by H. E. Trent
She’d held his hand without asking why he’d wanted her to. She’d been angry to come home and find he wasn’t in bed—a bed she owned. She’d looked at him as if he were worthy to meet her gaze when she spoke to him.
She wasn’t a woman incapable of loving men like them. They simply needed to see if she was the right woman for them.
Courtney paused in the doorway and tucked her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants.
Her attire was entirely unfeminine, though likely appropriate for her job. Jekhan females didn’t generally show much skin. They favored lightweight dresses that covered them from neck to ankles, usually made of a stretchy material that allowed for easy access for nursing. There were so few of them in comparison to men in the population that they didn’t have to work particularly hard at attracting attention. They kept their bodies covered not because they were overly conservative, but because their fabrics protected their too-sensitive skin from sunburn. Even with all that fabric, discerning a woman’s shape was easy enough. Their clothing didn’t conceal so much as cover.
Courtney’s clothing managed to do both.
What I wouldn’t give to see her in a Jekhan dress with her hair loose around her shoulders…
She was an artist’s dream, and given the semi-erect state of his cock every time she came near, an ill man’s nightmare. He’d need release soon, even if coming would hurt.
“I was thinking about dinner.” Her words dissolved his thoughts of hidden curves and feminine swells. “I ordered some groceries a couple of days ago and I’m an okay cook. If you’re okay with sampling my experiments, I could whip something up for you.”
He looked at Trig, who was pretending to be very busy folding the damp towels.
So the decision’s on me, is it pretty boy? So be it. Murk picked up and pointed to the tablet.
Brow furrowed, she walked over and sat beside him. “Probably not a good thing if an offer of dinner is met with a written response. I’m not going to poison you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He didn’t think she would. If she wanted to do away with them, she had means of doing it much more efficiently. “Your offer was unexpected. We would be most grateful to sample any treat you give us.”
“I come from a big family. On both sides, actually, but the McGarrys in particular are used to feeding people. We somehow became that house in neighborhood where people knew to go if they were hungry. We didn’t always have much, but my folks were always good at making what we did have stretch. Being here and having a full fridge is something of a luxury.”
So she’s a woman unused to excess. Pondering, Murk rubbed his chin. That set her apart from the majority of the settlers he’d had the misfortune to encounter. They’d all behaved as if they were owed something simply for being alive, and if what they wanted wasn’t given freely, they’d just take it.
Why did she come here?
“Um. I don’t want to feed you anything that’s going to cause you pain,” she said, glancing at Trig, who’d finished with the towels and moved on to folding Murk’s dirty shirt.
Murk wished Trig would try to be charming the way he’d promised. She wouldn’t be able to resist his farm boy allure. Murk certainly hadn’t been able to.
Sighing, he wrote, “We generally avoid your wheat, walnuts, peanuts and a few other things, but I don’t believe the others don’t appear in the vast majority of your dishes.”
“Peanut butter pancakes are probably off the menu.”
Definitely. His diaphragm spasmed, and air caught in his lungs. He couldn’t push the laugh past his tense vocal cords.
She looked down at the pad, but he tipped her chin up so she’d look at him.
“What?”
Nothing. He just wanted to look at her.
From across a room, a person could mistake her for much younger—a woman of around twenty who hadn’t been aged by the world yet. Next to him, he could see the stress of her years in her face. The wrinkles that crinkled at the corners of her blue eyes when she squinted. The hollows of her cheeks that said she’d left her years of soft roundness behind. The singular gray swath that ran from temple to ponytail.
Not a little girl, but nowhere near dead.
“Murki, what?”
He dragged his thumb across her soft lips and picked up the pad’s stylus. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight in Earth years.” She narrowed her eyes. “I guess I’m a bit younger in your years. What, twenty-five? Still an old maid.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s an ancient joke. Even a hundred years ago, women who didn’t get married by the time they were twenty-two were considered to be defective goods. Life expectancy was shorter back then, though. They needed to make the most of those childbearing years. On average, the typical Terran woman—at least Western ones—average thirty-three when they get married.”
Huh. Marriage.
A legal contract. There was no true equivalent on Jekh. Their bonds were all biological and emotional. They didn’t need to sign their names on official documents to make them official, and most wives didn’t stick around long enough to make the paperwork worth the trouble, anyway. Given the luxury of choice, they often strayed, and men tended to expect their wives to leave.
He wrote, “What’s the typical life expectancy of your kind?”
She clucked her tongue and rolled her gaze to the ceiling. “Getting to a hundred and ten isn’t difficult nowadays, assuming you don’t get…shot in the back at seventy.”
The way her voice got quieter at the end hinted that she wasn’t being hypothetical.
Someone she knew? He chafed her left side, skimming over her ribs, and she looked at him curiously. “How old are you, Murk?”
He huffed and scribbled the number on the pad.
She furrowed her brow. “What is that in Earth years? Thirty-five, thirty-six?”
He made a waffling hand motion. The exact math wasn’t important. He wrote, “Even living this long should be counted as a miracle.”
Trig reached in and took the tablet from him. He pressed it against his chest and crossed his arms over it. “Whatever you’d wish to cook, we will graciously eat,” he said to Courtney, but his cold gaze was on Murk.
Lighten up, pretty boy.
“Okay. I’ll think of something.” Courtney stood, and Murk grabbed her hand to pull her back.
Don’t go.
“I’ll be back,” she said softly. She didn’t question him. Didn’t sneer at his neediness. Just put her hand over his and rubbed the back. “Thirty minutes, okay?”
He nodded and, reluctantly, let go.
She left, and Trig got in front of him. He handed the tablet back, so Murk wrote, “I never took you for the jealous type.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Then you’re just being an asshole. That’s better?”
“Under the circumstances—”
Murk slapped Trig’s arm with the tablet and poked his chest. He wrote, “No. I understand you’re used to people being uncivil, but open your eyes and see kindness on occasion.”
Trig shook his head and knelt at Murk’s feet, resting his head on Murk’s thighs.
Murk immediately started unwinding Trig’s hair and smoothed his hands over the fine strands at his temples. He’d always envied Trig’s darker locks. The way they shone in the sun reminded him of the sheen of a certain sweet fruit that grew in the mountains. Murk hadn’t seen the sun in a very long time, though.
“It’s hard for me,” Trig said, pressing his hand up the inside of Murk’s thigh beneath the towel.
Murk drew in a sharp breath, but Trig kept his fingers blessedly clear of his sac. He couldn’t handle being touched yet. A caress wouldn’t hurt at first, but he’d want relief, and the relief would hurt more than the lack of it.
“I’ve only ever been with you. I don’t…know how to be with anyone else.”
Murk swirled his fingertip around Trig’s earlobe. He�
��d always regretted that there hadn’t been others for Trig. Trig was only a couple of years younger than Murk, but growing up, he’d been far less interested in pursuing the pleasures of the fairer sex. He’d always been too busy tooling around in Murk’s father’s workshop or sitting in the empty greenhouse, looking wistfully at pallets of uncultivated dirt. He’d been too busy being busy to seek out affection. And at thirty-four, he didn’t know how.
He’ll just have to learn.
CHAPTER TEN
Trig had been somewhat skeptical when Courtney carried in a tray bearing two massive bowls filled to their brims with leafy greens. But, there’d been actual food inside. Not just nibbles.
She knelt at the bedside and unrolled Murk’s napkin. “I spun my wheels for a while in the kitchen,” she said. “Most of the meals I eat regularly are high in carbs of the wheat sort. I guess I didn’t realize how dependent on that grain I am to make a filling meal. Salad seemed a good option.”
The dish may have technically been a salad, but within the wilted greens was what had to be an entire grilled chicken breast along with hardboiled eggs and various vegetables Trig didn’t recognize, but was too hungry to care if he did.
Murk, though, nudged her shoulder and pointed to some item with his fork.
“Zucchini. Squashes are super expensive here because they can only grow them in greenhouses. Soil pH is awful for a lot of Terran plants. I don’t see why they don’t just cultivate the native plants that actually thrive.”
“Well, that would make too much sense,” Trig said through a mouth full of food.
Murk pointed to another item.
“Red onion. It’s got a strong flavor, I know. If you don’t like them, I won’t use them again.”
Murk waved a dismissive hand and dug into his food. He’d always had an adventurous palate. A bit of onion wouldn’t deter him. They had a kind of onion on their planet. Their version was greener, less pungent, and had a salty bite. Trig had always enjoyed growing them because he liked watching the shoots change colors. Purple to blue to the palest green as they matured. He missed growing things.
Murk nudged him with his thigh, then with his elbow.
“Oh.” Trig cleared his throat. “We…haven’t had a balanced meal since the removal. So, thank you.”
Her forehead furrowed. “The removal?”
How does she not know these things? Conquerors should know their own history.
He grunted in frustration. “Well, there’s no official name for the event. After the last census, the Jekhans in Buinet were encouraged to relocate to Zone Seven.”
“And by encouraged, you mean—”
“That we weren’t given a choice.”
“But, you could leave Buinet, couldn’t you?”
He scoffed and speared a seedy, light-green disc with his fork. “There’s always the option of leaving, but unlike under the Jekhan government, the rural areas are now unregulated. The laws here may be excessively…punitive?” He looked to Murk for confirmation of the word.
Murk nodded.
“Punitive, then, for my kind. The chances of me getting shot on sight are far lower here than outside the city limits.”
“So, all your farmers and ranchers…”
“Are likely here in the city or in other cities just like Buinet. Your people are grabbing as much land as they can tend, if they’re willing to live outside the purview of the law.”
“It’s like Old West,” she whispered.
“I don’t understand the reference.”
“Early nineteenth century in the United States, there was…” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Uh…I’ll show you some videos if you’d like. There are documentaries that will describe the events a lot more clearly than I can.”
“I look forward to seeing them, then.” He looked forward to any sort of entertainment, really, besides reading the same old book and eavesdropping through air vents.
“You said you grew up on a farm. Who has that farm now?”
He set down his fork. The indignant flare in his gut surged and then dissipated as he read her face.
He’d expected to see cruel judgment there, but instead, he saw…curiosity. It was a shame that curiosity would be such an unexpected response in a conversation, but the Terrans had taught them to respond that way.
“My brother Owen lives on a ranch in Montana,” she said. “He doesn’t do any ranching, though. The place is a frozen tundra, but the land was free, and he saw the promise of isolation. Suited him well to get away from everyone. He keeps saying that one day when the ground thaws he’ll grow marijuana, but I think he’s just trying to get a rise out of our mother.”
Murk seemed to catch the meaning of all those words a moment before Trig did, because his body shook with unvoiced laughter.
Marijuana was a controlled substance on Earth, but not on Jekh. The plant was one of the settlers’ earliest currencies, and perhaps still was. Murk had never let Trig touch it.
“The farm is mine,” Trig said when Court raised a questioning brow at him.
“Unless…someone took or takes it?”
He nodded and resumed eating. His appetite was waning, but the food was good and, given the lifestyle he kept, he couldn’t afford to skip meals. He didn’t know if he’d ever be offered such a buffet again.
He’d thought plenty enough about someone taking his farm. Claiming the land. Defiling what his ancestors had toiled over and made beautiful. The property was very remote from Buinet, and he held a tiny spark of hope that no settler had ventured there yet, but…fear that he’d lose what was left of his family’s legacy made him want to go home to look. To fight, if necessary.
“Well. I hope you can get back someday.” She stood and rubbed her palms against the fronts of her cargo pants. “I need to go scrub the grill pan. I found out yesterday that dish sanitizers don’t work here. Something about the mineral composition in the water. Jams up the water flow.”
“Do you automate everything in your life?”
Murk nudged him, likely for the tartness of his tone, and maybe he deserved the warning. Trig wasn’t doing a good job of filtering his words, but he was so used to Murk doing the talking for him.
“No,” she said. “Just the things I don’t like doing. If I spend less time on chores, I can do things I enjoy more.”
“Such as?”
Her lips parted, forehead furrowed, and then she closed her mouth. She shook her head. “I used to have hobbies. Not anymore.”
Murk picked up the tablet, scribbled something, and held the screen up to her.
She read, and then shrugged. “Got too busy. Once I moved out of my parents’ house, I did everything I could not to be a financial leech on them. Had two jobs for a while. Used to work event security when I wasn’t on duty at my precinct.”
“What sort of events?” Trig spared a glance at her slight form. She didn’t look particularly muscular, but perhaps her uniform deceived the eye.
“I know that look,” she said with a laugh. “I can admit that I’m the runt of the McGarry kids. Even my baby sister has about fifteen centimeters on me.”
“You’re not sensitive about your height? A Jekhan would be. A short adult Jekhan male would draw unwanted stares. He’d be seen as…” He furrowed his brow and tried to recall the word. “Defective.”
“Genetic engineering, huh?”
He grunted.
She shrugged. “I guess I inherited the recessive Leprechaun gene. Too bad I didn’t inherit a pot of gold along with it.”
“I don’t understand the reference.”
“Eh, don’t think too hard. Obscure Irish stuff. Anyway, what I lack in size, I make up for in brainpower. I worked a lot of parties and private events.” She grinned. She had a beautiful smile that brightened her face. Her expressiveness showed off her lack of guile…or else her mastery of hiding it.
He still didn’t want to trust her. Murk’s returning smile, however, hinted that he had no qualms
about trusting her whatsoever.
If Murk hadn’t been ill, Trig would have accepted his judgment. In fact, Murk had been the one who’d taught him to question everything. He’d been naïve when he’d left the farm, and still was sometimes. He was going to try his damnedest not to be the reason someone died because of his carelessness.
Not again, anyway.
Courtney had gone quiet, staring at Trig. Boring into him, really. Her eyes seemed darker in that light. More gray than blue. Less cold.
Brazen, though, like Murk.
Trig looked away.
“Mostly, I milled around carrying the same glass of wine all evening, listening for signs of trouble,” she said.
“Why would such a spy be necessary at a private party?”
“Spy? I always wanted to be a spy when I grew up. Ha.”
At her laugh, he looked up again, and she grinned once more.
He was staring to hate that grin for what it did to his gut. She scared the hell out of him and not just because she was a cop and had guns. He couldn’t let himself want her. Desire was dangerous. She was dangerous.
Letting out a ragged exhalation, he put his attention back on his chicken. Chicken was safe.
“My jobs were nothing as cool as being a spy,” she said. “I worked fundraising events for politicians and such. I was just there to make sure no one was planning any embarrassing protests and to alert the guys in marked security attire to people I knew had a history of rabble-rousing.”
Murk held out the tablet yet again.
“Do I enjoy my job? It’s just a job, Murki. I didn’t have a lot of choices. At the time, I could either sign up for the police academy or get on my back and turn a few tricks. There aren’t a whole lot of options for a girl like me.”
Trig waited for the punch line. For her laugh or the just kidding.
It never came.
She left.
A minute later, the din of pots clanging together sounded in the kitchen. She was out of earshot.
Trig could breathe.
“What did she mean by ‘a girl like me’?” he asked Murk.
Murk shrugged in his the hell if I know manner, but the way his rubbed his chin hinted that the subject wasn’t one he’d let drop. He was obviously curious, too.