what’s going on here, it should have been the first thing I thought of, but that’s a testament to how it’s been between us from the first. I have never felt threatened, not once, and I don’t even think about his super strength.

  I think I’ve just been introduced to the reason why I don’t sense any threat. He’s hesitant to touch me, which is so much the opposite of Malcolm I can’t process it. And there’s so much under the su
rface of this admission, I have to explore it.

  “Surely it’s okay if I touch you though?” I venture to ask because really, that’s two different things.

  “No. Too much.” His dark eyes seek mine again and hold and I’m swamped with awareness that grows with each passing second. It’s laced with frustration and not all of it is his.

  None of this makes any sense. I hate not being able to communicate with my own husband. I want to know why it’s too much, what he’s feeling, why I can’t hug him if I get an urge to. Is he aware of the spark between us and does it mean the same thing on his planet? Do I want it to?

  Okay, not all of the questions are for him and even I don’t know how to explain my own confusion. What makes me think he knows what’s going on in his head well enough to articulate it in any language?

  Never did I think that I’d marry an alien and bemoan the fact that we can’t touch each other.

  “We need to get you acclimated to Earth a whole lot faster than this,” I mutter and dive in to the most important thing that I can and should control. “Let me show you around and we can start by figuring out how to live together.”

  Five

  As we settle into married life together, Ajax puts considerable effort toward learning English and by the end of the first week, he’s mastered simple phrases. Not enough to tell me the contents of his heart, but I have decided it’s better if we don’t talk about stuff outside of the utilitarian.

  After all, this is possibly temporary anyway. If and when Malcolm comes sniffing around, he’ll get to have a conversation with my husband that will reset his thinking about whether he should poke a toe over the Olympia city limit line again. The restraining order will only do me good once Malcolm breaks it, but at that point, he’d be close enough to me that he could and probably would do something irreversible. Ajax is my insurance policy against that.

  Plus, he’s pretty to look at and opens pickle jars without breaking a sweat. This is a great side benefit to having a live-in bodyguard. I wish I could say that’s enough. It should be enough. It doesn’t seem to be, for either of us.

  Sometimes I catch Ajax watching me when he thinks I’m not paying attention, usually when I’m working. I sense that he’s not entirely happy with the status quo either. There’s something vibrating between us just under the surface and I want to ask him if he feels it too. If he wants to explore it like I do.

  But that would require…more. Something that neither of us seem to know how to get, which makes it all the more difficult that we’re around each other all day since I work from home. Whatever is going on puts us in a holding pattern until Penelope calls and asks if we’d like to get together with her and her husband and Clem and Ares on Friday. It’s a welcome lifeline, one I should have initiated for my alien instead of waiting around for someone else to do the heavy lifting.

  I don’t even ask Ajax. I’m sure he’ll want to hang out with his friends as much as I want to see mine. I tell him that we’re going to a party on Friday and he rewards me with one of his smiles, which I definitely haven’t seen enough of lately.

  Friday can’t get here fast enough, which makes the week drag. Every night, I lay in my bed and strain to catch the sound of Ajax breathing from the living room. Sometimes I think I can hear him, but it doesn’t ease the loneliness that plagues me.

  I have a perfectly functional husband living in my house and I barely speak to him. He’s laid down the law that we’re going to be virtual strangers. By necessity, I realize, and it’s comforting in a way. But none of that makes it any easier to be alone.

  Penelope lives on the second floor of a Victorian house near the water. The hair salon she owns takes up the whole lower floor. One nice thing about Olympia is that it never takes more than ten or fifteen minutes to get anywhere in the city. On Friday, I drive to her house and Ajax and I take the outside stairs to her front door. Within seconds, I’m engulfed in a group of laughing women and stoic males who tower over us.

  As I move into Penelope’s living room, Ajax follows me, a hulking, reassuring presence under most circumstances. I resist the urge to tell him to go play with his friends.

  “I’m fine,” I murmur. “You don’t have to be my bodyguard tonight. Relax.”

  “Keep Brooklyn safe,” he says as if I’ve forgotten he has a job, which is no less than I expect.

  “You do. You are. But you don’t have to be two feet from me all night to make that happen.” In fact, I would prefer that he not stick to me like glue. Perhaps if he spends some time in the company of his own people, it will remove the tension from between us. “Go on. There are two other Torvians to back you up if anything threatens me.”

  Ajax eyes Ares and Penelope’s husband, Eros, thoughtfully and drifts off to engage in a rumbly conversation that gets all three men—aliens—animated.

  “If only they were talking about sports,” Clem says wryly. “But I have a feeling they’re complaining about Earth food.”

  “What’s wrong with Earth food?” I ask with genuine curiosity, though these are the things I yearn for Ajax to tell me. Hearing it secondhand isn’t the same, and Clem’s making a huge assumption that whatever opinions one Torvian holds about Earth transfers to the others.

  “Eros says it’s bland,” Penelope offers. “He likes Indian food better than most of what I cook, but he can’t put enough red chili sauce on it to make it taste like anything. According to him, that is.”

  Clem nods. “Torvis is a lot like Earth but bigger and bolder.”

  That makes sense given the males it produces. “Do they like everything bigger and bolder then?”

  With a snicker, Clem levels a hand at Penelope’s expanding waistline. “Exhibit A. I think that speaks for itself. Since I don’t want to end up like that, I’m constantly having to rein Ares in.”

  I blush as Penelope laughs. “Yes, Eros has super sperm all right. He was pretty hands-on right off the bat too.”

  “That’s, um, really not what I meant.”

  But if Eros and Ares are both big and bold in the romance department, what’s wrong with my alien? I mean, I know he’s afraid of breaking me, but we can still talk. Have fun together. I’m starting to wonder if Ajax is just not attracted to me. Which is a good thing! I mean, I don’t want him to be hands on, or at least not really. It would be nice if I didn’t feel like we were tiptoeing around each other though. And maybe if I didn’t have to constantly stay on guard so I don’t lay a stray hand on his shoulder.

  Ugh, what is wrong with me? I like that our relationship is more professional. I do not like that I have to keep reminding myself of that.

  Penelope excuses herself to pass out drinks and I’m at loose ends, so I follow her intending to ask her if I can help. The three large Torvians are between me and the kitchen and while Penelope threads right through the middle of them as if it’s no big thing, I have to skirt the group so I don’t I accidentally brush up against Ajax. Which is dumb and maybe a little petty because I’m sure he didn’t mean it was too much for him if I’m forced to squeeze past him in tight quarters.

  Regardless, I’m trying to follow the rules we’ve set out. No touching.

  Ajax watches me as I pass by with at least six inches to spare. Except there’s this area rug almost hidden beneath the edge of Penelope’s couch, and because I’m watching him from the corner of my eye and not paying attention to where I’m going, I trip over it. Before I even register falling, Ajax’s hand shoots out to catch me. His grip bites into my arm and pain knifes through me to the bone.

  I might have cried out, but blackness swims through my vision and I’m not sure. All I know is that my arm hurts. I can’t move it or the pain increases ten-fold. A dull roar bleeds through my consciousness and I think I must have vertigo because the room goes sideways, but then I feel something soft with a lot of give under my cheek. A pillow. Somehow I’m lying down on the couch.

  The nicest sense of calm floats through me. Then there’s warmth for an eternity. I
float along in a lazy river the temperature of bath water and it’s lovely. The pain fades until it vanishes completely.

  I blink as my vision clears. Ares is kneeling by my side, his hands wrapped around my arm. He lets go and tilts my chin with his thumb to angle my head, his gaze evaluating me with a continual sweep.

  “You are still in pain?” he asks brusquely.

  “Not at all.” I test moving my arm, which works fine, and note five worried faces circling me on the back side of the couch. “What happened?”

  “You started to fall and Ajax caught you,” Ares says. “Unfortunately, he accidentally broke a bone in your arm.”

  Oh, my God.

  My gaze flits to Ajax and he immediately looks away, but not before I see an enormous amount of guilt etched into his expression. I’d like to say this is my first foray into domestic violence but it’s not. I’d also like to say it’s the first time I’ve steered clear of the emergency room after being hurt, but again…not my first rodeo. It is, however, the first time I’ve seen evidence of remorse in the person who hurt me.

  “Wait. He broke my arm?” My voice squeaks a little as I sit up. “But it doesn’t hurt anymore. It couldn’t possibly be broken.”

  “Ares could see that it was broken when he touched you,” Clem explains without explaining anything at all and then zips her lips so fast she catches a hank of blond hair in her mouth that she has to spit out.

  “Oh, of course. Penelope has an X-ray machine hiding under her couch?” I joke because obviously there is supposed to be something humorous about this situation, though I’m having trouble seeing it.

  Clem and Ares glance at each other, their expressions laden with meaning. Ares clears his throat and says, “I have a genetic deformity that gives me the power to heal. It is fortunate that I was in the proximity when you were hurt.”

  Ajax flinches and without a lot of fanfare, he backs out of the room. The front door opens and closes with a quiet click. I guess he decided to leave without me, though I have no clue where he plans to go since I drove.